Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Southeast Asian Social Science Review (SEASSR) is a respected peer-reviewed journal in the field of social sciences and humanities that meticulously upholds the highest ethical standards for all parties involved in the publication process.  The relevant parties from the contributor or author to the journal’s editor, the peer reviewer, and the publisher are committed to ensuring a fair, unbiased, and rigorous review process for all submissions. To ensure the integrity of the publication process, SEASSR follows a strict code of ethics, both internally and externally. These ethics are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and Conduct for Journal Publishers, which provides a comprehensive guiding framework for ethical publishing practices.

SEASSR takes all instances of unethical behaviour very seriously and will handle them in accordance with COPE’s rules. The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining transparency and promoting responsible conduct in academic publishing. For more information on SEASSR’s publishing ethics and guidelines, please refer to the: Core Practices under COPE. Dedicated to fostering a culture of integrity and excellence in academic publishing and promoting excellence in scholarship in the social sciences and humanities, SEASSR is steadfast in upholding ethical publishing standards and practices.

Editor’s Responsibilities

Accountability and Plagiarism: The SEASSR editors under the guidance of the Chief Editor are accountable for determining which papers should and can be published in the journal.  They  are guided by the Editorial Board’s principles and bound by legal restrictions in effect at the time when addressing libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. All submissions are routinely checked for plagiarism. We maintain around 20% acceptance rate in terms of similarities index when checked with anti-plagiariasm tools.

Fair play: The SEASSR editor(s) are blind to the authors’ colour, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic background, citizenship, or political ideology. They will evaluate articles for their intellectual value in a fair and objective manner in accordance with the scope and terms of reference of the journal.

Confidentiality: The SEASSR editors and any editorial staff must uphold confidentiality. They must not reveal any information about a submitted manuscript to anybody other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial consultants, and, if necessary, the publisher. Conflict of interest and disclosure: The SEASSR editors are guided by the principle of confidentiality and disclosure of any conflict of interest. Confidential information or ideas received via peer review must be kept private and not exploited for personal gain. They will remind the appointed reviewers that they should not evaluate articles in which they have competing, collaborating, or other interests or links with any of the authors, corporations, or institutions associated with the publications. Should there be any conflict of interest, it should be disclosed.

Reviewer’s Responsibilities

Reviewers must solely consider the manuscripts under review for their intellectual substance and contribution to the corpus of knowledge and in accordance with the scope and terms of reference of SEASSR. Reviewers must keep the manuscript-related material strictly confidential. It is the responsibility of the reviewer(s) to bring to the Chief Editor’s attention any information or assessment that might lead to the rejection (qualified or otherwise) of a manuscript.

Review Process

The SEASSR follows a blind review process. Each manuscript is initially examined by the editor, and if deemed appropriate for publication, it is then forwarded to potential reviewer(s) for their considered peer review. The Editorial Board and at least one independent referee will assess the manuscript. However, the final decision to publish or reject is the prerogative of the Board who is guided by the reviewers’ assessment and advice. Papers submitted by members of the journal’s Editorial Board are reviewed in the same manner. There are four types of responses to any manuscript submission: (a) total rejection; (b) qualified rejection; (c) acceptance with revision; and (d) acceptance without revision. Qualified rejection in practice means the author can resubmit the manuscript after having revised it based on comments by the reviewer and Editorial Board, but it has to be reviewed again.

Author’s Responsibilities

Reporting Guidelines: Authors must uphold high publishing standards. They must communicate their findings systematically and honestly, and without fabrication, falsification, or improper data modification. They should clarify their procedures clearly and unambiguously so that others can corroborate their findings.

Originality, plagiarism and acknowledgement of sources: The SEASSR requires originality in publication. Authors must ensure that their submitted material is original, not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere. False or deliberately incorrect assertions are unethical and inappropriate. If an author has used the work and/or words of others, make sure that the original is properly referenced or cited, and adequately represents the original author’s contributions to the submitted work.

Data Access and Retention: Under special circumstances, an author may be required to supply raw data in conjunction with an article for editorial review. The author should be willing to keep such data for a reasonable period after publication.

Ethics: Authors should only submit articles on work that has been done ethically and with  responsibility, in accordance with all applicable regulations.

Conflicts of interest and disclosure: The author must be guided by the principle of disclosure of any conflict of interest. Any financial or any other substantial conflict of interest that might affect the results or interpretation of the author’s paper should be properly disclosed when submitting the manuscript. All sources of funding for the project should be mentioned.

Authorship of the Paper: SEASSR upholds the principle of excellence in social science scholarship. This applies particularly to the question of authorship. In keeping with the nature of the social sciences and humanities, SEASSR encourages single authorship but acknowledges joint authorship. However, it should be restricted to not more than three authors per manuscript. SEASSR does not allow the free-rider syndrome. If any additional author(s) is deemed necessary, the corresponding author must request in writing for the Editorial Board’s permission, by giving proper justifications, but the Board’s decision is final.

Authors are individuals who have made a major contribution to the idea, design, implementation, analysis or interpretation communicated in the manuscript. For joint authorship, co-authors must co-write the paper. Others who may have contributed in some other way to the manuscript should be properly acknowledged.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication: Any author who is submitting an article to SEASSR should not submit the same article detailing the same study to other journals at the same time. Concurrent multiple submissions are unethical. The author should make this transparent when submitting the paper. Fundamental error in published works: If and whenever the author discovers a serious error or inaccuracy in his or her own published work, it is the author’s responsibility to inform the journal editor or publisher as soon as possible. In the interest of honesty and transparency, the author must work with the editor/publisher to withdraw the paper or make the correction public with due apologies.

Copyright Policy

SEASSR is not an open-access journal. All articles are licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). This licence allows for free use, distribution, and replication as long as the authors, citation information, and the publisher are explicitly indicated. It should be made clear that the article is accessible under a Creative Commons Attribution licence when reusing or distributing it.

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