Voices of English Language Education Society (VELES) is an open-access journal serving the English Language Education (ELED/ELT) community, with a distinctive emphasis on EFL contexts in Indonesia and the wider Global South. The policies below govern our publishing practice and uphold integrity, accessibility, and transparency.

1) Open Access Policy

VELES provides immediate, free, and permanent access to all published articles. Readers may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to full texts without financial, legal, or technical barriers.

• License. Articles are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, permitting sharing, adaptation, and commercial use with attribution and share-alike.
• Author rights. Authors retain copyright and grant VELES a non-exclusive right to publish the Version of Record.
• Self-archiving (Green OA). Authors may deposit the preprint, accepted manuscript, and Version of Record without embargo in repositories, institutional pages, or personal websites. Include the article DOI.
• Persistent identifiers. Each article receives a DOI under prefix 10.29408/veles.
• Preservation. Long-term preservation is ensured (see Archiving).

2) Publication Ethics

VELES follows internationally recognized standards and COPE guidance. We expect integrity from authors, editors, and reviewers.

2.1 Authorship & Contributorship

• Authorship criteria. Substantial contribution (conception/design; data collection/analysis/interpretation), drafting or critical revision, final approval, and accountability for all aspects.
• CRediT taxonomy. Specify roles (e.g., Conceptualization, Methodology, Data Curation, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Supervision).
• Corresponding author. Confirms criteria for all authors, coordinates communication, and confirms data/materials availability.
• Changes to authorship. Additions/removals/re-ordering require written agreement from all authors and editorial approval before acceptance.

2.2 Conflicts of Interest (COI) & Funding

• Disclosure. Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose financial and non-financial COIs (funding, employment, consultancies, institutional roles, personal relationships).
• Funding statements. Name funders/grants and state the funder’s role (if any) in design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, and manuscript preparation.

2.3 Ethical Approval for Human Participants (ELT/EFL research)

• IRB/REC. Studies involving humans must state ethics approval (board/committee name, approval number/date) or a justified exemption aligned with local regulations; describe informed consent.
• Educational settings. For school/university classrooms, provide institutional permissions (e.g., principal/district/faculty) and outline safeguarding procedures.
• Minors & vulnerable populations. Obtain parental/guardian consent and age-appropriate assent; minimize risk; allow withdrawal without penalty; do not publish identifiable images/audio/video of minors without explicit written permission and strong ethical justification.
• Privacy & data protection. De-identify transcripts, recordings, student work, and assessment artifacts; avoid publishing raw identifiers/grades; describe secure storage, access controls, and retention periods consistent with institutional policy and local law.

2.4 Ethical Use of Generative AI

• No AI authorship. Generative-AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot) cannot be listed as authors.
• Permitted with disclosure. Limited use (language polishing, figure style suggestions, code refactoring) is allowed but must be disclosed (tool name/version, scope) in Acknowledgements/Methods.
• Prohibited uses. Fabricating data/references/quotations; uploading confidential or identifiable data to public AI services; using AI to evade similarity checks.
• Responsibility. Authors remain fully responsible for accuracy, originality, permissions, and privacy. VELES does not rely solely on “AI-detector” scores; concerns are assessed holistically.

2.5 Image/Figure & Data Integrity

• Avoid manipulations that mislead. Uniform, non-deceptive adjustments (e.g., brightness/contrast) are acceptable; describe material changes affecting interpretation.
• Transparency. Report exclusion criteria and, where feasible, provide analysis scripts or coding schemes (e.g., for discourse/corpus analyses).

3) Plagiarism & Text-Reuse Policy

All submissions undergo similarity screening. VELES rejects plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate submission, and unethical text recycling (“salami slicing”).

• Guideline threshold. Overall similarity ≤ 20% (excluding references, boilerplate methods, and properly quoted/attributed material), with no single source dominating. Editorial judgment prevails.
• Actions. Depending on severity: clarification/revision requests, rejection, or post-publication measures (correction/retraction).
• Preprints. Permitted; disclose the preprint and ensure license compatibility.

4) Data & Materials Availability (ELT-specific)

• Statement required. Include a Data Availability statement specifying where data/materials/code (e.g., anonymized transcripts, classroom instruments, rubrics) can be accessed (repository URL/DOI) or providing a justified restriction (privacy/consent/agreements).
• Sensitive data. Classroom recordings and student work may not be publicly shareable. Deposit anonymized excerpts, instruments, and codebooks; offer controlled access or “available on reasonable request” with safeguards.
• Recommended repositories. Use trusted repositories (OSF, Zenodo, institutional) and provide persistent links; ensure deposits exclude identifiers and adhere to consent terms.

5) Copyright & License

• Copyright holder. Authors retain copyright.
• License to publish. Authors grant VELES a non-exclusive license to publish and disseminate the Version of Record.
• User rights. Articles are distributed under CC BY-SA 4.0; users must attribute and share derivatives under the same license.
• Third-party content. Authors must obtain permissions for images/instruments/content not covered by fair use and include accurate credit lines.
• How to cite. Include the article DOI and follow APA 7th (see Author Guidelines).

6) Corrections, Retractions & Withdrawals

VELES applies COPE-aligned procedures to protect the scholarly record.

• Corrections (Erratum/Corrigendum). For errors that do not alter conclusions.
• Retractions. For serious issues (e.g., proven plagiarism, fabrication, unethical research, duplicate publication). Retraction notices explain reasons and link to the article; PDFs/HTML may be watermarked “Retracted.”
• Expression of Concern. Used when investigations are ongoing.
• Article removal. Reserved for rare legal/ethical risks (e.g., court order, severe privacy threat) with a tombstone page.
• Withdrawal (pre-publication). Permitted before acceptance with written justification. After acceptance, withdrawal is exceptional and requires compelling reasons.

7) Privacy Statement

Names and email addresses entered on this site are used exclusively for VELES purposes and are not shared with third parties.

• Data we keep. Author/editor/reviewer profiles, submission metadata, correspondence, and usage analytics required for editorial management and indexing.
• Protection. Role-based access within OJS and reasonable technical/organizational safeguards.
• Cookies & logs. Used for secure and efficient operation.
• User rights. To update or delete profile data, contact velesjournal@gmail.com.

8) Article Processing Charges (APC)

VELES is funded through institutional support and limited APCs to sustain peer review, editorial processing, hosting, DOI registration, and preservation.

• When charged. APC applies only after formal acceptance; no submission fees at any stage.
• Domestic authors (Indonesia). IDR 1,500,000 per accepted manuscript.
• International corresponding authors. One accepted manuscript per corresponding author per calendar year is fully waived; additional accepted manuscripts in the same year are charged the standard APC.
• Editorial independence. APCs do not influence editorial decisions; manuscripts are judged solely on academic merit.
• Billing & payment. Invoiced after acceptance and payable before publication (payments in IDR; sender covers transfer fees). Electronic invoices/receipts are issued.
• Refunds. APCs are non-refundable after publication. If an editorial/production error prevents publication, VELES will publish at no cost or issue a full refund.

Billing/contact: velesjournal@gmail.com

9) Appeals & Complaints

• Appeals. Authors may appeal with specific evidence addressing reviewer/editorial points. Appeals are reviewed by an editor not involved in the original decision (or an ad-hoc committee).
• Complaints. Ethical/process concerns are handled per COPE guidance; where appropriate, VELES consults relevant institution(s).

10) Policy Updates

Policies are reviewed periodically to reflect evolving best practices and operational needs. The version in force at submission applies to each manuscript. Updates are announced on the VELES website.