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As a global open access publisher, Tech Science Press is dedicated to disseminating cutting-edge scholarly research among scientific community by advocating an immediate, world-wide and barrier-free access to the research we publish. To ensure all publication meeting our ethical and scientific quality standards, each submission goes through a rigorous review process, including pre-peer-review by relevant editorial board, a single-blind peer-review process by scientific experts, revision following reviewers’ comments as well as final approval by the editorial board.
Editorial Policies Overview
The following describes the editorial policies and general guidelines in the publication process of TSP journals.
Most particularly, TSP journals’ editorial policies strictly adopts and continuously strive to adhere to the following standards and requirements:
COPE - Committee on Publication Ethics
ICMJE - International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
STM - International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers
WAME – World Association of Medical Editors
It should be noted that editorial policies of some particular TSP journals, may be different from one another. You are advised to refer to each journals’ detailed policies before submitting your manuscripts.
Reference Formatting
Tech Science Press (TSP) recommends editors and authors to utilize professional reference management tools such as EndNote for academic writing and literature formatting.
EndNote is a reference management software from Clarivate Analytics. It is designed to manage bibliographies and references and available for Windows and MacOS.
For authors, EndNote offers a convenient and efficient way to format their references according to a particular journal's guidelines.
For journals and publishers, EndNote can save editorial time, and also shortens production time potentially.
Authorship and Contribution
TSP follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines regarding authorship and contributions. Authorship should be based on the following 4 criteria:
Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged in the acknowledgement section.
Requests made for an authorship change after submission must be made to the editorial office with an explanation for the change, include the signature of all authors, and be submitted by the corresponding author.
TSP places significant importance on maintaining the integrity and transparency of authorship contributions, and TSP journals do not accept any requests to change the first author or corresponding author during any stage of manuscript processing. Any insistence on altering the first author or corresponding author will result in the rejection of the manuscript without further review or consideration.
Please note that if you have changed affiliation during the course of the research, your new affiliation could be acknowledged in a note. TSP does not normally take requests for changes to affiliations after the acceptance of manuscripts.
Authorship issues found after publication may result in a correction. If and when the authors are unable to resolve among themselves an authorship-related dispute, TSP may raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its/their guidelines.
Authorship and the Use of AI or AI-Assisted Technologies
TSP follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) position statement when it comes to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technology in manuscript preparation. Tools such as ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) do not meet authorship criteria and thus cannot be listed as authors on manuscripts.
In situations where AI or AI-assisted tools have been used in the preparation of a manuscript, this must be appropriately declared with sufficient details at submission via the cover letter. Furthermore, authors are required to be transparent about the use of these tools and disclose details of how the AI tool was used within the “Materials and Methods” section, in addition to providing the AI tool’ s product details within the “Acknowledgments” section.
Authors are fully responsible for the originality, validity, and integrity of the content of their manuscript and must ensure that this content complies with all of TSP’s Publication Ethics Policies.
Editors and Journal Staff as Authors
In the circumstances where Editors or editorial staff of the journal submit their own studies to the journal, they shall not be involved in the reviewing process, and the review process must be made transparently and rigorously. Submissions authored by editors or editorial staff of the journal will be handled by another editor who has least COIs with the authors to minimize the bias.
Abstracting and Indexing
To increase your searchability, Tech Science Press (TSP) journals are indexed by major abstracting and indexing databases. Please visit the Indexing and Abstracting page of each journal for a detailed information.
Article Processing Charges (APCs)
With all the journals published in full open access, TSP allows free and unrestricted access to the full text of academic articles for scholars from all over the world. Manuscripts once accepted for publication after peer-review will incur a processing fee. Please check the Article Process Charge page of each journal for specific APCs.
Conflicts of interest (COIs)
COIs, also referred to as “competing interests”, indicate the potential to influence the validity or objectivity of research. COIs may include personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature. Editors, authors, and reviewers may be involved into COIs, and TSP considers it essential to identify and seek to mitigate them so as to ensure the integrity of its role in the dissemination and preservation of knowledge. In order to limit COIs, all roles involved in the peer-review process must identify and declare any personal circumstances or associations that may be perceived as having such influence and acknowledge all funding sources for the work. Failure to declare competing interests may result in decline of a manuscript.
However, COI statements relating to public funding sources, such as government agencies and charitable or academic institutions, need not be supplied.
COIs are not considered permanent; such relationships that have ended more than two years prior to the submission of a manuscript need not be identified as sources of potential conflict.
We follow COPE guidelines on on undeclared COIs:
What to do if a reviewer suspects undisclosed COI in a submitted manuscript
What to do if you suspect a reviewer has appropriated an author’s idea or data
What to do if a reader suspects undisclosed COI in a published article
Corrections & Retractions
TSP journals will issue corrections, and/or retraction statements, when deemed proper.
Corrections
TSP aims to publish every article online in its final form. Upon receiving the proofs of their accepted manuscripts, authors will have an opportunity to check for errors and oversights. Occasionally, a mistake is pointed out in a published article, necessitating the issuance of a correction statement. A correction is a statement rectifying an error or an omission, authors or readers may submit such a statement by sending an email, along with the submission ID, to the journal’s editorial office.
TSP strictly follows COPE Core Practices and Guildelines, and participates in the Crossmark scheme to record any changes in all individual versions.
Author’s Correction: An Author’s Correction may be published to correct an important error(s) made by the author that affects the scientific integrity of the published article, the publication record, or the reputation of the authors or the journal. The Managing Editor of that manuscript will be responsible for handling the correction process.
Publisher’s Correction: A Publisher’s Correction may be published to correct an important error(s) made by the journal that affects the scientific integrity of the published article, the publication record, or the reputation of the authors or of the journal.
Retractions
A retraction is a notice that {a previously published paper should no longer be regarded as part of the published literature {or: that indicates that an article has been withdrawn from the publication in which it appeared after it was published. The primary purpose of a retraction is to ensure the integrity and completeness of scholarly records by withdrawing any manuscript which is found to contain infringements of professional ethical codes, major errors, or where its main conclusion is seriously undermined as a result of new evidence coming to light.
Violations of professional ethical codes include multiple submissions without proper citations or permission, redundant publications, fake claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, etc. Major errors cover any or all miscalculations or experimental errors, intentionally or due to honest mistakes.
The retraction will be referred to the Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors, and the Managing Editor who have handled the paper. Retracted articles will not be removed from the printed copies of the journal (e.g., from libraries) nor from the electronic archives. Their retracted status will be indicated as clearly as possible. Bibliographic information about the article will be retained to ensure the permanence and integrity of the published scientific record. When an article is retracted, in most of the cases, the original manuscript is corrected and is bi-directionally linked (to and from) the published retraction notice which details the original error. For the purpose of transparency, when corrections made to the original article affect any data, figures, tables or texts, the retraction notice will display the original data alongside the corrected version. When a correction is not possible, all existing versions of the article will remain unchanged but will contain the bi-directional links, to and from, the published retraction notice.
The notice of retraction is permanently linked to its corresponding retracted article and is freely available and accessible by all readers.
Articles may be retracted by their Author(s), by the Journal Editors, or by the Publisher, i.e., Tech Science Press. In all instances, the retraction should indicate the reason for the action as well as the entity behind the decision. A retraction made without the unanimous agreement of the authors is feasible and indicated as such.
Appeals and Complaints
TSP’s appeal and complaint procedures pertain to grievances against editorial decisions, discontent with procedural inaccuracies (such as tardiness in manuscript handling), and complaint regarding publishing ethics.
Queries of appeal and complaint must be accompanied by comprehensive justifications, and authors are requested to submit appeals and complaints in writing to TSP Feedback Center at https://ijs.tspsubmission.com/user/feedback. The editorial office will provide a prompt response upon receipt of a formal appeal or complaint, and endeavor to resolve the matter within a reasonable time frame.
Concerns regarding ethical misconducts may also be reported to TSP’s Editorial Integrity Team (https://www.techscience.com/ndetail/contact). The Editorial Integrity team adheres to COPE Core Practices and Guidelines, and subsequently determines a suitable course of action, authorizing editorial offices to furnish the complainant with feedback.
Editorial Peer-review
Model of peer review
There are different models of peer review, all of which have merits and disadvantages. TSP conducts single-blind peer-review, and will initially check all manuscripts before these are sent to peer-review. A subject-specific PhD-level academic editor carries out an initial check before peer-review.
Initial checks
Before proceed to the peer-review cycle, all submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be initial-checked by a subject area specialist Managing Editor to decide whether they are (1) correctly formatted/prepared, (2) follow the ethical policies of the journal, (3) fit the scope of the journal and (4) scientifically sound. Manuscripts that do not meet the journal's requirements and standards will be rejected before peer-review. After the initial check, the managing editor will send the qualified manuscripts to journals' Editor(s). Editor(s) will make initial decisions on whether the manuscripts will be sent for peer-review. No judgment on the significance or potential impact of the work will be made at the initial check stage. Manuscripts that are inadequately prepared will be returned to the author(s) for revision and resubmission. Rejection decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor(s).
Peer-review
All original articles, reviews, and other types of papers including invited papers published in TSP journals go through a vigorous and thorough peer-review procedure. After an initial check, the manuscript is assigned to a handling editor, who then manage the peer-review and otherwise oversees the whole process. Minimum of two independent reviews will be count. The peer-review is single-blind in nature, meaning that the reviewers know the identities of the authors whose work they are assessing but that the authors do not know the identities of the reviewers. Minor or major revisions may be requested to author(s). The final decision regarding acceptance is usually made by the journal’s Editor(s).
Confidentiality
The confidentiality should be respected during the peer review process. Any details of a manuscript or its review shall not be revealed before publication. Academic contents during peer-review should not be breached and used by any roles who involved in the peer-review process.
Special Issues
TSP journals publish special issues as part of the scheduled journal volumes. Special issues are often devoted to investigating the emerging topics, or conference, or to exploring alternative perspectives on familiar themes.
Please check TSP’s Special Issue Policy.
Editorial Decision
The decision regarding publication may take one of four forms.
Accept
The paper is in principle accepted based on the reviewers’ comments. The decision to publish is not based solely on the scientific validity of an article’s content but may also take into account such considerations as its extent and importance.
Minor revisions
The paper is to be accepted after it has undergone minor revisions specified in the reviewers’ comments. In this situation, authors have five days to complete the minor revisions along with point-by-point responses to the comments or to provide a rebuttal letter.
Major revisions
The paper may be accepted provided that it is thoroughly revised. In this case as well, the authors must provide a point-by-point response or rebuttal to the comments, and the revised version is sent to the same reviewer for further comment.
Decline
A submission may be rejected at any stage prior to the official publication of the article, including during the initial validation, peer review, final validation, and if any issues are identified, even post-acceptance.
The editors are authorized to reject any manuscript if its subject is deemed inappropriate, it is of poor quality, or its results are proved to be erroneous. Articles are rejected even after revision when they are found to have serious flaws and/or to make no substantial original contribution to the scholarship.
Editors themselves are prevented from serving as external reviewers of manuscripts in order to ensure that every manuscript submitted to the journal undergoes a well-informed and unbiased peer review process. Thus, any manuscript must be recommended by, usually, two or more external reviewers along with the handling editor before it is accepted for publication in its final form.
In cases where authors do not respond within the specified timeframe, we consider this a sign of author disengagement. We may temporarily decline the submission to uphold the timeliness and quality of our academic discourse. Authors are welcome to reconsider and resubmit their work; however, it will be subjected to a fresh peer review process.
Author Revisions
In cases where revisions are required, authors are expected to provide point-by-point responses to the reviewers' comments, particularly in instances where they disagree with the comments. Authors usually have a substantial amount of time to resubmit the revised manuscript, regardless of whether it is a major or minor revision. If the required revision time is estimated to be longer than 2 months, we will recommend that authors withdraw their manuscript before resubmitting to avoid unnecessary time pressure and ensure that all manuscripts are sufficiently revised.
In most cases, the revised manuscript is re-assigned to the original Editor(s). The Editor(s) may make a new decision based on their own assessment of the revised manuscript and the author's response to reviewers, or request a new round of peer review.
Transferring to Other Journals
Authors can request that submissions (with referee reports, if relevant) rejected from one TSP journal be transferred to another TSP journal for further consideration there. Manuscripts will never be transferred between the journals without an author’s consent. We trust that reviewers for any TSP journal are willing to have their reviews considered by the editors of another TSP journal.
Publication Ethics Statement
TSP follows COPE core practices that are applicable to all involved in publishing scholarly literature: editors and journal teams, publishers and institutions.
TSP takes vigorous ethical policies and standards on any publication ethical issues. Any allegations of research or publication misconducts are not tolerant, and further sanctions will be taken once the evidence of misconduct is confirmed, including retractions and corrections of a published material. To verify the originality of content submitted to our journals, we use iThenticate to check submissions against previous publications. (or some example of general plagiarism like coping, double submission, manual data making, omission or addition of authors, retracting papers after publication in cases where plagiarism is identified).
TSP is obliged to provide authors with appropriate layouts based on correct information presented by authors. TSP also takes responsibility for any mistakes made by the publisher and endeavors to avoid these in all cases
Plagiarism, duplicate/redundant publication
Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source. Plagiarism is strictly not acceptable in any submissions to TSP. All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wordings must be limited, be attributed to, or quoted, in the text. Manuscripts that are detected to have plagiarism will be rejected (if unpublished) or retracted (if published), as appropriate.
Duplicate submission/publication refer to the practice of submitting the same study to two journals or publishing more or less the same study in two journals. These submissions/publications can be nearly simultaneous or years later.
Redundant publication (salami publishing) refers to the situation that one study is split into several parts and submitted to two or more journals.
TSP will follow the flowcharts recommended by COPE on handling the suspected cases:
Suspected redundant (duplicate) publication in a submitted manuscript
Suspected redundant (duplicate) publication in a published manuscript
Fabrication, falsification, and image manipulation
Data fabrication is the intentional misrepresentation of research data by making-up findings, recording, or reporting of results. Data falsification is the manipulation of research materials, equipment, or processes, including omitting and changing data, with the intention of giving a false impression. Changes to images can create misleading results when research data are collected as images. Inappropriate image manipulation is one form of fabrication or falsification that journals can identify. The authors of submitted manuscripts or published articles in which the results are found to have been fabricated, falsified, or subjected to image manipulation, will be sanctioned, and their published articles will be retracted immediately.
TSP will follow the flowcharts recommended by COPE on handling the suspected cases:Fabricated data in a submitted manuscript
Fabricated data in a published article
Image manipulation in a published article
Citation Policy
Referencing and citing relevant and appropriate literature is a fundamental aspect of scholarly publishing and involves a shared responsibility among authors, editors and peer reviewers. Authors should avoid excessive self-citation when preparing their work. Editors and peer reviewers should not request authors to include citations in their manuscripts without a strong scholarly rationale. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has issued a discussion document on citation manipulation along with recommendations for best practices.
Research articles and non-research articles (e.g., Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) must reference appropriate and relevant literature to support their claims. Practices such as excessive self-citation, coordinated efforts among multiple authors to collectively self-cite, gratuitous and unnecessary citation of articles published within the same journal to which the paper has been submitted, and any other forms of citation manipulation are inappropriate.
Instances of citation manipulation will lead to the rejection of the manuscript and may be reported to authors’ institutions. Similarly, any attempts by peer reviewers or editors to encourage such practices should be reported by authors to the publisher.
Authors should consider the following guidelines when preparing their manuscript:
· Any statement in the manuscript that relies on external sources of information (i.e., not the authors’ own new ideas or findings or general knowledge) should use a citation.
· Authors should avoid citing derivations of original work. For example, they should cite the original work rather than a review article that cites an original work.
· Authors should ensure that their citations are accurate (i.e., they should ensure the citation supports the statement made in their manuscript and should not misrepresent another work by citing it if it does not support the point the authors wish to make).
· Authors should not cite sources that they have not read.
· Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.
· Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.
Research Ethics
Research Involving Human Subjects, Animals, and Cell Lines
Humans
All studies involving human subjects or human-related data or material, must have adhered to the standards established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines. These standards require that all,research performed on human subjects including research on identifiable human material and data, must follow the international rules set out in the Declaration of Helsinki of 1964, revised in 2013 (wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/).
Authors shall include upon submission of their manuscript, a written statement briefly describing the aim of the experiment, a justification for the undertaken grouping in terms of race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed ordering, and whether or not an approval from an appropriate ethics committee or a local institutional review board (IRB) has been obtained before conducting the study. If such an approval was obtained, the original source and reference shall be provided to the journal’s editor at the time of submission and shall appear in the article.
Animals
Experiments performed using animals must be conducted under strict ethical standards and rigorous protocols aimed at safeguarding animals welfare. Authors should refer to and adhere to relevant international, national, and/or institutional guidelines e.g. the local and national regulations in accordance with the U.K. Animals Act and associated guidelines, the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures, TSP supports the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting experiments using live animals and encourages authors to consult it as a checklist for full compliance.
Experiments involving vertebrates or regulated invertebrates must be carried out in accordance with the ethical guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement regarding granted ethics permissions granted or/and animal licenses should be included in the manuscript. When ethical approval is not required for animals use, a clear statement describing the reasons behind that determination should be included in the manuscript.
For all cases, a statement should be included confirming that all efforts were made to alleviate sufferings of animals in use, with a detailed description of the means and ways it was achieved.
Cell Lines
All articles reporting on research involving cell lines that are published in TSP journals must state the origin of the lines in the Methods section. For established cell lines, the provenance should be stated and references provided to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including any acquired from another laboratory, the authors of the article must supply details regarding the necessary approval from an institutional review board or ethics committee, as well as confirmation of written informed consent in the case of human cell lines.
Research Involving Plants
Experimental research on plants (cultivated and wild), including the collection of plant materials, must be conducted in compliance with applicable institutional, national, and international guidelines. We therefore recommend that authors consult the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Informed Consent
For reporting that include case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent for publication from patients/guardians before submission of their manuscript. An consent for publication should be obtained from participating adults, parents, legal guardians, or legally authorized individuals, and clearly declared in the manuscript. Authors should also disclose to participants in their studies any personally identifiable material that could possibly be made public, be available on the Internet, and/or in print upon publication. In the absence of a written consent, manuscripts may still be considered for publishing, if all identifying information has been removed. While every precaution must be taken to protect the privacy of research subjects and the confidentiality of their personal information , when consent is not available nor attainable, the Editor could exercise his prerogatives of publishing those manuscripts when deemed that considerations of public interest outweigh privacy issues.
Clinical Study Reporting Guidelines
For articles in the life sciences, standards of reporting guidelines have been devised to help authors ensure that they have provided a comprehensive description of their research, making it easier for others to assess and reproduce the work;
When reporting clinical studies, authors are encouraged to follow the reporting guidelines listed below:
Randomized trials (CONSORT)
Observational studies (STROBE)
Systematic reviews (PRISMA)
Case reports (CARE)
Qualitative research (SRQR)
Diagnostic / prognostic studies (STARD)
Quality improvement studies (SQUIRE)
Economic evaluations (CHEERS)
Animal pre-clinical studies (ARRIVE)Study protocols (SPIRIT)
Clinical practice guidelines (AGREE)
Crossmark
All articles published in Tech Science Press have a designated DOI registered to that version, and are permanently published. In cases where authors seek to revise, change and/or update an article, a new version of that article must be published. Once published, a version cannot be altered or withdrawn, and all the versions are permanently available on the TSP’s website. TSP participates in the Crossmark scheme to record any changes in all individual versions.
Crossmark is an initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of an item of content.
By applying the Crossmark button, TSP is committing to maintaining the content it publishes, and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur.
Clicking on the Crossmark button reveals the current status of a document such as whether its content has been updated, corrected, or retracted, and in some cases, access additional publication record information such as key publication dates (submission, revision, acceptance), plagiarism screening status, funding information, peer reviews, and data repositories.
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