Editorial Governance

Editorial decisions must be made independently of financial interests, personal relationships, institutional affiliations, commercial considerations, or anticipated reputational effects. No sponsor, publishing service provider, institutional partner, or other party may improperly influence the academic evaluation or editorial outcome of a manuscript.

The Editor-in-Chief and duly assigned handling editors are responsible for applying the journal's published assessment criteria consistently and impartially. These criteria include relevance to the journal's scope, originality, scientific significance, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, and transparent reporting.

JSTA follows a double-anonymous peer-review model for research manuscripts that proceed to external review. Reviewers are selected according to appropriate disciplinary expertise, independence, and the absence of relevant conflicts of interest.

Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, editorial board members, close collaborators, family members, or other individuals with relevant personal, professional, financial, or institutional relationships require safeguards against actual or perceived conflicts of interest.

Submissions involving the Editor-in-Chief must be assigned to an independent, suitably qualified, non-conflicted handling editor who assumes responsibility for the editorial assessment and final decision.

• A suitably qualified, non-conflicted editor must be assigned to manage any submission involving a relevant editorial conflict of interest.
• Conflicted individuals must not participate in reviewer selection, confidential manuscript assessment, editorial deliberations, or publication decisions concerning the affected submission.
• Conflicts, recusals, and reassignment decisions must be documented in the confidential editorial record, subject to appropriate data protection and confidentiality safeguards.
• Editorial board membership, institutional affiliation, or personal relationships must not provide preferential treatment or guarantee publication.
• If no suitable independent editor is available, the manuscript must not proceed to an editorial decision until an appropriate non-conflicted arrangement has been established.

JSTA intends to manage manuscripts through its official Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform. Appropriate records of manuscript submissions, editorial assignments, reviewer invitations, review recommendations, decision correspondence, and relevant conflict disclosures will be maintained according to applicable confidentiality and data protection requirements.

Access to unpublished manuscripts, confidential reviewer reports, personal information, and internal editorial records must be limited to authorized individuals with legitimate editorial responsibilities.

Authors, reviewers, and other relevant parties may raise concerns regarding editorial conduct, research integrity, conflicts of interest, or procedural fairness. Such concerns must be considered objectively and without retaliation.

Where a complaint or appeal concerns the Editor-in-Chief, the matter must be assigned to an independent, non-conflicted editor or appropriately designated independent authority. Decisions and corrective measures must be documented.

Editorial and publishing policies must be maintained as publicly accessible documents and reviewed periodically as the journal's operational practices, scholarly publishing requirements, and applicable ethical standards evolve.

Substantive amendments should be documented with an effective date and communicated transparently through the journal's official website. Revised policies should ordinarily apply prospectively, with due regard for the fair treatment of manuscripts already under editorial evaluation.

Further information about reviewer selection, manuscript confidentiality, research ethics, author responsibilities, corrections, complaints, and appeals is provided through the journal's relevant policy pages.