Terms & Conditions

These Terms and Conditions govern your use of our website and services. By accessing our website or submitting a manuscript, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use our services.

1. Use of the Website

You agree to use our website lawfully and not to misuse it, interfere with its operation, attempt unauthorised access, or use it in any way that could harm the platform, its users, or the integrity of the scholarly record.

2. Submissions and Author Responsibilities

By submitting a manuscript, you confirm that:

• The work is original, is your own, and has not been published elsewhere or submitted to another journal at the same time.
• All listed authors have contributed to the work and approved its submission.
• The work does not infringe any copyright or other right, and contains nothing unlawful or defamatory.
• You have obtained permission for any third-party material included.
• All citations are genuine and accurately support the claims they are attached to.
• You have disclosed any conflicts of interest, funding sources, required ethical approvals, and any use of AI tools.

You remain responsible for the accuracy, originality and integrity of your work. Full requirements are set out in our Author Guidelines, which form part of these terms.

3. Peer Review and Editorial Decisions

All submissions are subject to double-blind peer review. Editorial decisions, including acceptance, revision and rejection, rest with the journal’s editors and are final. Submission does not guarantee publication.

4. Article Processing Charge

A one-time article processing charge applies to accepted manuscripts and is payable only after acceptance. Payment is required before an accepted article proceeds to publication. Please refer to our Refund Policy regarding charges already paid.

5. Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain copyright of their published work. By publishing with us, authors grant the journal and Casjournals a licence to publish the article, which is made available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY 4.0 licence. Full terms are set out in our Copyright and Publishing Agreement. Readers may use published articles in accordance with that licence, with proper attribution.

6. Intellectual Property of the Platform

The logos and website design of both the platform and journals are our property or that of our licensors and may not be used without permission. Published articles remain subject to their Creative Commons licence.

7. Content Accuracy and Responsibility

The views expressed in published articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Journals, the Editors, University or the platform. We do not accept responsibility for the accuracy of content in individual articles; responsibility rests with the authors.

8. Publication Ethics and Misconduct

We follow the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Where misconduct, such as plagiarism, fabricated or misused citations, or falsified data is established, we may reject a manuscript or issue a correction, retraction, or expression of concern, as appropriate, at any stage.

9. Availability of Service

We aim to keep our website available and functioning, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We may suspend, withdraw, or change all or part of the website or services without notice.

10. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of our website or services. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

11. Links to Third-Party Sites

Our website may link to external sites, including indexing services and author tools. We are not responsible for the content or practices of those sites.

12. Research Integrity & Ethics Verification (Mandatory Author Checklist)

Before submitting, authors are required to carefully verify the following ten points:

1. Accuracy and integrity of data: All data, findings, quotations, examples and other research materials must be accurate, authentic and honestly reported. Data must not be fabricated, falsified, manipulated or presented in a misleading manner.
2. Plagiarism and originality: The manuscript must be original and must not contain plagiarised material, including unattributed copying of words, ideas, arguments, data or substantial portions of another person’s work.
3. Proper attribution and citation: All ideas, arguments, concepts, quotations, interpretations and materials derived from other people must be properly cited. Misattribution of citations or sources is considered a serious breach of scholarly integrity and can lead to retraction.
4. Accuracy of references: All references cited in the manuscript must be genuine, verifiable and relevant to the claims for which they are cited.
5. Acknowledgement of intellectual contributions: Where the manuscript draws substantially on the ideas, formulations or findings of another scholar, the relevant source must be appropriately acknowledged.
6. Originality and prior publication: The manuscript must not have been previously published, substantially reproduced, or simultaneously submitted elsewhere.
7. Use of artificial intelligence tools: AI use must comply with platform policy and must not compromise originality, accuracy or authorship. AI use must be declared.
8. Author responsibility: Submission constitutes an assurance that all information supplied is truthful and accurate.
9. Funding and Conflict of Interest: Any funding received or competing interest must be declared.
10. Institutional Responsibility Disclaimer: Ideas expressed belong solely to the authors and not to the journal, publisher, or host institution.

13. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms and Conditions from time to time. The revised version will be posted on this page with an updated “Last updated” date. Continued use of our website after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.