Editorial Policies

Conflict of Interest and Financial Disclosures (specific to editors)
Editorial Policies
COPE Recommendation for Plagiarism
Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Peer Review Process
Advertisement Policies
Editorial Process
Publisher Policies
COPE Recommendation for Conflict of Interest (specific to editors)
Creative Commons License

1. Conflict of Interest and Financial Disclosures (Specific to Editors)

Editors of International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) are required to disclose any personal, financial, institutional, or collaborative relationship that could reasonably be seen to influence their handling of a manuscript.

Specifically, an editor must recuse themselves from handling a submission and hand it to another editor or an editorial board member when:

The manuscript is authored or co-authored by the editor themselves, a close family member, a current collaborator, or someone from the editor's own institution within the past three years
The editor has a financial interest in the outcome (e.g., equity in a company whose product is evaluated in the manuscript, consulting relationships with the authors' organization)
The editor has previously supervised, mentored, or been mentored by one of the authors in a way that could compromise objectivity

Editors submit an annual disclosure statement listing institutional affiliations, funding sources, consulting relationships, and board memberships, which is kept on file by the editorial office and updated whenever circumstances change. Undisclosed conflicts discovered after a decision has been made are investigated under our Complaints Policy and may result in re-review of the manuscript by an independent editor.

2. Editorial Policies

International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) is committed to publishing rigorously reviewed, original scholarship through a transparent, consistent editorial process. Our editorial team — the Editor-in-Chief, section/associate editors, and the editorial board — is responsible for all publication decisions, and those decisions are made independently of commercial considerations, advertising relationships, or pressure from authors, institutions, or funders.

Core principles guiding our editorial policy:

Independence. Editorial decisions are based solely on the scientific or scholarly merit, originality, and clarity of a submission, evaluated through peer review.
Consistency. The same evaluation standards apply to every submission, regardless of the author's seniority, institution, or geography.
Transparency. Authors are entitled to a clear explanation of any editorial decision, including rejection, and to the substance of reviewer feedback (with reviewer identities withheld under double-blind review).
Accountability. The Editor-in-Chief holds final responsibility for what the journal publishes and is answerable to TRP's publisher office for how the journal is run.
Correction. We commit to correcting the published record — through corrigenda, errata, or retraction — whenever a genuine error or ethical breach is identified.

3. COPE Recommendation for Plagiarism

International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and flowcharts for handling suspected plagiarism, both before and after publication.

Before publication: All submissions are screened using iThenticate prior to entering peer review. If a manuscript shows unacceptably high textual overlap with existing published work, or shows evidence of copied ideas, data, or figures without attribution — regardless of the similarity percentage — the editorial office contacts the corresponding author for an explanation. Depending on the response and severity, the manuscript is either returned for revision, rejected, or, in serious cases, escalated to the authors' institution.

After publication: If plagiarism is identified in an already-published article, we follow COPE's post-publication flowchart: the claim is investigated by an editor not involved in the original decision, the accused author(s) are given the opportunity to respond, and depending on the outcome, we issue a correction, an expression of concern, or a retraction, with a clear public notice explaining the reason.

We consider both direct plagiarism (verbatim copying) and paraphrasing plagiarism (closely mirroring another source's structure and language without attribution) as violations under this policy, along with self-plagiarism — substantial reuse of an author's own previously published material without disclosure and proper citation.

4. Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics, in line with COPE's Core Practices, for everyone involved in the publishing process — authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher.

Authors are expected to submit original work, accurately represent their data and methods, disclose all funding sources and conflicts of interest, and ensure all listed authors have genuinely contributed to and approved the work. Fabrication, falsification, duplicate submission, and undisclosed conflicts of interest are treated as serious misconduct.

Editors are expected to evaluate manuscripts solely on merit, maintain confidentiality of submitted work, manage conflicts of interest transparently, and act on ethical concerns raised about a submission or published article, regardless of whether the work has already been accepted.

Reviewers are expected to provide honest, constructive, and timely evaluations, maintain confidentiality of the manuscript under review, disclose any conflicts of interest, and alert editors to any suspected ethical issue (e.g., undisclosed prior publication, potential plagiarism) they identify during review.

The publisher (TRP) is responsible for supporting editors in enforcing these standards, maintaining the journal's editorial independence, preserving the published record (including corrections and retractions), and ensuring the process itself — from submission through peer review to publication — is run transparently and without commercial interference in editorial decisions.

Suspected misconduct at any stage is investigated following COPE's guidelines, with outcomes ranging from manuscript rejection to correction or retraction of published work, and, in serious cases, formal notification to the author's institution.

5. Peer Review Process

International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) uses a double-blind peer review process: reviewers do not know the identity of the authors, and authors do not know the identity of their reviewers, throughout the review.

The process, step by step:

Initial editorial screening. A handling editor checks that the submission fits the journal's scope, meets basic formatting and ethical requirements, and has at least a reasonable claim to originality and rigor. Manuscripts that fail this stage are returned to authors without proceeding to full review, usually within [X days].
Reviewer assignment. The handling editor identifies at least two independent reviewers with relevant subject expertise and no conflict of interest with the authors.
Review. Reviewers evaluate the manuscript's originality, methodological soundness, clarity, and significance, and provide written comments along with a recommendation (accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject).
Editorial decision. The handling editor weighs the reviewers' recommendations — which are advisory, not binding — and makes the final decision, which may involve requesting revisions, seeking additional review, or making a final accept/reject determination.
Revision and re-review. Revised manuscripts are typically sent back to the original reviewers to confirm concerns have been adequately addressed, before a final decision is issued.

Reviewers are asked to disclose any conflict of interest before accepting a review invitation and are expected to keep the manuscript's content confidential and refrain from using unpublished data or ideas from it in their own work.

6. Advertisement Policies

International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) may display advertisements from third parties on its website, but advertising has no influence on editorial content, and no advertiser is permitted to sponsor, review, or approve editorial content in advance.

Advertisements are clearly labeled and visually distinct from editorial content, so readers can easily distinguish between the two. We do not accept advertisements that:

Promote products or claims that conflict with the journal's scientific integrity (e.g., pseudoscientific health claims)
Are placed adjacent to, or appear linked with, an article covering the same product or company
Come from an author, reviewer, or editor currently involved in a submission to the journal, where this creates an apparent conflict of interest

Acceptance of an advertisement does not imply endorsement of the advertised product or service by International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) or International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM).

7. Editorial Process

From submission to publication, a manuscript in International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) moves through the following stages:

Submission — Author submits via the OJS online portal, confirming all checklist requirements are met.
Editorial screening — A handling editor confirms scope fit and basic requirements (ethics statements, formatting, originality screening via iThenticate).
Peer review — At least two independent reviewers evaluate the manuscript (see Peer Review Process above).
Editorial decision — Accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject, communicated to the author with reviewer comments.
Revision (if applicable) — Author submits a revised manuscript with a point-by-point response to reviewer comments.
Acceptance — Final decision is issued once all concerns are resolved; author signs the Author's Agreement Form.
Production — Copyediting, IEEE-format typesetting, and proof generation.
Author proof review — Author reviews and approves the typeset proof before final publication.
Publication — Article is assigned a DOI, published open access, and archived per the journal's Digital Preservation policy.

Authors can track their manuscript's status at any stage through their OJS account.

8. Publisher Policies

International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) is a self-published, independent open-access journal. The journal's editorial team is responsible for all editorial decisions, and the publishing infrastructure (OJS hosting, DOI registration, digital preservation) exists to support that editorial independence, not to influence it.

Our commitments as publisher of this journal include:

Safeguarding editorial independence — publication decisions rest solely with the journal's editors and reviewers, based on manuscript merit
Providing the technical infrastructure (OJS hosting, DOI registration, and digital preservation arrangements)
Supporting compliance with recognized standards of publication ethics (COPE), open access (DOAJ, OASPA), and licensing (Creative Commons)
Ensuring no Article Processing Charge or reader-side paywall is introduced without transparent, advance notice
Investigating and acting on any publisher-level concerns (e.g., systemic ethical issues, editor misconduct) that go beyond what an individual editorial decision can resolve

IJASVM does not accept payment, sponsorship, or any other consideration in exchange for favorable editorial treatment of a specific manuscript, author, or institution.

9. COPE Recommendation for Conflict of Interest (Specific to Editors)

In addition to individual disclosure requirements (see Section 1), International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) follows COPE's broader guidance on managing conflicts of interest at the editorial level.

This includes:

Maintaining a publicly available list of current editorial board members and their institutional affiliations, so readers and authors can identify potential conflicts themselves
Ensuring the Editor-in-Chief's own submissions (if any) are handled entirely by a different editor, with the Editor-in-Chief excluded from every stage of that manuscript's review and decision
Reviewing editorial board composition periodically to avoid a concentration of editors from a single institution or research group, which COPE flags as a structural conflict-of-interest risk even without individual misconduct
Requiring editors to abstain from decisions involving current or recent (within three years) students, supervisors, or close collaborators

Where a conflict is identified after a decision has already been made, the case is reviewed under our Complaints Policy, and the manuscript may be reassigned to an independent editor for re-evaluation if the conflict is judged to have materially affected the outcome.

10. Creative Commons License

All content published in International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Under this license, anyone is free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercial use

...provided they give appropriate credit to the original author(s), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. This license cannot be revoked by International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Systems and Virtual Modeling (IJASVM) or TRP as long as the license terms are followed by the party reusing the work.

We selected CC BY 4.0 specifically because it imposes the fewest restrictions on reuse among Creative Commons licenses, aligning with our commitment to unrestricted open access and maximizing the reach and impact of the research we publish.