Publication Ethics
Publication Ethics
Thai Legal Studies (TLS) publishes in accordance with the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which apply to authors, peer reviewers, the editorial staff, and the journal as a whole. Anyone who believes that these guidelines have not been followed should raise their concern with the assigned Editor or email the TLS Managing Editor.
The TLS editors seek to identify and prevent the publication of any paper where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, duplicate publication, undisclosed conflict of interest, and data falsification or fabrication, among others. In the event that TLS is made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a submitted or published article, the editorial staff will follow the COPE’s recommended process of investigation and resolution as set forth in the applicable flowchart, collected here.
TLS also has the following specific policies:
- Authorship and Contributorship
All authors must have significantly contributed to the research and also provide TLS with retractions or corrections of any mistakes.
- Complaints and Appeals
Complaints should be made to the Editor assigned to a particular manuscript or to the Managing Editor. If their resolution is deemed unsatisfactory, an appeal may be made to either of the Chief Editors, whose decision shall be final.
- Conflict of Interest and Competing Interests
Authors must declare any conflict of interest or competing interest that could interfere with the objectivity or integrity of their submitted manuscript. So, too, must peer reviewers and TLS editors disclose any conflicts that might influence their objectivity in assessing a manuscript. Conflicts of interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the presentation, review, or publication of a piece of work. These may be financial, non-financial, professional, contractual, or personal in nature. Anyone who suspects an undisclosed conflict of interest regarding a work, either published or under consideration for publication, should inform the assigned Editor or the TLS Managing Editor.
- Data Sharing and Reproducibility
Authors must maintain accurate records of supporting evidence necessary to allow others to understand, verify, and, if applicable, replicate new findings, and to supply or provide access to this supporting evidence upon reasonable request.
- Ethical Oversight and Intellectual Property
Manuscripts submitted to TLS must be original works of their author(s) and not previously published in English. Any material subject to copyright restrictions other than those owned or controlled by the contributor(s) must be accompanied by appropriate permissions from the relevant copyright holder(s). Authors retain the copyright and publishing rights to their manuscripts without restrictions, but grant to TLS the right of first publication in English and a license to publish and distribute the work under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, allowing others to share the work, including the making of further translations, provided that an acknowledgement is given of the work’s authorship and its initial publication in English by Thai Legal Studies.
TLS adopts the definition of “plagiarism” used by Cambridge University: “Using someone else’s ideas, words, data, or other material produced by them without acknowledgement,” and notes that plagiarism can occur in respect to all types of sources and media, including text, illustrations, material downloaded from websites or drawn from manuscripts or other media, and published and unpublished material, including lectures, presentations and so-called “grey literature.”
TLS considers “redundant/overlapping publication” to be “publication of a paper that overlaps substantially with one already published, without clear, visible reference to the previous publication.”
- Post-publication Discussions and Corrections
TLS welcomes academic Comments on material previously published in TLS and may publish such submissions with the consent of the contributor(s). TLS will also publish any verified corrections or necessary revisions or addenda to a published article, including, if appropriate, limited or complete retractions in conformity with the COPE Retraction Guidelines.