Publishing Ethics

1. Core Ethical Principles

ETII expects all participants in the publication process to observe the following principles:

• Honesty: research methods, data, analyses, results, and limitations must be reported accurately.
• Originality: submitted work must appropriately distinguish original contributions from previously published material.
• Transparency: relevant methods, funding, conflicts of interest, data limitations, and material use of AI-assisted technologies should be disclosed.
• Accountability: authors remain responsible for the accuracy and integrity of their work.
• Fairness: manuscripts should be evaluated on scholarly merit without inappropriate discrimination or bias.
• Confidentiality: unpublished manuscripts and peer-review materials must be protected.
• Editorial independence: publication decisions must be based on academic considerations rather than commercial influence.
• Correction of the record: material errors or integrity concerns should be addressed transparently after publication.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that submitted manuscripts:

• represent genuine scholarly work;
• accurately describe the research performed;
• contain data and results that have not been fabricated or falsified;
• properly acknowledge the work of others;
• appropriately identify reused or adapted material;
• provide sufficient methodological information for critical evaluation;
• disclose relevant funding and competing interests;
• comply with applicable ethical, legal, institutional, and professional requirements;
• identify all legitimate authors and contributors appropriately; and
• respond truthfully and completely to reasonable editorial questions concerning the work.

3. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should reflect meaningful intellectual or scholarly contribution to the work and should carry responsibility for the published content.

Individuals listed as authors should normally have made substantial contributions to one or more important aspects of the research and should:

• participate meaningfully in the conception, design, execution, analysis, or interpretation of the work;
• contribute to drafting or critically revising the manuscript;
• approve the version submitted or published; and
• accept appropriate accountability for the integrity of the work.

Contributions that do not justify authorship should be recognized appropriately in an acknowledgement or contributor statement, subject to relevant permissions.

4. Guest, Gift, and Ghost Authorship

ETII does not accept inappropriate authorship practices.

• Guest or gift authorship occurs when an individual is listed as an author without sufficient contribution.
• Ghost authorship occurs when an individual who made a substantial contribution is improperly omitted from the author list or contributor disclosures.

Authors should ensure that the author list accurately reflects genuine contributions.

5. Changes to Authorship

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be explained and may require written agreement from the affected authors.

After acceptance or publication, authorship changes require particularly careful review and will not be made solely for reasons of convenience, prestige, institutional benefit, or citation advantage.

The journal may request contribution statements, correspondence, or institutional clarification where an authorship dispute cannot be resolved by the authors themselves.

6. Originality and Plagiarism

Manuscripts must appropriately distinguish original material from content derived from other sources.

Plagiarism may include:

• copying text without appropriate attribution;
• presenting another person's ideas or results as one's own;
• reproducing figures or tables without appropriate attribution or permission;
• closely paraphrasing substantial material without acknowledgement;
• unauthorized translation and republication of another work; or
• reuse of copyrighted material beyond what is legally permitted.

Similarity-detection software may be used as one component of editorial screening. A numerical similarity score alone does not determine whether plagiarism has occurred; context and the nature of the overlap must be evaluated.

7. Text Recycling and Reuse of Authors' Previous Work

Authors should not reproduce substantial portions of their own previously published material in a manner that misrepresents the novelty of the submitted manuscript.

Limited reuse of standard methodological descriptions may sometimes be reasonable when accurate reporting requires similar wording, but the original work should be cited and the extent of reuse should be proportionate and transparent.

8. Duplicate and Redundant Publication

Manuscripts should not substantially duplicate work that has already been formally published unless the relationship between the publications is legitimate, transparent, and properly disclosed.

Authors must not attempt to publish essentially the same research as separate papers merely by changing the title, reorganizing the text, dividing one study artificially, or making insignificant modifications.

9. Simultaneous Submission

A manuscript under active consideration by ETII should not normally be submitted simultaneously to another journal.

Authors who decide to submit the manuscript elsewhere should first obtain confirmation that the ETII submission has been properly withdrawn.

10. Preprints and Prior Dissemination

Legitimate posting of a manuscript as a preprint does not automatically constitute duplicate publication or prevent consideration by ETII.

Authors should disclose relevant preprints during submission where appropriate and should update the preprint record with the final ETII citation and DOI after publication whenever practicable.

11. Conference Papers and Extended Versions

A substantially extended version of a previously presented conference paper may be considered when permitted by applicable copyright arrangements and when the journal submission provides a meaningful additional scholarly contribution.

Authors should disclose the related conference publication, cite it appropriately, and explain the substantive differences between the earlier and submitted versions.

12. Data Fabrication and Falsification

Fabrication or falsification of research data, experimental results, simulations, observations, measurements, statistical outcomes, or other research records is prohibited.

Authors must not:

• invent data or observations that were never obtained;
• alter data with the intention of misleading readers;
• omit inconvenient observations without a defensible methodological basis;
• misrepresent sample sizes or experimental repetitions;
• report simulated data as real-world observations;
• misrepresent statistical results; or
• manipulate research records in a way that materially changes the scientific interpretation.

13. Availability of Underlying Evidence

When serious questions arise concerning the validity or integrity of reported results, the journal may request underlying data, analysis files, source code, experimental records, ethics documentation, original images, statistical output, or other relevant evidence.

Legitimate legal, privacy, commercial, security, or confidentiality restrictions will be considered when evaluating such requests.

14. Image and Figure Integrity

Images must accurately represent the underlying data or observations.

Image processing intended to improve readability may be acceptable when it is applied appropriately and does not distort interpretation. Authors must not selectively enhance, obscure, remove, duplicate, relocate, or fabricate image elements in a misleading manner.

Where appropriate, authors may be asked to provide original image files or processing information.

15. Research Data, Code, and Reproducibility

ETII supports transparent and reproducible research.

Authors should provide sufficient information to enable readers to understand and critically assess the methods and results. Where appropriate and legally permissible, authors are encouraged to make supporting data, software, source code, models, benchmark configurations, protocols, and other research resources available.

Restrictions on data or code access should be explained transparently.

16. Research Involving Human Participants

Research involving human participants, identifiable personal information, or human-derived data must comply with applicable ethical, institutional, legal, and data-protection requirements.

Where required, authors should provide:

• the name of the approving ethics committee or institutional review body;
• an approval or protocol number;
• information concerning informed consent where applicable;
• relevant waiver information where applicable; and
• appropriate protection of participant privacy and confidentiality.

17. Privacy and Identifiable Information

Authors must not publish personally identifiable or sensitive information without an appropriate legal and ethical basis.

Images, recordings, quotations, case descriptions, datasets, or other material that could identify individuals require appropriate safeguards and, where required, consent for publication.

18. Research Involving Animals

Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and professional ethical requirements.

Where required, manuscripts should state the approving body and relevant approval or protocol information.

19. Safety, Security, and Responsible Engineering Research

Engineering and emerging-technology research should be conducted responsibly and in accordance with applicable safety, cybersecurity, environmental, legal, and professional requirements.

Where publication of particular technical details could create substantial and credible risks to people, critical infrastructure, security, or the environment, editors may seek specialist advice and may request proportionate revisions while preserving legitimate scientific communication.

20. Competing Interests

Authors, reviewers, editors, Editorial Board Members, and Guest Editors must disclose relevant financial and non-financial interests that could reasonably be perceived to influence their professional judgment.

Examples may include:

• employment or consultancy relationships;
• research funding;
• commercial interests;
• patents or intellectual-property interests;
• stock ownership or financial interests;
• close professional collaborations;
• supervisory relationships;
• personal relationships;
• direct academic competition; or
• other relationships that could create or appear to create bias.

The existence of a competing interest does not necessarily prevent publication, but relevant interests must be handled transparently.

21. Funding and Sponsor Influence

Authors should disclose relevant sources of financial support.

Where a sponsor has participated materially in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or publication decisions, that role should be disclosed where relevant.

Agreements with funders or commercial partners should not improperly restrict authors' ability to report scientifically valid findings.

22. Citation Ethics

References should be selected because they are academically relevant to the manuscript.

Authors, reviewers, and editors must not manipulate references for the primary purpose of increasing citation counts.

Inappropriate practices may include:

• unnecessary citation of an author's own publications;
• coercive reviewer citation requests;
• systematic citation of a particular journal without scholarly justification;
• citation cartels or coordinated citation exchange; and
• references to sources that do not support the associated claims.

23. Reference Accuracy

Authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy and relevance of references.

Fabricated references, nonexistent publications, false DOI information, misleading citations, or citations generated without verification are not acceptable.

24. Paper Mills and Purchased Manuscripts

ETII does not accept manuscripts generated, purchased, fabricated, or materially manipulated through paper mills or other services that misrepresent authorship, research activity, data, peer review, or scholarly provenance.

Evidence of organized manuscript fabrication, authorship sale, falsified data, manipulated peer review, or related activity may result in rejection, retraction, author restrictions, and notification of relevant institutions where appropriate.

25. Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Technologies

Artificial intelligence systems, large language models, chatbots, and other AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility or accountability for scholarly work.

Human authors remain responsible for:

• the accuracy of all submitted content;
• verification of facts and references;
• originality;
• appropriate attribution;
• copyright compliance;
• data integrity;
• ethical compliance; and
• the final interpretation and conclusions.

Material use of generative AI or other AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation, analysis, coding, image generation, or other research processes should be disclosed where appropriate.

26. AI-Generated or AI-Modified Images

AI-generated or substantially AI-modified images, figures, data visualizations, or other research materials must not be presented in a manner that misrepresents empirical evidence.

Where AI-assisted image generation or transformation is scientifically relevant and permissible, its use should be transparently described and must comply with applicable copyright, research-integrity, and methodological requirements.

27. Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, evidence-based, and confidential evaluations.

Reviewers should:

• accept assignments only when they possess appropriate expertise and sufficient time;
• disclose relevant conflicts of interest;
• protect manuscript confidentiality;
• evaluate manuscripts impartially;
• avoid personal or discriminatory comments;
• identify important concerns concerning research integrity where appropriate;
• avoid coercive or self-serving citation requests;
• not use unpublished information for personal advantage; and
• not delegate a review to another individual without authorization from the journal.

28. AI and Confidential Peer Review

Manuscripts under peer review are confidential scholarly communications.

Reviewers and editors must not upload submitted manuscripts, unpublished data, figures, reviewer reports, or other confidential editorial materials to public or unauthorized AI systems where confidentiality, data protection, and intellectual-property safeguards cannot be assured.

AI tools must not replace the independent academic judgment of reviewers or editors.

29. Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for protecting the integrity and fairness of editorial decision-making.

Editors should:

• base decisions on scholarly merit and journal relevance;
• protect manuscript and reviewer confidentiality;
• select appropriately qualified reviewers;
• manage conflicts of interest;
• avoid discrimination based on irrelevant personal or institutional characteristics;
• respond appropriately to credible integrity concerns;
• avoid citation manipulation;
• recuse themselves from conflicted manuscripts; and
• maintain editorial independence from inappropriate commercial influence.

30. Manuscripts Submitted by Editors

Editors and Editorial Board Members may submit manuscripts to ETII, but such manuscripts must receive no preferential treatment.

An editor who is an author, collaborator, supervisor, institutional colleague, or otherwise materially conflicted must not participate in reviewer selection, editorial assessment, discussion, or the publication decision.

The manuscript should be assigned to an appropriate independent editor.

31. Confidentiality

Manuscripts, reviewer identities where applicable, review reports, editorial correspondence, unpublished data, and related materials are confidential.

Editors, reviewers, and journal staff must not disclose confidential material to unauthorized individuals or use unpublished information for private academic, financial, commercial, competitive, or personal advantage.

32. Special Issues and Guest Editors

Articles submitted to Special Issues are subject to the same standards of originality, research integrity, peer review, conflicts of interest, and editorial independence as regular submissions.

Guest Editors must disclose relevant conflicts and must not handle manuscripts from which they could receive an inappropriate professional, personal, financial, or academic benefit.

ETII's permanent editorial leadership retains oversight of Special Issues and may intervene when necessary to protect publication standards.

33. Investigation of Suspected Misconduct

Credible concerns regarding research or publication integrity may be investigated before or after publication.

Depending on the nature of the concern, the journal may:

• request an explanation from the authors;
• request underlying data or research records;
• request ethics or institutional documentation;
• seek clarification from reviewers or editors;
• consult independent subject or methodological experts;
• suspend editorial processing while an issue is investigated;
• contact an author's institution, research-integrity office, funder, or another relevant organization where justified; or
• take appropriate editorial action based on the available evidence.

Investigations should be conducted as fairly, confidentially, and proportionately as circumstances allow.

34. Fair Treatment of Allegations

An allegation does not by itself establish misconduct.

Authors, reviewers, and editors who are the subject of a credible concern should normally be given an appropriate opportunity to provide relevant information or clarification, except where doing so would create a serious legal, safety, confidentiality, or investigative risk.

35. Corrections

A correction may be issued when a published article contains an error that requires amendment but does not invalidate the principal findings of the work.

Corrections should clearly identify the affected article and explain the material change.

Minor typographical errors that do not affect meaning or interpretation may not require a formal correction notice.

36. Retractions

Retraction may be appropriate when the published record is no longer reliable because of serious error, misconduct, unethical research, major plagiarism, invalid data, substantial duplicate publication, manipulation, or another significant integrity problem.

A retraction notice should:

• be clearly identified as a retraction;
• identify the affected article;
• state the reason for retraction sufficiently clearly;
• identify, where appropriate, who is retracting the article; and
• remain linked to the original publication record.

Retraction is intended to correct the scholarly record rather than to punish authors.

37. Expressions of Concern

An Expression of Concern may be issued when substantial questions exist regarding a publication but the available evidence is incomplete, disputed, or subject to an ongoing investigation.

An Expression of Concern is not equivalent to a final finding of misconduct.

38. Removal of Published Content

ETII normally seeks to preserve the scholarly record, including articles that have later been corrected or retracted.

Complete removal of published content should be exceptional and may be considered where continued public access creates compelling legal, privacy, security, safety, or other serious harm.

39. Post-Publication Discussion

Responsible scholarly criticism after publication is an important part of scientific self-correction.

ETII may consider well-supported post-publication concerns concerning methodology, interpretation, data integrity, ethics, or other material issues.

Criticism should focus on scholarly issues rather than personal attacks.

40. Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers, readers, and other stakeholders may raise concerns regarding editorial decisions, peer-review procedures, conflicts of interest, publication ethics, or journal conduct.

Appeals of editorial decisions should identify a substantive scholarly or procedural reason why reconsideration is justified.

Where appropriate, complaints or appeals may be reviewed by an editor or responsible person who was not directly involved in the disputed decision.

41. Reports from Readers and Whistleblowers

ETII considers credible integrity concerns regardless of whether they originate from authors, reviewers, readers, institutions, research-integrity specialists, or other sources.

Anonymous allegations may be considered when they contain sufficiently specific and verifiable evidence.

The journal seeks to protect legitimate confidentiality while avoiding unsupported or malicious allegations.

42. Editorial Actions and Sanctions

Where serious misconduct or manipulation is substantiated, proportionate editorial actions may include:

• rejection of a manuscript;
• termination of peer review;
• correction of a published article;
• retraction;
• publication of an Expression of Concern;
• restriction of future submissions for an appropriate period;
• removal of reviewer or editorial privileges;
• notification of relevant institutions or funders where justified; or
• other actions necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Actions should be proportionate to the seriousness and evidence of the issue.

43. Copyright and Permissions

Authors are responsible for ensuring that they possess or have obtained the rights required to publish copyrighted third-party materials.

Citation of a source does not automatically substitute for copyright permission where permission is legally required.

Further information is provided in ETII's Open Access & Copyright Policy.

44. Peer-Review Manipulation

Attempts to manipulate the peer-review process are prohibited.

Examples include:

• providing false reviewer identities;
• providing fraudulent reviewer contact information;
• impersonating a reviewer;
• creating fabricated reviewer accounts;
• attempting to obtain confidential reviewer information improperly;
• coordinating fraudulent reviews; or
• otherwise interfering improperly with independent evaluation.

45. Editorial Independence

Manuscript decisions are based on academic merit, technical validity, relevance, originality, methodological rigor, and compliance with journal policies.

Publication fees, commercial relationships, sponsorship, advertising, or an author's ability to pay must not determine whether a manuscript is accepted or rejected.

46. Editorial Records

ETII seeks to maintain appropriate editorial records relating to submission, review, decisions, corrections, ethical concerns, and other significant publishing actions, subject to applicable privacy, data-protection, and record-retention requirements.

47. Policy Review and Updates

ETII may revise its publishing-ethics policies in response to developments in research integrity, scholarly publishing standards, artificial intelligence, data governance, legal requirements, and editorial practice.

The journal seeks to apply policies fairly and consistently while recognizing that complex integrity cases may require case-specific evaluation.

Publishing Ethics at a Glance