JARS strives to the highest level of integrity in the published content. This commitment is inclusive of the Editors, Reviewers, and Author(s).

1. FOR EDITORS

Confidentiality: As JARS applies double-blinded peer review process, editors will not disclose any information of author(s) and reviewers to other parties. All materials such as texts, figures, and tables that are submitted to the journal including all communications with reviewers are strictly protected by editors; unless it is agreed to by the relevant author(s) and reviewers that the materials can be revealed. 

Peer review: The editors will be responsible for the selection of at least 2 external and independent reviewers with appropriate areas of expertise. The editors shall avoid the selection of peer reviewers, who have been a co-author(s) with any of the submitting party for any published work within the past 5 years. Editors should be alert to a chance of peer review manipulation, especially if reviewer comments are submitted extremely rapidly or extremely positive and superficial. In such cases, it may be helpful to invite an additional reviewer.

The editors shall perform their best practice in reviewing all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and reviewers’ recommendations for self-citation to determine any potential for bias. The editors may request additional opinions from the reviewers where necessary. The editor shall assure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and on time. If receiving only simple comments without specific content of the submission, the editor will invite additional reviewers.

Fair Evaluation: Editors will assure that evaluating policies of the journal are clearness and complete, honest reporting. The editor will evaluate the manuscripts for integrity of their content disregarding gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, or ethnic origin of the author(s). The editors will ensure that peer reviewers and author(s) have a clear understanding of what are expected from them. The editor will carry out transparent actions for appeal of editorial decisions.

Protecting the Published Record Integrity: In order to protect the integrity of the published record, the editors will investigate any reported or suspected misconduct related to the research and/or publication. If there are any convincing evidence of misconduct, the editors shall perform an appropriate course of action that may include a correction, retraction, or expression of concern.

2. FOR PEER REVIEWERS

Contribution to Editorial Decisions: The peer reviewers are expected to provide constructive and encouraging, however, rigorous comments on the manuscript without any bias. The manuscript must be examined by the reviewers based on their merits, without distinction as to sex, gender, race, religion, nationality, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s). With double-blinded peer review policy, comments by peer reviewers are strictly confidential to the editors.

Competing Interests: If the peer reviewers suspect or detect any potential conflict of interest in any circumstance, such as reviewers having similar interests in research, collaboration, or being colleagues within the same department or similar organisational unit with the author(s), the reviewers are expected to consult with the editor before making agreement to review the submitted manuscript.

Objectivity: Reviews will be conducted objectively, with the peer reviewers being aware of any personal bias that may be taken into account. The peer reviewers need to provide constructive critical, nurturing, constructive, but rigorous comments that assist the author(s) in improving their manuscripts. Personal criticism of the author(s) or negative or mysterious comments without a clear clarification will not be considered appropriate by the editors. Reviewers are discouraged from suggestion of their work to be cited; unless, there is a clear void in the manuscript that can only be filled or clarified by the citation. However, before making suggestion on the citation, reviewers should consult with the editor on this regard.

Confidentiality: Manuscripts received for review, comments or information or correspondence about the manuscript will be treated as confidential documents and will not be shared with anyone. Even though materials in the submitted manuscript are unpublished, they will not be used in research by the reviewer(s) without a consent from the author(s).

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI): Peer reviewers must not upload, input, or share any part of a submitted manuscript into any generative AI tool or platform. Manuscripts submitted for review are confidential documents, and sharing their content with an external AI system constitutes a breach of the reviewer's confidentiality obligations to JARS and to the submitting author(s). Peer review requires expert scholarly judgment that an AI system cannot exercise, and reviewers must not use AI tools to generate or substantially draft their review report. The review must reflect the reviewer's own independent reading, analysis, and professional assessment of the manuscript. Reviewers may use AI tools solely to check the grammar or clarity of their own written comments, provided no manuscript content is submitted to the tool. By submitting a completed review, the reviewer confirms that the review is their own independent scholarly assessment and that the manuscript has not been disclosed to any AI system or external party.

3. FOR AUTHOR(S)

Authorship: The first author of the submitted manuscript should be limited to the one, who made a major contribution to the manuscript; whilst, all those who made substantial contributions should be recorded as co-author(s). The author(s) should carefully provide list of all authors and their order before making submission. Contributions of all authors will be noted under the declarations statement at the end of the main text for the manuscript and before the references section.

Confidentiality: Information such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications that are provided as confidential service, must not be used without permission of the author of the work.

Reporting Standards: The author(s) should present an accurate account of the work along with an intended discussion of its significance. A manuscript should contain sufficient details, features, and references to allow others to replicate the work. False or inaccurate statements are unethical and unacceptable.

Originality and Acknowledgement of Sources: The author(s) must confirm that the manuscript is the original work and the manuscript has not received prior publication and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Proper acknowledgment of the work by others must always be given. If there is reproduction of any copyrighted figures, graphics, or photographic images, the author(s) must present approval or evidence that the material can be provided in the manuscript. Information or correspondence, or discussion with third parties that are obtained privately must not be used without explicit, written permission from the source.

Submission to Multiple Journals: Upon submission, the author(s) must acknowledge that the manuscript is their original work. The manuscript must not have been submitted to any other publications and/or is not currently under consideration or review by any other publications.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own (Oxford Dictionary, 2019).” JARS recognizes that plagiarism and/or self-plagiarism are not acceptable in scholarly publications. Direct quoting verbatims or materials from the original source can be an effective writing technique. However, these direct quotations need to be clearly different from the original texts by (1) using of indentation, (2) applying quotation marks, and (3) identifying the source. When plagiarism is detected in a submitted manuscript, JARS has implemented the following actions.

If plagiarism is detected during the initial stages of submission, editors will address the issue with the author(s) directly. If percentage of similarities is between 25% and 40%, the manuscript will be returned to the author(s) for clarification and appropriate revision before moving forward with peer review. If percentage of similarities is higher than 40%, the manuscript shall be rejected immediately.

If the plagiarism is identified after publication, the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor-in-Chief will form a plagiarism committee selected from the editorial board in order to conduct a preliminary investigation. If the committee confirms that plagiarism has occurred, following actions will be pursued. Firstly, if percentage of plagiarism is between 25% and 40%, the author(s) will be requested to revise the texts and properly cite the original manuscript. An updated online publication of the manuscript will be released accordingly. On the other hand, if the portion of plagiarism is larger than 40%, the author(s) will be informed that the article will be retracted from the journal and public record officially. And the journal that published the original or primary article will be notified afterward. It is understood that all author(s) are responsible for the content of their submitted manuscript as they all sign the JARS copyright form. If a penalty is imposed for plagiarism, all authors will be subject to the same penalty.

Self-plagiarism: JARS acknowledges that some cases of self-plagiarism may arise. When the self-plagiarism is identified, our editorial board will take actions, which are in line with ones for the plagiarism. An expansion of the conference proceedings can submit to JARS; however, title, texts and materials of the submitted manuscript must be different from the published proceedings. If materials of the manuscript are the same with the published materials, they need to be properly cited.

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-Assisted Technologies: Authors may use generative AI tools solely to improve the readability, grammar, spelling, and clarity of author-written text. The use of AI tools to generate the substantive content of a manuscript, including the introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, or conclusion, is not permitted. AI tools must not be used to generate, fabricate, or complete reference entries; AI-generated references that do not correspond to real and verifiable sources are considered hallucinative references and may result in rejection or retraction. An AI tool may not be listed as an author or co-author of a manuscript.

If any AI tool has been used in the preparation of a manuscript, the author(s) must include an AI Use Statement in the Required Disclosure Statements section of the manuscript. The statement must identify the specific purpose for which the tool was used and confirm that the author(s) reviewed and edited all AI-assisted content. An example statement is: "During the preparation of this manuscript, [NAME OF TOOL] was used to [REASON]. After using this tool, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication." The author(s) bear full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of all content published in JARS, irrespective of whether AI tools were used in its preparation.

Use of Generative AI for Visual Content: Authors who use generative AI tools to produce or modify figures, diagrams, maps, renderings, or other visual content must disclose this in the AI Use Statement. AI-generated visuals must not misrepresent real conditions, sites, data, or findings. 

Generative AI may be used to produce illustrative or conceptual visuals, such as diagrams, design concepts, or schematic representations, provided the AI-generated nature of the image is clearly indicated in the figure caption.

Generative AI must not be used to alter, enhance, or fabricate imagery presented as documentary evidence of real-world conditions, fieldwork, or data, including photographs, site surveys, maps, or spatial analysis outputs. Such manipulation constitutes falsification and may result in rejection or retraction.

All visual content, whether AI-generated or not, must comply with copyright requirements. Authors are responsible for ensuring that AI-generated visuals do not reproduce protected works and that the terms of service of the tool used permit academic publication of outputs.

 

CORRECTION AND RETRACTION OF PUBLISHED ARTICLES

JARS is committed to maintaining an accurate and transparent scholarly record. Once an article has been formally published on the journal website, the original article file may not be altered, removed, or replaced under any circumstances. Corrections and retractions are handled exclusively through formal notices that are linked to the original article in the journal's metadata.

Correction

A correction is published when an error in a published article does not affect the interpretation, discussion, or conclusions of the original work. JARS distinguishes between an Erratum (an error arising from the journal's editorial or production process) and a Corrigendum (an error originating with the author). Both are submitted as a new, independent article through the ThaiJo Online Submission system, published in the current issue, and linked bidirectionally to the original article on the journal website. Corrections do not apply to changes in the authorship list. Where an error tends to affect the interpretation of the article's findings, the correction notice must be re-reviewed by the same peer reviewers before publication. A correction is not an appropriate mechanism for addressing research ethics or publication ethics violations; such matters are handled exclusively through retraction.

Retraction

A retraction is the formal withdrawal of a published article on grounds that its findings are unreliable or that its publication violated research or publication ethics. The purpose of retraction is to protect the integrity of the scholarly record, not to punish the author(s). The original article remains accessible on the journal website but is permanently marked as retracted. Retraction may be warranted in the following cases: major errors, data irregularities, fraud, or fictitious authorship that compromise the reliability of the findings; plagiarism; falsification or fabrication of data or research records; duplicate publication without proper attribution; use of materials or data without authorization; breach of grant or contractual obligations; use of hallucinative references (citations to non-existent or unverifiable sources); or other violations inconsistent with TCI ethics and publication standards. The authority to retract rests with the Editorial Board. No article will be retracted without the author(s) having had a reasonable opportunity to respond to the evidence. The retraction notice must identify the article in full, state the reason(s) for retraction, indicate who initiated the retraction, and be linked to the original article in the journal's metadata.

 

Reference

: Elsevier (2019). Elsevier: Publishing Ethics. Retrieved July 11, 2019, from

https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/publishing-ethics

: Oxford Dictionaries (2019). Dictionary. Retrieved June 25, 2019, from

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition.