Advances in Mobile Learning Educational Research

The ethical policy of SyncSci Publishing journals follows the " European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity " and the "Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing " of "COPE". Authors must be honest in presenting their results and conclusions of their research. Research misconduct is harmful for knowledge. It could mislead other researchers.

Ethical oversight

SyncSci Publishing (The publisher) always follows the Ethical Oversight of COPE, and monitors the entire publication process in accordance with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing of COPE, Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). Regardless of the possibility of academic fraud, fabricated data, plagiarism, duplicate publications, and other academic unethical behaviors found at any point in the process, it will be stopped immediately and will not move on to the next step, and the article will be rejected.

The Publisher promises that all the information provided by authors will be treated as private and will not be disclosed to third-party organizations, except for the necessary requirements for publication process. The Publisher is fully committed to monitoring that authors, editor, and reviewers must avoid conflicts of interest and ensure the objectivity and fairness of peer review results.

All the editors must take all possible misconducts seriously. All the concerns or complaints on the possible allegations submitted to the journal office will be dealt with appropriately according to the procedure in the COPE flowchart on complaints. A manuscript would not be accepted if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. SyncSci Publishing adopts a zero-tolerance policy concerning any ethical violations and academic misconducts in the study and publication process, including but not limited to plagiarism, falsification, fabrication, resubmission. A panel will be formed to investigate the allegation in cases of suspected misconduct or ethical violation. Once the allegations are proven, the manuscript will be rejected for publication. If the article has been officially published, a retraction must be executed. The authors may appeal within 30 days after the decision is made.

For research involving animal and human subjects, the Publisher invites all authors to be deeply concerned about the privacy and welfare of subjects according to Human and Animal Rights. Authors should provide the approval from the institutional ethical regulator or committee and Statement of Informed Consent (verbal or written) from the subjects during submitting stage. In the case of vulnerable populations, informed consent from their families is required. Personally identifiable information (e.g., face, fingerprints, name, etc.) should be concealed as much as possible, and if it is indeed necessary for the content and results of the study, the reasons must be explained, and subjects must be made aware of all the possible implications that may arise from the publication of the study.

Research Results

Fabrication, falsification or selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive is unethical, as is the theft of data or research results from others. The results of research should be recorded and maintained to allow for analysis and review. Following publication, the data should be retained for a reasonable period and made available upon request. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances in order to preserve privacy, to assure patent protection, or for similar reasons.

Authorship

Advances in Mobile Learning Educational Research (AMLER) assumes that all gave explicit consent to submit the manuscripts and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the organization where the work has been carried out before the work is submitted.

Authorship should be limited to people who have contributed substantially to the work. The Publisher recommends authors to include contribution statements during the submission stage that specifies the contribution of every author in order to promote transparency. Examples of contributions include: designed research, performed research, contributed new reagents or analytic tools, analyzed data, wrote the paper. Contributors who do not meet all criteria for authorship could be listed in the Acknowledgements section if possible.

The corresponding author should be clearly indicated for all manuscripts submitted. A maximum of two corresponding authors is allowed for the responsibilities associated. The corresponding author(s) is responsible for: i) Obtaining permission from all the authors mentioned in the manuscript; ii) Ensuring adherence to all editorial and submission policies and for any communications and actions that may be necessary before and after publication; iii) Including written permission from the authors of the work concerned for any mention of any unpublished material included in the manuscript, making sure disclosures, such as data from manuscripts-in-press, personal communication, or work in preparation.

All authors are requested to include information regarding sources of funding, financial or non-financial interests. All authors are also requested to make sure that all data and materials comply with field standards.

Authors are strongly advised to ensure that the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled and that addresses and affiliations are current, and the correct order of authors at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors at the revision stage is generally not permitted, but in some cases, it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves, and the Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate and reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process.

Authors are strongly recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.

Duplicate Submission

A manuscript would not be accepted if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. The submitted article will be removed without consideration.

Plagiarism

The editorial team does not approve of any plagiarism attempts. iThenticate will be utilized at the editor’s discretion to verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. If any plagiarism is found during the review process, the manuscript may be rejected, depending the severity of plagiarism. Reproducing text from other papers without properly crediting the source (plagiarism) or producing many papers with almost the same content by the same authors (self-plagiarism) is not acceptable. Submitting the same results to more than one journal concurrently is unethical. Exceptions are the review articles. Authors may not present results obtained by others as if they were their own. Therefore, if a manuscript uses a text copied directly from another source, this text must be written in quotation marks and the original source must be cited.

Post-publication Additions and Corrections

Additions and Corrections may be requested by the author(s) or initiated by the Editor to address important issues or correct errors and omissions of consequence that arise after publication of an article. All Additions and Corrections are subject to approval by the Editor, and should bring new and directly relevant information and corrections that fix scientific facts. Additions and Corrections must be submitted as new manuscripts by the Corresponding Author. The corresponding author should obtain approval from all coauthors prior to submitting or provide evidence that such approval has been solicited. The manuscript should include the original article title and author list, citation including DOI, and details of the correction. Minor corrections and additions will not be published. Readers who detect errors of consequence in the work of others should contact the corresponding author of that work.

Withdraw

A withdraw is usually initiated by the authors, who have the right to request a withdraw of manuscript before the article is published, as long as a valid reason is given, but a $200 of APCs need to be paid to cover the peer review and editorial process if it has been accepted. If the editor or staff discovers that the article has been formally published by another journal, this manuscript will be rejected for publication by the journal.

Retraction

Following COPE's retraction guidelines, post-publication retraction actions are usually initiated by the editorial office, and editors should consider retracting a publication if the following issues are identified:

• They have clear evidence that the results are unreliable as ethics reasons (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, redundant publication, etc.) or major error.
• Data or material without authorization for use.
• There is evidence that the publication of the article was attributed to a tampered or manipulated peer review process.
• The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a. conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.

Once article is retracted, the original link will be retained and clearly identified as a retraction, and a statement will be announced with the initiator and reasons for retraction. All the authors and their institutions will be informed as well.

Intellectual Property

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all intellectual property issues are satisfactorily resolved prior to first publication. Acceptance and publication will not be delayed for pending or unresolved issues of this nature.

Complaints and Appeals

The below procedure applies to appeals to editorial decisions, complaints about failure of processes such as long delays in handling papers and complaints about publication ethics.

Complaint about scientific content
If your manuscript is declined by AMLER and the author believes an error has been made, you may appeal the decision directly to the editor who made it, providing a clear explanation for why you believe he or she should reconsider the decision. If the editor upholds the rejection, you may appeal the decision to the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief’s decisions on appeals are final.

Complaint about processes, e.g. time taken to review
The Editor-in-Chief together with the in-house contact will investigate the matter. Feedback is provided to relevant stakeholders to improve processes and procedures.

Complaint about publication ethics, e.g., author's or reviewer's conduct
The Editor-in-Chief or Handling Editor follows guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics, then decides on a course of action and provides feedback to the complainant. If the complainant remains dissatisfied with the handling of their complaint, he or she can submit the complaint to the Committee on Publication Ethics, more....

Human and Animal Rights

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans; Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects during submitting stage. In the case of vulnerable populations, informed consent from their families is required. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals (2020) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed.