SciOpen is an open access resource of scientific and technical content published by Tsinghua University Press and its publishing partners. SciOpen provides end-to-end services across manuscript submission, peer review, content hosting, analytics, identity management, and expert advice to ensure each journal’s development. By digitalizing the publishing process, SciOpen widens the reach, deepens the impact, and accelerates the exchange of ideas.

Open Access

Open Access (OA) offers a way to freely disseminate research findings, accessible to anyone. It has the potential to eliminate barriers that hinder the spread of knowledge, empowering scientists to innovate more rapidly and even address some of the world's most significant challenges.

Most journals on SciOpen are Gold Open Access, ensuring that works could be immediately accessible online and freely available to all societies post-acceptance. We serve authors and academic communities by publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed content under Creative Commons licenses. Our services are supported through Article Processing Charges (APCs), which help ensure the long-term stability of our journals.

Advantages of Open Access in SciOpen

Accessibility. All readers with internet access around the world could access the published contents with no need to register, subscribe or pay. Compared to subscribed content, the entire matters of OA contents published on SciOpen can be copied and distribute the material by anyone over the internet without any subscription or pay-per-view fees. This significantly enhances the academic exposure and dissemination of the papers.

Rapid Publication. SciOpen offers journals the option to publish the "Just Accepted" version immediately upon papers after acceptance via peer-review.

Visibility. Papers are immediately available online upon publication. Papers will be indexed and shared extensively through search engines and indexing databases, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Inspec, CAS, Ei Compendex, Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed Central.

Lower Publishing Costs. As a university press and not-for-profit publisher, our mission is to promote science communication and serve the community of scientific research. Our journals never charge submission fees. To cover the costs of handling and producing papers, a one-time payment of Article Processing Charges (APCs) may be required for accepted manuscripts. In some cases, authors could get some discount or waiver. APC information can be found on the homepages of the relevant journals.

Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Creative Commons (CC) licenses are among the most open licenses that facilitate Gold Open Access publishing. These licenses promote the maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials. The CC-BY license has become the default license for the majority of SciOpen journals, while a subset of journals utilize the CC BY-NC-ND license.

• CC-BY license: enables reusers to share, adapt, distribute, and reproduce the work in any medium or format, provided they give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
• CC BY-NC-ND license: enables reusers to copy and distribute the work in any medium or format in its unadapted form only, as long as they give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and do so only for non-commercial purposes.

The Way to Pay for Open Access

Even though there are costs associated with every stage of the publication process, authors are required to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs) only after their papers have been accepted following a rigorous peer-review. More information about the specific APC can be found on the journal's homepage, or you may contact the editorial office for further details.

Steps to Publish Your Work Open Access

Search for Open Access (OA) journals and adhere to their submission and publication guidelines:

• Step 1: Select an OA journal before submitting your work.
• Step 2: Sign the appropriate open access agreement based on the journal's policy once your paper accepted.
• Step 3: Pay the Article Processing Charge (APC) if required before your work is published online.

SciOpen protects your privacy rights and personal information rights.

SciOpen is bound by Article 1032 to Article 1039 of The Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China, which was implemented on 1 January 2021.

Papers published in SciOpen journals undergo a rigorous peer review process, which includes initial checks, preliminary assessments, and anonymous refereeing. SciOpen journals have endorsed the guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for reviewers. This peer review process is essential for upholding the quality of each journal. Managed by researchers and scholars, the process not only ensures high standards but also helps authors identify errors in their work or literature gaps they may have missed.

Journals may select various peer review policies, including single-blind and double-blind reviews. More information can be found on the respective journal's homepage.

Review Process

Most journals in SciOpen conduct the peer review process with at least two comprehensive review reports from independent reviewers, before making a final decision of acceptance or rejection by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC). The EIC is accountable for maintaining the academic quality of the publication. A flowchart illustrating the general editorial process is provided below (dotted lines indicate a non-mandatory step); Specific editorial procedures for each journal are detailed on their respective homepage.

Initial Check. The Editorial Office conducts an initial review and technical check of each submission. If a submission fails to adhere to the guidelines, a “Reject without Review” decision will be issued. Additionally, submissions are checked for plagiarism via Similarity Check powered by iThenticate. Papers exhibiting significant overlap with previously published works may be rejected without further review.

Preliminary Assessment. Once a submission has cleared the initial check, it may proceed to a preliminary assessment by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC), who has full discretion to determine whether the submission should advance to the peer-review stage.

Peer Review. Each manuscript must receive at least two substantive review reports. The Editor-in-Chief thoroughly assesses the manuscript's quality, novelty, and potential appeal to the target audience before making a final decision, taking the reviewers' feedback into careful consideration.

Types of Peer Review

Please review the specific peer-review policy of the journal before submission. The followings are the peer review models employed by SciOpen Journals.

• Single-blind Peer Review. Also referred to as “Single-anonymous Review”. The identity of the reviewer remains concealed from the author, while the author's identity is disclosed to the reviewer. This approach aims to minimize bias by enabling reviewers to offer objective feedback without fear of retribution or author influence. However, revealing the author's details could potentially introduce the risk of conscious bias on the part of the reviewers.
• Double-blind Peer Review. Also referred to as “Double-anonymous Review”, this model ensures anonymity between the reviewer and the author. This approach is crafted to remove bias, guaranteeing that a manuscript is assessed purely on its intellectual content and scholarly worth, unimpacted by the author's identity, reputation, affiliation, or publication history. It is especially prevalent in many humanities and social sciences journals.

Introduction

Academic publishing is a crucial component of scientific research, enabling the dissemination of findings, ensuring research quality, fostering academic dialogue, and contributing to the accumulation of knowledge. Publishing ethics is integral to every aspect of the publication process in scientific and technological journals. Consequently, all parties involved, including authors, editors, and reviewers, have a responsibility to uphold high ethical standards in accordance with established publication ethics guidelines.

Publication Ethic Statement

Tsinghua University Press (TUP) is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and most journals in SciOpen are the COPE members, adhering to its principles and guidelines for addressing misconduct to safeguard the integrity of research.

SciOpen journals uphold a rigorous peer-review, and we are dedicated to investigating and taking actions to maintain the integrity of the papers based on principles and guidelines of COPE for the potential ethical issues.

Manuscripts must comply with the Submission Guidelines and SciOpen's Publication Ethics. Additionally, they should follow the specific guidelines of each individual journal, as some may have more detailed or unique ethical procedures.

In cases where there is suspicion of misconduct or alleged fraud, the journal and/or publisher will conduct an investigation in accordance with the principles and flowcharts provided by COPE. If valid concerns arise, the author(s) will be contacted to discuss the matter. The journal and/or publisher may then implement the following measures, among others:

1) If the manuscript is still under review, it may be rejected and returned to the author.

2) If the paper has been published online, the response will vary based on the nature and severity of the violation:

• A correction may be appended to the paper,
• An expression of concern may be issued alongside the paper,
• Or, in extreme cases, a retraction of the paper may be warranted.

Principles

• Preventive Management—Proactively identify potential ethical issues through a combination of automated checks, manual reviews, and peer-review processes.
• Follow-up Timely—Ensure that all parties are kept informed in a timely manner where possible and appropriate, allowing sufficient time for responses.
• Best Practice—Adhere to the principles and guidelines of COPE and conduct investigations into potential ethical issues following established standard procedures.

Corrections

TUP acknowledges its responsibility to correct any scientifically relevant errors in published papers that may impact their scientific interpretation. Once approved by the editorial office and EIC, the paper will be revised accompanied by the publication of a correction. A correction is a distinct publication that is linked to the updated paper. It serves to inform all readers that a significant change has been made, and the updated version is available on the website. Notification will be sent to all relevant indexing databases to ensure that they update their records as well.

Corrections can be submitted if:

• change the authorship OR,
• there are scientifically relevant errors, e.g. missing sections/tables/figures, raw data errors, replacing images, table, and figure errors OR,
• add or remove an entire reference.

Retractions

Papers that threaten the integrity of the scientific record should be retracted. As a member of COPE, TUP adheres to their guidelines and procedures for handling retractions.

Please be aware that retraction entails retaining the original publication on the platform with a “Retracted” watermark, and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked paper. A paper will only be fully removed from SciOpen's website and corresponding indexing databases under rare and exceptional circumstances, such as when retaining the article online would be unlawful or pose a risk of substantial harm.

Expression of Concern

When an investigation is ongoing or the evidence is inconclusive, an Expression of Concern may be issued. Editors believe that it is essential to inform readers about potential issues within the paper to uphold journal's transparency:

• There is a suspicion of academic misconduct within the paper, yet the evidence is insufficient to determine it as such OR
• The results of the study are suspected to be unreliable, but the author’s institution is unwilling to initiate an investigation OR
• Conflicting interpretations exist among the authors OR
• An investigation is in progress, and final conclusions may require an extended period.

Appeals and Complaints

SciOpen journals adhere to the COPE principles regarding appeals and complaints concerning the peer-review process and editorial decisions. Authors have the right to appeal if they believe their manuscript was unfairly treated during peer review or if they consider the rejection decision to be incorrect. However, to lodge an appeal, authors must present substantial evidence or new information/data that counters the reviewers' comments and the editors' decisions.

Authors should submit their appeal letter to the journal's Editorial Office, directing it to the editors, and include specific responses, evidentiary materials, or any new information/data they wish the journal to consider.

Authors must not submit their manuscript for publication elsewhere until they receive a final decision or decide to withdraw their manuscript from consideration and have informed the journal accordingly. Each appeal is assessed on its individual merits. Editors will consider only one appeal per manuscript, and the Editor-in-Chief's decision on the appeal is final.

Research Ethics

To ensure the research that we published is conducted in an ethical manner, especially the research that involving human subject or animal participants, we require that all submissions should conform to the high ethical standards. We reserve the rights to reject any manuscript which could not meet these requirement of ethical standards, even if authors have obtained ethical approval or if ethical approval is not required.

1) Research involving human subjects

Ethical Approval

For published research based on human subjects (human participants, human tissue, human material or human data), authors must obtain the approval from institutional ethics committee(s) prior to the commencement of the research. The research also need to conform to international ethical and legal standards for research, Declaration of Helsinki.

Authors should provide evidence that they obtained ethical and/or legal approval prior to conducting the research at submission. Manuscripts should include the name of the local ethics committee that approved the research (or confirmation that such approval is not needed) and the approval number. Authors also need to state how the study conforms to recognized standards (e.g. declaration of Helsinki or the Ethical Review Methods for Biomedical Research involving Humans) in the manuscript.

• Example of the statement: “The research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (the approval number).”

2) Participant/patient privacy and informed consent

Published research involving human subjects should ensure that patients’ privacy has not been infringed without prior consent:

Consent to participate

For all published research involving human participants, authors should obtain written consent from the participants prior to the commencement of the research. If the research participants are not adults, or unable to provide informed consent, the written consent must be given from their parents/guardians.

Where consent for participation was not obtained or only verbal informed consent obtained, the journal/editor might ask for the evidence of consent or consent procedures, or even the need for consent was waived by an ethics committee.

Consent to publish

For submissions that include any information which might identify an individual, authors should obtain written informed consent to publish from individual participants (or their parents/guardians if the participant is not an adult or unable to give informed consent). Identifying information includes (but is not limited to) photographs, videos, individual clinical data, written description and any other details that might identify the participant. A statement to confirm that consent to publish has been obtained must be included within the manuscript.

3) Research involving animals, specimens and heritage sites

Research involving animals

For published research involving animal research, authors must obtain the approval from the relevant institutional ethics committee prior to the commencement of the research. The research procedures must comply with relevant local and international animal welfare guidelines.

Authors should provide evidence that they obtained ethical and/or legal approval prior to conducting the research at submission. Manuscripts should include the name of the ethics committee and the approval number.

Research involving specimens

For published research involving the collection of biological specimens (cultivated or wild), samples or fossils, authors should carry out it follow the authors’ institution(s) guideline and national/international regulations. Authors should also comply with the local laws. All such samples must be collected in an ethical and equitable way, and in accordance with relevant applicable laws comply with local legislation, and the manuscript should include a statement of appropriate permissions granted and/or licenses.

The manuscript should include the Ethical Statement of appropriate permissions granted. Voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or other public collection providing access to deposited material. Information on the voucher specimen and who identified it must be included in the manuscript. Editors reserve the rights to reject any manuscript which could not meet these requirements.

4) Clinical trials registration

All clinical trials should make prospective registration in publicly accessible databases (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov) before participants are enrolled. The clinical trials also need to follow the CONSORT (CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) guideline. Manuscripts should include clinical registration name, registration identification number, the name of the register, and the URL for the registry in accordance with journal instructions.

Duties of Authors

Authors are encouraged to value the opportunity for publication and uphold the esteemed reputation of SciOpen journals. Before submitting their work, authors should carefully read and adhere to the following responsibilities

1) Authorship

Authors should be limited to those who have made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or experimental design, prototype development, execution, and/or the analysis and interpretation of data associated with the work contained in the paper, and contributed to drafting the paper or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content. The others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. AI or AI-assisted technology should not be listed as an author.

Please indicate one author as the corresponding author in the case of papers with multiple authors. The corresponding author should ensure that all authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication. Besides, the corresponding author has responsibility for communication with the editorial office, overseeing the publication process and ensuring the integrity of the final document.

Any change to the author list during the editorial process should be approved by all authors, including any who have been removed. The corresponding author should put forward a written application including the consent of all authors before the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) makes final decision for the paper. It can be modified after EIC approval. Requests for a change in authorship will be evaluated and require the publication of a Correction for published papers.

2) Duplication, plagiarism and, originality

SciOpen only publishes original content and authors should ensure the originality of their works. Reuse of text work should be appropriately cited or quoted and permission should be obtained.

Plagiarism is not acceptable in SciOpen journals. All SciOpen submissions are checked for plagiarism by the software CrossCheck, powered by iThenticate. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript would be regarded as plagiarism and rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, an investigation or action would be taken based on the COPE principles on plagiarism.

Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. When submitting the manuscript, all authors should certify the manuscript is the original one and have not been previously published on or be under consideration for publication in other journals.

3) Declaration of competing interests

Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial and personal relationships with other people or other substantive conflict of interest that might inappropriately influence (bias) the results of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include but are not limited to financial interests (employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, grants or other funding) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, and personal beliefs).

4) Multiple, redundant publication

Publication of very similar papers based on the same experiment or study constitutes unethical behavior and is unacceptable. Authors should avoid undue fragmentation of their work, that is, unnecessarily splitting a body of work into several shorter papers.

Previous publication on a preprint server such as arXiv, bioRxiv and ChemRxiv could be considered as a subsequent publication in SciOpen journals, but authors should fully disclose the fact at the time of submission and cite the preprint in the reference. When the paper is published, authors are encouraged to link from the preprint server to the SciOpen publication to enable readers to find, access, and cite the final peer-reviewed version.

The content could be published which first appeared in an author's thesis or dissertation so long as this is the only form in which it has appeared. It should be noted in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and cited accordingly in the Reference section.

The conference paper or abstract should expand the content in order to be considered as original work. Authors should get the permission for reuse if they do not hold its copyright, and it should be cited in the Reference section before submission.

5) The use of AI or AI-assisted technologies

SciOpen follows the COPE position statement when it comes to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technology in manuscript preparation. TUP is a member of STM, so we also encourage journals on SciOpen follow the Ethical and Practical Guidelines released by STM Generative AI in Scholarly Communications.

Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. TUP will monitor this development and will adjust or refine this policy when appropriate.

Authors should disclose the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies with sufficient details at submission via the cover letter. Authors should carefully review and edit the AI generative materials, and be responsible for any submitted materials containing AI technologies. Furthermore, authors should declare the use of these tools or technology and disclose details of how the AI tool was used within Method, Acknowledgement or other related sections.

Duties of Editors

Editors are in-house editors and Editorial Board Members (EBMs) who take on an editorial role on behalf of the Publisher. The EIC is ultimately accountable for accepting or rejecting a paper. Editors should exercise their responsibilities based on the EIC or Editorial Board Members' suggestion of whether the paper needs to be modified or can be published. Editors should obey the responsibilities below.

1) Confidentiality and anonymity

Manuscripts should be handled in a confidential manner. No details should be disclosed to anyone without permission from the author (except the reviewers, potential reviewers, EIC, publisher or the occasion where a formal investigation into the allegations of unethical behavior is being conducted). Editors should respect the independence of the author's ideas.

TUP Journals perform Single- or Double-blind Peer Review. Editors should keep the reviewer anonymity policy which can protect the review results from the interference of authors.

2) Declaration of competing interests

Editors are required to declare any conflict of interests and they should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts and the peer review process if a competing interest exists.

The manuscript submitted by editors themselves should be handled by other editors who have no conflict of interest. The manuscript submitted by the EIC or an EBM shall be handled and reviewed by another EIC or EBM.

Editors may not use the content in the manuscripts for their own work, and if the topic is too close, the manuscript must be handled by other editors.

3) Fair play and timely evaluation

Editors should treat all manuscripts fairly and timely. Editors should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regarding to ethnic, religion, nationality, gender, age, or affiliation of the authors. However, the editor may consider the history record of the previous manuscripts submitted by the same authors. Editors can directly reject the manuscript if it is not in accordance with the requirement of a specific journal in the theme, breadth, depth, and English expression.

Editors should follow up on any indications or allegations of questionable research practice timely and consider the appeals which are against editorial decisions fairly and seriously.

4) The use of AI or AI-assisted technologies

The manuscript before publication is a confidential document. Reviewers and editors should not upload the manuscript or any part of it to a public generative AI platform. This confidentiality requirement extends to all communication about the manuscript including any notification or decision letters as they may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors.

Duties of Reviewers

Manuscript review is an essential stage in the process of publishing, and peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Reviewers have the following responsibilities.

1) Alertness to ethical issues

Referees should inform the editor of any similarity between the submitted manuscript and work that is already published or under consideration at other journals.

Referees should alert the editor if there is any indication of potential ethical problems including but not limited to ethical concerns regarding animal experiments or studies involving human subjects, scientific misconduct.

2) Confidentiality and anonymity

Referees should treat the manuscript and the review process as confidential. The content in the manuscript shall not be shared with others, nor shall reviewers use non-public information contained in a paper to advance their own research or financial interests.

Reviewers should be careful not to reveal their identity to the authors, either in their comments or in metadata for reports submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format.

3) Declaration of competing interests

Referees should report to the editorial office and remove themselves from the peer-review process immediately for any personal or business relationship with the authors or partner of the paper may result in impartial evaluation.

4) Fair play and timely evaluation

Referees should focus on the content of the manuscript, avoid personal criticism and evaluate the quality of the manuscript, the level of the experiments and the theory objectively.

• Referees should explain and support their judgements.
• Referees should identify whether the relevant and important literature has been properly cited or not by the authors. It is absolutely forbidden guiding the authors to cite the reviewer’s own paper.

Any referee who feels unqualified to review the manuscript or prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor immediately.

Copyright

Most SciOpen journals allow authors to retain the copyrights (authors need to sign OA Copyright License Agreement), while some journals ask authors to transfer the copyrights (authors should sign the copyright transfer agreements). Open access content in SciOpen journals is published under Creative Commons license, allowing authors and readers to freely view, download and distribute content.

Permissions

It is a common practice to reuse the published figures, tables or portions of text and/or illustrations in new publications. But the authors of the new publication must obtain permission from the copyright holders.

TUP may not be the copyright holder of the published work you wish to use, even if the work was originally published by SciOpen. Please check the copyright information of the specific materials or contact the Editorial Office before making your request.

• For works published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, you can make use of the materials within the liscense. Commonly, materials are free to be distributed, adapted, translated etc. as long as proper credits are given to the copyright holders, while sometimes are not.
• For other works, especially the papers under the subscription model, permission should be obtained from the original copyright holder.

Special Note

• Licenses and permissions cannot be granted verbally.
• Some works (especially Reviews) may contain figures, tables from other publications, for which TUP does not hold the copyright or the right to re-license the published material. Please inquire with the original copyright holder (usually the original publisher or authors), whether or not this material can be reused.

TUP is a signatory of STM Permissions Guidelines, and will give permissions according to the guidelines.

Most contents published in SciOpen are Open Access, and are freely available online upon publication. As an alternative model to subscription, article processing charge (APC) is required to make the Open Access possible. Journals charge APC to cover the publishing service, allowing a sustainable service provision and development of the journal.

APC is payable when your manuscript is editorially accepted and before publication. Journal-specific APC and how to pay for it can be found on journal’s guide to authors. You can also contact the journal editorial offices for more details.

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