Ethics Policy and Principles of Transparency

Research integrity, transparency and ethics

The publication of a paper in a peer-reviewed journal, such as the JTSW, is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is also a direct reflection of the quality of work of the authors and the institutions that support them.

Publication ethics

The JTSW is committed to meet and preserve standards of ethical behavior at all stages of the publication process. We guide our action based on the following policy of ethics:

 

  1. All submitted papers to the JTSW must be original and free of unethical practices.
  2. Unethical practices include plagiarism, data falsification, data fabrication, citation manipulation, paper slicing, paper written by someone else other than the authors, inappropriate use of artificial intelligence, and other practices that violate the generally accepted research ethics principles. Before the review process begins, all submitted articles are screened using Turnitin. Manuscripts showing more than 20% similarity with previously published sources, or more than 20% of content generated by AI, will be desk-rejected.
  3. Concerns about unethical practices can be expressed by the Editor-in-Chief, Guest-Editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, authors, readers and other people who have encountered such practices.
  4. The Editor-in-chief is responsible for inspecting all alleged unethical practices.
  5. In case of an alleged unethical practice, the Editor-in-chief informs the authors of the paper, provides the necessary evidence and invites the authors to provide explanation.
  6. All submissions to the JTSW are checked for presence of unethical practices with a software of plagiarism detection before being sent to the reviewers.
  7. If an unethical practice is identified during the review process, the review process is stopped until the case is clarified. The review process continues if the alleged unethical practice is not proved.
  8. If an alleged unethical practice is corroborated for a paper that has not been yet sent for review, is currently under review or has been accepted but not published yet, the paper is rejected.
  9. If an alleged unethical practice is substantiated for a paper that has already been published, the paper is retracted and a retraction notice is published in the next available volume of the journal. For completeness of the bibliographic records, the text of the retracted paper remains online, but with a watermark “Retracted”.
  10. In case of a second substantiated unethical practice, the authors will be banned from submitting a paper to the JTSW for a period of five years.

 

Principles of Transparency

JTSW adopts the following principles of transparency and publishing best practices:

  1. Website: The journal’s website, including the text that it contains, clearly demonstrates that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards. It does not contain information that might mislead readers or authors, including any attempt to mimic another journal/publisher’s site. An ‘Aims & Scope’ statement is included on the JTSW website and the readership is clearly defined. There is a clear statement on what this journal will consider for publication including authorship criteria (e.g., not considering multiple submissions, redundant publications). The journal ISSN is clearly displayed (both on the website as well as on each individual article published).
  2. Name of journal: Journal of Tourism, Sustainability & Well-being is a unique name and not one that might be easily confused with another journal or that might mislead potential authors and readers about JTSW’s origin or association with other journals. 
  3. Peer review policy and process: In the content of JTSW is clearly marked that this is a peer reviewed journal. Peer review process, as well as all policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, are clearly described on this journal’s website, including the method of peer review used. JTSW does not guarantee manuscript acceptance or very short peer review times.
  4. Ownership and management: Information about the ownership and management of JTSW is clearly indicated on the journal’s website; ensuring that there is no misleading information about the nature of the journal’s owner.
  5. Governing body: JTSW has an editorial board whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editorial board are provided on the journal’s website.
  6. Editorial team/contact information: JTSW provides the full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors on the journal website as well as contact information for the editorial office, including a full address.
  7. Copyright and Licensing: The policy for copyright is clearly stated in the author guidelines and the copyright holder is named on all published articles. Likewise, licensing information is clearly described in guidelines on the JTSW website, and licensing terms are indicated on all published articles, both HTML and PDFs. Authors are allowed to publish under a Creative Commons  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence and all specific license requirements are clearly noted. Policies on posting of final accepted versions or published articles on third party repositories are clearly stated.
  8. Author fees: JTSW does not charge authors fees for submitting, processing, or publishing papers. 
  9. Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct: JTSW Editors are committed to take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, unethical use of artificial intelligence, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. In no case shall JTSW or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that JTSW’s publisher or Editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in this journal, the publisher or Editor are committed to follow these 16 principles in dealing with allegations.
  10. Publication Ethics: JTSW has detailed policies on publishing ethics. These are clearly visible on the website, and refer to: i) Journal policies on authorship and contributorship; ii) How the journal will handle complaints and appeals; iii) Journal policies on conflicts of interest / competing interests; iv) Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility; v) Journal’s policy on ethical oversight; vi) Journal’s policy on intellectual property; and vii) Journal’s options for post-publication discussions and corrections.
  11. Publishing schedule: The periodicity at which JTSW publishes is clearly indicated.
  12. Access: The way in which the journal and individual articles are available to readers, Open Access and free of any fees, is clearly stated.
  13. Archiving: JTSW has adopted a plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal content, in the event the journal is no longer published; this is clearly indicated in the journal’s Digital Archiving Policy & Inclusion in Permanent Repositories.
  14. Revenue sources: The JTSW business model and revenue sources are clearly stated on the journal’s website. The journal’s expenses are fully covered by the publisher - Research Centre of Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being (CinTurs), Universidade do Algarve, Portugal. CinTurs is funded by National Funds provided by the Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal.
  15. Advertising: JTSW states clearly its advertising policy; JTSW do not publish any advertising material.
  16. Direct marketing: Any direct marketing activities, including solicitation of manuscripts that are conducted on behalf of JTSW, are appropriate, well targeted, and unobtrusive. Information provided about the publisher and the journal is truthful and not misleading for readers or authors.

Data Storage and Documentation

The JTSW encourages data sharing wherever possible, unless this is prevented by ethical, privacy, or confidentiality matters. The authors publishing in the journal are therefore encouraged to make their data, scripts, and other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper available via a publicly available data repository; however, this is not mandatory. If the study includes original data, at least one author must confirm that he or she had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. JTSW is also at RCAAP repository.

Conflict of Interest

The JTSW requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their paper. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission all pertinent commercial and other relationships.

Funding

Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgements section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation.

Authorship

The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the paper and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:

  1. Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
  2. Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
  3. Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
  4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgements section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the paper all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the paper.

Use of participant images or case details

Images and information from individual participants will only be published where the authors have obtained the individual's free prior informed consent. Authors do not need to provide a copy of the consent form to the publisher of the journal; however, in signing the author license to publish, authors are required to confirm that consent has been obtained. In addition, it is recommended to the authors that this information be included in a statement to this effect within their paper.

Complaints and Appeals process

Before submitting a manuscript, authors must consider the guidelines and policies regarding submission, processing and editorial norms for publishing in JTSW.

Once submitted a manuscript, the authors may ask for a clarification or complaint if they identify any misbehavior in any applicable policies and ethical issues. Authors can make their complaints by sending a letter to: cinturs@ualg.pt.

Evidence of misconduct must be provided by the complainer.

All complaints regarding discrepancies in the work process are verified according to the journal’s Ethics Policy.

Once a complaint is received, an investigation process is initiated according to the instructions of the Editor-In-Chief. After the investigation process is completed, a report will be sent to the concerned scholar through his/her email within ten working days.

After receiving the report, the complainer have ten working days to appeal, sending an e-mail to cinturs@ualg.pt, including a justification and supported arguments against the decision. After, a final decision will be provided to the complainer.