Publication Ethics

This journal is fully committed to upholding the ethical guidelines and best practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Both the editorial board and the publisher work together to ensure fairness, transparency, and integrity in every stage of the publishing process.

Editor’s Responsibilities

The Editor, along with the Editorial Board, plays a key role in maintaining the integrity of the journal. Their responsibilities include:

Managing a fair and impartial double-blind peer review for all submitted manuscripts. Every paper is reviewed without any bias related to the author’s background, including nationality, gender, age, political views, or other personal factors.
Choosing appropriate peer reviewers and evaluating submissions based solely on their academic merit, the quality of the research, and the clarity of presentation.
Making the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles.
Providing new board members and guest editors with clear guidance on how to handle submissions and their duties in the review process.
Ensuring that unpublished research or data is not misused by editors or others involved in the publication process.
Responding to ethical concerns and complaints with seriousness and taking the necessary steps to resolve them.
Issuing corrections or retractions when necessary to preserve the accuracy and reliability of the journal.

Guest Editor’s Responsibilities

Guest Editors are responsible for:

Defining the scope and themes of special issues and ensuring submitted papers align with those topics.
Recommending suitable reviewers for the papers submitted to those issues.
Managing the review timeline, including submission, feedback, revision, and final decision stages.

Reviewer’s Responsibilities

Reviewers play a critical role in maintaining the scientific quality of the journal. Their duties include:

Accepting review assignments only if they have the necessary expertise and can provide objective, helpful feedback.
Informing the editor as soon as possible if they are unable to review a manuscript or meet the deadline.
Evaluating submissions based on their scientific merit, without any personal bias.
Alerting the editor to any suspected cases of plagiarism or copyright infringement.
Declaring any conflicts of interest that could influence their review.
Treating all content in submitted papers as confidential and not sharing it with others.

Authors’ Responsibilities

Authors submitting to the journal must:

Ensure the work is original and not misleading in any way.
Confirm that all listed authors have made significant contributions to the research and agree with the content of the paper.
Verify that the article has not been published previously and is not under review elsewhere.
Clearly state if the article is an extended version of a conference paper, and include substantial new content.
Ensure that the manuscript does not violate privacy, confidentiality, or intellectual property rights.
Obtain written permission for any third-party content included in the paper.
Disclose any conflicts of interest, or declare that none exist.

Publisher’s Responsibilities

The publisher supports the editorial team while respecting their independence in editorial decisions. In addition, the publisher protects intellectual property rights and ensures the journal complies with high standards of publication ethics and professional integrity.

Peer Review Process

Our peer-review process begins with an editorial assessment by the Editor-in-Chief and a member of the editorial team. This assessment determines whether a paper should proceed to peer review. If an article does not meet basic standards or falls outside the journal's scope, it may be rejected at this stage.

Authors can expect a decision within a maximum of two weeks of submission. If the paper advances to the review process, it will undergo a double-blind peer review by at least two members of our international expert panel. Authors are responsible for ensuring their identities remain concealed during this process. We aim to complete the review within four weeks, although delays may occur in rare cases. The final decision regarding acceptance rests with the Editor-in-Chief.

Plagiarism

As part of Sciences Force Publisher, NSWA upholds the highest standards of integrity and ethical conduct in research and publication. The journal's policies on plagiarism, data fabrication, and image manipulation are designed to ensure transparency, trustworthiness, and the reliability of scientific contributions.

NSWA unequivocally prohibits plagiarism in any form. Plagiarism includes the unauthorized copying of text, ideas, images, or data from any source, including one's own publications, without proper attribution. Authors are expected to give due credit to original sources, and any reused text must be appropriately quoted and cited. Even when a study's design or manuscript structure is inspired by previous works, explicit citations are mandatory. To maintain the integrity of our publications, all submissions to NSWA undergo thorough plagiarism checks using industry-standard software, particularly iThenticate.

While the journal does not tolerate plagiarism, a similarity index of more than 20% may result in rejection during the initial screening or peer review process. Editors will carefully assess the nature of the overlap to distinguish between legitimate similarity (e.g. methods, common phrases) and potential plagiarism.

Preprints Policy

Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time. If their manuscript is accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link the preprint to the formal publication using its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Authors may also update their preprints on preprint databases such as arXiv with the accepted version of their manuscript.

Special Issues

At NSWA, Special Issues are carefully planned each year to explore timely and innovative topics within the field of neutrosophic systems, logic, and their diverse applications. The Editorial Board selects the themes for these issues, and official Calls for Papers (CFPs) are typically released during the first quarter of the year (January to March). Each CFP is designed to attract high-quality research contributions by highlighting current trends and important advancements.

Appointment of Guest Editors

Guest Editors are chosen based on their subject expertise, academic background, and prior editorial experience. Nominations can come from the Editorial Board, current editors, or be self-submitted by qualified individuals.

Guest Editors are responsible for:

Defining the focus and scope of the Special Issue, and drafting the CFP.
Managing the manuscript submission and peer review process.
Ensuring each submission is thoroughly reviewed for quality, originality, and relevance.
Making final decisions on manuscripts, in coordination with the Editor-in-Chief.

Proposing a Special Issue

Researchers interested in organizing a Special Issue must submit a formal proposal that outlines:

The topic and goals of the issue, aligned with NSWA’s academic focus.
The intended readership and target contributors.
A proposed timeline, from submission through review and publication.
Names of suggested Guest Editors.
All proposals are reviewed by the Editorial Board and the Editor-in-Chief for approval.

Submission and Review

All manuscripts submitted to a Special Issue must follow NSWA’s author guidelines and submission requirements. After an initial screening by the Guest Editors for topic relevance and basic quality, papers undergo a double-blind peer review process conducted by experts in neutrosophic research.

Publication Timeline

Regular journal issues are published monthly. Special Issues are typically scheduled for summer release (July or August), though submissions are accepted and processed continuously.

After Publication

All articles are actively promoted through NSWA’s publishing platforms and indexing channels. Citation data, download numbers, and other metrics are closely monitored to track the academic impact of each Special Issue.

Standards of Reporting

To ensure scholarly rigor and replicability, authors must provide complete documentation of their research design, including theoretical foundations, methodological approaches, analytical procedures, and implementation details specific to neutrosophic systems.

Use of Third-Party Material

Authors are required to secure appropriate permissions to reuse any third-party content included in their articles. Limited use of brief text excerpts and certain other materials may be allowed without formal permission, particularly for critique or review. If authors intend to incorporate material they do not own the copyright to and that does not fall under these informal exceptions, they must obtain written authorization from the copyright holder before submitting their manuscript. For further guidance on requesting permission to reproduce copyrighted content, please contact nswa@sciencesforce.com.

Use of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies in Writing

The following guidance pertains only to the writing process, not to the use of AI tools for analyzing and drawing insights from data. When authors use generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in writing, they should do so solely to enhance readability and language. The application of these technologies must involve human oversight and control, as AI can produce authoritative-sounding output that may be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as authors or co-authors, nor should they be cited as such, as authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to humans, as outlined in NSWA’s AI policy for authors.

Use of AI in Peer Review

To protect authors' rights and maintain research confidentiality, the journal does not currently permit the use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies, such as ChatGPT, for peer review. We are actively evaluating compliant AI tools and may revise this policy in the future.