Duties of Editors

Complaints and Appeals

Appeals to editor decisions need to provide strong evidence of new data or information in response to the reviewers’ and/or editor’s comments.  The journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org/ guidelines on appeals to editor decisions and complaints about editorial management of the peer review process. Editors will consider one appeal per article and all decisions are final. Review and decisions on new submissions will take priority over appeals. For more information about the appeals process, please contact the editor.  For complaints about the editorial management, please contact the editor and the managing editor. 

Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Data sharing and reproducibility

Data is available upon reasonable request from the authors as long as does not violate protection of human subjects or other valid privacy concerns. 

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Editors and editorial board members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.

Ethical Oversight

The Editorial Board ensures compliant with COPE’s https://publicationethics.org/ guidelines on ethical oversight. Ethical oversight includes, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices.

Fair play and editorial independence

Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and its relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Decisions to edit and publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal itself. The editors have full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content.

Misconduct

Editors will take reasonable steps to identify and prevent publication of papers where research misconduct have occurred. All forms of misconduct are taken seriously and will result in all necessary action in accordance with COPE https://publicationethics.org/ guidelines. Examples of misconduct include (but are not limited to) affiliation misrepresentation, breaches in copyright/use of third-party material without appropriate permissions, citation manipulation, duplicate submission/publication, avoiding international standards of research ethics, image or data manipulation/fabrication, peer review manipulation, plagiarism, text-recycling/self-plagiarism, undisclosed competing interests and/or unethical research.

Post publication discussion and corrections

After an article has been published it may be necessary to make a change to the Version of Record. This will be done after careful consideration by the Editor in accordance with guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Any necessary changes will be accompanied with a post-publication notice which will be permanently linked to the original article, such as a Correction notice, an Expression of Concern, a Retraction or in rare circumstances a Removal. These changes are permanent and ensure the integrity of the scholarly record.

Publication decisions

The editors ensure that all manuscripts submitted as research articles and being considered for publication undergo peer-review by at least two reviewers who are expert in the field. The editors are responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Duties of Reviewers

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that is an observation, derivation or argument that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the [co-executive directors, Editors-in-Chief, etc.] (who would only do so under exceptional and specific circumstances). This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists editors in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with authors, may assist authors in improving their manuscripts. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of scholarly endeavor.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Any reviewer who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted. 

Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Promptness 

Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.

Duties of Authors

Acknowledgement of sources

Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and they should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.

Authorship and Contributorship

Only persons who meet the following authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript as they must be able to take public responsibility for the content: (i) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; and (ii) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication. All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as technical help, writing and editing assistance, general support) should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named has been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate coauthors are included in the author list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication. It is the collective responsibility of all the individuals who have conducted the work to determine who should be listed as authors, and the order in which authors should be listed.

Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests

All authors must declare any competing interests relevant to the article. A competing interest can occur when an author has a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations or with the people, which could influence the research or interpretation of the results. Authors should also declare any associations which can be perceived by others as a competing interest.

Data sharing and reproducibility

Data is available upon reasonable request from the authors as long as does not violate protection of human subjects or other valid privacy concerns. 

Fundamental errors in published works

When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper.

Hazards and human or animal subjects

If the work involves the use of animals or human participants, the authors should ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them; the manuscript should contain a statement to this effect. Authors should also include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed. 

Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication

Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Articles previously published in L2 Journal may be published elsewhere, as long as the author(s) acknowledge(s) that it was previously published in L2 Journal, providing volume, issue, and page numbers.

Originality and plagiarism

Authors should ensure that they have written and that they submit only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited. Plagiarism takes many forms, from "passing off" another's paper as the author's own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another's paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. 

Peer review

Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests for raw data, clarifications, and other questions. In the case of a first decision of "revisions necessary," authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the deadline given.

Duties of the Publisher

Handling of unethical publishing behavior

In cases where alleged or proven scholarly misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism is brought to the attention of eScholarship, eScholarship staff will consult with the editor. All forms of misconduct are taken seriously and will result in all necessary action in accordance with COPE https://publicationethics.org/ guidelines. Examples of misconduct include (but are not limited to) affiliation misrepresentation, breaches in copyright/use of third-party material without appropriate permissions, citation manipulation, duplicate submission/publication, avoiding international standards of research ethics, image or data manipulation/fabrication, peer review manipulation, plagiarism, text-recycling/self-plagiarism, undisclosed competing interests and/or unethical research.

Intellectual property

eScholarship is committed to open access publishing, ensuring global access to research publications and emphasizing the rights of authors to retain copyright in their work and to license that work in ways that encourage sharing and reuse.

Access to and preservation of journal content

L2 Journal is an open access journal, which means it is made freely available to readers across the world. eScholarship will preserve and host the journal without charge to authors, editors, or readers, even if the partnership with the journal is dissolved and/or the journal ceases to publish. All content contributed to eScholarship is automatically submitted to California Digital Library’s Merritt service for long-term preservation and curation.