Journal policies

Journal of Educational and Psychological Sciences uses double-blind peer review: reviewers do not know the authors' identities, and authors do not know the reviewers'.

Each manuscript first receives a technical check for compliance with the author guidelines and a similarity check. The editor-in-chief or a handling editor then assesses its fit with the journal's aims and scope; manuscripts may be declined at this stage without external review, with the reason given.

Manuscripts that pass are sent to at least 2 independent expert reviewers from outside the authors' institutions, who are given 21 days to report. Reviewers assess originality, significance, soundness of method, clarity and the currency of the references, and recommend acceptance, revision or rejection.

The handling editor decides in light of the reports and sends them to the authors. Revised manuscripts must answer every comment and may return to the same reviewers. Editors with a conflict of interest take no part in the decision, and manuscripts by members of the editorial board follow the same process without their involvement.

Journal of Educational and Psychological Sciences follows the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and expects authors, reviewers and editors to do the same.

Authors submit original work that has not been published or submitted elsewhere, cite the work of others accurately, and list as authors only those who contributed substantially. They disclose funding and any conflict of interest, keep their data and make it available on request, obtain ethical approval for research involving people, and tell the journal promptly about any significant error they find in their work.

Reviewers keep manuscripts confidential and do not use their content, assess them objectively with reasons for their comments, and decline when they have a conflict of interest, lack the expertise, or cannot report on time.

Editors decide on scholarly merit alone, regardless of the authors' gender, nationality or affiliation, keep manuscripts and reviewer identities confidential, and recuse themselves from any conflict of interest.

Suspected misconduct, including plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication and authorship or citation manipulation, is handled according to the COPE flowcharts, and may lead to rejection, retraction after publication, and notification of the authors' institution.

Journal of Educational and Psychological Sciences is an open access journal: every article is free to read and download as soon as it is published, with no registration or subscription.

Articles are published under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows anyone to copy, distribute and adapt the work for any purpose, provided the authors and the source are properly credited.

Authors keep the copyright of their articles and grant the journal the right of first publication. They may deposit the published version in institutional repositories and on personal websites without embargo, citing the original publication and its DOI.

Submitted manuscripts are checked with similarity detection software (iThenticate) before review. The similarity score is not a verdict in itself: the editor reads the report to distinguish properly cited quotation and common phrases from plagiarism.

Manuscripts containing uncredited copying, or undisclosed reuse of the authors' earlier publications, are returned. Plagiarism found after publication leads to retraction under the corrections and retractions policy.

Generative AI tools cannot be listed as authors; authors remain fully responsible for the content of their work.

Authors disclose any use of such tools in writing the manuscript, analysing data or preparing figures, and the disclosure is published with the article. Spelling and grammar checkers need not be declared.

Reviewers and editors must not upload manuscripts or review reports to AI tools, to protect their confidentiality.

The journal uses an automated assistant for first screening. It reads only the title, abstracts, keywords and section headings, never the full text, and gives the editor advisory notes; decisions rest with the editors.

The journal publishes a linked correction when an error does not change an article's conclusions, and retracts an article when misconduct or a major error invalidates them, following COPE guidance. Retracted articles remain available, clearly marked, with a notice explaining the reason.

Authors may appeal an editorial decision by writing to the editor-in-chief with their reasons within thirty days. The appeal is considered by an editor not involved in the original decision, whose decision is final.

Every published article receives a permanent DOI registered with Crossref, its full text is preserved as JATS XML and PDF, and its metadata is available for harvesting through OAI-PMH.

The platform keeps regular backups of all articles and their files.

The journal deposits a copy of every issue with the King Fahd National Library.

Journal of Educational and Psychological Sciences charges no fees to authors for submission, peer review or publication, and none to readers.