Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Studies (HASSS) promotes publication ethics and malpractice in accordance with the COPE international standards for responsible research publications. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the roles of journal editors, reviewers, and authors.

Journal Editors

Publication Decision

HASSS accepts only manuscripts which have never been published elsewhere before (except in the form of an abstract) or are being considered for publication by another journal. The editorial team is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal should be published. The editor is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Confidentiality

The editor and editorial staff must ensure the confidentiality of the submitted manuscripts until they are published, except only in the case of suspicion of double submission or the manuscripts that have been under revision or have been published elsewhere. Privileged information or ideas obtained through the peer review process must be kept confidential and are not allowed to be used for personal advantage.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is strictly prohibited. Editors must try to examine whether the submitted manuscript is absent from plagiarism. All submissions will be examined by the editorial staff in terms of plagiarism by using plagiarism detecting software.

Generative AI and AI-assisted Technologies in Publication

Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies are not prohibited. However, all submissions will be reviewed by the editorial staff using AI detection software to ensure that the percentage of generated content does not exceed 30%.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All funding sources must be disclosed in the acknowledgement and any conflicts of interest must be stated. All submissions must include disclosure of any relationship that could be viewed as a potential conflict of interest such as funding organizations, affiliations of all the authors, advisors of the research project, etc. The corresponding author must confirm that he/she had the final responsibility for the decision to submit and had full access to all the data involved in the study.

Handling Allegations of Misconduct

HASSS takes seriously allegations of misconduct pre-publication and post-publication. Authors, reviewers, or other stakeholders with concerns regarding ethical concerns are encouraged to report them to the editorial board. Such concerns will be investigated promptly and thoroughly, and appropriate actions will be taken in accordance with COPE guidelines. To report the ethical concerns, please use our Ethical Concern Reporting Form.

 

Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer reviewers assist the editors in making a decision to publish a manuscript and also assist the author(s) in improving the quality of the manuscript.

Confidentiality

Reviewers have to respect the confidentiality of the review process. They must not discuss aspects of the work under review with other researchers until such time as the article is published. Unpublished material disclosed in a manuscript under review must not be quoted or referenced by a reviewer without the express written consent of the author(s), requested through the editorial team. Information or ideas obtained through peer reviews must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Standards of Objectivity

All manuscripts must be reviewed objectively in the context of the reviewer's expertise in the field. Personal opinions without backing evidence must not be used as criteria for review decisions.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

The reviewers must not use any information obtained through the peer review process for personal advantage. The reviewers must not accept to review if they have a conflict of interest with the author(s), companies, or institutions affiliated to the manuscripts. 

 

Authors

Authorship

All authors must have agreed to the submission and to the order of their names on HASSS’s submission form. They must also have agreed that the corresponding author may act on their behalf throughout the editorial review and publication process. The change or addition of co-authors’ name(s) is not allowed after the acceptance.

Originality and Plagiarism

Manuscripts of research articles submitted to HASSS must not been published previously and not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

The author(s) must ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the author(s) have used the work and/or words of others, this must be appropriately cited or quoted and listed in the references. Any attempt of plagiarism, data fabrication/falsification, or citation manipulation will result in the rejection of the submitted manuscript.  HASSS reserves the right to use plagiarism detecting software to screen submitted papers.

Generative AI and AI-assisted Technologies in Publication

Authors are permitted to utilize generative AI to enhance the readability and language quality of their writing. However, it is crucial that:

- Authors thoroughly review and edit the output generated by AI tools, ensuring the accuracy of their submissions.

- AI LLM (Large Language Model) should not be acknowledged as an author or co-author in any publication.

- Authors employing AI in the scientific writing process must disclose the use of AI LLM in the Methods section.

- Authors must include a statement at the end of their manuscript, preceding the References section, titled “Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted Technologies in the Writing Process.” This statement should provide transparency regarding the use of such technologies in the creation of the manuscript.

- Authors are strictly prohibited from utilizing AI or AI-assisted tools to create or modify images or videos in submitted manuscripts. All visuals included in manuscripts must be created or altered by human authors without the use of artificial intelligence technologies.

- The use of AI should be below 30%.

Human Subjects

If the research work involves the use of human participants/volunteers, the author(s) should ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that approval from an ethics committee was obtained for any experiments/clinical trials involving human subjects. The approval code should be mentioned in the manuscript.

Disclosure and Conflicts of interest

All funding sources must be disclosed in the acknowledgments and any conflicts of interest must be stated. All submissions must include disclosure of any relationship that could be viewed as a potential conflict of interest.