Qubahan Techno Journal (QTJ) follows a structured, transparent, independent, and academically rigorous publishing process designed to ensure the originality, scholarly quality, methodological or theoretical rigor, ethical integrity, and relevance of every manuscript considered for publication.

Editorial decisions are based solely on scholarly merit, originality, methodological or theoretical quality, ethical compliance, clarity, relevance to the journal's Aims and Scope, and contribution to knowledge.

Article Processing Charges, commercial interests, author nationality, institutional affiliation, personal relationships, or other considerations unrelated to scholarly quality do not influence peer review or editorial decisions.

1. Manuscript submission

Authors submit manuscripts through the journal's online submission system.

Submission confirms that:

• The manuscript is original.

• The work has not been published previously in substantially the same form.

• The manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal.

• All listed authors meet appropriate authorship criteria.

• All authors have approved the submitted version.

• Required permissions and ethical approvals have been obtained where applicable.

• Funding sources and competing interests have been disclosed.

• Generative artificial intelligence use has been disclosed where required.

• The manuscript complies with QTJ's editorial, ethical, copyright, licensing, and submission policies.

Manuscripts must be prepared for double-anonymous peer review, with identifying author information removed from the review manuscript.

2. Administrative and technical screening

Before academic evaluation, the Editorial Office examines each submission for completeness and compliance with journal requirements.

The screening includes verification of:

• Manuscript files and metadata

• Article type

• Author information

• Abstract and keywords

• Tables, figures, equations, and supplementary material

• Reference completeness

• Funding disclosure

• Conflict-of-interest declaration

• Data Availability Statement where applicable

• Ethics approval and informed consent where applicable

• Generative artificial intelligence disclosure where applicable

• Copyright permissions for third-party material

• Compliance with double-anonymous submission requirements

Submissions requiring technical correction may be returned to authors before academic evaluation.

Administrative screening does not constitute acceptance for publication.

3. Scope and scholarly assessment

A qualified academic editor conducts an initial assessment to determine whether the manuscript is suitable for QTJ.

The editor evaluates:

• Alignment with the journal's Aims and Scope

• Originality

• Academic significance

• Clarity of the research problem

• Methodological or theoretical quality

• Adequacy of evidence

• Scholarly contribution

• Quality of academic presentation

• Ethical compliance

• Suitability for independent peer review

Manuscripts that clearly fall outside the journal's scope, lack an adequate scholarly contribution, contain fundamental methodological weaknesses, or fail essential editorial or ethical requirements may be rejected without external peer review.

This process is referred to as editorial or desk rejection.

4. Originality and research-integrity screening

Manuscripts are assessed for potential research-integrity concerns before or during peer review.

Screening may include examination for:

• Plagiarism

• Inappropriate textual overlap

• Duplicate or redundant publication

• Improper text recycling

• Fabricated or falsified data

• Manipulated figures, images, or research outputs

• Citation manipulation

• Authorship irregularities

• Undisclosed conflicts of interest

• Unethical research practices

• Inappropriate use of generative artificial intelligence

Similarity-detection software may be used as an editorial screening tool.

A numerical similarity percentage alone does not determine whether plagiarism has occurred. Similarity reports are interpreted by qualified editors according to the source, extent, context, and nature of the overlap.

5. Assignment to an academic editor

Manuscripts that successfully pass initial screening are assigned to an Editor or Section Editor with appropriate expertise.

The handling editor is responsible for:

• Evaluating the manuscript's scholarly suitability

• Selecting qualified reviewers

• Managing the peer-review process

• Assessing reviewer reports

• Evaluating revisions

• Identifying ethical or research-integrity concerns

• Making or recommending an editorial decision

Editors must disclose relevant conflicts of interest.

An editor must recuse themselves from a manuscript whenever a personal, professional, academic, institutional, financial, or other relationship could reasonably compromise impartiality.

6. Independent handling of conflicted submissions

Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, editors, Editorial Board members, publisher representatives, journal staff, or their close collaborators do not receive preferential treatment.

Such submissions are assigned to an independent editor who has no relevant conflict of interest.

The submitting editor or board member must not participate in reviewer selection, peer review, discussion, or the editorial decision concerning their own manuscript.

7. Reviewer selection

Manuscripts proceeding to external review are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with expertise relevant to the subject and methodology of the manuscript.

Reviewers are selected according to:

• Subject expertise

• Research experience

• Relevant scholarly record

• Methodological or theoretical competence

• Independence from the authors

• Absence of significant conflicts of interest

• Ability to provide a rigorous and constructive review

The journal seeks appropriate disciplinary, institutional, and geographical diversity when selecting reviewers.

Authors may suggest reviewers where permitted, but the final selection remains entirely under editorial control.

8. Double-anonymous peer review

QTJ operates a double-anonymous peer-review process.

The identities of authors are concealed from reviewers, and reviewer identities are concealed from authors as far as reasonably possible.

Reviewers are asked to assess, where relevant:

• Originality

• Academic contribution

• Relevance to the journal's scope

• Research question or scholarly problem

• Theoretical foundation

• Study design

• Methodology

• Mathematical or computational validity

• Data quality

• Statistical analysis

• Reproducibility

• Interpretation of findings

• Strength of argumentation

• Relationship between evidence and conclusions

• Ethical compliance

• Quality of figures, tables, images, or creative materials

• Engagement with relevant literature

• Strengths and limitations

• Overall clarity and scholarly presentation

Reviewer identities and reports are treated as confidential editorial information.

9. Reviewer responsibilities

Reviewers must:

• Accept assignments only within their expertise.

• Provide objective, evidence-based, and constructive assessments.

• Maintain manuscript confidentiality.

• Disclose relevant conflicts of interest.

• Decline assignments where impartiality cannot be maintained.

• Avoid personal, discriminatory, or inappropriate criticism.

• Avoid coercive or irrelevant citation requests.

• Report suspected plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, or other serious ethical concerns.

• Protect unpublished data, ideas, methods, creative materials, and research results.

• Comply with QTJ's Generative artificial intelligence policy.

Reviewers provide recommendations, but they do not make the final publication decision.

10. Evaluation of reviewer reports

The handling editor evaluates reviewer reports critically.

Reviewer recommendations are advisory and do not automatically determine the editorial decision.

The editor considers:

• The quality of the manuscript

• Reviewer arguments

• Consistency of the reports

• Methodological or theoretical concerns

• Ethical requirements

• Author responses

• Contribution to the field

If reviewer reports are substantially contradictory, incomplete, inappropriate, or insufficient for a reliable decision, the editor may invite one or more additional reviewers.

The editor is not required to follow a recommendation that is unsupported, unethical, discriminatory, coercive, or scientifically inappropriate.

11. Editorial decision

Following peer review, one of the following decisions may be issued:

Accept

The manuscript satisfies the journal's scholarly, methodological, ethical, and editorial requirements.

Minor revision

The manuscript requires limited corrections, clarification, or improvements before a final decision.

Major revision

Substantial changes to the methodology, analysis, theoretical development, interpretation, presentation, or other aspects of the manuscript are required.

Reject

The manuscript does not meet the journal's standards for publication or contains deficiencies that cannot reasonably be addressed through revision.

The decision letter communicates relevant editor and reviewer comments to the corresponding author.

A request for revision does not guarantee subsequent acceptance.

12. Revision process

Authors invited to revise a manuscript must submit:

• A revised manuscript

• A detailed point-by-point response to reviewer and editor comments

• A clear description of changes made

• A reasoned explanation where a recommendation has not been followed

Authors should clearly identify substantive revisions.

The handling editor evaluates the revised manuscript and author response.

Major revisions may be returned to the original reviewers or sent to additional independent reviewers when further specialist assessment is necessary.

More than one round of revision may be required where academically justified.

13. Research data and reproducibility

Where relevant to the discipline and study design, authors should provide sufficient methodological detail to allow readers to understand and evaluate the research.

Authors may be required to provide supporting materials such as:

• Research data

• Source code

• Computational procedures

• Mathematical derivations

• Algorithms

• Models

• Research instruments

• Questionnaires

• Experimental protocols

• Supplementary materials

• Documentation supporting figures or images

A Data Availability Statement should explain whether and how supporting research materials can be accessed.

Where ethical, legal, privacy, intellectual-property, or contractual restrictions prevent public sharing, these restrictions should be clearly stated.

14. Ethical verification

Where applicable, the journal verifies that appropriate ethical requirements have been addressed.

This may include:

• Ethics committee or Institutional Review Board approval

• Approval/reference number

• Informed consent

• Consent for publication

• Protection of confidential participant information

• Appropriate treatment of vulnerable populations

• Permissions for copyrighted or culturally sensitive materials

Editors may request supporting documentation where clarification is necessary.

15. Final research-integrity check

Before final acceptance, the journal may conduct additional checks to confirm that required scientific, ethical, authorship, disclosure, and integrity matters have been satisfactorily resolved.

Where necessary, authors may be asked to provide:

• Original or supporting data

• Ethics documentation

• Author-contribution information

• Funding information

• Conflict-of-interest clarification

• Copyright permissions

• Original figures or images

• Documentation concerning computational or analytical procedures

Serious integrity concerns may result in suspension of editorial processing while the matter is investigated.

16. Final acceptance

A manuscript is formally accepted only when the responsible academic editor is satisfied that:

• Peer review has been appropriately completed.

• Required revisions have been adequately addressed.

• Major scholarly concerns have been resolved.

• Required ethical declarations are present.

• Authorship and competing-interest requirements have been met.

• Research-integrity checks have been satisfactorily completed.

• The manuscript meets QTJ's publication standards.

Acceptance is an academic decision.

Payment of an Article Processing Charge does not influence or guarantee acceptance.

17. Article Processing Charge

QTJ's Article Processing Charge is handled separately from scientific evaluation.

The applicable APC is requested only after formal editorial acceptance.

Editors and reviewers must not make publication decisions based on an author's ability to pay.

Payment cannot substitute for peer review, revision, ethical compliance, or editorial approval.

18. Copyediting and production

Accepted manuscripts proceed to production.

Production may include:

• Copyediting

• Language and consistency checking

• Reference verification

• Formatting

• Figure and table preparation

• Equation checking

• Metadata verification

• DOI preparation where applicable

• Typesetting

• Preparation of publication files

Copyediting must not alter the substantive meaning, results, interpretation, or conclusions of an accepted article without appropriate author and editorial approval.

19. Author proofreading

The corresponding author receives a proof before final publication.

Authors are responsible for verifying:

• Author names

• Institutional affiliations

• Article title

• Abstract

• Keywords

• Main text

• Equations

• Tables

• Figures

• References

• Funding information

• Ethical declarations

• Conflict-of-interest statements

• Article metadata

Proofreading is primarily intended to identify production or typographical errors.

Substantial changes to the accepted scientific content require editorial approval.

20. Final publication

Following completion of production and approval of the final proof, the article is published online within the appropriate volume and issue.

The published article becomes the journal's version of record.

Each article should display appropriate publication and bibliographic information, including where applicable:

• Article title

• Author names

• Institutional affiliations

• Abstract

• Keywords

• Received date

• Revised date

• Accepted date

• Publication date

• Volume and issue information

• DOI

• Copyright statement

• Licensing information

• Funding statement

• Conflict-of-interest declaration

• Data Availability Statement

• Ethics information where applicable

Published articles remain openly accessible in accordance with QTJ's Open access and Licensing policies.

21. Editorial independence

QTJ maintains a clear separation between scholarly editorial decisions and financial or commercial activities.

The publisher provides administrative and publishing support but does not determine whether individual manuscripts are accepted or rejected.

Editorial decisions must not be influenced by:

• Article Processing Charges

• Commercial relationships

• Author nationality

• Institutional affiliation

• Personal relationships

• Political, religious, or ideological views

• Academic status

• Other characteristics unrelated to scholarly merit

Final editorial responsibility rests with qualified academic editors.

22. Confidentiality

Submitted manuscripts are confidential scholarly documents.

Editors, reviewers, Editorial Board members, and journal staff must not disclose or improperly use unpublished information obtained through the editorial process.

Manuscripts, figures, data, source code, creative materials, reviewer reports, or other confidential submission content must not be uploaded to external artificial-intelligence systems where confidentiality, copyright, or data protection cannot be assured.

23. Conflicts of interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial and non-financial interests that could influence, or reasonably appear to influence, their judgment.

Where a relevant conflict exists:

• Reviewers must decline the review.

• Editors must recuse themselves.

• An independent editor must be assigned where necessary.

Conflicts identified after publication may also be investigated where they materially affect the reliability or transparency of the scholarly record.

24. Complaints and appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision when they believe that a significant scientific, factual, ethical, or procedural error materially affected the decision.

Appeals must provide clear reasons and supporting evidence.

Where appropriate, an appeal is evaluated by a senior editor who was not directly responsible for the disputed decision.

Complaints concerning editorial procedures, peer review, ethics, conflicts of interest, journal conduct, or published content are handled according to QTJ's Complaints and appeals policy.

An appeal does not guarantee reversal of an editorial decision.

25. Post-publication responsibility

QTJ's responsibility for scholarly integrity continues after publication.

Credible concerns regarding a published article are assessed according to the journal's Publication ethics and research integrity and Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern policies.

Where necessary, the journal may publish:

• Corrections

• Editorial notices

• Expressions of concern

• Retractions

Published articles are not silently removed or materially altered except under exceptional legal, privacy, safety, or other compelling circumstances.

Post-publication notices remain permanently linked to the affected article where appropriate.

Commitment to publishing quality

Qubahan Techno Journal is committed to maintaining a publishing process that is transparent, academically independent, internationally oriented, ethically responsible, and consistent with recognized standards of scholarly communication.

The journal periodically reviews its editorial and peer-review procedures to strengthen publication quality, research integrity, reviewer independence, transparency, and the reliability of the permanent scholarly record.