Editorial Policy

The SYLEN Journal operates a double-blind peer review process. Author identities are not disclosed to reviewers, and reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors. Manuscripts are assigned to reviewers by the Editor-in-Chief or a designated Associate Editor based on domain expertise and absence of conflict.

All manuscripts receive a minimum of two independent reviews. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final accept/reject decision, taking reviewer recommendations into account but not being bound by them. In cases of significant disagreement between reviewers, a third reviewer is solicited before a decision is issued.

Target turnaround: Reviewers are asked to complete reviews within 6 weeks of assignment. Editorial decisions are communicated to authors within 2 weeks of receiving all reviews. The target total turnaround from full paper submission to first decision is 8 weeks.

Review decisions are: Accept, Minor Revision (2-week author response window), Major Revision (re-review required; 8-week author response window), or Reject. All decisions include structured feedback. Rejection decisions are final; a resubmission constitutes a new submission and will be treated as such.

Acceptance requires the manuscript to meet all of the following:

• In-scope: within the journal's stated subject areas
• Original: not previously published or under review elsewhere
• Rigorous: methodology is sound, claims are supported by evidence, and evaluation is appropriate for the article type
• Reproducible or verifiable: where applicable, methods, data, and models are described with sufficient detail to allow independent assessment
• Practitioner-relevant: for industrial practice reports and tool evaluations, findings must generalize beyond the specific programme or tool described
• Clearly written: manuscript meets professional academic writing standards; use of English is adequate for review

The editorial board accepts contributions that meet these criteria regardless of whether results are positive or negative. Null results, failure analyses, and lessons-learned reports are welcome if rigorously structured.

Author obligations: Authors must disclose at submission any financial, professional, or personal relationships that could be reasonably construed as influencing the work. This includes funding sources, tool vendor relationships, employer interests, and any prior relationship with named reviewers. Disclosures are published with accepted articles.

Reviewer obligations: Reviewers must recuse from reviewing any manuscript where they have a conflict of interest, including: co-authorship within the past 3 years, current or recent employment relationship with an author, advisory or supervisory relationship with an author, or ongoing collaborative or competitive research with the authors.

Editorial board: Board members with a conflict on a submitted manuscript are excluded from editorial decision-making for that manuscript. The Editor-in-Chief assigns manuscripts to conflict-free board members. If the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict, a designated Associate Editor handles the decision.

Submission implies that the work is original, has not been plagiarized, and has not been published or submitted elsewhere. The journal treats the following as grounds for immediate rejection and, in serious cases, notification of the author's institution:

• Fabrication or falsification of data, results, or references
• Plagiarism - including verbatim copying, paraphrasing without attribution, and self-plagiarism of previously published work without disclosure
• Undisclosed duplicate or concurrent submission
• Guest authorship (listed authors who did not contribute) or ghost authorship (unlisted individuals who made substantive contributions)
• Undisclosed use of AI-generated content in the manuscript

AI assistance disclosure: Authors using AI tools (including large language models) for writing, summarization, or data analysis must disclose this in the manuscript. AI tools may not be listed as authors.

Corrections: If a published article contains an error that does not affect the primary conclusions, a correction notice is published and linked from the original article. The original article text is updated to reflect the correction, with a visible change note.

Retractions: If the editorial board determines that core claims of a published article are unreliable due to error or misconduct, the article is retracted. Retracted articles remain accessible but are clearly marked as retracted, with the retraction notice explaining the reason.

Authors who identify a significant error in their own published work are encouraged to contact the editorial team promptly.

Published articles are archived in PDF format on the SYLEN platform. Long-term digital preservation arrangements are in progress and will be confirmed before Volume 1 publication.