SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, accountability, and responsible scholarly communication. This policy applies to all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, reviewers, editorial board members, and the publisher.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal seeks to protect the integrity of the scholarly record and ensure that all published research meets appropriate standards of originality, methodological rigor, transparency, academic responsibility, and ethical conduct. The journal's publication ethics framework is informed by internationally recognized principles, including the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), established scholarly publishing standards, and recognized principles of responsible research and editorial practice. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices (official overview).

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal is committed to safeguarding the integrity of the scholarly record and ensuring that all published works meet appropriate standards of academic quality and ethical responsibility. The journal applies principles of fairness, transparency, independence, accountability, confidentiality, and respect for intellectual property throughout the publication process.

The publication of scholarly research is a collaborative process that depends upon trust among authors, editors, reviewers, institutions, and readers. Peer review is an important component of this process because it assists the journal in evaluating the quality, originality, methodological soundness, relevance, and contribution of submitted manuscripts.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal does not tolerate plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, manipulation of the peer-review process, inappropriate authorship practices, citation manipulation, or other forms of publication misconduct. Allegations of misconduct are treated seriously and investigated in accordance with applicable ethical procedures. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance Core Practices: Allegations of Misconduct | COPE Core Practices.

Editorial decisions at SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal are based primarily on the scholarly merit of submitted manuscripts. Relevant considerations include originality, methodological rigor, clarity, relevance to the journal's focus and scope, contribution to the field, ethical compliance, and quality of presentation.

Editorial decisions must not be improperly influenced by an author's institutional affiliation, nationality, gender, religion, political views, personal characteristics, commercial interests, or funding source. Editors are expected to exercise independent professional judgment and to protect the integrity and credibility of the editorial process.

Editors may consult reviewers, associate editors, editorial board members, or appropriate ethical guidance when necessary. However, responsibility for the final editorial decision remains with the journal's authorized editorial personnel. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Journal Management.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal maintains procedures for identifying and managing conflicts of interest involving editors, reviewers, authors, and editorial board members. Individuals involved in editorial decision-making must disclose any personal, professional, institutional, or financial relationship that could reasonably be perceived as influencing their judgment.

Editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where they have a significant conflict of interest. In such cases, the manuscript should be assigned to another qualified editor who can manage the editorial and peer-review process independently.

Manuscripts submitted by members of the editorial team, including editors and editorial board members, must be handled through an independent editorial process. The submitting editor must not participate in decisions concerning their own manuscript and must not have access to confidential reviewer information or influence the editorial outcome. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Conflicts of Interest.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal applies a rigorous peer-review process intended to support objective, fair, confidential, and constructive evaluation of submitted manuscripts. Research articles are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with appropriate expertise, although the number and selection of reviewers may vary according to the nature of the submission.

Reviewers are expected to evaluate manuscripts objectively and provide constructive comments that assist authors in improving the quality of their work. Reviewers should assess the manuscript based on scholarly quality rather than personal characteristics, institutional affiliation, nationality, or other irrelevant considerations.

Manuscripts, research data, reviewer reports, and other materials obtained through peer review are confidential. Reviewers must not share, reproduce, discuss, or use unpublished information for personal or professional advantage without appropriate authorization.

Reviewers should disclose any actual or potential competing interest and decline an invitation when such a conflict could compromise impartiality. Reviewers should also inform the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated or manipulated data, inappropriate citation practices, or other ethical concerns identified during the review process.This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Peer Review Processes.

Authors submitting manuscripts to CREAT are responsible for ensuring that their work is original, accurate, ethically conducted, and appropriately reported. A submitted manuscript should not have been previously published in substantially the same form and should not be simultaneously under consideration by another journal.

Authors must report their research honestly and accurately. Data must not be fabricated, falsified, manipulated, selectively presented in a misleading manner, or otherwise distorted. Authors should provide sufficient methodological information to enable readers and researchers to understand and, where appropriate, reproduce the research.

Authors should retain relevant research materials and underlying data for a reasonable period after publication and should be prepared to provide appropriate supporting information if requested by the editors for the purpose of verifying the integrity of the research.

Research involving human participants, personal data, or animals must comply with applicable ethical standards, institutional requirements, and relevant laws or regulations. Where ethical approval or informed consent is required, authors must obtain the necessary approval or consent and provide an appropriate statement within the manuscript. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Data and Reproducibility | COPE Core Practices: Ethical Oversight.

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual or scholarly contributions to the research and manuscript. Such contributions may include substantial involvement in the conception or design of the study, data collection or analysis where intellectually substantive, interpretation of results, drafting or critically revising the manuscript, and approval of the final version.

All listed authors must approve the final manuscript and agree to its submission and publication. The corresponding author is responsible for communicating with the journal and for ensuring that all authors have approved the submitted version and that authorship information is accurate.

Individuals who contributed to the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be appropriately acknowledged, with their permission where appropriate. Individuals should not be listed as authors solely because of their position, institutional status, supervisory role, or other non-substantive relationship with the research.

Changes to authorship after submission require a clear justification and written agreement from all affected authors. The journal may request additional documentation before approving an authorship change. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Authorship and Contributorship.

Authors must disclose financial, professional, personal, or institutional relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation. Relevant conflicts of interest should be declared clearly during submission and, where appropriate, included in the published article.

All sources of financial or institutional support should be acknowledged. Authors should clearly state the role of funders or sponsors in the research design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and decision to submit or publish the work. If the funder had no such role, this should be stated where appropriate.

Failure to disclose a relevant conflict of interest may result in editorial action, including correction of the published record, rejection of the manuscript, or other appropriate measures. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Conflicts of Interest.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal expects authors to maintain the integrity and accuracy of research data, tables, figures, photographs, and other visual materials. Images and figures must represent the underlying research accurately and must not be manipulated in a manner that changes or misrepresents the scientific or scholarly meaning of the results.

Adjustments that improve clarity, such as appropriate formatting or non-misleading technical adjustments, may be acceptable when they do not distort the underlying information. Editors may request original data, image files, or other supporting materials when necessary to assess the integrity of a submission.

Authors must cite relevant sources accurately and appropriately. Citation practices must reflect genuine scholarly relevance rather than attempts to artificially increase citation counts. Excessive self-citation, coercive citation, citation stacking, or other manipulative citation practices are not acceptable. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices (general ethical framework) | COPE guidance on Authorship and Contributorship.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal recognizes that artificial intelligence and AI-assisted technologies are increasingly used in research and scholarly communication. The journal permits responsible and transparent use of AI tools for limited supportive purposes, provided that such use does not compromise research integrity, confidentiality, originality, authorship, or intellectual property.

Authors may use AI-assisted tools for purposes such as language improvement, grammar correction, translation, formatting assistance, or improving the readability of text. Authors remain fully responsible for reviewing and verifying all AI-assisted output and ensuring that the final manuscript accurately reflects their research and scholarly judgment.

AI tools must not be used to fabricate or falsify research data, manipulate evidence, generate misleading results, create fraudulent references, or produce scientific claims that have not been independently verified by the authors. Authors must verify the accuracy of citations, references, quotations, factual statements, and other information generated or assisted by AI.

AI systems cannot be listed as authors or co-authors because they cannot assume responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, originality, and ethical aspects of scholarly work. Human authors remain accountable for the entire manuscript.

Where AI tools have been used in a substantive manner during manuscript preparation, authors should disclose the use of such tools in an appropriate statement within the manuscript. The disclosure should identify the AI tool used and describe the general purpose for which it was used.

Reviewers must protect the confidentiality of manuscripts and associated materials. Reviewers must not upload unpublished manuscripts, confidential peer-review materials, research data, or other protected content to public or third-party AI systems where confidentiality, data retention, or reuse cannot be adequately controlled.

Reviewers remain responsible for their own evaluations and should not delegate substantive peer-review judgments to AI systems. AI-generated content must not replace the reviewer's independent scholarly assessment.

Editors must maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of submitted manuscripts and editorial correspondence. AI tools may only be used in editorial activities where their use is consistent with confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, and data-protection requirements. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Intellectual Property.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal supports open scholarly communication and provides access to its published research in accordance with its Open Access Policy. Authors retain the rights specified in the journal's applicable copyright and publication agreement.

Articles published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license may be shared, copied, redistributed, and adapted in accordance with the terms of that license. Users must provide appropriate attribution and provide appropriate attribution, indicate if changes were made, and comply with the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.

Authors and users must also respect third-party copyright, privacy, image rights, data protection, and other applicable legal restrictions that may apply to specific materials included in a publication. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Allegations of Misconduct.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal takes allegations of publication misconduct seriously. Potential misconduct may include plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, fabrication, falsification, manipulation of data or images, inappropriate authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, citation manipulation, unethical research practices, misuse of artificial intelligence, peer-review manipulation, or other violations of publication ethics.

Allegations are assessed and investigated as appropriate while maintaining confidentiality and procedural fairness. The journal may request explanations, supporting documentation, original data, authorship statements, ethical approval documents, or other relevant information when necessary to evaluate a concern.

Depending on the outcome of an investigation, SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal may take corrective or disciplinary action, including rejection of a manuscript, correction of the published record, expression of concern, retraction, removal of misleading information where legally and ethically appropriate, or notification of relevant institutions or authorities. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Post-publication Discussions and Corrections.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal is committed to maintaining an accurate and trustworthy scholarly record. When a published article contains an error or ethical problem that affects the reliability or interpretation of the work, the journal may publish an appropriate correction, retraction, or expression of concern.

Corrections are intended for errors that can be rectified without invalidating the overall scholarly contribution of the article. Retraction may be considered when the findings are unreliable, the publication contains serious misconduct, or other circumstances substantially undermine the integrity of the published record.

Expressions of concern may be used when a substantial concern exists but an investigation has not yet reached a sufficiently clear conclusion. Post-publication notices should be linked to the affected article and recorded transparently where technically feasible. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Ethical Oversight and COPE Core Practices: Post-publication Discussions and Corrections.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal respects the confidentiality of manuscripts, personal information, research materials, peer-review reports, and editorial communications. Information obtained during the submission, review, and editorial processes must not be disclosed or used for purposes unrelated to the publication process without appropriate authorization.

Authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial staff are expected to handle personal and confidential information responsibly and in accordance with applicable data-protection and privacy requirements. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Ethical Oversight.

Authors may raise legitimate concerns regarding editorial decisions, publication procedures, or alleged breaches of publication ethics through the journal's established communication channels. Complaints and appeals should provide sufficient information and supporting evidence to allow the journal to assess the matter appropriately.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal seeks to handle complaints and appeals fairly, consistently, confidentially, and within a reasonable period. Where appropriate, the journal may consult independent editorial or ethical expertise when resolving complex cases. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Complaints and Appeals.

This Publication Ethics, Malpractice, and AI Governance Statement is reviewed periodically to ensure that it remains consistent with developments in scholarly publishing, research ethics, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, open-access practices, and recognized international standards.

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal may revise this policy when necessary to address emerging forms of publication misconduct, changes in ethical standards, technological developments, or new requirements relevant to scholarly publishing. Updated policies will be made available through the journal's official website. This rule is relevant to the COPE guidance COPE Core Practices: Journal Management | COPE Core Practices (all 10 areas).

SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal is committed to maintaining a publication environment founded on integrity, fairness, transparency, accountability, confidentiality, and respect for scholarly independence. All participants in the publication process are expected to contribute to the protection of the scholarly record and to uphold responsible research and publication practices.

Submission of a manuscript to SEARCH: Science Education Research Journal and participation in its editorial or peer-review processes constitute an expectation that authors, reviewers, editors, and other participants will comply with the principles established in this policy and with applicable standards of responsible scholarly publishing.