Ethics & Publication Policies

All authors listed on a manuscript must have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; AND approved the final version to be published; AND agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part are appropriately investigated and resolved. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors have agreed to the submission. Guest authorship, honorary authorship, and ghost authorship are not permitted. Any changes to the author list after submission must be approved by the editorial office.

JOPS operates a double-blind peer review process. The identities of both authors and reviewers are kept confidential throughout the review process. Submitted manuscripts are assigned to at least two independent expert reviewers. Reviewers are selected based on their expertise, absence of conflicts of interest, and availability. Editors make final acceptance decisions based on reviewer recommendations and their own assessment. Authors have the right to appeal decisions by providing a reasoned rebuttal to the editorial office. Reviewers who identify a potential conflict of interest must disclose this immediately and decline the review assignment. Review comments are shared with authors in full; comments to the editor may be withheld if they contain information about reviewer identity.

JOPS uses Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) to screen all submitted manuscripts for similarity with previously published works. Submissions with high similarity scores will be investigated. All submitted work must be original. Plagiarism, self-plagiarism (duplicate publication), and data fabrication or falsification are considered serious research misconduct. Manuscripts found to contain plagiarised content at any stage — submission, review, or post-publication — will be immediately rejected or retracted. Proper attribution of all cited work is required. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any figures, tables, or other content from copyrighted material.

All authors must disclose any financial, professional, or personal relationships that could be perceived as influencing the work. This includes employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, patents, and funding sources. A Conflict of Interest statement must be included in all submissions, even if there are no conflicts to declare (state "The authors declare no conflicts of interest"). This statement is published alongside accepted articles. Editors and reviewers must also declare and recuse themselves from manuscripts where they have potential conflicts of interest.

JOPS encourages authors to make their research data publicly available. Authors should include a Data Availability Statement at the end of their manuscript, specifying where supporting data can be accessed or providing a reason if the data cannot be shared. Data may be deposited in public repositories such as Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, or subject-specific repositories. Raw data underlying figures and statistical analyses should be made available upon reasonable request. For datasets that cannot be publicly shared due to ethical or legal restrictions, authors should provide a clear explanation in the Data Availability Statement.

Research involving human participants must have been conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have received approval from an appropriate institutional ethics committee. The approval number and issuing committee must be stated in the manuscript. Research involving animals must comply with national and international guidelines for animal welfare and must have received appropriate institutional approval. The manuscript must state that guidelines were followed and provide the relevant approval details. For research involving human genetic material, patient data, or identifiable information, authors must confirm that appropriate informed consent was obtained.

Authors who use AI-assisted writing tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Grammarly AI, Copilot) must disclose this in the Methods section or Acknowledgements. AI tools must not be listed as authors, as they cannot take responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the work. The use of AI for literature review, data analysis, or manuscript drafting is permitted provided: (1) any AI-generated content is carefully reviewed and verified by the authors; (2) the authors take full responsibility for the accuracy of all statements; and (3) the use is disclosed. AI tools must not be used to fabricate references, generate false data, or misrepresent findings.

JOPS is committed to maintaining the integrity of the published record. When errors are identified in published articles, the following mechanisms are used: Correction: for minor errors that do not affect the conclusions of the work. A correction notice is published alongside the original article. Retraction: for serious errors, data fabrication, plagiarism, or other research misconduct that invalidates the conclusions. A retraction notice is published with a full explanation. Expressions of Concern: when an investigation is ongoing and there is immediate public health risk or significant concern about the reliability of published results. Requests for corrections or retractions should be sent to the editorial office with full details and supporting evidence.

JOPS is a Gold Open Access journal. All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. There are no submission fees. Article Processing Charges (APCs) may apply to cover editorial and production costs; any applicable charges are disclosed transparently on the journal website and waived on a case-by-case basis for authors from low-income countries. Authors retain copyright of their work. JOPS does not permit simultaneous submission to another journal. Pre-prints posted before submission are permitted provided they are disclosed at submission.

JOPS follows the guidelines and best practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All editors and editorial board members are expected to adhere to COPE's Code of Conduct for Journal Editors. Any allegations of misconduct — by authors, reviewers, or editors — will be investigated following COPE flowcharts and guidelines. The editor-in-chief has final authority over all misconduct investigations, subject to oversight by the publisher. Contact: For all publication ethics concerns, contact the editorial office at jops@funaab.edu.ng.