The Scivant ReviewA Peer-Reviewed Journal for High-School and Undergraduate Researchers
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Policies

Editorial and Ethics Policies

The rules every paper, author and reviewer follows. We base them on the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Publication Ethics

The Scivant Review follows the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We treat every submission confidentially, judge it on its merits alone, and handle concerns about misconduct fairly and in writing.

Plagiarism, Fabrication and Duplicate Submission

  • Plagiarism is presenting someone else's words, data, figures or ideas, including your own earlier work, without credit.
  • Fabrication and falsification mean inventing data or results, or changing them, including editing images in ways that change what they show.
  • Duplicate submission means sending the same paper to another journal at the same time, or submitting work that is already published.

Every submission is checked by the editor for originality before review, and evaluated by an independent reviewer.

If plagiarism or other misconduct is found:

  • The paper is rejected immediately.
  • No fees are refunded.
  • All authors are barred from submitting to the journal again.
  • If the paper has already been published, it is publicly retracted, with a dated notice explaining why.

Authors confirm when they submit that their work is original, their own and properly cited, and they are solely responsible for its content. See the author warranties in our terms of service.

Authorship

Everyone listed as an author must have made a substantial contribution to the work, approved the submitted version, and agreed to be accountable for it. The submitting author must be a high school or undergraduate student. Co-authors may be fellow students, or teachers, mentors, professors or researchers who meet the same standard. Help that doesn't meet this standard belongs in the Acknowledgments. Adding or removing authors after submission requires the written agreement of every author.

Research Involving People or Animals

Research with human participants or animals must be done under adult supervision or with approval from an institutional review board (IRB). Human participants must give informed consent, with a parent or guardian's consent for participants under 18, and signed consent forms must be kept and provided if we ask. Authors must describe this in their Methods. Research that puts participants or animals at risk of harm will not be considered.

Use of AI Tools by Authors

  • Disclosure is mandatory. Every submission includes a statement saying which AI tools were used and for what, or that none were used.
  • Allowed with disclosure: limited help with grammar, wording or formatting, and help writing or debugging code that you understand and check.
  • Not allowed: generating data, results, images, analyses or references; writing substantial parts of the paper; or listing an AI tool as an author.
  • Authors are responsible for every word, number and reference in the paper. Undisclosed or prohibited AI use is treated as misconduct.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors declare any financial or personal interest that could affect, or appear to affect, their work, and name any funding or paid research program they took part in. Reviewers declare any connection to an author and are never assigned a paper by someone they know.

Peer Review Model

Review is double-blind: reviewers don't know who the authors are, and authors don't know who the reviewers are. Each paper is reviewed by one independent reviewer. If the editor is unsure after the first review, a second reviewer is added, and a third only if those two disagree. Authors receive the written report; reviewers' scores are used by the editor and aren't shared. See the peer review process and review criteria.

Editorial Decisions

Editorial decisions are final. This includes the decision on whether a revision makes the changes the reviewer report requires.

Revisions

  • Every paper gets one round of revisions. The decision email lists every required change, numbered, under “Specific changes requested” in the reviewer report.
  • Your revision must make every required change. Your response letter answers each one by its number and says exactly where in the paper the change was made.
  • If you believe a requested change is wrong, say so in your response letter, with your reasons. The editor decides whether your explanation is accepted.
  • The editor checks the revision against the numbered list. If any required change is missing or incomplete, the paper isn’t accepted in that round: the editor either asks for a second round of revisions, which moves the paper to the next issue, or rejects it.
  • Whether a revision makes the required changes is the editor’s decision, and it is final.

Which Issue a Paper Appears In

Paying a fee never guarantees publication, or publication in a particular issue. Your paper is considered for the issue whose deadline you submit by, and is published in that issue only if it is accepted after no more than one round of revisions and you meet every deadline we give you: the submission fee (and any parent or guardian consent) by the submission deadline, a revision that makes every required change by its due date, and the final Word file and publication fee by the final-file deadline. Our own screening, review and decision times are set so that, when all of this happens, the paper fits in the issue. Otherwise it moves to a later issue, and no fee is refunded.

Report a Concern

Anyone may report suspected plagiarism, a copyright problem, research misconduct, or a reviewer's conflict of interest, about a submission or a published article. Email editor@scivantreview.org with "Concern" in the subject line, and include the article's title or link and what you found. We acknowledge concerns, investigate them confidentially under COPE guidance, and act where it's warranted, including removing, correcting or retracting published work.

Corrections and Retractions

We never change a published article silently. If an error needs fixing, we publish a corrected version with a dated correction note on the article page explaining what changed, and keep the original on record. If a published article is found to be seriously flawed or the result of misconduct, it is retracted: it stays online, clearly marked as retracted, with a dated note explaining why.

Fees

Fees never influence editorial decisions. All fees are final and non-refundable. The only exceptions are a duplicate or mistaken charge, or an accepted, paid paper that the journal fails to publish for reasons on its side. A paper moved to a later issue because a deadline was missed is not refunded. Paying never guarantees acceptance. See Fees for details.