Publication Ethics Policy

The Studies of Social Sciences (TSSS) is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, academic integrity, transparency, editorial independence, and responsible scholarly publishing. As a peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly journal published by Universitas Sam Ratulangi through the Lembaga Penelitian dan Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat (LPPM), Manado, Indonesia, TSSS promotes ethical principles throughout manuscript submission, peer review, editorial decision-making, publication, and post-publication activities.

The journal recognizes that research in the social sciences and related interdisciplinary fields requires particular attention to research integrity, human participant protection, informed consent, data privacy, methodological transparency, intellectual property rights, and responsible communication of research findings.

TSSS adopts the relevant Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing as guiding frameworks for its publication ethics policies.

These principles guide the responsibilities of authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher in safeguarding the credibility, reliability, accountability, and integrity of the scholarly record.

1. Allegations of Research and Publication Misconduct

TSSS is committed to addressing allegations of research and publication misconduct fairly, objectively, confidentially, and in accordance with relevant COPE guidance.

The journal establishes procedures for receiving, assessing, investigating, and responding to allegations involving plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of research data, unethical authorship, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, and other forms of publication misconduct.

In social science and community-based research, misconduct may also involve fabricated survey responses, falsified interview transcripts, misrepresentation of participant information, manipulation of statistical or qualitative findings, violations of participant confidentiality, and inaccurate reporting of community engagement activities.

Credible allegations, including those submitted anonymously with sufficient verifiable evidence, will be assessed appropriately.

Where necessary, TSSS may consult independent experts or cooperate with relevant institutions to investigate concerns and protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

2. Authorship and Contributorship

TSSS promotes transparency, fairness, accountability, and appropriate recognition of intellectual contributions in scholarly authorship.

All listed authors must satisfy the journal's established authorship criteria, including substantial intellectual contributions, participation in manuscript preparation or critical revision, approval of the final manuscript, and acceptance of responsibility for the integrity of the work.

The journal encourages accurate disclosure of individual author contributions and recognizes the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) as a useful framework for describing specific research responsibilities.

TSSS prohibits inappropriate authorship practices, including gift authorship, honorary authorship, guest authorship, ghost authorship, and the unjustified exclusion of eligible contributors.

Individuals who contribute to research activities but do not satisfy the authorship criteria should receive appropriate acknowledgment.

Authorship disputes and requests to modify author lists will be handled fairly and transparently in accordance with the journal's established procedures and relevant COPE guidance.

3. Complaints and Appeals

TSSS provides procedures for handling complaints and appeals concerning editorial decisions, peer-review practices, publication ethics, journal management, and the professional conduct of editorial personnel.

Complaints may involve unreasonable delays, procedural irregularities, inappropriate editorial conduct, technical difficulties, or failure to implement established journal policies.

Authors may submit formal appeals when they have credible evidence of substantial factual errors, procedural irregularities, reviewer bias, or other circumstances that materially affected an editorial decision.

Complaints and appeals will be assessed fairly, impartially, confidentially, and within reasonable timeframes.

Where appropriate, concerns may be reviewed by independent editors or institutional representatives who were not involved in the original decision.

The journal is committed to providing reasoned responses, preventing retaliation against individuals who raise concerns in good faith, and using relevant feedback to improve editorial practices.

4. Conflicts of Interest / Competing Interests

TSSS requires authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members to disclose any financial, professional, institutional, academic, personal, or other interests that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, research findings, peer-review assessments, or editorial decisions.

Potential competing interests may include research funding, consultancy arrangements, institutional affiliations, professional relationships, personal interests, or direct involvement in programs and organizations evaluated in submitted manuscripts.

The journal recognizes that competing interests may arise in research involving government institutions, educational organizations, community development programs, non-governmental organizations, and private-sector partnerships.

All relevant competing interests must be appropriately disclosed and managed.

Editors and reviewers with significant conflicts of interest must withdraw from handling or evaluating affected manuscripts.

Authors are expected to provide a competing interest declaration, including an explicit statement when no relevant conflicts exist.

TSSS is committed to maintaining editorial independence and ensuring that publication decisions are based on scholarly merit rather than financial, institutional, political, or personal interests.

5. Data and Reproducibility

TSSS promotes methodological transparency, responsible data management, research integrity, reproducibility, and the appropriate sharing of research materials.

Authors are encouraged to make relevant research data, analytical procedures, research instruments, methodological documentation, and supporting materials available whenever ethically and legally permissible.

Depending on the research design, supporting materials may include survey datasets, questionnaires, interview guides, anonymized qualitative records, statistical scripts, coding frameworks, evaluation instruments, and community development documentation.

Authors of original research articles are expected to provide an appropriate Data Availability Statement describing the accessibility of supporting research data.

TSSS recognizes that social science research frequently involves confidential information and human participants. Consequently, data sharing must respect informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, institutional requirements, and applicable legal restrictions.

The journal encourages appropriate reporting guidelines, transparent methodological descriptions, and responsible data-sharing practices.

Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, reliability, integrity, and ethical management of the data and methods presented in their manuscripts.

6. Ethical Oversight

TSSS is committed to ensuring that all research submitted to or published in the journal complies with applicable ethical principles, institutional requirements, and relevant national and international regulations.

Research involving human participants must respect the principles of informed consent, voluntary participation, privacy, confidentiality, and participant protection.

Where required, authors must obtain approval or an exemption from an appropriate research ethics committee before commencing research.

Studies involving children, vulnerable populations, marginalized communities, or other potentially sensitive research contexts must implement appropriate additional safeguards.

In social science and community-based research, authors must respect the rights and dignity of participants, protect confidential survey and interview information, and obtain necessary institutional or community permissions where applicable.

Research involving organizations must comply with relevant confidentiality agreements and legal requirements concerning access to and publication of institutional information.

The journal also promotes ethical conduct in manuscript evaluation, editorial decision-making, publishing operations, and the responsible management of research data.

7. Intellectual Property

TSSS recognizes the intellectual property rights of authors and supports responsible scholarly dissemination through transparent copyright and licensing arrangements.

Authors retain copyright ownership of their original scholarly works and grant the journal the right of first publication.

The journal's licensing policy identifies the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) as the applicable license for published articles.

This license permits users to share, redistribute, remix, transform, and adapt licensed materials, including for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate attribution is given and applicable ShareAlike requirements are satisfied.

Users must acknowledge the original authors and TSSS as the source of publication, provide a link to the applicable license, and indicate whether modifications have been made.

The journal maintains policies concerning plagiarism, redundant or overlapping publication, prior dissemination of research, author self-archiving, and the responsible use of third-party copyrighted materials.

TSSS seeks to protect authors' intellectual property rights while promoting the widest possible lawful dissemination and reuse of scholarly knowledge.

8. Journal Management

TSSS is committed to transparent, accountable, ethical, and professionally managed scholarly publishing.

The journal operates within an institutional governance framework supported by Universitas Sam Ratulangi through the Lembaga Penelitian dan Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat (LPPM).

Editorial responsibilities are managed by the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, Editorial Board, and other authorized editorial personnel.

TSSS utilizes Open Journal Systems (OJS) to manage manuscript submission, peer review, editorial evaluation, production, and online publication.

The journal supports transparency concerning its ownership, publisher identity, editorial structure, publication fees, copyright arrangements, licensing policies, and editorial procedures.

Publication decisions are based on scholarly merit, originality, methodological rigor, research integrity, ethical compliance, and relevance to the journal's aims and scope.

The journal maintains editorial independence and seeks to prevent inappropriate influence from financial, commercial, institutional, political, or personal interests.

TSSS is committed to responsible financial management, accurate public information, continuous editorial development, and the long-term sustainability of its scholarly publishing activities.

9. Peer Review Processes

TSSS is committed to implementing an independent, objective, rigorous, and confidential peer-review process to evaluate the scholarly quality and integrity of submitted manuscripts.

Manuscripts undergo initial editorial screening to assess their relevance to the journal's aims and scope, academic quality, originality, compliance with Author Guidelines, and adherence to publication ethics.

Manuscripts meeting the journal's initial requirements are assigned to qualified reviewers with relevant expertise.

The journal's peer-review procedures are intended to promote impartial evaluation while protecting the confidentiality of manuscripts and reviewer assessments.

Reviewers are expected to evaluate originality, theoretical contribution, methodological appropriateness, research findings, interpretation, ethical compliance, and academic presentation.

Reviewers must disclose relevant conflicts of interest and provide constructive, evidence-based recommendations.

Final editorial decisions are made by the Editor-in-Chief or authorized editors based on reviewer recommendations, scholarly quality, publication ethics, and the journal's established editorial standards.

The journal seeks to maintain a transparent and consistent editorial workflow from manuscript submission through publication.

10. Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections

TSSS recognizes that scholarly evaluation continues after publication and supports constructive academic discussion, critical assessment, and responsible post-publication review.

The journal encourages authors, readers, reviewers, and researchers to raise legitimate concerns regarding published findings, research methods, interpretation, or publication integrity.

TSSS establishes procedures for addressing errors, inaccuracies, and research integrity concerns identified after publication.

Appropriate editorial actions may include:

• Corrections (Errata and Corrigenda).
• Expressions of Concern.
• Retractions.
• Addenda.
• Other transparent post-publication notices where justified.

Post-publication concerns will be assessed fairly and objectively in accordance with relevant COPE guidance.

Corrections and retraction notices should clearly identify the affected articles, explain the reasons for editorial action, and be linked to the original publications.

Retracted articles should ordinarily remain accessible as part of the scholarly record while being clearly marked as retracted.

TSSS is committed to maintaining the accuracy, credibility, and integrity of its published scholarly content.

11. Archiving Policy

TSSS is committed to supporting the long-term preservation, accessibility, authenticity, and integrity of published scholarly content.

The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining a reliable and enduring academic record for researchers, educators, students, institutions, policymakers, and the public.

TSSS supports digital preservation through its publishing infrastructure and appropriate institutional archiving arrangements.

Potential preservation mechanisms may include institutional repositories, secure digital backups, and recognized digital preservation services such as the PKP Preservation Network, LOCKSS, or CLOCKSS, where formally implemented.

References to preservation services do not necessarily indicate active enrollment or participation.

The journal supports responsible author self-archiving of submitted manuscripts, accepted manuscripts, and final published articles, subject to applicable copyright, publishing agreements, and licensing conditions.

Authors are encouraged to acknowledge the original TSSS publication and provide the DOI or official article link whenever available.

The journal seeks to maintain continued accessibility to its published articles and bibliographic metadata in accordance with its Archiving Policy.

12. Open Access Policy

TSSS provides immediate open access to its published scholarly articles, allowing readers worldwide to access research without subscription or reader access fees.

The journal supports the principle that scholarly knowledge should be freely accessible and available for responsible use by researchers, educators, students, policymakers, practitioners, and the wider public.

Authors retain copyright ownership of their scholarly works in accordance with the journal's copyright and licensing policies.

Published articles are identified under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The license permits users to share, redistribute, remix, transform, and adapt licensed materials for lawful purposes, including commercial purposes, provided that attribution and ShareAlike requirements are satisfied.

Users must appropriately acknowledge the original authors and TSSS, provide a link to the applicable license, and indicate whether changes have been made.

TSSS is committed to ensuring that its copyright, licensing, open-access, repository, and digital preservation policies are clearly communicated and consistently implemented.

The journal's Open Access model supports scholarly collaboration, knowledge dissemination, academic innovation, evidence-based policymaking, and the wider societal application of research findings.

13. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

TSSS recognizes the potential of generative artificial intelligence to support academic writing, language improvement, literature organization, coding assistance, and other legitimate scholarly activities.

The journal permits responsible AI assistance when its use does not compromise research originality, accuracy, integrity, confidentiality, or author accountability.

Generative AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility for scholarly content or fulfill established authorship requirements.

Authors must disclose substantive use of generative AI tools and remain fully responsible for verifying AI-assisted content.

TSSS prohibits the fabrication of research findings, survey responses, interview transcripts, statistical results, references, or other scholarly evidence through inappropriate AI use.

Editors and peer reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of unpublished manuscripts and must not upload confidential manuscript materials to unauthorized generative AI systems.

All AI-assisted editorial and scholarly activities must comply with the journal's publication ethics, intellectual property, and data protection requirements.

14. Plagiarism Policy

TSSS maintains a strict policy against plagiarism, inappropriate text recycling, and unethical duplicate publication.

All submitted manuscripts are subject to originality assessment and appropriate similarity screening before peer review.

In accordance with the journal's Author Guidelines, submitted manuscripts must have an overall similarity index of less than 25%.

Similarity reports are evaluated by the editorial team to identify potentially inappropriate overlap, inadequate attribution, plagiarism, or redundant publication.

The similarity percentage alone does not establish plagiarism.

Editors will consider the nature, extent, context, and sources of textual similarity before making editorial decisions.

Manuscripts containing confirmed plagiarism may be rejected regardless of the overall similarity score.

Suspected plagiarism identified after publication will be assessed according to the journal's research misconduct and post-publication correction procedures.

TSSS is committed to maintaining originality, proper attribution, intellectual property protection, and academic integrity throughout the publication process.

Contact

For inquiries, complaints, appeals, or concerns relating to publication ethics, please contact:

Editorial Office

The Studies of Social Sciences (TSSS)

Lembaga Penelitian dan Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat (LPPM)

Universitas Sam Ratulangi

Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Official Website:

https://ejournal.unsrat.ac.id/v3/index.php/ssj/index

Contact Information:

https://ejournal.unsrat.ac.id/v3/index.php/ssj/about/contact

All reported ethical concerns will be assessed fairly, confidentially, impartially, and in accordance with the journal's established publication ethics policies and relevant COPE guidance.