Ethics Statement

Ethics and Good Practices

Our ethics and good practice conduct requirements and own responsibilities are entailed with the Carta Ética para a Investigação em Educação e Formação do Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa [Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa’ Ethical Charter for Research in Education and Training] and inspired by international codes, such as the Code of Conduct and Best Practice for Journal Editors of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Code of Ethics of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) principles (professional competence; integrity; professional, scientific, and scholarly responsibility; respect for people’s rights, dignity, and diversity; and social responsibility) and ethical standards, which ones we advocate.

Our main goal is to publish innovative and valuable research, produced and disseminated in the most responsible, transparent, and ethical way. A goal that must be pursued by all the individuals engaged in Sisyphus editorial process, such as the authors, reviewers, and, of course, us, editors and editorial team. We most value, and pledge, the freedom and integrity of action and of all involved, and consequent responsible autonomy and ethical awareness. So, Sisyphus deploys and states a set of internal practices and requirements to safeguard its ethical principles.

Sisyphus mandates to authors:
Research and related manuscripts, submitted to Sisyphus, must comply with the guidances of AERA Code of Ethics.
Authors must conduct themselves with integrity, so they must submit an original article, not yet published nor under consideration for publication elsewhere. They must ensure that it is an authentic research, with no false data, sources or results; and that it is a genuine work, that doesn’t resort to plagiarism or self-plagiarism.
Authors must conduct themselves with professional, scientific and scholarly responsibility and competence, so they must evaluate the potential of their contributions to accomplish major knowledge advances in our two main research lines: Education XXI and Change Forces in Education. Also, if the manuscript has more than one author, it has to be sanctioned by all authors, and the order of appearance must reflect their degree of responsibility and implication to the related research. There must be no conflicts of interest that could bias the results or conclusions presented. Existing funding sources and projects must be fully described. Identified errors must be immediately reported to the editor, so we may publicize the correspondent correction(s).
Authors must conduct themselves with respect for people’s rights, dignity, and diversity, so non-discriminatory language is mandatory for all manuscripts: any words or expressions conveying social prejudices are to be avoided. Also, authors are obliged to protect confidential information, and to obtain legally informed consent from research participants.

Sisyphus mandates to reviewers:
Our reviewers must conform their conduct to COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.
Reviewers must conduct themselves with integrity, so they should declare any potential conflicting interests and refuse to review the assigned manuscript if they identify authorship or related research or when they detected other conflicts of interests (personal, professional, financial or other). Also, they are obliged to respect the confidentiality of the work they are peer reviewing, not releasing any details. If any form of ethical malpractice when reviewing a manuscript is identified, they are obliged to inform the editors.
Reviewers must conduct themselves with professional, scientific and scholarly responsibility and competence, so they have to observe Sisyphus’ Review Guidelines, respect review deadlines, and only agree to review manuscripts for which they have subject expertise.
Reviewers must conduct themselves with respect for people’s rights, dignity, and diversity, so they must not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other perceived characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations. Their comments must be objective and constructive, renouncing the use of hostile wording and derogatory remarks.

Sisyphus mandates to editors [our own requirements and responsibilities]
Sisyphus’ editors subscribe COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.
Specially committed to the dissemination and promotion of scientific knowledge, Sisyphus defends the principles of open science and free and immediate open access, convinced that an unrestrained circulation of knowledge will contribute to a greater democratization and validity of scientific work worldwide.
We conduct ourselves with integrity, so the decision to accept an article is made exclusively among the editors (not determined by outsider policies, agencies, entities or people), and we publish all the accepted articles (except in the abnormal case of the discovering of major errors or ethical violations - e.g., plagiarism or other misconduct). Further, we have an anti-plagiarism detection system (Urkund) to ensure the originality of published articles. We also ensure the anonymity of the manuscripts in the review process, eliminating all the authorship data before articles are sent to peer review. We ensure that there is no conflict of interests (relations of financial, institutional, collaborative or any other nature) between the reviewers and the authors. Finally, we are willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when necessary.
We conduct ourselves with professional, scientific and scholarly responsibility and competence, so we commit to keep the authors informed about all submission, revision, and publication steps, and will ensure the compliance with the established time limits. On another hand, we ensure the selection of the most qualified reviewers to express a critical and expert appreciation of the work with the smallest possible biases. This will ensure the academic quality of the published manuscripts through an objective, balanced and fair review. We will also ensure that all reviewers receive the updated documents on the formal standards and evaluation criteria. We are responsible for the compliance with the time limits for the reviews and the publication of the accepted works. Finally, we will periodically review the evaluation process of the submitted manuscripts to ensure its quality and suitability.
We conduct ourselves with respect for people’s rights, dignity, and diversity, so editorial decision will not be affected by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations. Also, we will not accept manuscripts with discriminatory language, so any words or expressions conveying social prejudices are to be avoided.

Final general statements, related to:
Conflict of Interest (authors, reviewers and editors)
Authors, reviewers and editors must avoid and declare any potential conflicting interests. Sisyphus advocates AERA ethical standards regarding Conflicts of Interest.

Fraud (ethical violations and other misconducts)
In case of detection of any ethical violation or misconducts, Sisyphus will consider retracting publications, according to COPE Guidelines for retracting articles.