All corresponding authors are implied to have read and understood this policy when their contributions are submitted to the Journal.

All manuscripts are given unbiased consideration regardless of the authors’ race, gender, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, political beliefs, sexual orientation, age or reputation.

Misconduct

Manuscripts submitted to JCOM must not have been published or be under consideration for publication in other refereed journals, nor should they be sent to other journals while still being considered for publication in JCOM.

Cases of misconduct are seriously considered and investigated and anonimity of whistleblowers is protected.

JCOM reserves the right to refuse to publish any content that, in its opinion, could be deemed distasteful or illegal including, but not limited to, libellous, defamatory, offensive or hate speech.

To report any concerns relating to potential misconduct, please contact the Editorial Office.

Authorship

All those who have made a significant contribution to a manuscript must be cited as co-authors.

According to JCOM policy, authorship is based on the following 4 criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Other contributors to the study should be acknowledged, but not cited as authors.

All co-authors are assumed to share full responsibility for all of the paper and are expected to agree on this and on the order in which they appear in the author list.

Authorship or acknowledgements must not be used misleadingly to imply a contribution or endorsement by anyone who has not been involved with the work.

Authors take full responsibility for the content they submit for publication which must adhere to the ethical standards at JCOM. In particular, authors have a responsibility to fully acknowledge the work of others, disclosing their sources clearly and thoroughly in their manuscripts. In cases where generative AI or other artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are used during the research and/or the preparation of a manuscript, this has to be declared and referenced properly and clearly in the methods and/or acknowledgments sections. Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as authors or co-authors, or cited as an author. Exceptions may be considered on a case-by-case basis, and in these cases, authors should consult with the JCOM editorial office before submitting a manuscript in order to motivate for the inclusion of Generative AI authorship.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that:

• all authors have approved the final version of the article as accepted for publication
• the manuscript is not under consideration by any other journal at the time of submission
• all co-author details and contacts are correct at the time of submission

Any changes to authorship during the publication process must be approved by all the authors, who must all confirm that they give their consent to the requested changes in the author’s list.

If an author has sadly passed away before a manuscript is submitted, consent by a family member or legal proxy is requested.

Sharing of log in details or allowing anyone to submit on one’s behalf is considered to be a serious ethical policy breach.

Authors must not fabricate, falsify or misrepresent data or results. Should an honest error occur, authors should contact the Editorial Office. Corrections must be approved by all authors of the original article.

Should submitted images or photographs be found to be potentially offensive to the journal’s readership or violate copyright, the journal reserves the right to request that authors provide alternative images before the final version is published.

All authors are required to declare any funding they received related to their research and ensure they have permission from their funders before submitting their article.

Referencing

Authors must fully acknowledge the work of others (be it published or unpublished) used in their research and cite publications that have influenced their study. Information obtained in private correspondence or conversation can only be used with the explicit permission of the persons involved. Information obtained whilst refereeing research articles or grant applications should only be used if permission of the original author is provided. Permission by the original authors is required for any figures or extracts subject to copyright.

Including superfluous references to the authors’ own work or the works of others to promote and inflate citation scores is considered unethical.

Plagiarism and duplicate publication

Plagiarism constitutes unethical scientific behaviour and is never acceptable. Duplicate publication (production of multiple papers with essentially the same content by the same authors) is also considered unacceptable.

Conflict of interest

Any potential conflicts of interest should be declared by the authors when submitting their article, either in the acknowledgments section or in a separate cover letter. Examples of conflicts of interest that must be disclosed are: direct or indirect sources of funding (employment, grants, patents, sponsorships, consulting fees, equipment supplies); unpaid advisory affiliations and memberships of professional organisations which may influence publication, any personal relationships or beliefs representing a conflict (i.e: having a relative who works for a funding organization). Editors and reviewers must remain unbiased during the review process. A conflict of interest is anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with an objective peer review. Circumstances that may preclude editors or reviewers to remain unbiased include (but are not limited to) personal competing interests of any kind with any of the authors, being currently employed at the same institution as any of the authors, or having been close collaborators of any of the authors in the last three years. If at any point of the review process, editors or reviewers feel they cannot provide a fair and unbiased review, they should notify the journal immediately and seek advice.

Confidentiality and fair-play

Any manuscripts received for review must always be treated as confidential by both editors and reviewers. Editors may nonetheless contact editors of other journals in cases of suspect misconduct.

JCOM adopts a double-anonymous peer review process in order to better guarantee that manuscripts are reviewed regardless of the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, ethnic origin or citizenship.

Reviewers are expected to bring any ethical issues to the attention of the editor, including substantial overlap or similarity with other published papers.

JCOM is organised as follows: Editor in chief, Deputy Editor, Editorial Board, Editorial Office at SISSA Medialab, Publishing Office at SISSA Medialab

The Editor in chief and the Deputy Editor are in charge of supervising JCOM's activity, of coordinating the peer review process, the Boards' activity and of monitoring the quality of the Journal.
The Editor in chief is first instance for an appeal.

The Editorial Board is called upon to facilitate the peer review process by securing appropriate peer feedback on articles submitted to JCOM. In addition to this vital role it acts as an ambassador for JCOM, by helping to promote the Journal and encourage researchers and practitioners to write for the Journal.

The Editorial Office at SISSA Medialab is in charge of supervising the functioning of the Journal. The Editorial Office monitors the Journal daily and provides assistance to authors, editors and referees.

The Publishing Office at SISSA Medialab is responsible for the marketing and distribution of the Journal, including the publication of accepted contributions (jcom.sissa.it)

The JCOM editorial office is based at SISSA Medialab, where a web-based software system has been developed and is used to process submissions and run the entire editorial procedure.

The software system relies on a powerful database that stores the files of the contributions, their metadata and, most importantly, all the correspondence between the Journal users (the director, authors, editors, referees, the editorial office and the typesetters). Users therefore have direct access to all the information, files and correspondence items appropriate for their role on their personal web pages. All users have a single username and password to access their home page on the JCOM website for all of their different roles.

Published papers are available online on open access terms on jcom.sissa.it

Editor-in-chief
Michelle Riedlinger	Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Deputy editor
Marina Joubert	Stellenbosch University, South Africa