Ethical Principles and Publication Policy
Computational Methods is committed to maintaining high standards of research integrity, publication ethics, transparency, reproducibility, confidentiality, and editorial independence.
This policy applies to authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher.
The journal's publication-ethics framework is informed by the COPE Core Practices and recognized disciplinary standards relevant to computational, mathematical, scientific, engineering, and health-related research.
Research Integrity
Research must be conducted, analyzed, and reported honestly and transparently.
The journal does not tolerate fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, inappropriate data manipulation, inappropriate image manipulation, duplicate publication, peer-review manipulation, or other forms of research or publication misconduct.
Computational Integrity
Authors are responsible for ensuring that computational methods, algorithms, mathematical models, simulations, datasets, code, analyses, and reported results are presented accurately.
Computational results must not be intentionally manipulated to produce misleading conclusions.
Where relevant, authors should disclose important assumptions, parameter settings, preprocessing procedures, validation methods, software environments, and other information necessary to understand the work.
Data Integrity and Reproducibility
Authors should maintain appropriate research records and retain sufficient information to support the reported analyses.
Where reasonably possible, supporting datasets, source code, algorithms, computational workflows, or other reproducibility materials should be made available through suitable repositories or other appropriate mechanisms.
Restrictions arising from privacy, confidentiality, licensing, security, intellectual property, or other legitimate reasons should be clearly explained.
Software, Code, and Third-Party Materials
Authors must respect the licensing and intellectual-property requirements applicable to software, source code, datasets, libraries, models, images, and other third-party materials.
Third-party resources that materially contribute to the research should be appropriately acknowledged or cited.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Authors must disclose material use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation, analysis, coding, modelling, image generation, or other research activities where such disclosure is relevant.
AI systems cannot be listed as authors. Human authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, interpretation, citations, data, code, and conclusions of their work.
AI tools must not be used to fabricate data, results, references, citations, or other scholarly information.
Reviewers and editors must not use AI tools in a manner that compromises confidential manuscript or peer-review information.
The journal follows relevant principles in the ICMJE guidance on Artificial Intelligence in Publishing where applicable.
Human Participants and Sensitive Data
Research involving human participants, patient information, medical records, identifiable personal information, or sensitive datasets must comply with applicable ethical, institutional, legal, and regulatory requirements.
Where applicable, authors must report ethics approval, informed consent, anonymization, privacy safeguards, or other relevant protections.
Medical research involving human participants should follow the WMA Declaration of Helsinki.
Animal Research
Research involving animals must comply with applicable animal-welfare and ethical requirements. Where applicable, authors should report institutional or ethics approval.
The ARRIVE guidelines should be considered for reporting animal research.
Authorship and Contributorship
Authorship should reflect substantial contributions to the research or manuscript.
All authors should approve the final manuscript and accept responsibility for their contributions and the integrity of the work.
For biomedical and health-related research, the journal recognizes the relevant ICMJE Recommendations.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest that could influence or reasonably appear to influence scholarly judgment.
Conflicts may include financial, professional, institutional, personal, academic, commercial, or other relevant interests.
Funding
All sources of financial support for the research or manuscript preparation must be disclosed.
Where applicable, authors should describe the role of the funding organization in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and publication decisions.
Peer-Review Ethics
Computational Methods uses a single-blind peer-review process.
Reviewers must maintain confidentiality, disclose conflicts of interest, provide objective assessments, and must not use unpublished information for personal or professional advantage.
Editorial Independence
The Editor-in-Chief has overall responsibility for the journal's editorial direction, peer-review integrity, publication ethics, and final editorial decisions.
The Editor-in-Chief may delegate manuscript handling or decision-making to a qualified Senior Editor, Associate Editor, or other formally designated editor. Such delegation does not remove the Editor-in-Chief's overall responsibility.
Editorial decisions must be based on scholarly and ethical considerations and must not be influenced by commercial interests, publication charges, optional production services, nationality, institutional affiliation, personal relationships, or other irrelevant factors.
Confidentiality
Submitted manuscripts, unpublished data, source code, datasets, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, and personal information must be treated as confidential.
Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication
Plagiarism, substantial unattributed copying, duplicate publication, redundant publication, and inappropriate reuse of previously published material are not acceptable.
Similarity-detection software may be used as part of editorial screening. Similarity results are not, by themselves, proof of plagiarism.
Research and Publication Misconduct
Potential misconduct may include:
- fabrication;
- falsification;
- plagiarism;
- data manipulation;
- inappropriate image manipulation;
- duplicate or redundant publication;
- authorship misconduct;
- undisclosed conflicts of interest;
- peer-review manipulation;
- misuse or misrepresentation of computational methods; and
- other violations of research or publication integrity.
The journal may request explanations, supporting data, code, documentation, institutional information, or other evidence when investigating a concern.
Corrections
When a published article contains an error that materially affects the accuracy or interpretation of the published record, the journal may publish a correction or other appropriate editorial notice.
Retractions
An article may be retracted where reliable evidence demonstrates that its findings are substantially unreliable, the article contains serious research or publication misconduct, or another circumstance requires formal removal or correction of the published record.
Expressions of Concern
Where substantial concerns exist but an investigation has not yet reached a definitive conclusion, the journal may publish an Expression of Concern to alert readers while the matter is being investigated.
Post-Publication Concerns
Readers, authors, reviewers, institutions, and other interested parties may raise credible concerns regarding published articles.
The journal may assess such concerns and request information from authors, institutions, or other relevant parties where necessary.
Complaints and Appeals
Authors may submit legitimate appeals concerning editorial decisions or complaints concerning the publication process.
Appeals should provide clear reasons and relevant evidence. Publication-ethics concerns will be handled according to applicable journal procedures and recognized principles such as the COPE Core Practices.
Optional Production and Technical Support
After acceptance, authors who require assistance with final manuscript preparation, production-related technical checks, or file preparation may request optional Production and Technical Support from Jagua Publication at a charge of USD 50 per manuscript.
This service is entirely optional and is not a condition of acceptance or publication. Authors who prepare and submit their final files themselves do not need to pay this charge.
Payment for optional production or technical support has no influence on peer review, editorial assessment, acceptance, rejection, or publication.
Ethical and Reporting Resources
Authors and editors may consult the following recognized resources according to the subject and methodology of the manuscript: