Qubahan EcoLead Journal (QELJ) is committed to maintaining a fair, independent, confidential, transparent, and academically rigorous editorial and peer-review process.

Editorial Responsibilities

Editor-in-Chief

The Editor-in-Chief has overall responsibility for safeguarding the academic quality, integrity, and editorial independence of QELJ.

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for:

• maintaining the scholarly quality and integrity of the journal;
• ensuring that manuscripts are evaluated fairly and consistently;
• overseeing the peer-review process;
• ensuring appropriate handling of conflicts of interest;
• protecting editorial independence;
• overseeing publication-ethics and research-integrity matters;
• addressing complaints and appeals;
• overseeing corrections, Expressions of Concern, and retractions where necessary; and
• protecting the integrity of the scholarly record.

Editors and Section Editors

Editors and Section Editors are responsible for:

• evaluating manuscripts according to QELJ’s Aims and Scope;
• assessing the scholarly relevance, originality, methodology, theoretical contribution, and overall quality of submissions;
• selecting qualified and independent reviewers with appropriate subject expertise;
• ensuring that reviewer selection is based on expertise and absence of relevant conflicts of interest;
• maintaining the confidentiality of manuscripts and editorial correspondence;
• critically evaluating reviewer reports rather than relying solely on reviewer recommendations;
• communicating clear and reasoned editorial decisions;
• ensuring that authors receive appropriate opportunities to respond to substantive reviewer comments; and
• ensuring that manuscripts involving editors, editorial-board members, or publisher representatives are handled independently.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, originality, methodological or theoretical quality, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal, and contribution to knowledge.

Editorial decisions must not be influenced by:

• Article Processing Charges or other financial considerations;
• publisher commercial interests;
• institutional relationships;
• nationality or geographic origin;
• gender;
• political, religious, or personal beliefs;
• professional relationships; or
• other factors unrelated to scholarly quality.

Conflict of Interest

Editors must disclose any actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest.

An editor must not participate in the evaluation or decision-making process for a manuscript where their impartiality could reasonably be questioned.

Where a conflict exists, the manuscript must be reassigned to an independent editor.

Confidentiality

Editors must treat submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, unpublished data, and related information as confidential.

Confidential information obtained through the editorial process must not be used for personal, academic, professional, commercial, or competitive advantage.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewers contribute independent scholarly expertise to QELJ’s double-anonymous peer-review process.

Expertise

Reviewers should accept assignments only when they possess sufficient expertise to evaluate the manuscript fairly and rigorously.

Objectivity

Reviews should be:

• objective;
• constructive;
• evidence-based;
• respectful;
• academically rigorous; and
• focused on improving the scholarly quality of the manuscript.

Reviewers should evaluate, where applicable:

• originality and scholarly contribution;
• relevance to QELJ’s Aims and Scope;
• theoretical or conceptual framework;
• methodology or research design;
• quality of data and analysis;
• interpretation of findings;
• discussion and conclusions;
• limitations;
• ethical compliance;
• clarity and organization; and
• relevance and accuracy of references.

Confidentiality

Reviewers must treat manuscripts and all associated materials as confidential.

They must not:

• share the manuscript with unauthorized persons;
• contact authors directly regarding the confidential submission;
• disclose unpublished information; or
• use unpublished ideas, data, methods, or findings for personal or professional advantage.

Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must disclose any financial, professional, academic, institutional, collaborative, competitive, or personal relationship that could reasonably affect their impartiality.

Where a significant conflict exists, the reviewer should decline or withdraw from the assignment.

Research-Integrity Concerns

Reviewers should confidentially inform the handling editor if they identify or reasonably suspect:

• plagiarism;
• duplicate or redundant publication;
• fabrication or falsification;
• inappropriate manipulation of data or images;
• authorship concerns;
• fabricated references;
• citation manipulation;
• undisclosed conflicts of interest;
• ethical violations; or
• other forms of research or publication misconduct.

Responsible Citation Practices

Reviewers must not request citations primarily to increase citations to:

• their own publications;
• publications of colleagues;
• a particular institution;
• a particular journal; or
• other publications unrelated to the manuscript’s scholarly needs.

Any recommended citation should have clear scholarly relevance.

Generative Artificial Intelligence and Confidentiality

Editors and reviewers must comply with QELJ’s Generative Artificial Intelligence Policy.

Confidential manuscripts, figures, tables, unpublished data, reviewer reports, personal information, or other protected materials must not be uploaded to publicly accessible Generative AI systems where confidentiality, data protection, or information retention cannot be assured.

Editors and reviewers remain personally responsible for their evaluations, reports, recommendations, and decisions.

Reviewer Recommendations

Reviewers may recommend:

• Accept
• Minor Revision
• Major Revision
• Reject

Reviewer recommendations are advisory.

The handling editor evaluates the reasoning, evidence, and quality of the reviewer reports before reaching an editorial decision.

Final Editorial Decision

The final decision regarding acceptance or rejection rests with the Editor-in-Chief or an appropriately authorized independent handling editor.

Editorial decisions are not determined solely by the number of reviewers supporting a particular recommendation.

Where reviewer reports substantially differ, the editor may request clarification, invite an additional independent reviewer, request further revision, or reach an editorial judgment based on the available scholarly evidence.

Manuscripts Submitted by Editors or Editorial-Board Members

Manuscripts submitted by QELJ editors, editorial-board members, journal staff, publisher representatives, or closely associated individuals must be handled independently.

The submitting or conflicted individual must not:

• select reviewers;
• access confidential reviewer identities where applicable;
• participate in confidential editorial discussions; or
• make the final publication decision.

An independent editor without a relevant conflict of interest must oversee the manuscript.

Professional Conduct

Editors and reviewers are expected to maintain professional, respectful, impartial, and ethical conduct throughout the editorial and peer-review process.

QELJ does not tolerate discrimination, harassment, personal attacks, coercion, misuse of confidential information, or other conduct inconsistent with responsible scholarly publishing.