Publication Ethics

The Local Administration Journal (LAJ) defines the roles, duties, and ethics of the three groups of people in the process of publication, including authors, editors, and reviewers for the parties involved to study, understand, and strictly comply. The ethical guideline aims to promote accuracy, clarity, transparency, and academic quality in the LAJ publication process. Roles, duties, and ethical standards for the three groups are as follows.

Duties and Ethics of Authors

  1. In submission, the author must confirm that the manuscript submitted for consideration is consistent with the scope and subject area of the Local Administration Journal.
  2. The submitted manuscript must not have been previously published in any journals and/or presented in any conferences.
  3. The submitted manuscript must not be concurrently under consideration for publication elsewhere.
  4. The submitted manuscript must not have been plagiarized and/or self-plagiarized.
  5. In the case of research article submission, the author must certify that the information in the research article is true, accurate, inadvertent, and drawn from their own study or a study by co-authors whose names appear in the article.
  6. The author must prepare their manuscript strictly according to the format specified by the Local Administration Journal.
  7. For any manuscript with more than one author, the corresponding author must certify that all the names appearing in the manuscript are involved in the writing process.
  8. If the academic or research article is funded, the author must specify the funding sources.
  9. The author must strictly comply with the timeframe specified by the editorial team in the publication process according to the advice of the editors and reviewers.
  10. The author must keep checking their e-mail notifications and continuously undertaking necessary steps in the online journal management system.

Duties and Ethics of the Editors

  1. The editor is responsible for what is published in the Local Administration Journal and must constantly improve the quality of journal.
  2. The editor must take necessary steps to ensure the quality and academic accuracy of every manuscript published in the journal.
  3. The editor must provide information about the peer review process and must ensure the authors that the information of the authors and the reviewers are kept secret during the review process.
  4. The editor makes final decisions to publish manuscripts that have been reviewed and revised.
  5. The editors must focus on and consider selecting manuscripts that are innovative, complete. and is consistent with the scope and policies of the journal.
  6. Editors must not have conflicts of interest with authors and reviewers.
  7. The editor must not reject the publication of an article because of doubt or uncertainty only. A rejection must have a clear and verifiable reason.
  8. The editor must seriously examine manuscripts for plagiarism and/or self-plagiarism via an internationally-recognized and reliable detection software and must inform the author of the examination results.
  9. During the review process, if the manuscript is found to contain plagiarized or self-plagiarized work, the editor must pause the review process and immediately request clarification from the author prior to the acceptance or denial of the manuscript’s publication.
  10. Editors must support academic freedom by providing channels for appeals or comments when the author, reviewer, or editorial member have different opinions from the editor's decision.
  11. The editor must provide guidelines for authors and reviewers and must always keep such information up to date.
  12. The editor must strictly implement the Double-Blind Assessment policy.
  13. The editor must determine the appropriate proportion of publication in which external articles must not be less than 50 percent per issue.
  14. In the event that the reviewer of the manuscript does not complete the assessment in time or the review will be delayed and it may cause the author to lose benefits, the editor may use the review results that they have received so far, review the manuscript by themselves, or ask another reviewer to evaluate the manuscript.
  15. In case of changing the editor, the new editor must not publish any manuscripts previously rejected by the former editor.

Duties and Ethics of the Reviewers

  1. The reviewer must accept to evaluate manuscripts that are pertinent to their expertise, experience, or research agenda.
  2. The reviewer must notify the editor and reject the assessment of the manuscript in case that they have any potential conflict of interest or personal conflict with the author or because of other reasons which may cause the inability to give independent opinions and suggestions.
  3. During the review process, the reviewer must not disclose the title and content of the article under review to other parties.
  4. The reviewer must use reason, empirical data, or theoretical grounds as the basis for judging the manuscripts.
  5. The reviewer must notify the editor immediately if they find that some or all parts of the manuscript are similar to other works.
  6. The reviewer should point out important studies in the literature pertinent to the manuscript being evaluated but not cited by the author in order make the manuscript more valuable.
  7. The reviewer should provide suggestions of new knowledge to the author in the part that the author did not refer to in the manuscript, especially knowledge from studies in the last five years.
  8. The reviewer must complete the assessment within the time limit. If it is necessary that the assessment is delayed, the reviewer must notify the editor immediately.
  9. The reviewer must record the evaluation results and conclude if the journal should accept or reject the publication of manuscript. The author must submit the evaluation results and related files via the online evaluation system within the specified period.