Policies
Creative Commons License
All articles published in Journal of Social Equity and Public Administration are distributed with a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license and authors hold the copyright to their work. This means that users have the right to share or adapt the article, as long as the author(s) and source are cited. Permission is not needed for these uses. For permission for other uses or questions about use, please contact the author(s).
Copyright
The author(s) retains their copyright in their work.
Open Access Policy
Journal of Social Equity and Public Administration provides immediate open access to its content, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or their institution. This also means that JSEPA does not charge article processing fees. All articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0)
Self-Archiving Policy
The copyright of each article belongs to the author(s) and grants each author the right to deposit the article in their institutional repository or any suitable subject repository, provided they do not contravene the requirements of the CC license associated with the article.
Corrections & Retractions
Corrections: Honest errors are a part of research and publishing and require a correction when detected. JSEPA follows the ICMJE guidelines on publishing corrections. The journal will work with the authors to post a correction notice detailing changes from and citing the original publication when a correction is warranted. The correction will appear on the electronic print page and appear in the next Table of Contents. In addition, a new article version will be posted with prominent notes on previous versions indicating that there is a more recent version.
Retractions: Misconduct, inappropriate methodology, or errors serious enough to invalidate a paper’s results and conclusions may require retraction. JSEPA follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Retraction Guidelines and the ICMJE Recommendation on Retractions and Expressions of Concern.
Conflict of Interest
JSEPA requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission all pertinent commercial and other relationships.
Funding
Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/
Ethics
JSEPA is committed to ensuring ethics in publication and quality of articles; the journal voluntarily adheres to the standards and best practices set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Adherence to COPE standards of ethical behavior is expected of all parties involved in the publication process: Authors, Editors, Reviewers, and the Publisher.
Authors
Authors should present an objective discussion of the significance of their research and provide sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the research. Authors are expected to adhere to the journal’s AI policy. Making fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements is considered to be unethical behavior and is therefore unacceptable. Manuscripts submitted are required to be objective, comprehensive, and accurate accounts of research. Authors should ensure that their work is entirely original, and if the work and/or words of others have been used there should be an appropriate acknowledgment of that work (see also Plagiarism section). Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently is considered to be unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. This includes providing the same literature review, the same theoretical approach, and/or using identical data. Corresponding authors should ensure upon submission all authors are in full agreement with the final version of the manuscript submission for publication.
Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Plagiarism includes:
- Utilizing someone else’s work, words, or ideas without proper acknowledgement (i.e. citations and/or quotation marks).
- Making minor adjustments in a few words to avoid plagiarism software but leaving the main concept and/or wording essentially the same, particularly without attribution to the original source.
- Self-plagiarizing by using the same narrative, research questions, tables, figures or underlying content from work the author(s) have previously published except in limited circumstances (i.e. building off work in dissertations).
Editors
Editors should evaluate manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic and/or practitioner merit. An editor may not use unpublished information in the editor’s own research without the express written consent of the unpublished author. Editors should take reasonable responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper.
Reviewers
Manuscripts received for review are treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and are not to be used for personal gain. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving their submitted manuscript. Reviews should be written in a respectful manner that builds knowledge and avoids any appearance of malicious or hurtful intent. Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows they are unable to meet the review deadline should notify the editor and excuse themself from the review process. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, and/or other relationships or connections with any of the authors or institutions connected to the manuscript.
AI in Peer Review
Reviewers are prohibited from uploading any peer manuscripts, in partial or in total, into any AI tools. Reviewers should treat author’s work respectfully, which includes not adding someone else’s material into AI software without their consent.
Malpractice
JSEPA takes concerns and allegations of misconduct seriously. Authors are responsible for assuring the accuracy of their data collection, analysis, and interpretation. It is the responsibility of authors to ensure the accuracy of the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data in manuscripts they submit to JSEPA. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of authors to guarantee the veracity of the content of articles published in JSEPA. However, should concerns regarding academic misconduct arise, they should be reported to the editors at jsepa@umn.edu. The misconduct report should include evidence supporting the allegation. For allegations of misconduct that involve a conflict of interest for the editors, a committee of three members of the editorial board will be formed to investigate and address the allegations.
The editors of the journal voluntarily adhere to the standards, best practices, and processes for addressing allegations and complaints that have been established by the Commission on Publication Ethics, as outlined above. When allegations are found to have merit, the editors will contact the appropriate administrative officials at the institution with which the author is affiliated and inform them of the charges and the decision of the journal.
Generative AI Policy
JSEPA is an open access journal dedicated to promoting original research. This policy outlines the limited acceptable use of generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) in the preparation of manuscripts submitted to JSEPA. These limited uses are permitted as a way of overcoming potential inequities or barriers in areas such as language and translation. Generative AI tools cannot be used to create, alter or manipulate original research or narrative submissions to JSEPA, aside from the permitted uses outlined below. As a point of further caution, AI tools have been shown to perpetuate bias and inequity, and scholars should make careful efforts to avoid furthering this bias.
Prohibited Uses for submission to JSEPA
Generative AI must not be used to:
- Generate original research content or analysis (e.g., findings, data interpretation, tables, etc.)
- Create references or citations
- Write narrative sections in a manuscript (including research articles, commentaries, essays, or reviews)
- Peer reviewers may not upload any manuscripts (in total or partial elements) into any AI tools (see ethics and misconduct policies for further details).
Permitted Uses
Authors and peer reviewers may use generative AI tools for limited support in:
- Language polishing (e.g., grammar correction, translation support)
- Formatting reference lists (authors are responsible for the accuracy of their references)
- Assistance in providing recommendations for citations during peer reviews (peer reviewers are responsible for the accuracy of recommended references)
- Creating visuals and diagrams (with accompanying notation of AI assistance in creating them)
Disclosure Requirement
If generative AI tools are used in any part of manuscript preparation, authors must clearly disclose this in a dedicated note at the end of the manuscript (before the references), including:
- The tool(s) used (e.g., ChatGPT by OpenAI)
- The purpose (e.g., grammar correction, reference list formatting)
Example
Portions of this manuscript were edited using ChatGPT (OpenAI) for grammar and language clarity. All intellectual content and interpretations remain the sole responsibility of the authors.
Accountability
All authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of content submitted, regardless of AI use. Generative AI tools will not be recognized as co-authors in accordance with COPE’s position statement on Authorship and AI tools.
This page was updated on June 18, 2026.
