Editorial policies
Editorial Policies
How manuscripts are assessed, how review is conducted, and the integrity obligations that apply to everyone involved.
These policies govern every submission to the journal. They are stated here in full so that authors, editors and reviewers work from the same document.
Where a policy applies publisher-wide, the wording below is the publisher’s approved wording and is used unchanged.
The journal
- Published by
- Open Access Pub
- ISSN
- 3070-3379
- Short code
- JWC
- Access
- Open access, CC BY 4.0
Assessment
How manuscripts are handled
Screening, review and decision are separate stages with separate criteria.
Initial screening
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Peer-review model
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.
Decision criteria
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.
Editorial independence
Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions, and those manuscripts are handled independently. No commercial, membership or institutional relationship affects the assessment of a manuscript.
Double-blind handling
When double-blind review is requested
Three rules apply, one to each party, and each appears on that party’s own page as well.
Authors
For double-blind review, remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, funding details, institution names, and other identifying information from the reviewer manuscript. Provide identifying information separately in the title-page file or submission form.
Editors
When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.
Reviewers
For double-blind manuscripts, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors.
Confidentiality
A submitted manuscript is confidential. It is not shared, cited or used outside the review process, and after submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.
Integrity
Publication ethics
The obligations below apply from submission through to the published record.
Data availability
Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.
Authorship and contribution
Every listed author must have contributed to the work and approved the submitted version. Changes to authorship after submission require written agreement from all authors.
Competing interests and funding
Financial and non-financial competing interests, and all sources of funding, are declared at submission and published with the article.
AI use in review
Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
Originality
Manuscripts must be original and not under consideration elsewhere. Substantial overlap with the authors’ earlier work is disclosed at submission; a similarity report informs editorial assessment and is read in context rather than against a fixed threshold.
Corrections and retractions
Where the published record needs to change, the journal issues a correction or a retraction notice that remains permanently linked to the original article. Concerns about a published article should be sent to the editorial office at [email protected].
Rights and terms
Open access, licensing and charges
The journal publishes under one license, and its charges are stated in one place.
License
Articles appear under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, and authors retain copyright.
Article processing charge
The charge is USD 1,800, payable after acceptance. There is no submission fee. Full terms, including the withdrawal policy, are on the Article Processing Charges page.
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.
Submission routes
Authors must use only one submission route for the same manuscript. The permitted routes are listed on Submit Manuscript.
Related guidance
Where these policies apply
Author-facing requirements are on Instructions for Authors. The operational guidance for handling manuscripts is on For Editors and For Reviewers.
Questions about any policy on this page can be sent to the editorial office.
Submission routes
Primary route
Alternative route
Assisted route
Authors must use only one submission route for the same manuscript.