Publication Ethics

The Journal of Sports, Exercise, and Performance (JOSEP) is committed to ethical responsibility, academic integrity, transparency, and accountability in scholarly publishing. All editorial processes are designed to provide a reliable, fair, and traceable publishing environment for authors, reviewers, editors, readers, and the publisher.

General Ethical Principles

JOSEP follows internationally recognized principles of publication ethics, good editorial practice, and standards of scientific integrity. Manuscripts submitted to the journal are expected to be original, scientifically valid, ethically sound, and not previously published or under consideration elsewhere.

All submissions may be evaluated for potential ethical issues, including plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, duplicate publication, salami slicing, inappropriate authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and lack of required ethical approval.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

  • Authors must ensure that their submitted work is original and is not under consideration by another journal.
  • The data used in the study must be accurate, reliable, and verifiable when necessary.
  • For studies involving human participants, athletes, patients, children, or special populations, ethical approval and informed consent procedures must be clearly stated.
  • All listed authors must have made a meaningful scholarly contribution to the study, and the author order must be agreed upon by all authors.
  • Financial support, institutional support, sponsorship, and potential conflicts of interest must be clearly disclosed.
  • Authors are responsible for complying with the journal’s policies regarding similarity checks, data sharing, copyright, and licensing.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

  • Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts objectively based on scientific quality, originality, relevance to the journal’s scope, and compliance with ethical principles.
  • Editorial decisions are not influenced by the authors’ identity, institution, gender, nationality, belief, political view, or personal characteristics.
  • Editors ensure that the peer review process is fair, confidential, and conducted in a timely manner.
  • Editors must withdraw from the decision-making process when there is a conflict of interest or ensure that an appropriate editorial assignment is made.
  • When suspected ethical misconduct arises, editors initiate the necessary investigation and manage appropriate correction, retraction, or notification procedures.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

  • Reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential documents and must not share them with third parties.
  • Reviewer comments should be scientific, constructive, respectful, and well justified.
  • Reviewers should decline review invitations for manuscripts outside their expertise or when a conflict of interest exists.
  • Reviewers should inform the editor of any suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, lack of ethical approval, or data inconsistency.

Research Ethics and Ethical Approval

Studies involving human participants must obtain approval from an appropriate ethics committee, and the name of the committee, approval date, and approval number must be clearly stated in the manuscript. Special attention must be given to informed consent, voluntariness, confidentiality, and participant protection in studies involving athletes, children, clinical groups, individuals with special needs, or vulnerable populations.

If ethical approval is not required for a study, authors should clearly explain the reason in the methods section.

Plagiarism, Duplicate Publication, and Ethical Misconduct

Manuscripts submitted to JOSEP may be screened for similarity and originality. Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, unauthorized use of figures or tables, duplicate publication, and inappropriate authorship are considered unacceptable forms of publication misconduct.

When suspected misconduct is identified, the editorial office conducts the necessary evaluation. As a result of the process, the manuscript may be rejected, a correction may be published, the article may be retracted, or relevant institutions may be notified.

Confidentiality and Data Protection

JOSEP editors and reviewers are responsible for keeping all manuscript files, author information, reviewer reports, and editorial correspondence confidential. Personal data are used only for the journal’s editorial and publication processes.

Publisher Statement

JOSEP is published by the Sports, Exercise, and Performance Research Association (SEP-ADER). The publisher supports the academic independence of the journal and the impartiality of editorial decision-making. Editorial decisions are based solely on scientific quality, ethical compliance, and relevance to the journal’s scope.