Code of Ethics – Tradition Online

TRADITION: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought published by the Rabbinical Council of America

CODE OF ETHICS: This statement applies to the print edition of TRADITION [ISSN 0041-0608] and was last updated on March 1, 2023.

All submissions to TRADITION undergo double-blind peer review.

Read TRADITION‘s policies for investigating accusations of academic misconduct.

Code of Ethics for the Editorial Team

All communication among the publisher and editorial team and between editors and peer reviewers and authors will take place in a clear, respectful, timely, and transparent manner.
The Editor is the primary contact with authors, although editorial assistants are sometimes deputized for ad hoc purposes.
The Editor will remain neutral and treat all possible breaches of this Code confidentially. This may result in declining a manuscript or dismissing a peer reviewer or editor of their duties.
The Editor is tasked with upholding the highest standards of the integrity of the double-blind peer review process, including selecting qualified and neutral parties from within the journal’s editorial board or outside experts to serve as reviewers.
TRADITION is committed to processing the review, acceptance/rejection, revision, and editing of submissions in a timely manner and endeavors to keep authors updated on the estimated timeline for moving a piece through the process in an expeditious manner while balancing the need for rigorous editorial review. The typical stages of our editing process are outlined in our submission guidelines: https://traditiononline.org/submit-an-article
In the event of a dispute involving the Editor, the matter will be directed to the Associate Editors for resolution.
These rules of governance are applicable to any individual involved in the production of the journal. These include, but are not limited to: the publisher and its employees, editors, editorial board members, editorial assistants, peer-reviewers, authors, etc.
The editors shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. In the event that the publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in our journal, the publisher or editor will rely on the guidelines in dealing with allegations outlined by Elsevier’s Content Policy and Selection Guide. Read TRADITION‘s policies for investigating accusations of academic misconduct.

Code of Ethics for Authors

Authors who wish to submit a paper to the journal will submit it directly to the Editor. The Editor will anonymize the paper and direct it through the publication process.
Authors will conduct their research in line with best practices and regulations of their professional bodies and home institutions.
Authors will declare any conflicts of interest.
All authors must be named on the manuscript, and in the order in which they would like to be acknowledged, at the point of submission.
Please do not submit essays that have been or are slated to be published elsewhere (in whole or in part; in print or digitally). Do not submit material that is before another journal for consideration. In exceptional cases, we will consider submissions that will be published in a subsequent book or that have appeared in print in a foreign language and have been translated to English for TRADITION. Please indicate these circumstances when submitting a manuscript.
By submitting work for publication the author affirms that the work will not infringe upon any copyright or other proprietary right of third parties.
Copyright of all published material is assigned to our publisher, the Rabbinical Council of America. After appearance in TRADITION and release from behind our website paywall, the work can only appear elsewhere, in any language or medium, after informing us, with the clear acknowledgment that it is reprinted with permission of TRADITION, with the appropriate publication data (vol., no., year, etc.).
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Submission Guidelines: https://traditiononline.org/submit-an-article
The author has obtained the permission of the copyright holder for the inclusion of any third-party material, including images, in the text.
There has been no falsification or fabrication of data findings.
The paper includes no instances of plagiarism, such as verbatim copying of another’s work and submitting it as one’s own, or changing words and phrases while retaining the essential content of another’s work. Read TRADITION‘s policies for investigating accusations of academic misconduct.
Anonymous manuscripts will not be accepted.

Code of Ethics for Double-Blind Peer Reviewer

Peer reviewers will agree to review manuscripts only for which they have the subject expertise required to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess in a timely manner.
They will respect the confidentiality of peer review and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond those that are released by the journal.
They will not use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others.
They will declare all potential conflicting interests, seeking advice from the journal if they are unsure whether something constitutes a relevant interest. A peer reviewer shall declare knowledge of the author if he or she detects this in the manuscript.
They will be objective and constructive in their reviews, refraining from being hostile or inflammatory and from making libelous or derogatory personal comments.
They will decline to review if they feel unable to provide a fair and unbiased review or if for some reason the “blindness” of the review is compromised by their outside knowledge of the author’s identity.
Peer reviewers will take into consideration the ethical standards required of authors when submitting their papers. They will assess whether the paper may be plagiarized, if informed consent ought to have been obtained, if authors have declared competing interests, and whether there is any indication the data has been fabricated or inappropriately manipulated.

Disclaimer

The opinions of our authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the TRADITIONeditorial board, the publisher, the Rabbinical Council of America, its employees or officers. The authors are solely responsible for the content of their submitted material.
The editorial team and peer-review process will typically identify and reject submitted material with serious ethical, legal, and academic issues. However, it must be recognized that like any other process, mistakes can be made. Therefore we state: By submitting written material to TRADITION, the author hereby agrees to assume full legal responsibility in any matter that may arise due to the publication of their submission. This can include, but is not limited to, issues of data falsification, libel/slander, moral misconduct, academic misconduct, and plagiarism.

Advertising

TRADITION occasionally accepts paid advertising for products that will likely be of interest to our readers. The editorial staff is recused from involvement in the commercial side of any advertising, which is wholly managed by our publisher, the Rabbinical Council of America. In no way does any advertising revenue impact journal content or editorial process, including but not limited to selection of books for review.

This document was prepared by consulting the Best Practices of the Public Knowledge Project and modeled on the policies of the Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research and Elsevier/Scopus.

This page is referenced on the copyright page of our print journal and is linked from: Submit an Article | Investigation of Allegations of Academic Misconduct Policy | Masthead | Contact Us