Last updated: 8 August 2026.

Editorial assessment and peer review

Editors screen submissions for scope, completeness, originality, ethics, reproducibility, accessibility, and minimum scholarly quality. Research, review, curriculum, short, problem-set, and data submissions that pass screening normally receive at least two independent reviews using an anonymous-reviewer/anonymous-author process. Reviewers are ordinarily asked to complete reports within four weeks. Editors may seek additional review when reports conflict or specialist expertise is needed.

Decisions may be accept, minor revision, major revision, resubmit for review, or decline. Revised work may be returned to reviewers. Editorials and clearly labeled invited commentary are reviewed internally. A submission authored by an editor or board member is assigned to an independent editor with no conflict; the author has no access to reviewer identities or the decision process. The journal aims to acknowledge complete submissions within five business days and communicate an initial editorial decision within twelve weeks, while recognizing that specialist review can require more time.

Authorship and contributorship

Authors must have made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, execution, analysis, or interpretation of the work; participated in drafting or critical revision; approved the submitted version; and accepted accountability for the work. Gift, guest, and ghost authorship are prohibited. Changes to authorship after submission require an explanation and written agreement from all affected contributors.

Published research articles should include a CRediT-style contribution statement. The corresponding author must confirm the author list, affiliations, ORCID iDs, and contributions before publication.

Competing interests and funding

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial, professional, institutional, or personal interests that could reasonably be perceived to influence their work. Funding sources and the funders' roles must be stated. Every published article should contain funding and competing-interests statements, including explicit “No funding” or “No competing interests” statements when applicable.

Research ethics, consent, and vulnerable participants

Research involving people, personal data, animals, or regulated activity must comply with applicable law and recognized ethical standards. Authors must identify the approving or exempting body and reference number where applicable, describe informed-consent procedures, and protect privacy. Identifiable information requires explicit permission for publication. Articles should include an ethics and consent statement or state that it is not applicable.

Originality, preprints, and related work

Submissions must be original and not under review elsewhere. Authors must disclose preprints, conference versions, theses, reports, datasets, and related manuscripts and explain substantial overlap. Posting a preprint does not prevent submission, but authors must identify it and update it with the version-of-record DOI after publication.

Extended conference work must cite the earlier version, explain the relationship in the cover letter, and provide a substantial new scholarly contribution; as a practical guide, at least 30% new analysis, evidence, methods, or interpretation is normally expected. Editors assess substance rather than word-count alone.

Editors may use similarity checking and request source data. Plagiarism, fabricated or falsified data, citation manipulation, image manipulation, and undisclosed duplicate publication may lead to rejection, correction, retraction, institutional notification, or other proportionate action. JCL follows the COPE Core Practices as guidance and does not imply COPE membership.

Data, code, and reproducibility

Research articles must include a Data Availability Statement. Data, code, instruments, and problem sets should be deposited in a trusted repository with a persistent identifier, version, reuse license, and documentation whenever ethically and legally possible. Suitable repositories include Zenodo, OSF, institutional repositories, and discipline-specific archives. Restrictions must be explained. Editors may request underlying material during review or after publication.

Recommended statement patterns include: “Data and code are available at [repository and DOI] under [license]”; “De-identified data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request, subject to [restriction]”; or “No new data were created or analyzed for this article.”

Artificial intelligence

AI systems cannot qualify as authors. Authors remain responsible for all content and must disclose material generative-AI use, including the tool, version, purpose, prompts or workflow where relevant, human verification, and affected sections. Examples requiring disclosure include generated text, code, images, synthetic data, translations that affect scholarly meaning, and AI-assisted analysis. Routine spelling or grammar correction need not be disclosed when it does not generate substantive scholarly content.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscript content to generative-AI services that retain or train on submitted material.

Corrections, retractions, and version integrity

Errors that do not invalidate the findings may be corrected with a dated, linked notice. Unreliable findings, major ethical violations, plagiarism, or fraudulent work may warrant retraction. Correction and retraction notices remain freely accessible, identify the affected article and reason, link bidirectionally to the version of record, and are included in DOI metadata. Retracted PDFs remain available for the scholarly record with a clear watermark and notice. Expressions of concern may be used while a serious matter is investigated.

Complaints and appeals

Authors may appeal a decision by sending a concise, evidence-based explanation to the principal contact within 30 days. Disagreement alone is not grounds for appeal. Receipt will normally be acknowledged within ten business days and an outcome communicated within 30 days. The editor may obtain an independent assessment, and the resulting decision is final.

Complaints about conduct, process, or published content should identify the work, issue, evidence, and requested remedy. Complaints concerning the principal contact are handled by the support contact or another uninvolved representative of the ICPC Foundation.

Confidentiality

Submission and review materials are confidential. Editors disclose them only to people involved in evaluation, production, ethics review, or legal compliance. Reviewers may not use unpublished information or contact authors directly.

Editorial independence, diversity, and nondiscrimination

Decisions are based on scholarly merit and relevance, without discrimination based on personal identity, nationality, institutional prestige, commercial interest, or viewpoint. The publisher, sponsors, and partner institutions do not control individual decisions. The journal seeks appropriately diverse editors and reviewers while selecting them primarily for relevant expertise and freedom from conflicts.

Publication schedule and preservation

JCL publishes articles continuously after acceptance and production, then assembles them into numbered issues. The journal intends to publish at least one issue each calendar year. Public metadata, DOI records, and version notices are maintained through OJS and Crossref. A formal third-party preservation service is being evaluated; until it is activated, authors are encouraged to deposit accepted manuscripts and supporting material in durable institutional or disciplinary repositories.

Fees, access, copyright, and licensing

JCL provides immediate open access and currently charges no submission fee, article processing charge, or publication fee. Any future fee change will be announced before it applies and will never be imposed retroactively on work already submitted.

Copyright and license information appears on each article. Unless an article states otherwise, content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. This permits sharing and adaptation with attribution for non-commercial purposes, provided adaptations use the same license. Authors who need a different license for funder or institutional compliance should contact the journal before acceptance.

Contact

Policy questions, complaints, and appeals may be sent to erich.baker@icpc.global. If the concern involves that editor, contact christian.lim@icpc.global.