IJAMAY follows the guidelines and core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). This statement sets out what we expect of editors, reviewers, authors and the publisher.

Editors

• Evaluate manuscripts only on academic merit, without regard to the authors’ identity, institution, nationality or beliefs.
• Keep submissions confidential and share them only with reviewers and editors involved.
• Declare conflicts of interest and step aside from papers where they have one, including their own submissions.

Reviewers

• Give objective, constructive and timely reports, normally within three weeks.
• Point out relevant published work that has not been cited, and any suspected overlap with other publications.
• Do not use unpublished material from a manuscript in their own work.

Authors

• Submit original work that has not been published or submitted elsewhere.
• Acknowledge all sources and list as co-authors everyone who made a substantial contribution.
• Obtain ethics committee approval and informed consent for research with human participants, and state this in the paper.
• Disclose funding and any conflict of interest.
• Report errors they discover in their published work to the editor promptly.

Use of generative AI

AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Any use of AI for language editing or analysis must be described in the methods or acknowledgements, and authors remain responsible for the accuracy of the whole paper.

Misconduct, corrections and retractions

Suspected plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate publication or authorship abuse is investigated following COPE flowcharts. Depending on the outcome, the journal may publish a correction, an expression of concern or a retraction, and may inform the author’s institution. Corrections and retractions are linked to the original article.