Journal of Precision Agriculture · Editorial Policies
Editorial Policies
How this journal decides what it publishes, and the standards it holds authors, editors and reviewers to.
These policies apply to every manuscript the journal considers. See the withdrawal policy.
Peer review
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
Where double-blind review is requested, the manuscript prepared for reviewers must carry no author-identifying information. The requirements for authors, editors and reviewers are set out on the Instructions for Authors, Editors Guidelines and Reviewer Guidelines pages.
Editorial decisions
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
Decisions remain independent of fees, services, memberships, and editorial or reviewing roles. Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions, which are handled independently by another editor.
Authorship and contribution
Authorship carries both credit and accountability.
- Every listed author has made a substantial contribution to the work and can take public responsibility for an identified part of it.
- Every listed author has approved the version submitted and agrees to be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work.
- Contributors who do not meet these conditions are named in the acknowledgments rather than the byline.
- Changes to authorship after submission require the written agreement of all authors, sent to the editorial office.
Conflicts of interest
Authors, editors and reviewers disclose any financial, personal, academic or institutional relationship that a reasonable reader could consider capable of influencing the work or its assessment. Disclosure is a normal part of the record: a declared interest does not by itself prevent publication, review or handling.
Where an editor or reviewer holds such an interest in a manuscript, the manuscript is reassigned.
Research ethics
Research involving human participants, animals, or regulated materials must have been conducted under the approval of the relevant ethics or regulatory body, and the manuscript must name that body and report the approval. Studies involving human participants must report that informed consent was obtained.
Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.
Data availability
Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.
The statement should say where the data supporting the findings can be found and on what terms. Where data cannot be shared, the statement says so and gives the reason.
Research integrity and similarity
Submitted manuscripts are screened with Crossref Similarity Check, powered by iThenticate. A similarity report is read in context by an editor: overlap in a methods description and overlap in a discussion are different findings, and the assessment is editorial rather than a fixed percentage.
Concerns raised about a published article are investigated with the authors and, where appropriate, their institution, following COPE guidance.
Corrections and retractions
The published record is corrected rather than quietly altered. A correction notice is issued where an error affects part of an article; a retraction notice is issued where findings are no longer reliable. Both are linked to and from the original article, which remains available so that the record stays complete.
Retraction notices published by this journal remain part of the archive and are listed with the issue in which they appeared.
Complaints and appeals
An author who considers a decision mistaken may write to the editorial office setting out the grounds. The appeal is considered by an editor who did not take the original decision, and the outcome is given in writing. Complaints about editorial process or conduct are handled the same way.
Access, rights and preservation
All JPA articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Authors retain copyright in their published work.
How the journal's records are identified, made discoverable and preserved is set out on the Indexing page.
Where these policies are applied
Requirements that fall on authors, editors and reviewers are set out in the guidance written for each.
Instructions for Authors · Editors Guidelines · Reviewer Guidelines · Aims and Scope
Journal of Precision Agriculture · ISSN 2998-1506 · Published by Open Access Pub · CC BY 4.0
Digital preservation
This journal’s content is committed to Portico, a not-for-profit digital-preservation archive run by ITHAKA (the organization behind JSTOR). As articles are deposited they enter Portico’s permanent archive, so the scholarly record stays available for the long term — even if a title one day ceases to publish. Read our preservation policy.