Publication Ethics and Misconduct
TINOMBALA: Journal of Language Education and Social Sciences is committed to maintaining high standards of academic integrity, responsible research, and ethical publication. The journal follows established principles of publication ethics and takes appropriate measures to prevent, identify, investigate, and address publication misconduct.
All parties involved in the publication process—including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher—are expected to uphold the principles of integrity, transparency, fairness, confidentiality, accountability, and respect for intellectual property.
1. Duties and Responsibilities of Editors
Publication Decisions
Editors are responsible for making publication decisions based on the scholarly quality, originality, significance, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, and relevance of submitted manuscripts to the journal's aims and scope. Editorial decisions should not be influenced by commercial, personal, institutional, or political considerations.
Fairness and Impartiality
Editors must evaluate manuscripts objectively and fairly, without discrimination based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, institutional affiliation, or political beliefs.
Confidentiality
Editors and editorial staff must maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and must not disclose information about a manuscript to anyone other than individuals directly involved in the editorial and peer-review process, including the authors, reviewers, and publisher, as appropriate.
Conflicts of Interest
Editors must disclose and appropriately manage any actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest relating to a submitted manuscript. Editors should not participate in editorial decisions concerning manuscripts with which they have a personal, professional, institutional, or financial conflict.
Integrity of the Editorial Process
Editors should respond appropriately to suspected or confirmed cases of plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, authorship disputes, and other forms of publication misconduct. Where necessary, editors may request clarification, additional documentation, corrections, retractions, or other appropriate actions.
Unpublished information or materials contained in submitted manuscripts must not be used by editors or editorial staff for their own research or professional advantage without the author's explicit written permission.
2. Duties and Responsibilities of Reviewers
Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer review assists editors in making informed editorial decisions and provides authors with constructive feedback that can improve the scholarly quality of their manuscripts.
Expertise and Promptness
Reviewers should accept an invitation only when they have appropriate expertise to evaluate the manuscript and can complete the review within the specified timeframe. Reviewers who are unable to provide a timely or appropriate assessment should promptly notify the editor and decline the invitation.
Objectivity
Reviews must be conducted objectively and professionally. Personal criticism of authors is inappropriate. Reviewer comments should be clear, constructive, specific, and supported by appropriate scholarly reasoning or evidence.
Confidentiality
Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not share, reproduce, discuss, or use manuscript content for personal, professional, or academic advantage.
Conflicts of Interest
Reviewers must disclose any actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest before accepting or completing a review. Reviewers should decline the assignment when a conflict could compromise, or reasonably appear to compromise, the impartiality of their evaluation.
Acknowledgement of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been appropriately cited and should notify the editor of substantial similarities between the manuscript under review and other published or known works.
Reviewers must not recommend citations solely to increase the visibility or citation count of their own work, their colleagues' work, or the journal's publications. Citation recommendations should be made only when they are academically relevant to the manuscript.
3. Duties and Responsibilities of Authors
Reporting Standards
Authors must present an accurate and transparent account of their research and provide sufficient methodological detail to enable readers to understand and, where appropriate, evaluate or reproduce the study. Data, results, and interpretations must be reported honestly and without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate manipulation.
Originality and Plagiarism
Authors must ensure that submitted manuscripts represent original work. All ideas, findings, words, data, and other material derived from other sources must be appropriately acknowledged and cited. Plagiarism, including substantial unattributed copying or inappropriate reuse of one's own previously published work, is unacceptable.
Original Submission and Redundant Publication
Authors must not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal. Authors should not publish substantially overlapping or redundant manuscripts without appropriate justification and disclosure.
If a manuscript substantially overlaps with the authors' previous publications, the relevant work must be disclosed to the editor and appropriately cited.
Authorship
Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the study; the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or other substantive intellectual aspects of the research.
All listed authors should have made a meaningful contribution to the work, approved the final version of the manuscript, and agreed to be accountable for the integrity of the research.
Individuals who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be appropriately acknowledged rather than listed as authors.
Research Ethics
Authors are responsible for ensuring that their research complies with applicable ethical standards and institutional or national requirements. Where relevant, manuscripts should provide appropriate information regarding ethical approval, informed consent, participant protection, and other ethical considerations.
Data and Materials
Authors should retain appropriate research data and supporting materials in accordance with applicable institutional, legal, and ethical requirements. Where appropriate and ethically permissible, authors are encouraged to make relevant data or materials available to support the transparency and reproducibility of their research.
Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest
Authors must disclose any financial, professional, institutional, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research, analysis, interpretation, or publication of their work.
Funding Disclosure
Authors should disclose all sources of financial support for the research and, where applicable, describe the role of the funder in the research design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and decision to publish.
Corrections and Retractions
Authors have a responsibility to promptly notify the editor if they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work. Authors should cooperate with the journal in issuing corrections, retractions, or other appropriate notices when necessary.
4. Handling Allegations of Publication Misconduct
Reporting Misconduct
Suspected publication misconduct may be reported to the editorial office at any stage of the submission, review, or publication process. Allegations should, where possible, be supported by relevant evidence.
Potential forms of misconduct include, but are not limited to:
- plagiarism and substantial unattributed copying;
- fabrication or falsification of data;
- duplicate or redundant publication;
- inappropriate manipulation or misrepresentation of research findings;
- undisclosed conflicts of interest;
- unethical research involving human participants;
- inappropriate authorship or authorship manipulation;
- citation manipulation;
- unauthorized use of confidential manuscript material; and
- other forms of academic or publication misconduct.
Investigation
When an ethical concern is raised, the editor will conduct an appropriate preliminary assessment. Where necessary, the editor may request explanations or supporting documentation from the authors or other relevant parties and may consult the publisher, reviewers, editorial board members, or the relevant institution.
Investigations will be conducted fairly, confidentially, and proportionately to the nature of the allegation. The journal will seek to protect the rights of all parties involved and will avoid making conclusions about misconduct without appropriate consideration of the available evidence.
Editorial Actions and Sanctions
Where misconduct is established, the journal may take one or more appropriate actions depending on the nature and severity of the violation. These may include:
- requesting clarification or correction;
- issuing an editorial correction or expression of concern;
- rejecting a manuscript before publication;
- retracting a published article;
- notifying the relevant author's institution or other appropriate authority;
- restricting an individual's ability to submit manuscripts or serve as a reviewer for a specified period; and
- taking other measures considered necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.
Any restriction on future submissions or participation in the journal's activities will be proportionate to the seriousness and circumstances of the misconduct.
5. Corrections, Retractions, and Integrity of the Scholarly Record
TINOMBALA is committed to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the published scholarly record. When significant errors, ethical concerns, or publication misconduct are identified after publication, the journal may publish corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions as appropriate.
Editorial actions concerning published articles will be communicated transparently and, where appropriate, linked to the affected article so that the scholarly record remains clear and reliable.
By submitting a manuscript to TINOMBALA, authors acknowledge their responsibility to comply with the journal's publication-ethics requirements and to cooperate with the editorial team in addressing any ethical or integrity-related concerns that may arise during or after the publication process.
