Editorial Policies

Oxton Science Journal is managed and maintained by Oxton Education. The following policies define how we handle submissions, review, publication and post-publication matters. They are upheld by the editorial board and apply to everyone involved in the publishing process — authors, reviewers and editors. Our practices follow the guidance of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and the ICMJE recommendations.

Aims & scope

Oxton Science Journal is a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal committed to advancing knowledge through original, rigorous and reproducible research, and to making every article immediately and freely available to readers worldwide. We welcome original research articles, review articles, short communications, methodological papers and case studies across the major fields of knowledge — the exact and earth sciences, life sciences and health, engineering and technology, the humanities and social sciences, and education. Submissions are assessed on scientific soundness, methodological rigour, clarity and their contribution to the advancement of the field.

Open access & licensing

All articles are published open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license. Content is free to read, download, copy, distribute and reuse with proper attribution. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication. There are no submission or publication charges.

Peer review

We operate a double-blind peer-review process — the identities of authors and reviewers are withheld from each other throughout. Each submission that passes editorial triage is evaluated by at least two independent reviewers qualified in the relevant field. Reviewers assess originality, methodological soundness, clarity and contribution, and recommend one of: accept, minor revisions, major revisions, or reject. The final decision rests with the handling editor.

Editorial team

The journal is led by its Editor-in-Chief and supported by a board of deputy, associate and section editors. The complete editorial team — with names, institutional affiliations and ORCID identifiers — is published on the Editorial Board page. The editorial office can be reached at editorial@oxtoneducation.com.

Publisher & contact

Oxton Science Journal is published, managed and maintained by Oxton Education, which oversees the journal's editorial operations, publishing infrastructure, indexing and long-term preservation.

Author guidelines, copyright & fees

Detailed instructions for preparing and submitting a manuscript — structure, formatting, references, figures, declarations and the submission checklist — are provided on the Author Guidelines page. Authors retain the copyright of their work and grant the journal the right of first publication under the CC BY 4.0 licence. The journal levies no submission fees and no article-processing charges (APCs): publishing is free for authors and reading is free for everyone.

Publication ethics

We follow the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We expect integrity from all parties and take breaches seriously:

• Plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, is not tolerated and results in rejection.
• Data fabrication or falsification leads to immediate rejection and, if discovered post-publication, retraction.
• Duplicate or redundant submission is not permitted.
• Authorship must reflect genuine contribution; ghost or gift authorship is prohibited.
• Suspected misconduct is investigated by the editorial board, and corrective action is taken transparently.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships that could be perceived to influence their work. Editors and reviewers must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a competing interest.

Use of artificial intelligence

In line with the guidance of COPE, the ICMJE and leading international publishers, Oxton Science Journal sets the following expectations for the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted tools (such as large language models) in submitted work:

• AI cannot be an author. AI tools do not meet the criteria for authorship — they cannot take responsibility for the work or approve its final version — and must not be listed as authors or co-authors.
• Disclosure is required. Authors must disclose any use of AI tools in the preparation of the manuscript, stating the tool, version and how it was used, in a dedicated statement (e.g. in the Methods or Acknowledgements).
• Authors remain fully responsible. The authors are accountable for the entire content of the manuscript, including any part produced with AI assistance, and must verify its accuracy, originality and absence of plagiarism or fabricated references.
• Routine language editing is exempt. Basic tools that only improve grammar, spelling or readability generally do not require disclosure, but must not alter the scientific meaning of the work.
• AI-generated images and data. The use of generative AI to create or manipulate images, figures or data is not permitted unless it is part of the research design and is explicitly described and approved.
• Confidentiality in peer review. Reviewers and editors must not upload manuscripts, or any part of them, to public or third-party AI tools, as this would breach the confidentiality of the submission. AI must not replace the reviewer's own critical judgement.

Undisclosed or inappropriate use of AI is treated as a breach of publication ethics and handled under the policy above.

Corrections and retractions

When a significant error is identified after publication, we issue a correction, an expression of concern or a retraction as appropriate, following COPE guidance. The original article is retained and clearly linked to the notice to preserve the scholarly record.

Data and reproducibility

We encourage authors to make the data underlying their findings available and to include a data-availability statement. Methods should be reported in sufficient detail to allow independent replication.

Privacy

Personal information provided to the journal is used solely for the stated purposes of the publishing process and is not shared with third parties or used for any other purpose.

Indexing, interoperability and preservation

The journal is identified by its ISSN 3086-0881, and every article receives a persistent DOI. Article metadata is openly exposed through an OAI-PMH endpoint (/oai) to support harvesting by indexing services, directories and aggregators (such as ROAD and DOAJ), and each article page embeds Google Scholar (Highwire) and Dublin Core metadata together with a machine-readable citation. Oxton Education maintains the publishing infrastructure and is committed to the long-term preservation and continued availability of published content.