• Author, editor, reviewer, and publisher responsibilities
• Publication malpractice may be investigated before or after publication
• Corrections, retractions, removals, replacements, and expressions of concern are available where appropriate

Author responsibilities

• Authors must submit original work and must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time.
• Authors must ensure that all listed authors made a substantial scholarly contribution, approved the submitted and accepted versions, and accept responsibility for their contribution.
• Authors should acknowledge contributors who do not meet authorship criteria and disclose material writing, editing, translation, statistical, data, or technical assistance.
• Authors must disclose funding, competing interests, ethics approval, consent, data availability, and permissions where applicable.

Editor, reviewer, and publisher responsibilities

• Editors are responsible for fair handling, reviewer selection, conflict management, confidentiality, and decisions based on scholarly merit rather than personal, institutional, political, financial, or commercial considerations.
• Reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential, provide objective comments, declare conflicts, avoid using unpublished material, and not attempt to identify concealed authors where the review model conceals identities.
• The publisher supports the journal record, policy visibility, platform operation, metadata, and continuity while respecting editorial independence.

Malpractice and investigations

otstest1 may investigate plagiarism, duplicate publication, redundant publication, data fabrication or falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, authorship disputes, peer-review manipulation, unethical research practice, or other publication misconduct.

Before publication, the journal may request clarification, documentation, ethics approval evidence, raw data, institutional confirmation, revision, rejection, or withdrawal from consideration.

After publication, the journal may publish a correction, expression of concern, retraction, removal notice, replacement notice, or other record-linked notice where appropriate.

Research ethics and complaints

• Research involving people, communities, organisations, workers, minors, vulnerable groups, sensitive locations, or identifiable data must use appropriate consent, confidentiality, and ethical oversight.
• Data handling must respect privacy, consent, confidentiality, GDPR where relevant, intellectual property, safety, and community agreements.
• Complaints, appeals, or ethics concerns may be sent to iwickens@gmail.com.