Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies

The Journal of Advances in Social Sciences (JASS) is committed to maintaining the integrity, transparency, and reliability of the scholarly record. The journal applies its editorial policies consistently to all submitted and published content.

JASS follows recognised principles of publication ethics and refers to the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when addressing concerns relating to research integrity, publication misconduct, corrections, and retractions.

Editorial Independence and Fairness

Editorial decisions are based on the academic merit, originality, methodological quality, clarity, and relevance of a manuscript to the aims and scope of the journal.

Editorial decisions are not influenced by:

the nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, political views, or institutional affiliation of the authors;
the professional status or reputation of the authors;
personal or institutional relationships;
commercial considerations; or
the payment or non-payment of the Article Processing Charge.

The Article Processing Charge is payable only after a manuscript has completed peer review and has been formally accepted. Payment does not influence acceptance or rejection.

Editors must withdraw from handling a manuscript where an actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest exists.

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made significant intellectual contributions to the work.

Each listed author should have:

contributed substantially to the conception, design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation of the study;
participated in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
approved the final version submitted for publication; and
agreed to be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work.

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged with their permission. Administrative assistance, language editing, technical support, funding acquisition, or general supervision alone does not normally justify authorship.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that:

all eligible contributors are included as authors;
no ineligible individual is listed as an author;
all authors have approved the submitted manuscript;
all authors agree with the order in which their names appear; and
all relevant funding and conflicts of interest have been disclosed.

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must include a written explanation and the written agreement of all authors. Changes after publication will be considered only in exceptional circumstances and, where approved, will be recorded through a formal correction.

Originality, Prior Publication, and Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts submitted to JASS must be original.

A submitted manuscript must not:

have been previously published in any form;
be under consideration by another journal at the same time;
substantially duplicate another published or submitted work; or
have been previously published in another language.

Authors must disclose any substantial overlap with their own previously published or submitted work. Duplicate submission, redundant publication, and undisclosed translation or republication are not permitted.

Plagiarism and Similarity Screening

JASS does not accept plagiarism in any form. Plagiarism includes the unattributed use of another person’s words, ideas, data, images, tables, figures, or other intellectual material.

Inappropriate reuse of an author’s own previously published material without proper citation may also constitute unacceptable publication practice.

Submitted manuscripts may be screened using similarity-detection software. The overall similarity index should not exceed 30%.

The 30% threshold is an initial screening criterion and does not replace editorial assessment. Editors will consider:

the nature and source of the matched material;
whether the material has been properly quoted and cited;
the distribution of the similarities throughout the manuscript;
overlap in references, methodological descriptions, or standard terminology; and
whether the overlap affects the originality or integrity of the work.

A similarity index below 30% does not by itself establish that a manuscript is free from plagiarism. A manuscript may still be rejected where plagiarism, inappropriate paraphrasing, citation manipulation, or unacceptable text reuse is identified.

A manuscript exceeding 30% may be returned to the author for clarification or revision or may be rejected before external peer review, depending on the nature and extent of the overlap.

Where serious plagiarism is confirmed after publication, the journal may issue a correction, expression of concern, or retraction.

Research and Publication Misconduct

Research and publication misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

fabrication or falsification of data;
plagiarism;
citation manipulation;
inappropriate image manipulation;
selective or misleading reporting of results;
undisclosed duplicate or redundant publication;
misrepresentation of ethical approval;
undeclared use of data or materials without permission;
fraudulent or inappropriate authorship;
manipulation of the peer-review process; and
deliberate provision of false information to the journal.

Allegations of misconduct will be considered objectively and confidentially. The journal may request original data, ethics documentation, authorship information, similarity reports, or other relevant supporting materials.

Authors will normally be given an opportunity to respond to the concerns raised. Where necessary, the journal may consult an independent expert or contact the relevant institution, research ethics committee, funder, or other responsible body.

Serious violations involving a submitted manuscript will normally result in rejection without further review. Where misconduct concerns a published article, the journal may issue a correction, expression of concern, or retraction.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose relationships or circumstances that could reasonably be perceived as influencing their work or judgement.

Conflicts of interest may be financial or non-financial and may include:

employment or consultancy relationships;
research funding or sponsorship;
personal or professional relationships;
institutional competition;
intellectual or academic disagreements;
ownership of relevant patents or commercial interests; and
involvement in organisations connected with the subject of the manuscript.

Authors must disclose all sources of funding and describe the role, if any, of the funder in the study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation, preparation of the manuscript, and the decision to submit the work for publication.

Where no conflict of interest or external funding exists, this should be stated in the manuscript.

Reviewers and editors who identify a relevant conflict of interest must inform the editorial office and decline or withdraw from handling the manuscript where appropriate.

Ethical Oversight

Research involving human participants, personal information, identifiable records, interviews, surveys, observations, or sensitive data must comply with applicable ethical, legal, and institutional requirements.

Where required, authors must:

obtain approval from an appropriate institutional research ethics committee or review board;
identify the approving body and approval reference in the manuscript;
obtain informed consent from participants;
protect participants’ privacy and confidentiality; and
obtain consent for the publication of identifiable information, images, or case details.

Where formal ethical approval was not required, the manuscript should explain why the study was exempt or why ethical approval was not applicable.

Authors remain responsible for ensuring that the collection, storage, analysis, and publication of research data comply with relevant legal and institutional requirements.

Each manuscript should include an Ethics Statement. Where the research did not involve human participants, identifiable personal data, or another activity requiring ethical approval, authors may state that ethical approval was not applicable.

Data Sharing and Reproducibility

JASS supports transparent and reproducible research while recognising that some social science data cannot be made publicly available because of privacy, confidentiality, legal, ethical, contractual, or cultural restrictions.

Authors are encouraged to:

retain the data and materials supporting their findings;
describe their research and analytical procedures clearly;
preserve relevant instruments, coding procedures, and supporting documentation; and
share data, code, instruments, or supplementary materials through an appropriate repository where ethically and legally possible.

Where data cannot be shared, authors should be prepared to explain the reason for the restriction.

Editors may request access to underlying data or supporting documentation where this is necessary to evaluate the integrity of a submission or investigate an ethical concern.

Failure to provide reasonable supporting evidence may affect the editorial decision or result in further investigation.

Peer Review Ethics and Confidentiality

JASS uses a double-blind peer-review process. Manuscripts that pass initial editorial screening are assigned to a handling editor and evaluated by at least two qualified reviewers with relevant subject expertise.

Authors and reviewers remain anonymous to one another during the review process.

Reviewers must:

provide objective, evidence-based, and constructive assessments;
maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript and the review process;
disclose relevant conflicts of interest;
avoid using unpublished information for personal, academic, or professional advantage;
inform the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplication, data fabrication, or other ethical concerns; and
complete the review within the agreed period or notify the editor where this is not possible.

Reviewers must not distribute, reproduce, or discuss submitted material outside the authorised editorial process.

The Editor-in-Chief or the responsible handling editor makes the final publication decision after considering the reviewers’ reports, the authors’ responses, and the quality and suitability of the manuscript.

Submissions from Editors, Editorial Board Members, and Reviewers

Editors, editorial board members, advisers, and members of the reviewer team may submit manuscripts to JASS. Such submissions receive no preferential treatment and are subject to the same editorial screening, peer-review standards, and publication requirements as other submissions.

An editor, board member, or reviewer who is an author of a submitted manuscript must not participate in:

selecting the handling editor;
selecting or recommending reviewers;
accessing confidential review information;
influencing the editorial assessment; or
making the final publication decision.

A manuscript submitted by the Editor-in-Chief will be assigned to an uninvolved Deputy Editor-in-Chief, independent senior editor, or suitably qualified external editor.

A manuscript submitted by another editor, editorial board member, or reviewer will be handled by an editor who has no relevant conflict of interest.

JASS monitors and limits the publication of research papers authored by members of its editorial and reviewer teams in order to protect editorial independence and minimise editorial endogeny.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Use by Authors

Artificial intelligence cannot be credited as an author because it cannot take responsibility for the accuracy, originality, or integrity of scholarly work.

Authors must disclose the use of generative artificial intelligence in preparing a manuscript where its use extends beyond straightforward language correction, editing, and formatting.

The disclosure should identify:

the tool used;
the purpose for which it was used; and
the part of the research or manuscript affected.

Authors remain fully responsible for all submitted content and must verify the accuracy and validity of AI-assisted material, including factual statements, references, quotations, analyses, interpretations, translations, and summaries.

Generative AI cannot be cited as a scholarly source. Authors must not use AI in ways that compromise confidential, personal, copyrighted, proprietary, or research-sensitive information.

Use by Reviewers and Editors

Reviewers and editors must not use generative AI to create peer-review reports, editorial assessments, or publication decisions.

Submitted manuscripts, figures, data, supplementary files, review reports, and confidential editorial correspondence must not be uploaded to publicly accessible generative AI systems.

Limited use of AI for language editing may be acceptable only where manuscript confidentiality is fully protected, no confidential manuscript content is uploaded, and the substantive assessment remains the reviewer’s or editor’s independent judgement.

Reviewers and editors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, fairness, and integrity of their assessments.

Use by the Journal

The journal may use appropriately tested automated tools for text-similarity screening, metadata validation, technical checks, administrative support, and the identification of possible research-integrity concerns.

All automated results are subject to human review. An editor or authorised staff member must verify any automated indication of text similarity, figure manipulation, inaccurate references, undeclared AI use, or other potential integrity concerns.

No manuscript will be accepted, rejected, retracted, or formally identified as involving misconduct solely on the basis of automated output.

Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Licensing

Authors are responsible for ensuring that their manuscript does not infringe the copyright, privacy, confidentiality, or other legal rights of any individual or organisation.

Permission must be obtained for third-party tables, figures, photographs, instruments, questionnaires, or substantial extracts where such use is not covered by lawful reuse or an applicable open licence.

Authors retain copyright in articles published by JASS.

By publishing in JASS, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive right to publish, reproduce, distribute, make available online, and archive the article.

Published articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

Detailed terms are provided in the journal’s Copyright and Licensing Policy.

Corrections

JASS will correct the published record where an error affects the accuracy, interpretation, attribution, or integrity of an article.

Minor typographical or formatting errors that do not affect the meaning of the article may be corrected in the online version.

Material corrections will be accompanied by a dated correction notice explaining:

the nature of the error;
the correction made; and
whether the conclusions of the article are affected.

Corrections will not be used to introduce substantial new findings or make unrecorded changes to authorship.

Retractions and Expressions of Concern

An article may be retracted where there is reliable evidence that:

the findings are unreliable because of fabrication, falsification, serious error, or inappropriate analysis;
the article contains plagiarism or unauthorised material;
substantially the same work has been published elsewhere without appropriate disclosure;
the research was conducted or reported unethically;
the peer-review or editorial process was manipulated; or
authorship, conflicts of interest, or other significant ethical information was deliberately misrepresented.

A retracted article will normally remain available as part of the scholarly record but will be clearly identified as retracted. A retraction notice will explain the reason for the action and will be linked to the original article.

An expression of concern may be issued where serious questions have been raised but an investigation is incomplete, inconclusive, or subject to significant delay.

JASS will refer to relevant COPE guidance when issuing corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern.

Complaints

Complaints may concern:

the journal’s policies or procedures;
the conduct of editors or reviewers;
delays or procedural failures;
the handling of an ethical concern; or
the accuracy or integrity of published content.

Complaints should be submitted in writing to the Editorial Office at journal@apsiri.com.

The complaint should include:

the manuscript or article title;
the manuscript number or DOI, where available;
a clear description of the concern; and
relevant supporting evidence.

Complaints will be considered confidentially and, wherever practicable, by an individual who was not directly responsible for the matter concerned.

A complaint concerning the Editor-in-Chief will be referred to the publisher, an uninvolved Deputy Editor-in-Chief, or an independent senior adviser.

Appeals against Editorial Decisions

Authors may appeal an editorial decision where they believe that:

a material factual error occurred;
a procedural error affected the decision;
relevant evidence was overlooked;
the journal’s stated review process was not followed; or
a conflict of interest affected the assessment.

An appeal must identify the specific grounds for reconsideration and respond directly to the editorial or reviewer comments. Disagreement with the outcome alone is not sufficient grounds for an appeal.

Appeals will normally be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief or another senior editor who was not directly involved in the original decision. Additional independent advice may be obtained where necessary.

The decision reached after formal reconsideration will normally be final.

Post-Publication Discussion

JASS welcomes evidence-based scholarly discussion concerning articles published in the journal.

Readers may submit comments, clarifications, or concerns to journal@apsiri.com. The communication should identify the relevant article and provide a clear and supported explanation of the issue.

The journal may:

seek a response from the original authors;
consult independent experts;
publish a clarification or response;
issue a correction or expression of concern; or
initiate a research-misconduct investigation.

Personal attacks, unsupported allegations, defamatory statements, and comments unrelated to the scholarly content will not be considered.

Policy Enforcement

Failure to comply with these policies may result in:

a request for clarification or correction;
return of the manuscript before peer review;
suspension of editorial consideration;
rejection of the manuscript;
withdrawal of an acceptance decision;
publication of a correction or expression of concern;
retraction of a published article;
restrictions on future submissions; or
notification of the relevant institution, ethics committee, or funder.

The action taken will depend on the seriousness of the matter, the available evidence, and whether the concern can be corrected without compromising the integrity of the scholarly record.

Contact

Questions, complaints, appeals, and reports of suspected research or publication misconduct should be addressed to:

Editorial Office
Journal of Advances in Social Sciences
Asia-Pacific Social Innovation Research Institute
Rm D07, 8/F, Kai Tak Fly Building
No. 99 King Fuk Street, Sanpokong
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Email: journal@apsiri.com

All good-faith concerns will be considered objectively and treated as confidentially as the investigation permits.

Last updated: July 2026