Ethics and Good Practices Policy

General Principles

Prism Journals adopts a policy of ethics and editorial quality guided by the highest standards of scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability.

All publications fully comply with the Codes of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), ensuring ethical practices among authors, reviewers, and editors.

Confidentiality

The editor and the editorial team are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of all information contained in submitted manuscripts. Such information must only be shared with the corresponding author, reviewers, editorial consultants, and other members of the editorial team, when appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Editors must obtain the author’s express written consent before using unpublished information from submitted manuscripts in their own research.
Editors must also avoid handling manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or institutional relationships with the authors or organizations connected to the work.

Involvement and Cooperation in Investigations

The editors and editorial teams of Prism Journals are committed to promptly responding to any ethical complaints related to submitted or published manuscripts and to conducting investigations transparently, following COPE’s recommended procedures.

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

  • Contribution to the Editorial Process: Peer review assists the editor in making publication decisions and provides authors with constructive, well-reasoned feedback to improve their work.

  • Promptness: Reviewers should inform the editor if they feel unqualified to review the manuscript or cannot complete the review within the assigned deadline.

  • Confidentiality: All manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents.

  • Acknowledgment of Sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published works not cited by the authors and report any substantial similarities or overlap with other publications.

  • Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Reviewers must not use privileged information for personal advantage and must refrain from reviewing manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest arising from personal, professional, or institutional relationships.

Authors’ Responsibilities

  • Reporting Standards: Authors of original research reports must provide an accurate and objective account of their work, ensuring that data are presented clearly and reproducibly.

  • Originality and Plagiarism: Manuscripts must be original, and the work or words of others must be properly cited. Plagiarism in any form constitutes unethical behavior and is unacceptable.

  • Multiple Publications: Authors must not submit or publish the same research in more than one journal simultaneously.

  • Acknowledgment of Sources: Proper acknowledgment of all sources is mandatory. Private communications or confidential data may only be used with explicit written permission.

  • Authorship: Authorship should include only individuals who made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the study. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring the proper inclusion of all co-authors and their approval of the final version.

  • Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Authors must disclose any financial, institutional, or personal relationships that might influence their research or its interpretation.

Editors’ Responsibilities

  • Editorial Independence: Editorial decisions must not be influenced by commercial interests.

  • Peer Review: All manuscripts are evaluated by qualified reviewers to ensure scientific rigor.

  • Ethical Compliance: Editors are responsible for ensuring full adherence to this Ethics and Good Practices Policy.

Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools

Prism Journals fully adopts the statement issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence tools:

“Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, the creation of images or graphical elements, or the collection and analysis of data must transparently declare in the Materials and Methods section (or equivalent) how the tool was used and which technology was employed. Authors remain fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, including any AI-generated portions, and for any ethical breaches that may occur.”

Reference: COPE Guidance – Authorship and AI Tools.

Copyright and Licensing

The copyrights of accepted articles are transferred to Prism Journals as a requirement for publication and indexing.
Authors must sign a Copyright Agreement, transferring reproduction and translation rights under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.

The publisher reserves the right to make normative and linguistic adjustments while preserving the authors’ writing style.
The opinions expressed in the articles are the sole responsibility of the authors.

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Institutional Commitment

Prism Journals reaffirms its commitment to international standards of scientific publishing, academic integrity, and the social responsibility of research, in full accordance with the COPE and other recognized ethics committees worldwide.