Publication Ethics

RSEL adheres to internationally recognized publication ethics standards, particularly those promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and, in general terms, the CSIC Guide to Good Practice for Scientific-Academic Publishing. These guidelines serve as a code of conduct for all parties involved in the management, evaluation, and publication of content in RSEL.

Contents

  1. Editorial Team responsibilities
  2. Authors’ responsibilities
  3. Reviewers’ responsibilities
  4. Complaints and appeals
  5. Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions
  6. Plagiarism screening and research misconduct
  7. Conflicts of interest
  8. Research ethics, data/materials, and permissions (where applicable)
  9. Use of AI tools (where applicable)
  10. References

1.- Editorial Team responsibilities

1.1 Impartiality
The Editorial Team handles submissions impartially and respects authors’ intellectual independence. Authors may respond to substantive objections through revision and, where applicable, via appeals (see Section 4).

1.2 Confidentiality
Manuscripts and their content are treated as confidential until publication. Editorial Team members must not use data, arguments, or interpretations from unpublished manuscripts for their own research without the authors’ express written consent.

1.3 Manuscript assessment: external peer review and editorial assessment
RSEL operates double-blind peer review for research articles, involving at least two external reviewers. Where reports are substantially divergent, the Editorial Team may request an additional (third) review.
Book reviews are subject to editorial assessment (there is no standardized external peer-review procedure for these), without prejudice to the Editorial Team seeking expert advice when deemed necessary.
The Editorial Team seeks to ensure originality and may take steps to detect and prevent plagiarism, self-plagiarism, redundant/duplicate publication, citation manipulation, and other forms of misconduct.

1.4 Editorial decisions
Acceptance or rejection decisions rest with the Editorial Team, based on reviewers’ reports (where applicable) and editorial judgement. The Editorial Team may reject a submission without external review if it is outside the journal’s scope, fails to meet minimum scholarly standards, or shows evidence of misconduct.

1.5 Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions
RSEL may issue corrections, expressions of concern, or retract articles when they are found to be unreliable due to honest error or misconduct (e.g., fabrication, falsification, or manipulation of data; plagiarism or self-plagiarism; redundant/duplicate publication; omission of sources; unauthorized use of copyrighted material; citation manipulation, etc.).
Retraction decisions are taken to correct the scholarly record and protect its integrity. Retraction notices will state the reasons and will distinguish misconduct from honest error where possible. Retracted articles remain accessible online but will be clearly marked as retracted. Before formal retraction, the journal may issue an expression of concern where needed.

1.6 Public availability of guidelines
Submission and manuscript-preparation guidelines (length, abstracts/keywords, figures, references, etc.) are publicly available on the journal website.

1.7 Conflicts of interest (editors)
Conflicts of interest may arise when the author is a member of the Editorial Team, has a direct personal/professional relationship with a member, or the manuscript is closely related to a team member’s current or previous research. In such cases, the affected editor must recuse themselves and the manuscript will be assigned to an alternative editor.

1.8 Responsibility for implementation
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for ensuring that these policies are implemented and that Editorial Team members are familiar with them.

2.- Authors’ responsibilities

2.1 Publication guidelines and responsible reporting
Submissions must be based on original, unpublished work and must present an honest and objective discussion of results. They should provide sufficient information for specialists to evaluate claims and, where relevant, reproduce analyses.

2.2 Originality, plagiarism, and redundant publication
Plagiarism in all forms, self-plagiarism, redundant/duplicate publication, and data fabrication or manipulation constitute serious misconduct. The journal may use similarity-checking tools during initial checks and/or evaluation.
Submissions must not be under consideration elsewhere. RSEL does not consider manuscripts previously disseminated as preprints (on preprint servers or equivalent platforms).

2.3 Authorship and acknowledgements
Authorship must reflect substantial contributions. All authors share responsibility for the work presented, must approve the final version of the manuscript, and must consent to its submission. “Gift authorship” and “ghost authorship” are not permitted. Gift authorship refers to listing as an author a person who has not made a substantial contribution to the work. Ghost authorship refers to omitting a person who has made a substantial contribution and should be credited as an author. Authors are understood to be those who have contributed substantially to the work and approved the final version of the manuscript. Minor contributions (e.g., language editing or limited technical support) should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section or, where appropriate, through a CRediT author-contribution statement.

2.4 Sources, citations, and funding
Relevant sources must be appropriately cited and irrelevant/redundant references avoided. Funding sources must be disclosed, including grant/project identifiers where available; this information may appear in the published version.

2.5 Significant errors in published works
Authors must notify the journal promptly if they discover serious errors. The journal may publish corrections or retract articles as appropriate.

2.6 Conflicts of interest (authors)
Authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest (financial, professional, personal, or institutional) that could influence results or conclusions; if none exist, authors should state this explicitly.

2.7 Non-discrimination
The journal rejects offensive or discriminatory language and practices.

3.- Reviewers’ responsibilities (research articles)

External reviewers play an essential role in ensuring the quality and integrity of externally reviewed research articles.

3.1 Confidentiality
Reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential during and after review and must not use information obtained through peer review for personal advantage.

3.2 Objectivity and integrity
Reviews should be specific, evidence-based, objective, and constructive. Reviewers should alert the editors to substantial similarities with other works and to suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, or data manipulation.

3.3 Timeliness
Reviewers should deliver their report within the agreed deadline and notify the editors of delays, or decline if they are not qualified or cannot meet the deadline.

3.4 References
Reviewers should verify that relevant literature has been cited and may suggest removing superfluous references or adding missing relevant references.

3.5 Conflicts of interest (reviewers)
Reviewers must decline to review if a conflict of interest could affect their judgement.

4.- Complaints and appeals

Authors may submit reasoned complaints or appeals regarding editorial decisions or manuscript handling. The Editorial Team will review the request and, where appropriate, may seek additional assessment.

5.- Research ethics, data/materials, and permissions (where applicable)

5.1. Data, materials, and reproducibility (where applicable)

Authors should provide sufficient information for specialists to understand, evaluate, and—where relevant—reproduce the analyses.

  • Data and materials availability: Authors are encouraged to make datasets, corpora, stimuli, questionnaires, code, annotation guidelines, and analysis scripts available when legally and ethically possible, either as supplementary files or via a trusted repository.
  • Persistent access: Where materials are shared, authors should provide stable identifiers (DOI/handle) or a persistent URL, and indicate versioning when relevant.
  • Restricted data: If data/materials cannot be shared due to legal, ethical, privacy, or copyright constraints, authors must state the restriction and provide a clear description of what can be shared (e.g., anonymised excerpts, metadata, codebooks, or derived measures).
  • Documentation: Where relevant, manuscripts should specify data provenance, sampling/selection criteria, collection procedures, preprocessing steps, annotation protocols, and quality controls.

Linguistic data: confidentiality and licensing

  • Anonymisation of examples: Linguistic examples drawn from private communications, elicitation sessions, or fieldwork must be anonymised and presented so as not to identify participants.
  • Copyright and licensing: Authors must have the right to reuse and publish any corpora, texts, images, audio/video, questionnaires, or other materials. Licensing terms and permissions should be respected and cited.

Image/audio/video and third-party content

  • Permissions: Authors must obtain permission to reproduce third-party material (figures, tables, images, instruments, etc.) and cite the source appropriately.
  • Identifiable media: Authors should not publish identifiable audio/video or images of individuals unless explicit consent for publication has been obtained and documented.

Integrity of reporting

RSEL does not accept fabrication, falsification, manipulation, or selective reporting of data. If errors are discovered, authors must notify the journal promptly so that corrections can be issued where appropriate.

5.2. Ethics policies for studies involving human participants

Research submitted to RSEL that involves human participants (e.g., interviews, surveys/questionnaires, experiments, recordings, classroom studies, or the collection of personal data) must comply with applicable ethical and legal standards.
Authors are expected to obtain informed consent from participants, appropriate to the context and to participants’ capacity (and, where relevant, obtain consent from legal guardians); ensure privacy and confidentiality, including the secure handling of personal data and, where possible, the separation of identifying information from research materials; and protect participant anonymity in manuscripts and supplementary materials by removing or masking identifying details (names, contact information, images/voices where identifiable, institutional identifiers, and other indirect identifiers). If full anonymity cannot be guaranteed, authors must state this and explain the safeguards used.
For audio/video data, authors are expected to have obtained explicit permission for recording, storage, and any form of reuse (including transcription excerpts), and avoid sharing identifiable media unless participants have explicitly consented.
Where required or customary, authors should obtain ethics approval (e.g., from an Institutional Review Board / Research Ethics Committee) and state the approving body and reference number in the manuscript; if ethics approval is not applicable, authors should provide a brief justification.
In all cases, authors should ensure that participation is voluntary, that participants can withdraw where applicable, and that no coercion or undue influence is involved, especially in settings with power asymmetries (e.g., teacher–student relationships).
When working with vulnerable populations (e.g., minors), apply enhanced safeguards and comply with applicable regulations.
RSEL may request supporting documentation or clarifications during editorial assessment. Failure to meet these requirements may result in rejection or retraction, as appropriate.

6.- Use of AI tools

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT and large language models (LLMs), in research is expanding rapidly. RSEL endorses the Committee on Publication Ethics' (COPE) view that 1) AI has no legal claim to authorship of research publications, 2) AI cannot be held accountable for work, 3) AI cannot assert competing interests or consent to licensing agreements, and 4) AI cannot be included as an author or co-author of academic research. The European Commission states that researchers are accountable for the integrity of all AI-assisted content (see 'Living Guidelines on the responsible use of generative AI in research'). RSEL therefore requires authors to take responsibility for the research they submit.
Authors and reviewers are expected to comply with the journal’s integrity standards. Any concerns about undisclosed AI tool use or potential policy breaches should be reported confidentially to the Editorial Team for assessment.

7.- References