Journal of Strategy and Transformation in Educational Management (JOSTEM) is committed to transparent, fair, independent, and responsible scholarly publishing. The following policies govern manuscript submission, peer review, publication ethics, authorship, open access, copyright, publication charges, and post-publication procedures.
JOSTEM applies a double-anonymous peer review process. The identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other throughout the review process.
Manuscripts that pass initial editorial screening are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with relevant academic expertise.
Initial editorial screening evaluates relevance to the journal's focus and scope, originality, scholarly contribution, theoretical foundation, methodological quality, ethical compliance, clarity of presentation, and adherence to submission requirements.
Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, evidence-based, and confidential assessments. Review recommendations may include acceptance, revision, resubmission, or rejection.
The final editorial decision is made by the Editor based on reviewer reports, editorial assessment, scholarly merit, originality, methodological soundness, relevance, and compliance with journal policies.
JOSTEM is committed to maintaining integrity, transparency, fairness, and academic independence in scholarly publishing. The journal's ethical practices are informed by internationally recognized principles of publication ethics, including guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Authors are responsible for ensuring that submitted work is original, accurate, appropriately referenced, ethically conducted, and not simultaneously submitted to another journal.
Reviewers must maintain confidentiality, provide impartial assessments, disclose relevant conflicts of interest, and avoid using unpublished material obtained through peer review for personal or professional advantage.
Editors are responsible for fair and independent editorial decisions based on scholarly quality, relevance, originality, methodological soundness, and ethical compliance.
Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or other forms of research misconduct may result in rejection, correction, retraction, or other appropriate editorial action.
Manuscripts submitted to JOSTEM may be screened using similarity-detection software before or during the editorial process.
Similarity reports are evaluated contextually. The journal does not use a numerical similarity percentage as the sole basis for determining plagiarism. Editors consider the nature, extent, location, and source of overlapping material and whether appropriate attribution has been provided.
Substantial unattributed copying, inappropriate paraphrasing, duplicate publication, or unethical reuse of previously published material may result in rejection. Where such issues are identified after publication, correction or retraction procedures may be initiated.
Artificial intelligence tools, including generative AI systems, cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility for scholarly content, originality, integrity, or ethical compliance.
Authors remain fully responsible for all submitted content. Substantive use of generative AI in preparing text, analysis, code, figures, data interpretation, or other research materials should be transparently disclosed where relevant.
Editors and reviewers should not upload confidential manuscripts, reviewer reports, or unpublished editorial information to publicly accessible AI systems where confidentiality, intellectual property, or data security cannot be assured.
Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the conception, design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or preparation of the research and who accept responsibility for the published work.
Individuals whose contributions do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged appropriately.
Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must include a clear justification and agreement from all affected authors.
Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial, professional, institutional, personal, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the research, peer review, or editorial decision.
Authors retain copyright in their published work and grant JOSTEM the right of first publication.
Published articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
The license permits sharing and adaptation of published material provided appropriate credit is given to the authors and original publication, a link to the license is provided, and any modifications are indicated.
JOSTEM provides immediate open access to its published scholarly content. Readers may access journal articles without subscription or registration fees.
The journal supports open scholarly communication and believes that unrestricted access to research promotes wider dissemination, collaboration, educational improvement, and scholarly impact.
JOSTEM provides transparent information regarding manuscript submission and publication charges. Any applicable publication charge is independent of the peer-review and editorial decision-making process.
Any applicable APC is requested only after a manuscript has successfully completed peer review and received a formal acceptance decision.
Payment does not influence manuscript evaluation, reviewer recommendations, editorial decisions, or publication priority.
JOSTEM is committed to maintaining the accessibility and long-term availability of its published scholarly content. Published articles and associated metadata are maintained through the journal's online publishing platform.
Additional recognized digital preservation mechanisms may be adopted as they become available. Any specific preservation service will be publicly stated when actively implemented by the journal.
Authors may deposit and share their published articles in institutional repositories, subject repositories, personal academic websites, research profiles, and other lawful scholarly platforms in accordance with the journal's CC BY 4.0 license.
When depositing the published version, authors should provide complete bibliographic information and, where available, link to the official journal version and DOI.
JOSTEM is committed to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record. When significant errors or ethical concerns are identified after publication, the journal may issue a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other appropriate notice.
Corrections may be issued when errors affect the accuracy, interpretation, attribution, or completeness of an article without invalidating its overall findings.
Retraction may be considered when findings are unreliable because of misconduct or major error, plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification, unethical research, manipulation, or other serious breaches of publication ethics.
An Expression of Concern may be issued when substantial concerns exist but an investigation has not yet been completed.
Complaints concerning editorial procedures, peer review, ethical matters, or published content should be submitted through the journal's official communication channel and will be reviewed objectively.
Authors may submit a reasoned appeal when they believe that a significant factual or procedural issue affected an editorial decision. Appeals do not guarantee reconsideration or acceptance.
