Systems and Computing (SyCom) is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity, transparency, and ethical conduct in scholarly publishing. The journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (a joint statement by COPE, DOAJ, and OASPA). 

This statement outlines the ethical principles and responsibilities governing all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher.

Ethical Principles

The journal is committed to:

• Ensuring integrity, transparency, and accountability in scholarly publishing.
• Maintaining the quality and reliability of the scholarly record.
• Upholding fairness, objectivity, and confidentiality in the peer-review process.
• Preventing and addressing all forms of publication misconduct.
• Promoting ethical research and publication practices in accordance with international standards.

Duties of Authors

By submitting a manuscript to SyCom, all authors acknowledge that they have read, understood, and agreed to comply with the journal’s ethical policies.

General Responsibilities

Authors are expected to:

• Ensure that the submitted work is original and does not involve plagiarism, duplicate submission, or redundant publication.
• Ensure that all listed authors meet accepted authorship criteria (e.g., CRediT – Contributor Roles Taxonomy).
• Approve the final manuscript and accept responsibility for its content.
• Designate a corresponding author responsible for communication with the journal.
• Participate constructively in the peer-review process and respond to reviewers’ comments in a timely manner.
• Avoid withdrawing manuscripts after peer review has started without a valid and justified reason.

Authorship Changes

Requests to modify authorship must:

• Include written consent from all authors.
• Provide a clear justification.
• Be approved by the editorial office before acceptance.

Ethical Compliance

Authors must ensure compliance with applicable ethical standards, including:

• Ethical approval for human or animal research when required.
• Compliance with the  Declaration of Helsinki (for human research) and ARRIVE guidelines (for animal research).
• Respect for privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent.
• Avoidance of defamatory, fraudulent, or unlawful content.

Data, Funding, and Transparency

Authors must:

• Provide data availability statements where possible, in line with open science principles.
• Disclose all funding sources.
• Declare any conflicts of interest.
• Avoid citation manipulation or unethical citation practices.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• AI tools may be used only for language editing or technical assistance (see AI Policy).
• Authors must clearly disclose the use of any AI tools in the manuscript.
• AI tools must not be listed as authors.
• AI-generated content must be carefully reviewed and verified by the authors.
• AI must not replace scientific reasoning, critical analysis, or academic accountability.
• Authors remain fully responsible for the integrity, accuracy, and originality of their work.

Post-Publication Policies

Post-Publication Responsibility

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their published work. If authors discover any significant error or inaccuracy in their article, they must promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief and cooperate fully in issuing a correction, erratum, or retraction, as appropriate. Authors should also respond to any post-publication queries or concerns.

Post-Publication Actions

The journal may take appropriate post-publication actions to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record, including:

• Corrections (Erratum or Corrigendum) for minor errors.
• Retractions for major ethical breaches or invalid results.
• Expressions of Concern when investigations are ongoing.

All notices will be clearly identified and permanently linked to the original article.

Copyright and Author Identification

• Authors retain copyright and agree to publish under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
• The corresponding author is strongly encouraged to provide an institutional email address.
• All authors are encouraged to provide an ORCID identifier.

Duties of Editors

Editors are responsible for ensuring a fair, confidential, and independent peer-review process. They must:

• Base editorial decisions solely on academic merit, originality, and relevance.
• Ensure confidentiality of submitted manuscripts.
• Avoid conflicts of interest and recuse themselves when necessary.
• Not use unpublished materials for personal research.
• Select qualified reviewers.
• Prevent and detect ethical misconduct (plagiarism, fabrication, etc.).
• Ensure a timely peer-review process.
• Take appropriate corrective actions (corrections, retractions, expressions of concern).
• Handle complaints and appeals transparently.
• Maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.
• Ensure compliance with ethical standards in human/animal research.
• Use AI tools only as supportive tools and not as a substitute for editorial judgment (see AI Policy).

Duties of Reviewers

Reviewers play a critical role in maintaining the quality of the journal. They must:

• Accept reviews only when qualified and available.
• Provide objective, constructive, and timely evaluations.
• Maintain confidentiality of manuscripts.
• Declare conflicts of interest.
• Avoid using manuscript content for personal advantage.
• Report ethical concerns or misconduct.
• Not attempt to identify or contact authors.
• Communicate only through the editorial system.
• Not use generative AI tools to produce or substantially assist in the review content (see AI Policy).

Duties of the Publisher

The publisher ensures technical and operational support and does not interfere in editorial decisions. The publisher is responsible for:

• Maintaining publishing infrastructure and platform stability.
• Ensuring open access to published content.
• Supporting editorial independence.
• Ensuring long-term digital preservation and archiving.
• Managing production, dissemination, and indexing.
• Supporting compliance with international publishing standards.
• Ensuring transparency of journal operations.

Conflict of Interest

All participants (authors, reviewers, editors) must disclose any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest at the time of submission.

Plagiarism and Research Misconduct Policy

 SyCom has zero tolerance for:

• Plagiarism and self-plagiarism
• Data fabrication or falsification
• Duplicate submission

Manuscripts may be screened using similarity detection tools. Submissions exceeding a similarity threshold of 20–25% (excluding references and properly cited content) may be rejected or returned for revision.

Reporting Unethical Conduct

Any individual, including authors, reviewers, editors, or readers, may report suspected ethical misconduct related to the journal. Examples of misconduct include, but are not limited to, plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, duplicate publication, authorship disputes, and undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Ethical misconduct may be reported confidentially to: journal-sycom@univ-tebessa.dz

Appeals and Complaints

Authors have the right to appeal editorial decisions by providing a clear and justified explanation. Appeals must be submitted within a reasonable timeframe following the decision.

All appeals are reviewed objectively, transparently, and in a timely manner by the editorial board or by independent reviewers when appropriate. The Editor-in-Chief may make the final decision on the appeal.

The journal also welcomes complaints regarding editorial processes, ethical issues, or publication practices. All complaints will be handled seriously, confidentially, and in accordance with the journal’s policies and internationally recognized guidelines. 

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed in published articles are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors, editorial board, or publisher.

The journal and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or consequences arising from the use of the published content.