Ethical Guidelines

Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers

Last updated: 2026-01-04

Peer review is essential to INFEDU’s publishing process. Reviewers are expected to provide fair, constructive, confidential, and timely reviews.

1) Confidentiality

  • Manuscripts and review materials are confidential documents.
  • Do not share the manuscript with others or contact the authors directly without permission from the editor.
  • Do not use unpublished content for your own research or personal advantage.

2) Conflicts of interest

  • Decline the review if you have a conflict of interest that could affect impartiality (or be reasonably perceived to).
  • Inform the editor immediately if a conflict becomes apparent after you accept the invitation.

3) Objectivity and professionalism

  • Provide evidence-based critique of the work, not personal criticism of the authors.
  • Be respectful and constructive: aim to improve the manuscript.
  • Review within the agreed timeframe or notify the editor promptly if you cannot.

4) Integrity checks reviewers should flag

Alert the editor (confidentially) if you suspect:

  • Plagiarism or substantial overlap with published work
  • Fabrication/falsification, suspicious statistics, or inconsistent results
  • Unethical research practices or missing ethics safeguards (especially with minors/schools)
  • Undisclosed conflicts of interest
  • Citation manipulation or inappropriate self-citation requests

5) Use of AI tools

  • Do not upload manuscripts or your review to public generative AI tools or third-party services that may retain and reuse content, unless explicitly authorised and confidentiality is protected.
  • If you use any permitted tools for language support, disclose this to the handling editor if requested.

See the INFEDU AI-assisted editorial screening policy .

Questions or concerns during review? Contact the handling editor via the journal system or email editorial@infedu.lt.