Ethical Policy of ACTS: Applied Community Transformation and Sustainability Journal

The ethical policy of ACTS: Applied Community Transformation and Sustainability Journal is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and complies with International Committee of ACTS: Applied Community Transformation and Sustainability Journal Editorial Board codes of conduct. Readers, authors, reviewers and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with ACTS: Applied Community Transformation and Sustainability Journal. The ethical policy is liable to determine which of the typical research papers or articles submitted to the journal should be published in the concerned issue. For information on this matter in publishing and ethical guidelines, please visit http://publicationethics.org

Principles of Transparency and Publication Ethics
(https://publicationethics.org/files/Principles_of_Transparency_and_Best_Practice_in_Scholarly_Publishingv3_0.pdf)

• Peer review process: ACTS: Applied Community Transformation and Sustainability Journal is a double-blind peer-reviewed electronic three-monthly publication concerned with all aspects of Control Systems and Optimization.

• Governing Body: The journal has a very strong editorial board whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas within the journal’s scope.

• Identification and dealing with research misconduct: Editor-in-Chief takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication.

• Website: The journal’s website maintains high ethical and professional standards.

• Contact information: Provided for the editorial office.

• Name of journal: Unique and not easily confused with another journal.

• Conflicts of interest: Authors must declare if conflicts of interest exist upon submission.

• Declaration of competing interests: Editors must not handle papers they or close colleagues have authored; independent peer review is mandatory.

• Acknowledgments: Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged.

• Disclosure of funding sources: Authors must declare their funding to promote transparency.

• Note: Manuscripts funded wholly or partly by tobacco companies will not be considered.

Duties and Responsibilities of Editors
(http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf)

• Full authority to accept or reject manuscripts.

• Maintain confidentiality of manuscripts under review.

• Editor-in-Chief decides publication with editors and reviewers.

• Preserve reviewer anonymity.

• Disclose and avoid conflicts of interest.

• Maintain academic integrity.

• Investigate plagiarism and fraudulent data; publish corrections when needed.

• Limit themselves to intellectual content only.

• Do not disclose manuscript information outside necessary parties.

• Unpublished materials are not used for personal research without consent.

• Guest editors manage content for special issues.

• Associate editors oversee peer review and recommend decisions.

Duties and Responsibilities of Reviewers
(http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Peer%20review%20guidelines.pdf)

• Assist editors in deciding publication.

• Maintain manuscript confidentiality.

• Provide timely, technical, and objective comments.

• Avoid and disclose conflicts of interest.

• Treat manuscripts confidentially and do not misuse information.

• Decline review if conflict exists.

Authors must confirm the following:

• Manuscripts must be original work.

• Corresponding author ensures all coauthors approve publication.

• Only unpublished manuscripts should be submitted.

• All authors agree to corresponding author’s role.

• Acknowledge data sources.

• All authors made significant contributions and approved claims.

• Report errors discovered after submission immediately.

• Manuscripts are screened for plagiarism; plagiarism is a serious ethical violation.