Journal Statements

JOTS is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record. Authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher are expected to act in accordance with recognised standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, accountability, and editorial independence.

Authors must submit original work, ensure that all listed authors meet appropriate authorship criteria, acknowledge contributors who do not meet authorship criteria, disclose funding and competing interests, obtain any required ethics approval or participant consent, and ensure that data, quotations, images, tables, and third-party materials are used lawfully and accurately.

Editors are responsible for fair and timely editorial handling, selecting appropriate reviewers, managing conflicts of interest, protecting the confidentiality of submissions, and making decisions based on scholarly merit rather than personal, institutional, political, financial, or commercial considerations.

Reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential documents. They should provide objective, constructive, and evidence-based comments; declare any conflicts of interest; avoid using unpublished material for personal advantage; and not attempt to identify authors in a double-anonymous review process.

The publisher supports the journal by maintaining public records, platform operations, preservation arrangements, and editorial independence. Publisher or platform support does not determine editorial acceptance, rejection, correction, or retraction decisions.

JOTS may investigate concerns relating to plagiarism, duplicate publication, redundant publication, data fabrication or falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, authorship disputes, peer-review manipulation, unethical research practice, or other forms of publication misconduct.

Where concerns arise before publication, JOTS may request clarification, supporting documentation, revision, ethics approval evidence, raw data, or institutional confirmation. Depending on the evidence and seriousness of the matter, a manuscript may be corrected, returned for revision, rejected, or withdrawn from consideration.

Where concerns arise after publication, JOTS may investigate and, where appropriate, publish a correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other notice linked to the article record. Retraction notices will identify the article concerned and explain the reason for retraction while preserving the scholarly record.

Ethics concerns, complaints, or suspected malpractice may be sent to editor@otsjournal.org.

Authors must disclose financial, personal, institutional, political, academic, advisory, employment, funding, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the work.

Reviewers must decline review or alert editors when they have recent collaboration, institutional proximity, personal relationships, financial interests, direct competition, prior access to the work, or other conflicts. Editors and guest editors must recuse themselves from conflicted manuscripts.

Editorial board members and funders do not receive privileged publication treatment.

JOTS corrects the scholarly record when material errors, authorship changes, metadata errors, ethical concerns, or integrity issues are confirmed after publication.

Retractions may be issued for unreliable findings, major error, fabrication, plagiarism, duplicate publication, unethical research, compromised peer review, or serious undisclosed conflicts. Retraction notices should identify the article, state the reason, and remain publicly accessible.

Expressions of concern may be used while an investigation is unresolved but readers need notice of a serious concern. Removals are reserved for exceptional legal, privacy, safety, or rights reasons.

Research involving interviews, surveys, participant observation, online communities, communities and destinations, workers, minors, vulnerable groups, sensitive locations, or identifiable people must be conducted with appropriate consent, confidentiality, and ethical oversight.

Authors should state whether ethics approval was obtained, waived, or not required, and should name the approving body when applicable.

Data handling must comply with applicable privacy and data-protection law, including GDPR where relevant.

JOTS does not charge submission charges, article processing charges, author fees, page charges, colour charges, editorial processing charges, publication fees, or post-publication access fees. No waiver request is required because no author-facing publication fee is applied.

JOTS does not request payment at submission, acceptance, publication, or post-publication. If JOTS changes its fee policy in the future, the change will be stated publicly before implementation and will not be applied retrospectively to manuscripts already under consideration.

JOTS is supported by OTS Academy as publisher and Scholardemia as platform/operator. JOTS does not currently accept advertising; if advertising, sponsorship, supplements, reprints, or other revenue sources are adopted, this policy must be updated before implementation.

The absence or presence of any payment, sponsorship, institutional relationship, or funding support has no influence on editorial assessment, peer review, acceptance, rejection, correction, or retraction decisions.

Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, relevance to the journal aims and scope, methodological quality, ethical compliance, originality, clarity, and contribution to the field.

Advertising, sponsorship, platform support, institutional relationships, and revenue sources must be kept separate from editorial decision making.