Editorial Policy

Israel Journal of Entomology

Editorial Policy & Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

General:

The Israel Journal of Entomology is published on behalf of the Entomological Society of Israel and is a diamond Open Access international peer-reviewed scholarly periodical that covers all areas of entomology, including Uniramia other than insects and non-marine Crustacea and Chelicerata. Taxonomic papers dealing with non-marine arthropoda faunas in the Eastern Hemisphere are accepted, whereas applied research manuscripts may be considered depending on their relevance to the Middle East region and are subject to editorial discretion. Individual species records and species lists are strongly discouraged unless these are well justified and concern taxa of exceptional interest. The Israel Journal of Entomology is published primarily electronically and accepts original research articles, as well as review papers and smaller contributions. All contributions are published in English (British or American standard). It is understood that manuscripts submitted to the Israel Journal of Entomology have not been offered to any other journal for prior or simultaneous publication. Publication in the Israel Journal of Entomology is currently free of charge.

Organisational structure:

Chief Editor
Associate/Guest Editor(s)
Editorial Board
Production editors: Copy-editor(s), graphics editor(s), DTP specialist(s), proof-reader(s)

Responsibilities:

Chief Editor should be an expert in one of the fields covered by the journal and is chosen by the Entomological Society of Israel office-bearers. Chief Editor leads the Editorial Board and supervises Associate/Guest and Production editors. Chief Editor supervises all stages of the journal production, from manuscript submission through peer-review to online publication, digital archiving and printing hard copies.

Chief Editor and Associate/Guest Editor(s) consider submitted manuscripts and decide if they are suitable for publication in the journal. Only papers considered suitable will be sent out for review.

The Editorial Board members are nominated by Chief Editor and approved by the Entomological Society of Israel office-bearers to represent the diversity of fields covered by the journal. The Editorial Board members can be approached to nominate appropriate reviewers or to act as reviewers themselves. The Editorial Board meets or communicates electronically on a regular basis, to discuss the progress of the journal. The Editorial Board members are expected to comment on the quality of the journal content and production shortly after issues are printed, to ensure that there is no drop in standard.

Chief Editor and the Editorial Board ensure that a high standard is maintained in terms of the content of the journal, the procedures for acceptance of material for publication, and the overall quality of the final product.

The editorial decisions are based solely on the academic merit of the submitted work, ensuring that the decision-making process is transparent and unbiased. The editorial decisions are not affected by undue influence by any political, corporate or social entity, which would constitute a breach of editorial independence and academic freedom (see also COPE Statement on external influence on editorial decisions).

Peer-review process:

An objective, unbiased and timely peer-review is seen as a way to ensure a high academic standard of published papers.

All manuscripts are scrutinized by at least two external experts, i.e. reviewers who are neither members of the Editorial Board nor employees of authors’ host institutions; this does not preclude members of the Editorial Board from reviewing manuscripts. The choice of reviewers is the responsibility of Chief Editor and Associate/Guest Editor(s), who may seek assistance from the Editorial Board. Reviewers’ identity remains anonymous unless they expressly state otherwise.

The decision to accept or reject a manuscript once the review process has been followed is the responsibility of Chief Editor and Associate/Guest Editor(s). No papers may be accepted without going under the above procedure. In case of negative reviews, authors are given an opportunity to respond before a final decision is drawn.

Publication ethics:

Cases of professional misconduct (e.g., redundant submissions, copyright violation, data fabrication, falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, plagiarism, undeclared use of generative AI, breach of confidentiality, inappropriate language etc.) may result in immediate rejection of the manuscript. However, authors have a right to respond to such allegations and for investigations to be carried out with appropriate speed and due diligence. Chief Editor has a responsibility to alert appropriate bodies (e.g., employers, funders, or regulatory authorities) and encourage them to investigate such allegations.

Authors who use generative AI tools must (1) transparently disclose their use in the Material and Methods section and clearly describe details of their use, (2) add relevant citations and references, and (3) record and submit their relevant interactions (prompts etc.) with AI tools as appendices. AI algorithms should, to the extent possible, be transparent, and their limitations acknowledged.

The list of authors should meet the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors authorship criteria based on (1) substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; (2) drafting the article or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published; and (4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors must meet all four criteria and describe their contributions at the time of their manuscript submission to ensure transparency. Generative AI tools do not meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take legal-binding responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, generative AI tools cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements. Input of other contributors (including, but not limited to, administrative relationship, acquisition of funding, general supervision of a research group alone, as well as language editing) must be duly acknowledged but does not warrant authorship.

All sources of funding relevant to research and/or publication must be acknowledged, and potential conflicts of interest must be disclosed at the time of the manuscript submission. 

The Editorial Board will not consider papers in which the study caused unnecessary pain, discomfort, or disturbance to normal health of living animals. Reports of experiments on vertebrates must state that the Principles of Laboratory Animal Care (NIH publication No. 86-23, revised 1985) or UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory Animals (Longman Scientific & Technical, Bath, UK) have been followed, as well as specific national laws where applicable.

The authors are responsible to ensure and, when possible, document (e.g., in the Acknowledgements) that legal requirements pertaining to their work are fulfilled. The publisher of the Israel Journal of Entomology and its editors, while comply to the best of their ability/knowledge with regulations regarding specimen/biological sample/data propriety, indemnify themselves against any legal action undertaken by either a natural person or a private/public organization with regard to specimen/biological sample/data proprietary rights.

Editors, authors and peer reviewers have a responsibility to disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present or review data objectively.

Copyright & Licensing:

Authors of the Israel Journal of Entomology retain the copyright of their articles without restrictions. Authors grant the publisher of the Israel Journal of Entomology non-exclusive publishing rights to publish the articles both electronically and in print. 

The materials in the Israel Journal of Entomology are published in Open Access and are licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license allowing for immediate free access to the articles and permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, with an acknowledgement of the workʼs authorship and initial publication in the Israel Journal of Entomology.

Article processing charges:

Neither page charges nor submission fees nor colour fees are currently levied on authors, publishing in the Israel Journal of Entomology.

Archiving:

Electronic versions of all articles published in the Israel Journal of Entomology are permanently archived at Zenodo.

The Israel Journal of Entomology follows the Open Access policy. Authors may archive publisherʼs version/PDF reprints of their articles on their personal and/or institutional Web sites and/or ResearchGate and/or elsewhere. The self-archiving of preprints or postprints is strongly discouraged, since this may cause nomenclatural problems.

Sources and further information:

Committee on Publication Ethics. 2017. Core practices. https://publicationethics.org/about/what-we-do/our-story/core-practices (accessed 22 May 2025)

Graf, Ch., Wager, E., Bowman, A., Fiack, S., Scott-Lichter, D., Robinson, A. 2007. Best practice guidelines on publication ethics: a publisher’s perspective. International Journal of Clinical Practice 61 (Suppl. 152): 1–26. doi: 10.1111%2Fj.1742-1241.2006.01230.x

IJE Instructions to Authors: https://ij-entomology.online/ojs/index.php/ije/instructionsauthors