Conflict of Interest Policy

To prevent potential conflicts of interest, journal submissions are carefully assigned to editors. Editors avoid handling manuscripts involving authors with whom they have certain relationships, including current colleagues, recent colleagues, recent co-authors, and students for whom the editor has served as committee chair.

Editors must inform the managing editor of any conflicts not covered by these categories after the manuscript assignment. If no editor passes all conflict checks, the manuscript will be assigned to the co-editors with the least conflicts. Sitting editors also designate co-editors with minimal conflicts for all submissions.

To further avoid conflicts, submissions are also assigned to referees who are required to disclose any conflicts of interest to the editor after receiving the manuscript for review.