ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES AND POLICIES

Editor Responsibilities
1. RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORS
1.1. General Duties and Responsibilities of Editors
1. Strive to meet the needs of readers and writers.
2. Strive to continuously improve their journals.
3. Conduct the process in a favorable manner to ensure the quality of the journal they publish.
4. Support freedom of expression.
5. Protect the integrity of the academic record (index).
6. Business needs should not compromise intellectual and ethical standards.
7. Always be ready to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when necessary.
1.2. Relations with Readers
1. Readers should be informed about who funds research or other academic work and whether funders have any role in the research and publication, and if so, what that role is.
1.3. Relations with Authors
1. The editors' decision to accept or reject a manuscript for publication should be based on the importance, originality, and clarity of the manuscript and its relevance to the validity of the work and the journal's scope of work.
2. Editors should not reverse their decision to accept submissions unless serious problems with the submission are identified.
3. New editors should not overturn the previous editor's decision to publish a submission unless serious problems are identified.
4. A description of the peer review process should be published, and editors should verify any deviation from this description.
5. Journals should have an established process for authors to appeal editorial decisions.
6. Editors should publish a guide for authors that includes everything that is expected of them. These guidelines should be regularly updated and linked to the rules in the guidelines.
7. Editors should provide guidance on who should be listed as a submitter, following the criteria for authorship and standards in the relevant field.
1.4. Relations with Editors
1. Editors should treat all expectations of reviewers with confidentiality and provide an overarching guide on how to review submitted manuscripts.
2. Editors should consider whether reviewers have potential competing interests before agreeing to review a manuscript.
3. Editors should have a system in place to guarantee the anonymity of the identity of the review panel unless the editors declare to reviewers and authors that they are using an open review system.
1.5. Relations with Editorial Board Members
1. Editors should provide new editorial board members with guidelines on everything that is expected of them and keep existing members informed about new policies and developments.
1.6. Relationships with Journal Owners and Publishers
1. Editors' relationships with publishers and authors are often complex, but should be based firmly on the principle of editorial independence.

2. The editor should decide, without interference from the journal owner or publisher, which articles to publish based on the quality of the article and its suitability for the journal.

3. Editors should have a written contract that specifies their relationship with the owner and/or publisher of the journal.
1.7. Editorial and Peer Review Process
1. Editors should strive to ensure that peer review in their journal is fair, impartial and timely.

2. Editors should have systems in place to ensure that materials submitted to their journals remain confidential while being reviewed.

3. Editors should take reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognizing that departments within the journal have different goals and standards.
1.8. Protecting Individual Data
1. Editors must comply with privacy laws in their jurisdictions. However, regardless of local laws, they must always protect the confidentiality of individual information obtained during research or professional interactions (e.g. between doctors and patients). Therefore, it is always necessary to obtain written informed consent for publication from people who may recognize themselves or who may be recognized by others (e.g. recognizable from case reports or photographs).
1.9. Promoting Ethical Research (e.g. Research Involving Humans or Animals)
1. Editors should endeavor to ensure that the research they publish is conducted according to relevant internationally recognized guidelines (e.g. the Declaration of Helsinki8 for clinical research, AERA and BERA guidelines for educational research).
2. Editors should ensure that all research is approved by an appropriate existing body (e.g. research ethics committee, institutional review board). However, editors should recognize that this approval does not guarantee that the research is ethical.
1.10. Combating Possible Inappropriate Behavior
1. Editors have a duty to act if they suspect inappropriate behavior or if they receive an allegation of inappropriate behavior. This duty applies to both published and unpublished articles.
2. Editors should not reject articles outright because of growing suspicions about possible inappropriate behavior. They are ethically obliged to follow up on alleged cases.
3. Editors should first seek answers about suspected misconduct. If they are not satisfied with the answer, they should contact the relevant staff, institutes or appropriate organizations (perhaps a regulatory agency or national research integrity organization) and ask them to investigate the matter.
4. Editors should make every effort to ensure that an appropriate investigation of the alleged misconduct is conducted; if this fails, editors should take all necessary steps to find a solution to the problem. This is a laborious but important task.
1.11. Ensuring the Integrity of the Academic Record
1. Errors, false or misleading statements must be corrected immediately in order of importance.
1.12. Intellectual Property
1. Editors should be alert to intellectual property issues and work with their publishers to address potential violations of intellectual property laws and conventions.
1.13. Encouraging Discussion
1. Editors should be courageous and willing to publish rational criticism in their journals.
2. Authors of criticized material should be given the opportunity to respond
3. Studies reporting negative results should not be excluded.
1.14. Commercial Considerations
Journals should have policies and systems in place to ensure that commercial concerns do not influence editorial decisions (for example, advertising departments should operate independently of editorial departments).
Reprints should be printed in the same way as they appear in the journal. If a correction is required, this should be clearly indicated.
1.15. Conflicts of Interest
1. Editors should have systems in place to manage their own conflicts of interest, as well as those of their staff, authors, reviewers and editorial teams.
2. Journals should have a submission process that ensures that submissions from editors, staff or editorial board members are treated as impartial reviews.

Referee Responsibilities
1. REFEREE RESPONSIBILITIES
The referee responsibilities of the International Journal of Uyghur Studies are as follows.
1.1. Conflicting interests
1. Reviewers must declare all potential competing or conflicting interests.
2. You should not agree to review manuscripts if the referee currently works at the same institution as any of the authors, or has recently (e.g. within the last 3 years) been an advisor or close collaborator or co-grantee of the authors.
3. The referee should not agree to review a manuscript that is not intended for submission, but has been submitted for comment only. In addition, the referee should not agree to review manuscripts on a very similar topic that he/she is in the process of writing or is under review in another journal.
1.2. Timeliness
If a reviewer is unable to complete a review, he or she should notify the reviewer within a reasonable time frame. If the referee does not feel competent to evaluate the manuscript submitted for review, and if he/she feels that he/she cannot complete a review within the proposed or mutually agreed timeframe, he/she should not accept the review.
The reviewer should notify the journal immediately if his or her circumstances change, or if he or she is unable to honor the agreement, or if for other reasons he or she requires more time for review.
If the referee is unable to review for some reason, it is helpful if they make suggestions for alternative referees, based purely on their expertise and without the influence of their personal opinion and without the intention that the manuscript will receive a particular result (positive or negative).
1.3. First Steps
The referee should read the manuscript thoroughly, including additional data files and supplementary materials (e.g., review instructions, required ethics and policy statements), and then contact the journal to request them if he/she is unsure of clarity or if there are missing items he/she needs.
The reviewer should not contact the authors directly without the journal's permission. It is important that the reviewer understands the scope of the review before starting the review.
1.4. Confidentiality
The referee must respect the confidentiality of the review process, and the referee must refrain from using information obtained in the process of reviewing the manuscript for his/her own or others' benefit or to the disadvantage or discredit of others.

The referee should not involve anyone else (including someone in his/her early research years as a consultant) in the review process without informing the journal. The names of individuals who assisted the referee in reviewing the manuscript should be recorded and associated with the journal and should be recognized for their efforts.
1.5. Bias and Competing Interests
The referee must remain impartial to ideas about the origins of an article or commercial considerations, regardless of nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors.
If the referee becomes aware of competing interests that may interfere with providing a fair and impartial review, they should inform the journal and seek advice.
While awaiting a response, the reviewer should refrain from looking at the article and related material in case the request for review is withdrawn. Similarly, he/she should notify the journal immediately if he/she realizes that he/she does not have the necessary expertise to assess the relevant aspects of an article so as not to delay the review process unduly.
In the case of double-blind review, the reviewer should inform the journal if he/she suspects the identity of the author and if he/she believes that this information could create any potential competition or conflict of interest.
1.6. Suspicion of Ethical Violations
The referee should inform the journal if he or she encounters any irregularities related to research and publication ethics.
For example, the referee may have concerns that inappropriate behavior occurred during both the research, writing and submission of the manuscript. As another example, they may notice that the manuscript is in simultaneous submission to another journal or that there is a significant similarity to a published article.
In the case of these or other ethical concerns, the reviewer should contact the editor directly and not attempt to investigate on their own. It is appropriate to cooperate safely with the journal and not to investigate personally unless the journal requests further information or advice.
1.7. Transfer of Peer Reviews Between Journals
Publishers may have editorial policies regarding the transfer of peer reviews to other journals in the publisher's portfolio (sometimes referred to as portable or cascading peer review).

Reviewers may be asked to give permission for their reviews to be transferred (if in accordance with journal policy).

If a manuscript is rejected by one journal and submitted to another journal and the referee is asked to review the same manuscript, the referee should re-evaluate, recognizing that the two submissions may be different and the journal may have different evaluation criteria and acceptance requirements.
For the sake of transparency and efficiency, it may be appropriate for the referee to use his/her original review (with permission from the original journal) for the new journal, explaining to the journal that "he/she has already reviewed the manuscript and has not made any changes".
1.8. Report Preparation
1.8.1 Format
The reviewer should follow the journals' instructions for writing and submitting reviews.
If a specific format or scoring is required, they should use the tools provided by the journal.
Reviewers are expected to be objective and constructive in their assessment, giving feedback to help the author improve their manuscript. For example, reviewers should be authentic in their criticism and provide supporting evidence with appropriate references to assist the editors in their evaluation and to verify general statements.
Reviewers are expected to be professional and refrain from hostile, inflammatory, insulting personal comments and making unfounded accusations.
1.8.2. Appropriate Feedback
The reviewer should keep in mind that it is the editor's responsibility to ensure that the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript are assessed fairly, honestly and impartially.
The journal should allow the referee to send confidential comments to the editor. These comments should also be in comments that can be read by the authors. The journal may also ask for a recommendation of acceptance/revision/rejection; any recommendation should be consistent with the comments given in the review.
If the reviewer did not review the entire manuscript, he/she should indicate which aspects of the manuscript he/she evaluated.
The referee should make sure that his/her comments and suggestions to the editor are consistent with the report to the authors; most feedback should be put in the report for the authors to see.
The reviewer's confidential comments to the editor should not contain slander or false accusations, and should be made with the knowledge that the authors will not be able to see the comments.
1.8.3. Language and Style
The referee should keep in mind that the article is the author's own article and therefore should not try to rewrite the article in their own preferred style. However, they may suggest changes that improve clarity.
In addition, when the reviewer becomes aware of language problems caused by authors writing in a language that is not their native language or in a language in which they are not proficient, they should express this in an appropriate and respectful manner through their feedback.
1.8.4. Suggestions for Further Work
The referee should prepare the referee report himself/herself, unless the referee has received permission from the journal to involve someone else in the review process. The referee should refrain from unfair negative comments and unfair criticism of any competitor in the manuscript.
The referee should refrain from including citation suggestions made by authors to increase the citation count or to increase the visibility of a colleague's (or an employee's) work; suggestions should be based on valid academic or technological reasons.
Reviewers should not prolong the review process by deliberately delaying the review report or requesting unnecessary additional information from the journal or the author.
1.9. Referee Evaluations
The referees will inform their final decision by filling out the referee form in the evaluation process.

Authors' Responsibilities
- Authors should take collective responsibility for their work and the content of their publications. Researchers should check their publications carefully at each stage to ensure that methods and findings are accurately reported. Authors should carefully check calculations, data presentations, manuscripts/presentations and findings.

- The reported research must be conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and follow all relevant legislation.
Integrity
- Researchers must present their results honestly and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. Research images should not be altered in a misleading manner.

- Authors should alert the editor immediately if they discover an error in any submitted, accepted or published work. Authors should cooperate with the editors to make corrections or retractions as necessary.

- Researchers should endeavor to describe their methods and present their findings clearly and concisely. Researchers should follow applicable reporting guidelines. Publications should provide sufficient detail to allow replication of experiments by other researchers.

- Authors should accurately represent the work of others in references and citations.

- Authors should not copy references from other publications unless they have read the cited work.
Originality
- Authors must comply with publication requirements that the submitted work is original and not published elsewhere in any language.

- Applicable copyright laws and conventions must be followed. Copyright material (e.g. tables, figures or comprehensive proposals) should only be reproduced with appropriate permission and approval.

- Both previous research and the authors' own work and publications should be properly acknowledged and referenced. The basic literature should be utilized as much as possible.

- Authors should inform the editors whether the findings have been previously published and whether they have been submitted for publication elsewhere.
Transparency
- All authors must agree and confirm to list accepted and published versions of the publication. Any changes to the author list must be approved by all authors, including those removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep the authors informed and involve them in important decisions about the publication.
Accountability and Responsibility
–All authors should read and familiarize themselves with the reported work and ensure that publications follow the principles in these guidelines. In most cases, authors are expected to take joint responsibility for the integrity of the research and its reporting. However, if authors only take responsibility for certain aspects of the research and their reporting, this should be stated in the publication.

- If errors or omissions are identified after publication, authors should work with the editor or publisher to correct their work promptly.

Responsibilities of the Editorial Board
Editors and members of the Editorial Board are required to comply with the international standards of the Editorial Board. The editor of the International Journal of Uyghur Studies and the members of the Editorial Board are expected to voluntarily comply with the international standards and ethical principles set by COPE.

The Editorial Board should keep confidential information about all submitted manuscripts.

The editorial board is responsible for making editorial decisions for submitted manuscripts.

The Editorial Board should endeavor to meet the needs of readers and authors.

The Editorial Board should strive to improve the quality of the International Journal of Uyghur Studies.

The Editorial Board should give utmost importance to scientific quality and originality.

The Editorial Board should always be ready to issue corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when necessary.
International Standards for Referees
After accepting the invitation to referee, referees are required to comply with the international standards for refereeing. Reviewers of the International Journal of Uyghur Studies are expected to voluntarily comply with the ethical principles set by COPE.

Reviewers should keep information about the manuscript confidential.

Reviewers should bring to the attention of the Editorial Board any information that may be grounds for refusing to publish the article.

Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts for scholarship.

Reviewers should objectively evaluate manuscripts solely on the basis of their originality, significance and relevance to the journal's field.
Reviewers must notify the International Journal of Uyghur Studies of any conflict of interest.
Plagiarism Policy
All manuscripts submitted to the International Journal of Uyghur Studies must undergo initial screening. All manuscripts are checked by the plagiarism detection software turnitin (turnitin.com).
Copyright
Copyright aims to protect the specific ways in which the article was written to describe in detail a scientific research. It is considered necessary to protect the rights of the author and to regulate permissions for reprinting the published research or its use for other purposes. Copyrights of works accepted for publication are deemed to be transferred to the International Journal of Uyghur Studies.
Open Access Policy
International Journal of Uyghur Studies is an open access journal, which means that all content is freely available to the user or his/her institution free of charge. Without prior permission from the publisher or author, users may read, download, copy, print, search, link to, or use the full text of articles for other lawful purposes.