The Journal of Intelligent and Secure Network Systems (JISNS) is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, academic integrity, transparency, and responsible scholarly publishing. The journal’s editorial and ethical practices are guided by internationally recognized principles and best practices, including the Core Practices and guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

JISNS expects authors, reviewers, and editors to uphold principles of originality, proper attribution, data integrity, confidentiality, transparency, and disclosure of conflicts of interest. Allegations of plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, or other forms of research misconduct will be handled fairly and responsibly in accordance with the journal’s editorial policies and recognized publication-ethics practices.

All reviewers and editors are expected to adhere to the following ethical principles.

Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers

1. Confidentiality

Reviewers must treat submitted manuscripts, supplementary materials, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, and all information obtained during the peer-review process as strictly confidential.

Manuscripts must not be shared, discussed, reproduced, distributed, or used for any purpose unrelated to the review process without prior authorization from the journal.

Confidentiality must be maintained both during and after completion of the review.

2. Impartiality and Objectivity

Reviewers must evaluate manuscripts fairly, objectively, and solely on their scientific, technical, methodological, and scholarly merit.

Personal criticism of authors, discriminatory comments, inappropriate language, or judgments based on nationality, institutional affiliation, gender, personal beliefs, professional relationships, or other irrelevant considerations are unacceptable.

Reviewer comments should be constructive, specific, respectful, and supported by appropriate scholarly reasoning.

3. Conflict of Interest

Reviewers must disclose any actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest that could affect their ability to provide an independent and unbiased assessment.

Conflicts may include financial, professional, institutional, personal, academic, collaborative, or competitive relationships with the authors or their institutions.

If a significant conflict exists, the reviewer should promptly inform the Editorial Office and decline the review assignment where appropriate.

4. Competence to Review

Reviewers should accept an invitation to review only when they possess sufficient expertise to evaluate the manuscript appropriately.

If a reviewer believes that a manuscript falls substantially outside their area of expertise, they should inform the editor and decline the assignment or clearly indicate the limitations of their review.

5. Timeliness

Reviewers should complete their assessments within the timeframe specified by JISNS.

If a reviewer is unable to complete the review within the requested period, they should notify the Editorial Office as early as possible so that appropriate arrangements can be made.

6. Constructive Peer Review

Reviewers should provide clear and constructive recommendations that help authors improve the scientific quality, technical accuracy, organization, clarity, and presentation of their manuscript.

Major criticisms should be adequately explained and, where possible, supported by relevant evidence or references.

7. Direct Contact with Authors

Reviewers must not contact authors directly regarding a manuscript under review unless explicitly authorized by the Editor or Editorial Office of JISNS.

All communication concerning the review should be conducted through the journal's editorial system.

8. Citation Ethics

Reviewers should not request authors to cite their own publications or other specific publications unless those references are genuinely relevant and necessary to improve the scholarly quality of the manuscript.

Requests intended primarily to increase citation counts are considered unethical.

9. Suspected Misconduct

If reviewers identify possible plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated or falsified data, inappropriate image manipulation, unethical experimentation, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or other forms of research misconduct, they should confidentially inform the editor.

Reviewers should not independently investigate or directly confront the authors.

10. Use of Manuscript Information

Unpublished data, ideas, methodologies, algorithms, results, or other information obtained through peer review must not be used by reviewers for personal, academic, commercial, or competitive advantage.

11. Use of Artificial Intelligence in Peer Review

Reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts, supplementary files, unpublished data, or identifiable manuscript content to public generative AI systems or other external services where confidentiality cannot be guaranteed.

If AI-assisted tools are used in any permissible aspect of the review process, their use should comply with JISNS policies, and reviewers remain fully responsible for the accuracy, confidentiality, integrity, and substance of their review.

The final evaluation and recommendation must reflect the reviewer's independent scholarly judgment.

Ethical Guidelines for Editors

1. Editorial Independence

Editors must make editorial decisions independently and solely on the academic merit, originality, methodological quality, relevance, ethical compliance, and suitability of the manuscript for JISNS.

Editorial decisions must not be influenced by commercial interests, personal relationships, institutional affiliations, political considerations, or other inappropriate external pressures.

2. Ethical Oversight

Editors are responsible for promoting and consistently applying the ethical and publication policies of JISNS.

Where ethical concerns arise, editors should take appropriate and proportionate action in accordance with established publication ethics principles and journal policies.

3. Confidentiality

Editors must maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts, reviewer identities where applicable, reviewer reports, editorial discussions, author correspondence, and all other confidential information obtained through the editorial process.

Such information must not be disclosed to unauthorized individuals.

4. Fairness and Impartiality

Editors must evaluate manuscripts without discrimination based on authors' nationality, institutional affiliation, gender, race, religion, seniority, personal beliefs, professional status, or other characteristics unrelated to scholarly quality.

All submissions should be handled fairly, consistently, and objectively.

5. Conflict of Interest

Editors must disclose and appropriately manage any financial, professional, academic, institutional, personal, or other conflict of interest relating to a submitted manuscript.

Where an editor has a significant competing interest, responsibility for handling the manuscript should be transferred to another qualified editor who has no relevant conflict.

6. Reviewer Selection

Editors should select reviewers based on appropriate subject expertise, independence, availability, and ability to provide an objective and constructive assessment.

Editors should avoid selecting reviewers where known conflicts of interest could compromise the integrity of the peer-review process.

7. Editorial Decision-Making

Editorial decisions should be based on the manuscript's scholarly merit, reviewer assessments, journal scope, originality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, and contribution to the field.

Reviewer recommendations should inform editorial decisions; however, responsibility for the final decision rests with the appropriate editor.

8. Managing Peer Review

Editors should ensure that the peer-review process is conducted professionally, confidentially, fairly, and within a reasonable timeframe.

Editors should take appropriate action when reviewer reports are unprofessional, discriminatory, unnecessarily hostile, irrelevant, or otherwise inconsistent with JISNS standards.

9. Personal Integrity

Editors are expected to maintain high standards of professional and personal integrity.

They must not misuse confidential information, manipulate editorial decisions, favor particular authors, institutions, reviewers, or research groups, or engage in conduct that could compromise confidence in the journal.

10. Handling Manuscripts from Editors or Editorial Board Members

Manuscripts submitted by Editors, Editorial Board Members, or individuals closely associated with JISNS must be handled independently.

The submitting editor or board member must not participate in reviewer selection, peer review, editorial discussion, or the final decision concerning their own manuscript.

11. Research and Publication Misconduct

Editors should respond appropriately to credible concerns involving plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, authorship disputes, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, unethical research, undisclosed competing interests, or other forms of misconduct.

Where necessary, editors may request supporting documentation, raw data, ethical approvals, institutional clarification, or other relevant evidence.

12. Corrections, Retractions, and Post-Publication Concerns

Editors are responsible for appropriately addressing significant errors or ethical concerns identified after publication.

Depending on the circumstances, JISNS may issue a correction, clarification, expression of concern, retraction, or other appropriate editorial notice to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.

13. Guidance and Communication

Editors should provide clear and professional guidance to authors, reviewers, and Editorial Board Members regarding the journal's editorial standards, publication ethics, peer-review procedures, and decision-making processes.

All communications should be respectful, impartial, transparent, and timely.

14. Protection of the Peer-Review Process

Editors must take reasonable measures to prevent manipulation of peer review, including fabricated reviewer identities, fraudulent reviewer accounts, inappropriate reviewer recommendations, coordinated citation manipulation, or other attempts to influence editorial decisions improperly.

15. Use of Artificial Intelligence by Editors

Editors must protect confidential manuscript and reviewer information when using digital or AI-assisted tools.

Confidential manuscripts, peer-review reports, unpublished research data, or personally identifiable information should not be uploaded to external generative AI platforms where confidentiality or data protection cannot be assured.

AI systems must not replace independent editorial judgment or responsibility for publication decisions.

The Journal of Intelligent and Secure Network Systems (JISNS) expects all reviewers and editors to uphold the principles of confidentiality, objectivity, fairness, independence, transparency, accountability, and professional integrity throughout the peer-review and editorial process.

Any breach of these ethical responsibilities may result in removal from the review process, discontinuation of editorial responsibilities, rejection of associated submissions where applicable, or other corrective action considered necessary to protect the integrity of JISNS and the scholarly record.