ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

(Based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (see https://publicationethics.org/) and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) (see https://wame.org/) Best Practice Guidelines for the Journal Publication Process).

Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication

The publication of an article in the peer-reviewed International Education Trend Issue (IETI) is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It directly reflects the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to establish standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in publishing, including authors, journal editors, peer reviewers, publishers, and the academic community.

Publication Decisions

The editor of International Education Trend Issue (IETI) is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always guide such decisions. Editors may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by applicable legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, plagiarism, and other relevant matters. Editors may confer with other editors or reviewers when making publication decisions.

Fair Play

Editors shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual and scholarly content without discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, disability, institutional affiliation, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and editorial staff must not disclose information concerning a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest arising from competitive, collaborative, financial, institutional, or personal relationships.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists editors in making editorial decisions. Through editorial communication with authors, peer review may also assist authors in improving the quality, clarity, validity, and scholarly contribution of their manuscripts.

Promptness

Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that a prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and withdraw from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscript received for review must be treated as a confidential document. It must not be shown to or discussed with other individuals except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews must be conducted objectively and constructively. Personal criticism of an author is inappropriate and unacceptable. Reviewers should express their views clearly and support their assessments with relevant scholarly arguments and evidence.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement indicating that an observation, derivation, argument, or research finding has been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. Reviewers should also bring to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and other published or submitted works of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and must not be used for personal advantage. Reviewers must not evaluate manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, financial, institutional, personal, or other relationships with any of the authors, companies, funding bodies, or institutions connected to the manuscript.

Duties of Authors

Reporting Standards

Authors reporting original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. The underlying data must be represented accurately in the manuscript. A paper should contain sufficient detail, methodological explanation, and references to permit other researchers to replicate or verify the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure that they have produced entirely original work. When authors use the work, data, ideas, methods, or words of others, these sources must be appropriately cited, quoted, or otherwise acknowledged in accordance with accepted academic conventions.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication

Authors should not publish manuscripts describing substantially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be provided. Authors should cite publications that have influenced the conception, design, methodology, analysis, interpretation, or presentation of the reported research.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, analysis, or interpretation of the reported study. All individuals who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Individuals who have participated in substantive aspects of the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged or identified as contributors.

The corresponding author must ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the manuscript. The corresponding author must also ensure that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication in International Education Trend Issue (IETI).

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial, institutional, personal, professional, or other substantive conflict of interest that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the results or interpretation of their work. All sources of financial support and research funding must also be disclosed.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work, the author must promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor in correcting or retracting the article, as appropriate.

 

THE USE OF GENERATIVE AI AND AI-ASSISTED TECHNOLOGIES IN WRITING FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION TREND ISSUE (IETI)

The purpose of this policy is to provide authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and contributors with clear guidance regarding the responsible use of generative artificial intelligence and AI-assisted technologies in the writing, editing, and research processes.

To protect the privacy and confidentiality of data and other inputs, including unpublished and published manuscripts, authors must carefully review the terms, conditions, privacy policies, and data-processing provisions of any AI tools they use. Personally identifiable, confidential, proprietary, sensitive, or restricted information must be handled with strict caution. The creation of images that unlawfully imitate, reproduce, or reference copyrighted materials, real individuals, identifiable brands or products, or a person’s voice or likeness is prohibited. Authors are responsible for critically reviewing all AI-generated content for bias, fabrication, inaccuracy, inappropriate attribution, or misleading information.

Authors must ensure that AI service providers are granted only the limited rights necessary to process submitted materials for the purpose of providing the requested service. Authors should avoid tools whose terms permit uploaded materials to be used for unrelated purposes, including model training, unless the authors possess the necessary rights and have obtained all required permissions. Authors must also verify that the terms governing AI-generated outputs do not impose restrictions that could interfere with manuscript submission, publication, licensing, archiving, or subsequent scholarly use.

When submitting a manuscript to International Education Trend Issue (IETI), authors are required to include a separate declaration disclosing any substantive use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation. The statement, titled “Declaration of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies in the Writing Process,” must be placed at the end of the manuscript immediately before the references section. The declaration may be included in the published article.

Authors must clearly state the name and version of the AI tool used, the developer or provider of the tool, the purpose for which it was used, the sections or activities affected, and the extent of human review and oversight. This transparency promotes trust, accountability, and research integrity. A declaration is generally not required when AI-assisted software is used solely for basic spelling, grammar, punctuation, or reference-formatting checks that do not generate substantive scholarly content. When AI is used as part of the research methodology, data analysis, intervention, instrument development, modeling, or interpretation process, a complete and reproducible explanation must also be provided in the methods section.

AI tools, generative AI systems, language models, chatbots, and other non-human technologies must not be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship entails responsibilities and accountability that can only be fulfilled by human contributors. Each author remains fully responsible for the integrity, accuracy, originality, validity, attribution, and ethical compliance of the submitted work and for addressing any issues that may arise before or after publication.

The use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create, fabricate, manipulate, or materially modify images submitted to International Education Trend Issue (IETI) is generally prohibited. Technical adjustments, including limited modifications to brightness, contrast, sharpness, or color balance, may be permitted only when they are applied uniformly and do not alter, obscure, remove, fabricate, or misrepresent information contained in the original image or data. The journal reserves the right to use image-forensic methods or specialized software to identify possible image manipulation.

Exceptions may be permitted when the research design explicitly examines or requires generative AI or AI-assisted technologies, such as AI-based image generation, educational content generation, synthetic data production, automated assessment, computer vision, AI-supported data analysis, or imaging techniques. In such cases, the methods section must provide a clear, transparent, and reproducible description of the use of AI.

The description should identify the tool or model name, model version, developer or provider, access date when relevant, input and output procedures, prompts or parameters where necessary for reproducibility, human validation procedures, and a detailed explanation of how the technology was applied. Authors must comply with the terms of use and applicable policies of the AI tools and provide appropriate attribution. Upon editorial request, authors may also be required to provide prompts, logs, original unprocessed images, source files, datasets, code, or other supporting materials for verification.