Publication Ethics

COPE establishes that authorship should be based on the following four criteria:

1. Significant contributions to the conception or design of the research, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; AND
2. Active involvement in drafting or critically revising the manuscript for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Accountability for all aspects of the work, ensuring accuracy and integrity.

Contributorship & Corresponding Author: Contributors who do not meet full criteria will be acknowledged. The corresponding author is responsible for communications, consent, and ensuring all co-authors are aware of submission procedures and costs.

Changes in Authorship: Requests for changes (additions, removals, or reordering) require signed consent from all listed authors (including those affected) and a valid rationale submitted via an Authorship Change Form. Approved modifications post-publication will result in a Correction Notice.

When submitting to ELEMENTAR, authors must disclose whether they used AI-assisted technologies (such as LLMs, chatbots, or image generators) in the preparation of their work.

Authors using AI technology must provide a transparent declaration covering:

1. The name of the AI technology used (e.g., ChatGPT, Grammarly, DALL-E);
2. The specific reason for using AI technology;
3. How the AI technology was applied during the process.

This declaration must be included in the cover letter and manuscript (Acknowledgments for writing assistance; Methods section for data collection or figure generation).

ELEMENTAR upholds the highest standards of academic integrity and considers only original and unpublished scholarly work.

Plagiarism & Similarity Threshold: Both plagiarism and self-plagiarism are strictly prohibited. All submissions are screened using plagiarism detection tools (Turnitin).

Duplicate Publications & Preprints: Submitting substantially similar work across multiple venues without disclosure is forbidden. Authors may upload original preprints to non-commercial servers prior to acceptance, provided they link the preprint record to the final published article upon acceptance.

ELEMENTAR adheres to a rigorous double-blind peer review process. Manuscripts are reviewed by at least two independent expert reviewers. Editors with conflicts of interest are strictly excluded from handling specific submissions.

ELEMENTAR adheres to COPE guidelines regarding appeals to editorial decisions and complaints about the peer review process. Appeal letters must include clear explanations, supporting new data, or evidence of technical review errors.

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose any potential conflicts of interest (financial, academic, political, or personal) that could compromise objectivity. The journal follows COPE guidelines on handling undisclosed conflicts and reserves the right to take corrective actions or retract published articles if necessary.

ELEMENTAR encourages data sharing to enhance research reproducibility and transparency. Authors are encouraged to provide supplementary files, datasets, and include a Data Availability Statement explaining how data can be accessed, subject to necessary privacy or confidentiality waivers.

Research involving human subjects (such as students or teachers in elementary schools and Madrasah Ibtidaiyah) must include statements of Informed Consent and ethical approval from relevant institutional boards. Personal identifying information must be removed unless explicit written publication consent is granted.

Authors fully retain copyright to their work and certify its originality. All accepted articles published in ELEMENTAR are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0), enabling open access distribution with proper attribution.