Publication Ethics and Policies

Plagiarism and Similarity Checking

Purpose. To protect originality, proper attribution, and confidence in the scholarly and creative record while ensuring that software-generated similarity scores are interpreted by qualified editors rather than treated as automatic verdicts.

Scope and definitions

This policy applies to manuscripts, revisions, supplementary files, tables, figures, images, translations, computer code, creative works, reviews, and other content submitted to any Shirley Publishing House journal. Plagiarism includes presenting another person’s words, ideas, arguments, data, methods, processes, images, creative expression, or results as one’s own without adequate acknowledgment. It includes direct copying, close paraphrase, patchwriting or mosaic plagiarism, plagiarism of ideas, translated plagiarism, unattributed reuse of images or tables, and appropriation from unpublished or non-public sources.

Text recycling or self-plagiarism means reusing one’s own previously disseminated text without transparent citation or disclosure. Limited reuse of standard methodological language may be acceptable when precise wording is necessary, the original source is cited, copyright permits reuse, and the new work does not mislead readers about novelty. Reuse of prior results, discussion, conclusions, creative expression, or substantial narrative without disclosure is not acceptable.

Author responsibilities

• Submit original work and cite the primary source for every borrowed idea, quotation, dataset, image, table, instrument, adapted method, translation, and substantial paraphrase.
• Use quotation marks or block quotation formatting for verbatim language and obtain permission when copyright requires it.
• Disclose preprints, theses, conference papers, reports, repository copies, translations, and related manuscripts that overlap with the submission.
• Ensure that permission and attribution cover third-party material, including material found online and content produced with AI-assisted tools.
• Retain source notes and permissions and provide them to the journal when requested.

Screening and editorial assessment

The journal may screen every new submission, revised manuscript, and final accepted file using a similarity-checking service and targeted manual searches. By submitting, authors authorize confidential processing for integrity screening. A report may contain legitimate matches from references, common terminology, properly quoted text, methods, preprints, author names, and required statements; editors therefore examine the location, length, pattern, source, attribution, and significance of each match.

No automatic percentage rule: The journal does not use a single similarity percentage as proof of plagiarism or as a guarantee of originality. A low score can conceal serious appropriation, while a high score can reflect properly cited or unavoidable language. Editorial judgment and the nature of the matched material control the decision.

When a concern arises, the editor may request an explanation, annotated similarity report, source documents, permissions, or a corrected manuscript. The author will normally receive a reasonable opportunity to respond unless the submission is plainly copied or immediate action is necessary to protect the record.

Possible outcomes

• Minor, localized attribution problems: return for correction, citation, quotation, or rewriting before further review.
• Material overlap that obscures novelty or misleads readers: rejection, regardless of the overall percentage.
• Substantial or apparently deliberate plagiarism: rejection; notification of all authors; and, where appropriate, referral to the authors’ institution, funder, rights holder, or another affected journal.
• Concerns discovered after publication: correction, expression of concern, or retraction under the journal’s post-publication policy.
• Repeated or serious conduct: a proportionate restriction on future submissions or reviewing, imposed by the Editor-in-Chief and publisher after due process.

Similarity reports are confidential editorial records. They are shared only with persons who need them to assess the case, subject to law, institutional investigation, and the journal’s records policy.

Policy basis

This policy is aligned with COPE guidance on plagiarism and text recycling, the ICMJE principles of accurate attribution and author responsibility, and the DOAJ expectation that automated integrity screening remain subject to human verification.

Fabrication and Falsification

Purpose. To prevent invented, manipulated, selectively omitted, or misleading research records and to provide a fair process for evaluating concerns before and after publication.

Definitions

Fabrication is making up data, participants, observations, interviews, experiments, citations, images, results, or other research records and recording or reporting them as genuine. Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, images, analyses, or documentation, or changing or omitting data or results so that the research is not accurately represented. Examples include invented survey responses, substituted or duplicated images, undisclosed deletion of inconvenient observations, altered dates or approvals, fabricated quotations or references, and statistical or visual presentation designed to create a false impression.

An honest error, a reasonable difference in method or interpretation, or a clearly labeled simulation is not automatically research misconduct. Nevertheless, any error that materially affects the record must be corrected promptly, whether or not misconduct occurred.

Required research records

• Authors must preserve accurate, contemporaneous, and auditable records of data collection, consent and ethics documentation, instruments, coding decisions, analyses, image processing, and provenance.
• Original data and files must be retained for at least five years after publication, or longer when required by law, funder, discipline, institution, contract, or participant consent.
• Images may be adjusted only when the adjustment is applied consistently, does not obscure or create information, and is described when material. Selective enhancement, splicing, duplication, or deletion must be disclosed and scientifically justified.
• Authors must identify synthetic, simulated, or illustrative data clearly and must never present them as observations from real participants, animals, documents, or events.
• The corresponding author must be able to coordinate access to the underlying records when the editor has a legitimate integrity concern.

Assessment of concerns

1. The editor records the allegation, preserves relevant files, and conducts a confidential preliminary assessment without assuming guilt.
2. The corresponding author is asked for a specific response and, when relevant, original data, audit trails, uncropped images, code, instruments, approvals, or contributor explanations. All authors may be contacted directly.
3. Independent statistical, image, methodological, or subject expertise may be obtained under confidentiality. Automated image or data tools may flag concerns but will not determine the outcome without human review.
4. If the concern appears credible and serious, the journal may suspend peer review or publication and refer fact-finding to the appropriate institution, employer, funder, regulator, ethics committee, or data custodian. The journal does not substitute for an institution’s formal misconduct investigation.
5. The editor evaluates the reliability of the article and the adequacy of the response using the available evidence. Editorial action may be taken even when an institution does not respond, because protection of the published record is a separate responsibility.

Complainants and whistleblowers will be treated respectfully and their identity limited to persons who need it, so far as law and a fair investigation permit. Knowingly false or malicious allegations may themselves be addressed under the complaints policy.

Outcomes

• Before publication: clarification, additional validation, correction, rejection, or withdrawal of acceptance.
• After publication: correction when reliable findings remain; expression of concern while a serious unresolved investigation is pending; or retraction when the findings or record are unreliable, unethical, or fraudulent.
• Where warranted: notification of all authors and appropriate institutions, funders, regulators, affected journals, databases, or rights holders.
• Proportionate restrictions on future submissions, editorial service, or reviewing for confirmed serious or repeated misconduct.

A refusal or inability to provide records is not, by itself, conclusive proof of misconduct, but it may prevent verification and may justify rejection, correction, an expression of concern, or retraction when the work cannot be trusted.

Policy basis

The policy uses the widely accepted research-misconduct definitions of fabrication and falsification and follows COPE principles on allegations, data integrity, institutional cooperation, and correction of the record.

Duplicate Publication

Purpose. To prevent simultaneous submission, redundant publication, undisclosed reuse of the same data or creative work, and fragmentation designed to exaggerate publication output.

Prohibited conduct

• Submitting the same or substantially similar manuscript to more than one journal at the same time, in the same or another language.
• Publishing an article that substantially overlaps a prior publication without clear citation, disclosure, permission, and editorial justification.
• Dividing one coherent study into minimally different papers, or repeatedly analyzing the same dataset, to create misleadingly separate publications without substantial new questions or value.
• Republishing figures, tables, results, case descriptions, poems, stories, images, or other central creative content without rights clearance and transparent acknowledgment.
• Failing to disclose related submissions, accepted papers, preprints, theses, proceedings, reports, or publications based on the same participants, data, project, or creative work.

Prior dissemination that may be acceptable

A disclosed preprint, thesis or dissertation, conference abstract or poster, research registry entry, government or institutional report, or classroom repository does not automatically bar consideration. Authors must cite or link the earlier version, explain what is new, confirm that rights permit journal publication, and provide copies on request. The editor assesses whether the journal article offers substantial added value and whether prior public release could mislead readers or conflict with another publisher’s rights.

Same dataset and secondary publication

Multiple articles from one dataset may be considered when each addresses a materially distinct question, uses an appropriate analysis, adds substantial knowledge, and cross-references all related reports. Authors must not count the same participants or outcomes as independent evidence in a way that distorts syntheses or meta-analyses.

A secondary publication, including a translation, may be permitted when the editors and rights holders of both journals approve, the intended audiences differ, the second version faithfully reflects the first, the primary publication has priority, and the title page and citation clearly state that it is a secondary publication. Permission must be obtained before acceptance.

Editorial process and outcomes

The editor may compare manuscripts, obtain explanations from all authors, contact the other journal, and request related works. Confidential information is shared only as necessary and normally after notifying the authors. If simultaneous submission is confirmed, review is stopped and the manuscript is rejected or withdrawn. If substantial duplicate publication is discovered after publication, the journal may issue a notice of duplication, correction, or retraction and notify the original journal, institution, or funder.

Minor overlap in background or methods may be handled through citation and revision when it does not misrepresent novelty or infringe rights. The significance and location of overlap, not a mechanical percentage, determine the response.

Policy basis

This policy follows ICMJE guidance on overlapping publications and COPE guidance on text recycling and redundant publication.

Data Availability

Purpose. To support verification, reproducibility, responsible reuse, and credit while protecting participants, communities, confidential information, intellectual property, and lawful restrictions.

Data Availability Statement

Every research article must include a Data Availability Statement stating where and under what conditions the data, code, materials, instruments, protocols, and other evidence necessary to understand or reproduce the findings can be accessed. The statement must be accurate at publication and must include persistent links or identifiers when materials are in a repository.

• Openly available: name the trusted repository, persistent identifier, file version, license, and any software needed.
• Controlled access: identify the data custodian, eligibility criteria, application process, review body, expected response time, permitted uses, and any data-use agreement.
• Not publicly available: state the specific ethical, legal, consent, security, Indigenous or community governance, commercial, or third-party restriction and explain whether a de-identified subset, metadata, code, or synthetic data can be shared.
• No new data: state that the article is theoretical, editorial, review-based, creative, or otherwise did not generate or analyze a new dataset.

Default expectations

Authors should deposit de-identified data and supporting research objects in a recognized disciplinary, institutional, or general repository no later than publication, using persistent identifiers and a reuse license appropriate to the content. Data and code should be documented sufficiently to interpret variables, provenance, transformations, exclusions, and analyses. Datasets used in the article must be cited as research outputs, not merely mentioned in prose.

The journal applies the FAIR goal that data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable where ethically and legally possible. FAIR does not mean that every file must be public. Access may be controlled when openness would violate consent, privacy, community rights, security, law, or legitimate contractual limits.

Peer review, preservation, and access

• Editors or reviewers may request confidential access to relevant data, code, analysis logs, instruments, or protocols when necessary to evaluate a submission. Reviewers must follow the confidentiality policy and may not reuse the material.
• Authors must preserve the research record for at least five years after publication, or longer when another binding standard requires it, and maintain a contact or repository route that survives personnel changes.
• ‘Available on reasonable request’ should be used only when repository or controlled-access deposition is not feasible. The statement must define who decides, what a reasonable request is, conditions of access, and how long the material will be retained.
• Withdrawal of promised access, broken repository links, undisclosed restrictions, or a materially false data statement may lead to correction, expression of concern, or retraction.

Sensitive and qualitative data

Consent, ethics approval, and law determine what may be shared. Removing direct names may not sufficiently de-identify small populations, rare cases, exact quotations, images, voices, geolocation, school records, or linked qualitative data. Authors should use controlled access, redaction, aggregation, participant-approved quotation, community governance, or a justified non-sharing statement rather than expose people or groups.

Policy basis

This policy reflects COPE’s data and reproducibility core practice, the FAIR Data Principles, data-citation principles, ICMJE recommendations, and applicable privacy and ethics requirements.

AI-Assisted Writing and Reviewing

Purpose. To permit transparent, accountable, and secure use of automated tools without transferring human responsibility, compromising confidentiality, fabricating evidence, or misleading readers.

Rules for authors

Authors may use AI-assisted tools for limited support, but human authors remain fully responsible for accuracy, originality, citations, methods, analysis, permissions, bias, confidentiality, and the final text. AI systems cannot be authors or contributors with legal responsibility and must not be cited as an authoritative or primary source.

• Routine spelling, grammar, formatting, and reference-style correction does not require disclosure when the tool does not generate substantive content.
• Use that generates or substantially rewrites text, translations, summaries, code, analyses, search strategies, images, audio, video, or other content must be disclosed in the Methods section or a dedicated AI-use statement. State the tool and provider, model or version when known, date or period used, purpose, inputs at a non-confidential level, output incorporated, and human verification performed.
• Authors must verify every factual claim, quotation, calculation, citation, link, dataset, and code output against reliable primary sources. Fabricated, non-existent, misquoted, or irrelevant references are the authors’ responsibility.
• AI must not be used to invent participants, observations, results, interviews, ethics approvals, consent, images, or data; to conceal plagiarism; or to manipulate a research record.
• Personal, confidential, copyrighted, embargoed, Indigenous, proprietary, or participant data must not be entered into an AI service unless lawful authority, consent or ethics approval, security, retention, and provider terms permit the use.

Images, analysis, and research methods

AI-generated or AI-modified images and media must be labeled, scientifically or creatively justified, and accompanied by rights and provenance information. Generative alteration of research images or data that creates, removes, moves, or obscures evidence is prohibited. If machine learning or generative AI is part of the research method, authors must report datasets, validation, prompts or parameters where relevant, uncertainty, limitations, bias controls, and reproducibility information.

Rules for reviewers

Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, supplementary files, author information, or review correspondence to generative AI or another external automated service unless the editor has expressly approved a secure, confidentiality-preserving use consistent with author consent and journal policy. Reviewers may not use AI to generate the substantive evaluation or recommendation. Limited language polishing of the reviewer’s own original comments may be allowed only with prior editor approval, protected confidentiality, and disclosure. The reviewer remains responsible for every statement.

Rules for editors and the publisher

• Editors must not upload confidential submissions to external AI systems where confidentiality, rights, retention, or training use cannot be assured.
• AI may assist with administrative routing, similarity screening, image checks, reviewer suggestions, or metadata quality only when the tool is appropriately tested, access is controlled, and a human verifies every consequential result.
• AI detectors, similarity scores, or image flags are screening signals and never the sole evidence of misconduct or the sole basis of an editorial decision.
• The journal discloses any routine automated processing that materially affects submitted content and maintains human accountability for peer review and acceptance.

Non-disclosure and remedies

The editor considers the extent, purpose, effect, confidentiality risk, and author response. Minor incomplete disclosure may be corrected. Undisclosed substantive generation, fabricated content, confidential-data exposure, false citations, deceptive image generation, or AI-generated peer review may lead to rejection, replacement of the reviewer, correction, expression of concern, retraction, institutional referral, or proportionate restrictions.

Policy basis

This policy aligns with ICMJE guidance for authors, reviewers, and editors; COPE’s position that AI tools cannot be authors; and DOAJ best-practice expectations for disclosure, confidentiality, human oversight, and verification of automated integrity tools.

Authorship and Contributorship

Purpose. To ensure that credit is accurate, responsibility is traceable, and every listed author has made and accepts a genuine intellectual contribution.

Who qualifies as an author

A person qualifies as an author only if all four conditions are met: substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; drafting the work or critically reviewing it for important intellectual content; final approval of the version to be published; and agreement to be accountable for the work, including helping resolve questions about its accuracy or integrity.

Acquiring funding, providing routine supervision, collecting data without intellectual contribution, supplying materials, offering general administrative support, proofreading, paying publication fees, or holding a senior position does not alone qualify a person for authorship. Such contributions should be acknowledged with permission. Gift, guest, honorary, coerced, purchased, and ghost authorship are prohibited.

Contributor roles and author order

• At submission, authors must state each person’s contributions using the CRediT taxonomy or an equivalent plain-language contributor statement.
• Author order must be agreed by all authors before submission. The journal does not decide disciplinary conventions or rank contributions on the authors’ behalf.
• Group or consortium authorship is permitted when the group name, responsible writing group, individual contributors, and accountable persons are identified.
• AI systems, language models, software, organizations, and non-human entities cannot be authors because they cannot approve the work, accept accountability, or hold legal responsibility.
• Deceased or incapacitated contributors may be listed when they met the substantive criteria before death or incapacity, the remaining authors attest to their contribution, and any legally necessary permission is obtained.

Duties of the corresponding author

The corresponding author confirms that the manuscript and author list were approved by every author; provides complete affiliations, ORCID identifiers when available, contributions, funding, conflicts, ethics statements, and contact details; keeps all authors informed; coordinates responses and access to records; and ensures that no qualified contributor was omitted. The corresponding author is an administrative contact, not the sole owner of the work or the only accountable author.

Changes and disputes

Any request to add, remove, reorder, or replace an author after submission must explain the reason and include written agreement from all listed and affected authors. Before acceptance, the editor may approve a justified change after verifying consent. After acceptance or publication, changes are exceptional and normally require a formal correction. The journal may pause processing until the matter is resolved.

The journal can assess whether its authorship policy was followed but cannot adjudicate employment, ownership, or interpersonal disputes. If agreement cannot be reached, the authors must obtain a determination from their institution or another competent body. No manuscript will be published while a material authorship dispute remains unresolved.

Misrepresentation and remedies

• Undisclosed ghost or gift authorship may lead to rejection, correction of the author list, an authorship notice, referral to an institution, or retraction when the deception undermines the article’s integrity.
• A contributor statement may be corrected when it is inaccurate, even if the author list does not change.
• Individuals named in acknowledgments must consent to being named because readers may infer endorsement.

Policy basis

The authorship criteria and accountability provisions follow ICMJE recommendations and COPE guidance on authorship changes and disputes. CRediT is encouraged to make contributions transparent but does not replace the authorship criteria.

Conflicts of Interest

Purpose. To disclose and manage relationships or interests that could reasonably be perceived to influence research, review, editorial judgment, or publication decisions.

What must be disclosed

A conflict of interest may be financial or non-financial, actual or perceived. Disclosure does not necessarily imply wrongdoing; it enables editors and readers to assess possible influence. Authors, reviewers, editors, guest editors, editorial staff, and relevant contractors must disclose interests related to the work and any other interest that a reasonable reader might consider relevant.

• Financial interests: employment, consultancies, honoraria, speaker fees, paid testimony, grants, travel support, gifts, stock or options, patents, royalties, procurement relationships, and ownership interests.
• Professional or academic interests: close collaboration, recent coauthorship, supervisory or student relationships, institutional rivalry, competing research, editorial roles, or a direct stake in the outcome.
• Personal, political, religious, or ideological interests: close relationships, disputes, advocacy roles, or strong commitments that could reasonably affect judgment.
• Funding and sponsor involvement: identity of every funder and the sponsor’s role in design, data access, analysis, writing, approval, and the decision to submit. Authors must state when the funder had no such role.

Author requirements

Each author must provide a complete disclosure at submission and update it through publication. Relevant current and recent interests from the preceding 36 months should be disclosed, together with older interests that remain reasonably relevant, such as patents, continuing royalties, long-standing disputes, or ongoing intellectual commitments. Every published article must include a conflict-of-interest statement, including a statement that no competing interests were declared when applicable.

Reviewers and editors

• A reviewer must disclose a potential conflict before accepting and decline when impartial review may reasonably be questioned. Mere familiarity with an author or topic is not always disqualifying, but recent close collaboration, direct competition, financial stakes, personal relationships, or institutional dependence normally require recusal.
• An editor or editorial-board member must not handle a manuscript when an interest could affect or appear to affect the decision. A qualified independent editor will manage the file, select reviewers, and make the decision.
• Submissions by editors, board members, employees, owners, or their close collaborators receive the same external review standards and an independently documented decision. Their role is disclosed in the article when relevant.
• No person may use confidential manuscript information for private, financial, competitive, or academic advantage.

Editorial management and non-disclosure

The editor may decide that disclosure in the article is sufficient, require a management plan or independent analysis, replace a reviewer or editor, request clarification, or reject work when a conflict cannot be managed or sponsor control prevents independent reporting. Publication fees, waivers, advertising, sponsorship, printing orders, or other commercial relationships must not influence peer review or acceptance.

If a relevant interest is discovered after publication, the journal will assess whether the omission was inadvertent and whether it affects interpretation, validity, or trust. Remedies may include an updated disclosure, correction, expression of concern, re-review, or retraction in serious cases.

Policy basis

This policy follows ICMJE disclosure principles, COPE core practices, and DOAJ requirements for editorial independence from author fees and other revenue sources.

Reviewer Confidentiality

Purpose. To protect manuscripts as privileged communications, preserve anonymous review where applicable, and prevent misuse of unpublished ideas, data, creative work, or author information.

Confidential material

The existence, content, files, data, images, author identities, review reports, correspondence, decision history, and status of a submitted manuscript are confidential unless the journal’s published peer-review model or the authors expressly provides otherwise. Confidentiality continues after a reviewer declines, completes the review, or the manuscript is rejected, withdrawn, or published.

Reviewer duties

• Access the manuscript only for the assigned review and do not copy, distribute, post, cite, teach from, or discuss it outside the authorized process.
• Do not use unpublished ideas, data, methods, code, images, or creative expression for personal, competitive, commercial, or academic advantage.
• Do not attempt to identify masked authors or contact authors directly. Any necessary question must go through the editor.
• Do not upload any part of a manuscript, supplementary file, or review to a public or third-party generative AI system, translation service, repository, plagiarism checker, or other tool unless the editor has expressly authorized a confidentiality-preserving tool and the authors’ rights are protected.
• Store files securely, avoid shared or public devices, and permanently delete local copies and notes after the review and any permitted follow-up, unless the journal instructs otherwise.
• Report suspected misconduct confidentially to the editor with specific evidence; do not investigate authors independently.

Assistance and co-review

A reviewer may not delegate or share the review with a trainee, colleague, or assistant without prior editor permission. When permission is granted, the additional person must agree to the same confidentiality, conflict, and conduct obligations and must be named to the editor so the contribution can be recognized. The invited reviewer remains responsible for the submitted report.

Reviewer identity and reports

Reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors or the public when the journal uses anonymous review, unless the reviewer consents and disclosure is consistent with the published model. Editors may edit a report for abusive language, identifying information, confidentiality breaches, or irrelevant content without changing its scholarly meaning. Reviews and reviewer identities may be retained securely for editorial records, audits, appeals, and integrity investigations.

Breach response

A suspected breach is assessed confidentially. The reviewer receives notice and an opportunity to respond when feasible. Outcomes may include removal from the review, exclusion from future reviewing, notification of the reviewer’s institution or professional body, protection or replacement of compromised peer review, author notification, and correction of the record when misuse affected a publication. Legal requests are handled by the publisher under applicable law; reviewers must not respond on the journal’s behalf.

Policy basis

This policy follows COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers and ICMJE requirements that submitted manuscripts be treated as confidential, privileged communications, including restrictions on AI tools where confidentiality cannot be assured.

Human-Participant Consent and Ethics Approval

Purpose. To ensure that research involving people, identifiable human data, records, images, or biological materials is ethically reviewed, lawfully conducted, and transparently reported.

Prior review is required

Research involving human participants must receive approval from an independent, competent research ethics committee or institutional review board before recruitment, data collection, intervention, or access to identifiable records begins. The manuscript must name the approving body and provide the approval or protocol number and date. If the body determined that the work was exempt or that review was not required, authors must identify that body and state the basis and date of the determination.

No journal approval in place of ethics review: The journal cannot grant ethics approval or retrospectively cure a study that should have been reviewed before it began. Retrospective approval is generally not accepted. Authors without an institutional committee must seek review from a qualified independent or accredited committee before starting the research.

Consent and respect for participants

• Participation must be voluntary and based on understandable information about purpose, procedures, duration, risks, burdens, expected benefits, privacy, data use, compensation or incentives, contacts, and the right to refuse or withdraw without improper penalty.
• Consent must be documented in a form permitted by the applicable ethics approval and law. A waiver or alteration of consent is acceptable only when approved by the ethics committee and reported in the manuscript.
• Separate, explicit consent for publication is required when a person may be identifiable from text, quotations, photographs, audio, video, pedigrees, case details, or combined indirect identifiers. Consent to participate is not automatically consent to publish.
• When participants have limited literacy, language barriers, diminished decision-making capacity, or dependent relationships, the consent process must include appropriate communication and additional protections.
• Refusal to participate or later withdrawal must not adversely affect services, grades, employment, health care, benefits, or relationships to which the person is otherwise entitled.

Privacy, data protection, and reporting

Authors must minimize collection of identifiable data, use appropriate de-identification or pseudonymization, secure access and transfer, describe retention and sharing, and comply with applicable privacy law, including the Philippine Data Privacy Act when relevant. Names, initials, exact locations, faces, school identifiers, hospital numbers, or unique combinations of details must not be published unless scientifically necessary and specifically consented to.

The Methods section must state the ethical framework followed, committee details, consent process, and any waiver or exemption. Clinical trials and other prospectively assigned health interventions must be registered in a publicly accessible registry before enrollment of the first participant unless a justified exception is recognized by applicable standards; the registration number must be reported.

Editorial verification and outcomes

Editors may request approval letters, consent templates, trial registration records, data-protection plans, or confirmation from the ethics committee. Such documents are kept confidential and do not transfer responsibility from the researchers. Approval by a committee does not compel publication; the journal may reject research that is unlawful, exploitative, scientifically unsound, inadequately consented, or inconsistent with recognized ethical principles.

Suspected non-compliance may result in a pause, rejection, referral to the ethics committee or institution, correction, expression of concern, or retraction. Immediate reporting to competent authorities may occur when required by law or when necessary to address a serious risk of harm.

Policy basis

This policy is informed by the 2024 World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, ICMJE participant-protection guidance, the Philippine Health Research Ethics Board’s national guidance, and the Philippine Data Privacy Act.

Research Involving Children and Vulnerable Groups

Purpose. To permit fair and scientifically necessary inclusion without exploitation, coercion, stigma, avoidable risk, or loss of voice by participants whose circumstances may increase vulnerability.

Who may require additional protection

Vulnerability is contextual and may change over time. It can arise from age, impaired decision-making capacity, disability, illness, poverty, displacement, detention, disaster, stigma, minority or Indigenous status, insecure immigration status, digital exposure, dependence on services, or unequal authority relationships such as student-teacher, employee-supervisor, patient-clinician, or beneficiary-provider. Children are persons below the age of legal majority under the applicable law.

People must not be labeled vulnerable merely because they belong to a broad group. Researchers and editors should identify the specific risk of being wronged, excluded, pressured, exposed, or harmed and the protection that responds to that risk. Exclusion can also be harmful; a group should not be excluded from potentially beneficial research without scientific and ethical justification.

Conditions for inclusion

• The research question cannot be answered adequately with a less vulnerable population, or inclusion is necessary to address the group’s own needs, rights, experiences, or potential benefit.
• Risks and burdens are minimized and proportionate to the importance of the knowledge and any expected direct benefit.
• Recruitment is fair and does not rely on authority, desperation, excessive incentives, or threatened loss of services, grades, employment, or benefits.
• The ethics committee has specifically reviewed the group’s inclusion, consent or permission process, safeguards, compensation, referral plan, privacy, and data-sharing limits.
• Community consultation or culturally appropriate engagement is used when relevant, without replacing each participant’s rights or consent.

Children: permission, assent, and dissent

Permission from a parent or legally authorized guardian is normally required, together with the child’s affirmative assent when the child can understand the study at an age-appropriate level. Information must use suitable language and format. A child’s objection or dissent must be respected unless an ethics-approved, legally permitted, clinically necessary exception applies. Re-consent should be sought when a participant reaches legal age during continuing research.

School-based recruitment requires special care. Teachers and administrators should not know which learners agreed unless operationally necessary and approved; grades, discipline, access to activities, and relationships must not be affected. Incentives should reimburse time or expenses and must not be so large that they override voluntary choice.

Safeguarding, privacy, and online research

• The protocol must address distress, disclosure of abuse or imminent harm, mandatory reporting, referral pathways, trained staff, and stopping rules.
• Published text and media must avoid identities, exact locations, school details, rare characteristics, faces, voices, or digital handles that could expose a child or stigmatized group unless specific publication consent and ethical justification exist.
• Online recruitment and data collection must include reasonable age verification, privacy notices, secure channels, and safeguards against collecting unnecessary information about minors or third parties.
• Research involving Indigenous knowledge, community-held information, or culturally sensitive material must respect legitimate collective governance, benefit-sharing expectations, and restrictions approved by the community and ethics body, without treating community permission as a substitute for individual consent.

Editorial requirements

The manuscript must describe why inclusion was necessary, how vulnerability was assessed, the permission and assent process, risk controls, compensation, privacy measures, and ethics approval. Editors may obtain specialist ethical review and may reject a study even when formal approval exists if protections are inadequate or the research is scientifically too weak to justify participant burden.

Policy basis

This policy reflects the vulnerability, assent, consent, and fair-inclusion principles in the 2024 Declaration of Helsinki and Philippine national ethical guidance for research involving human participants.

Animal Research

Purpose. To require lawful, humane, scientifically justified, and transparently reported use of animals, guided by Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement.

Ethical approval and legal compliance

Research involving live animals, animal procedures, wildlife capture or handling, or euthanasia must receive prior approval from the appropriate institutional animal care and use committee or equivalent animal ethics body. The manuscript must name the body and state the approval or permit number and date. Work must comply with the laws and professional standards of the country where it was conducted, including the Philippine Animal Welfare Act as amended when applicable.

Retrospective approval is not accepted. For observational, non-invasive, archived-specimen, veterinary clinical, or field studies that a competent body determined did not require formal approval, the manuscript must identify the authority and basis for that determination and list all required collection, transport, wildlife, biosecurity, or access permits.

The 3Rs and scientific justification

• Replacement: use non-animal methods, existing data, modeling, lower-sentience systems, or other alternatives whenever they can answer the question reliably.
• Reduction: justify sample size and design so no more animals are used than necessary while avoiding underpowered, wasteful research.
• Refinement: minimize pain, distress, fear, lasting harm, and disruption through appropriate housing, acclimatization, handling, anesthesia, analgesia, monitoring, humane endpoints, trained personnel, and suitable euthanasia.
• Species, strain, source, sex, age, and model must be scientifically justified. Convenience or cost alone is insufficient.
• Adverse events, exclusions, unexpected deaths, protocol deviations, and welfare-related early stopping must be reported honestly.

Reporting standard

Reports of in vivo research must satisfy the ARRIVE 2.0 Essential 10 and should address the full recommended set where relevant. At minimum, authors must report study design, experimental unit, sample-size rationale, inclusion and exclusion criteria, randomization, blinding, outcome measures, statistical methods, animal characteristics, procedures, ethics statement, housing and husbandry, care and monitoring, and interpretation in enough detail for readers to assess reliability and welfare.

Editorial assessment and outcomes

Editors and reviewers evaluate both scientific value and animal welfare. Formal committee approval does not guarantee publication. A manuscript may be rejected when the model is not justified, avoidable suffering occurred, humane endpoints were inadequate, reporting prevents assessment, or the scientific design cannot justify the animals used.

The journal may request approval letters, permits, veterinary records, protocol details, images, or ARRIVE checklists. Suspected non-compliance may be referred to the institution, ethics body, funder, regulator, or competent wildlife authority and may lead to rejection, correction, expression of concern, or retraction.

Policy basis

This policy is informed by ARRIVE 2.0, the 3Rs framework promoted by NC3Rs, the 2024 Declaration of Helsinki’s respect for animal welfare, and the Philippine Animal Welfare Act as amended.

Complaints and Appeals

Purpose. To provide a fair, accessible, documented, and independent route for concerns about editorial conduct, process, policy application, published content, and manuscript decisions.

What may be submitted

A complaint concerns the journal’s service, conduct, delay, confidentiality, conflicts, discrimination, policy compliance, peer-review administration, or published content. An appeal asks the journal to reconsider a specific editorial decision because of a material factual or procedural error, overlooked evidence, or demonstrable misapplication of policy. Mere disagreement with reviewers or a request for a different outcome is not sufficient without a reasoned basis.

How to submit

Send the complaint or appeal to the editorial contact published on the journal website. Identify the journal, manuscript or article, decision date, persons involved, the specific concern, relevant policy, supporting documents, prior correspondence, and requested remedy. Complaints may be made by authors, reviewers, readers, participants, institutions, or other affected persons. Anonymous concerns will be considered when they contain enough verifiable information.

• Appeals of rejection or other manuscript decisions should be submitted within 30 calendar days of the decision.
• Complaints about integrity or participant safety may be submitted at any time.
• The journal acknowledges receipt within five business days, normally completes an initial assessment within ten business days, and aims to provide a substantive outcome within 30 calendar days. If more time is needed, the complainant receives an explanation and an update at least every 30 calendar days.

Fair handling

1. The complaint is logged, screened for scope, urgency, conflicts, confidentiality, and risk to people or the published record.
2. No person who is the subject of the complaint or who made the original disputed decision will determine the outcome. A senior independent editor, editorial-board member, publisher representative, or external adviser will handle it.
3. The person complained about receives the relevant allegations and a fair opportunity to respond, subject to protection of confidential sources and participant safety.
4. The handler reviews the record and may seek an independent methodological, ethical, legal, or editorial opinion. New peer review is ordered only when it could materially resolve the appeal.
5. The journal issues a reasoned written outcome and records any corrective action. One appeal of an editorial decision is ordinarily final within the journal.

A complaint against the Editor-in-Chief is handled by the publisher or an independent editorial-board panel. A complaint against the publisher or owner is handled by a person or panel without operational involvement in the matter. Where internal independence is not possible, an external expert will be invited.

Outcomes and safeguards

• Uphold, modify, or reverse the decision; resume review; commission fresh review; correct correspondence or process; apologize; train or replace personnel; or publish a correction, expression of concern, or retraction.
• Refer research-misconduct fact-finding to the relevant institution, ethics body, funder, regulator, or competent authority.
• Protect complainants from retaliation and limit identities and records to those necessary for fair handling and legal compliance.
• Close repetitive, abusive, threatening, discriminatory, or knowingly false communications after one clear warning, without ignoring credible evidence contained within them.

Dissatisfied persons may approach an appropriate institution, funder, regulator, ombuds office, professional body, or court where jurisdiction exists. External referral does not prevent the journal from taking action needed to protect participants or the publication record.

Policy basis

The procedure reflects COPE’s core practice that journals should have a clearly described process for complaints against the journal, staff, editorial board, or publisher, together with an independent route for appeals.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

Purpose. To correct the scholarly record promptly, transparently, and proportionately while preserving access to the publication history.

General principles

Post-publication notices correct the literature; they are not primarily punishments. The journal acts on reliable information regardless of who reports it, how old the article is, whether authors agree, or whether the problem resulted from honest error or misconduct. Notices are freely accessible, dated, linked in both directions with the article, and written so readers can understand what changed and why.

The Version of Record is not silently replaced. Minor typographical or formatting errors that do not affect meaning may be corrected without a formal notice, but any change affecting data, interpretation, attribution, authorship, ethics, disclosures, or reader understanding requires a dated notice and version history.

Corrections

A correction is issued when a limited error or omission does not invalidate the article’s central findings or creative integrity. It identifies the article, states the original and corrected information, explains the effect on conclusions where relevant, and names responsibility when useful. Author errors and publisher errors may be labeled distinctly. The online article is updated with a visible correction note and date; the correction receives appropriate metadata and a persistent identifier when feasible.

Expressions of concern

An expression of concern alerts readers to serious unresolved doubt when evidence is inconclusive, an institutional investigation is pending or unreasonably delayed, reliable fact-finding is unavailable, due process cannot yet be completed, or an immediate warning is necessary. It states the concern without making unsupported findings and is later replaced or supplemented by a correction, retraction, or notice that the concern was resolved.

Retractions

Retraction is considered when findings or content are unreliable because of major error, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unauthorized material, unethical research, manipulated or compromised peer review, substantial undisclosed duplicate publication, invalid authorship, or another defect that defeats trust in the work. A retraction may also be required when publication creates a serious legal or safety problem that cannot be resolved by correction.

• The retraction notice identifies the title, authors, journal details, DOI or URL, and the party initiating the retraction; states the reason and affected content; distinguishes honest error from misconduct when evidence permits; and avoids defamatory or speculative language.
• The original article remains accessible for the historical record, is clearly marked RETRACTED on every page or screen, and links to the notice. It is removed only when required for privacy, safety, illegality, national security, or a binding legal order; a tombstone page and reason remain where lawful.
• The journal updates metadata and notifies relevant indexing, archiving, and identifier services. Authors’ refusal to sign does not prevent a justified retraction.
• Partial retraction is not used to create ambiguity. If discrete errors can be corrected while the main work remains reliable, the journal issues a correction; if reliability is fundamentally compromised, it retracts the article.

Retract and republish; authorship notices

For a major honest error where the underlying study and conclusions remain sound after transparent re-analysis, the editor may retract and republish a fully re-reviewed corrected article. The new article and old record cross-link and explain the relationship. Changes to author names, order, affiliations, or contributions are normally handled by correction rather than retraction unless authorship fraud undermines the article’s integrity.

Process

1. Preserve the article and evidence, assess urgency, and notify affected authors with the specific concern.
2. Seek author, institutional, ethics, statistical, legal, or specialist input as necessary while avoiding unnecessary delay.
3. Choose the least severe notice that fully protects readers and the record; document the reason and conflicts of decision-makers.
4. Publish the notice promptly, update the article and metadata, and revise the notice if later evidence materially changes the conclusion.

Policy basis

This policy follows COPE’s current Retraction Guidelines and Expressions of Concern guidance and ICMJE principles on corrections and version control.

Copyright, Licensing, and Open Access

Purpose. To state clearly who owns published work, how it may be reused, and how immediate open access operates across scholarly and creative content.

Open-access commitment

Shirley Publishing House journals provide immediate free online access to the Version of Record without an embargo, subscription, paywall, or required reader registration. Readers may read, download, search, link to, and text- or data-mine articles subject to the license displayed on each article. Charges for print copies or optional services do not limit online open access.

Copyright ownership and publishing rights

Authors retain copyright in their original work. On acceptance, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive right of first publication and the continuing rights necessary to publish, reproduce, distribute, archive, preserve, index, translate metadata, correct, and identify the Version of Record. Authors also confirm that they have authority to grant these rights and that publication does not infringe another person’s copyright, privacy, confidentiality, contract, or moral rights.

The journal does not require transfer of copyright as a condition of ordinary publication. Author names, article title, journal citation, DOI or permanent URL, copyright notice, and license are displayed in the article and metadata.

Standard licenses

• Research articles and scholarly reviews are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0) unless a different license is clearly stated before acceptance. CC BY permits sharing and adaptation, including commercial reuse, provided appropriate credit is given, the license is linked, and changes are indicated.
• Original poems, stories, artworks, photographs, and other creative works in Likhang Lahi may be published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) when that license is shown on the work. It permits non-commercial sharing with attribution but not distribution of adaptations without separate permission.
• The license actually displayed on the article or creative work controls. A journal-level statement will not be used to imply that third-party content has been openly licensed.

Third-party material and author sharing

Authors must identify material they do not own, provide complete attribution, and obtain written permission for every intended format and territory when an exception or open license does not cover reuse. Third-party material excluded from the article’s Creative Commons license must carry a specific credit line. Authors are responsible for permission fees and records.

Authors may deposit the submitted manuscript, accepted manuscript, and Version of Record in personal, institutional, disciplinary, funder, or other lawful repositories without embargo, provided the Version of Record is cited and linked when available. Preprint posting is permitted subject to the duplicate-publication policy and any rights held in third-party material.

Corrections, takedown, and license changes

Corrections and retraction notices remain openly accessible. A published article is removed only in exceptional circumstances involving illegality, serious privacy or safety risk, national security, or a binding order; a record explaining the removal remains where lawful. A license already granted is generally irrevocable for copies already distributed under its terms. Any prospective license correction or change must be transparent and, where author rights are affected, made with author agreement.

Policy basis

This policy follows the DOAJ definition of immediate open access and transparency requirements for licensing and copyright, and uses the official Creative Commons 4.0 licenses stated above.

Publication Fees and Refund Rules

Purpose. To make every author charge visible, separate payment from editorial judgment, provide an accessible waiver route, and resolve refunds consistently.

Fee transparency

Each journal must publish its current Schedule of Fees on the journal website before submission begins. The schedule states the exact amount and currency of every possible submission, editorial processing, article processing, page, color, language-editing, formatting, printing, shipping, withdrawal, or other author charge; what each charge includes; applicable taxes or bank costs; and when payment becomes due. If a journal charges no fees, it states this explicitly.

No undisclosed or retroactive fee will be imposed. The fee schedule in effect when a manuscript is submitted applies through that submission unless the author requests a materially different optional service. A quotation or invoice must identify the journal, article, service, amount, currency, payment deadline, and refund stage.

Editorial independence

• Payment, ability to pay, waiver requests, advertising, print orders, or purchase of optional editing services does not influence editor assignment, reviewer selection, peer review, acceptance, scheduling, correction, or retraction.
• No acceptance is guaranteed in exchange for payment. The ordinary publication fee is invoiced only after formal acceptance unless a clearly disclosed submission fee applies.
• Optional language editing, formatting, illustration, printing, or other publisher services are separate from peer review and do not guarantee acceptance.
• Editors and reviewers are not told of a waiver request unless operationally necessary, and financial staff do not make editorial decisions.

Waivers and discounts

The website states available full or partial waivers, eligibility, required evidence, which author’s circumstances control, and when and how to apply. Requests should normally be made at submission or before invoicing and may be based on lack of funding, documented hardship, applicable institutional agreements, or a published country or author category. A waiver decision is confidential, does not affect review, and cannot be used as a reason to delay or reject a manuscript.

Refund rules

• Duplicate payment, overpayment, or an incorrect invoice: full refund of the excess amount.
• Publisher cancels publication or withdraws acceptance for a reason not caused by author breach: full refund of the publication fee.
• Author withdraws after payment but before copyediting, typesetting, DOI or metadata registration, or other production begins: full refund, less only a disclosed and unavoidable payment-transfer charge.
• Author withdraws after production begins but before online publication: refund of the amount paid minus the value of itemized, documented services already completed and any unavoidable transfer charge. The retained amount will not exceed the total disclosed author charge.
• After the Version of Record is published online: no refund, except for duplicate payment, a demonstrable billing error, or a material publisher failure that cannot reasonably be cured.
• Rejection, withdrawal of acceptance, correction, expression of concern, or retraction caused by plagiarism, duplicate publication, false declarations, fabricated or falsified material, unethical research, authorship deception, rights infringement, or another author breach: fees for completed services are not refundable.
• If the publisher materially misses a written publication commitment and the author withdraws before publication after giving a reasonable opportunity to cure: full refund of the publication fee.

Requests, timing, and disputes

A refund request must identify the invoice, payment proof, manuscript, reason, and receiving account and must be sent through the published editorial or billing contact. The publisher acknowledges the request within five business days, decides it within 15 business days, and processes an approved refund within 15 additional business days, subject to banking systems. Refunds are ordinarily returned through the original payment method. Actual non-recoverable bank, gateway, foreign-exchange, or tax charges may be deducted only when disclosed and documented.

A disputed fee or refund may be reviewed under the Complaints and Appeals Policy by a person who did not issue the invoice or make the first refund decision. Chargebacks do not replace the journal’s complaint process and do not alter author obligations for completed, properly disclosed services.

Policy basis

This policy implements DOAJ and COPE transparency principles requiring clear author charges and waivers, separation of fees from editorial decisions, and withdrawal charges that do not exceed disclosed author charges.