United Scholars Publishing is committed to protecting the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personal information entrusted to us by authors, reviewers, editors, readers, and other users of our publishing services.
Read the full policy ↓United Scholars Publishing ("United Scholars Publishing," "we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personal information entrusted to us by authors, reviewers, editors, readers, researchers, website visitors, subscribers, and other users of our publishing services.
This Privacy Policy explains how United Scholars Publishing collects, uses, stores, protects, and, where necessary, shares personal information in connection with our websites, journals, books, conference proceedings, manuscript submission systems, peer-review processes, publishing services, and related activities.
As a scholarly publisher, we recognize that personal information may be provided to us in the course of submitting manuscripts, participating in peer review, serving on editorial boards, communicating with our offices, purchasing or accessing publications, or using our websites.
We seek to process personal information responsibly, transparently, and only for legitimate purposes connected with our publishing activities and operations.
This Privacy Policy applies to personal information collected or processed by United Scholars Publishing through:
Individual journals or services operated by United Scholars Publishing may have additional privacy notices where specific processing activities require additional information.
We collect only information that is reasonably necessary for our publishing, editorial, administrative, legal, and operational activities. Depending on how you interact with us, this may include:
When you submit or publish a manuscript, we may collect:
When individuals participate in peer review, we may collect:
Reviewer identities may be kept confidential depending on the peer-review model adopted by the relevant journal.
For editors and editorial board members, we may collect:
Some professional information may be published publicly as part of an editorial board or journal website.
When you use our websites, we may collect certain technical and usage information, such as:
Where technically possible, such information may be used in aggregated or anonymized form for statistical and analytical purposes.
Where applicable, we may collect information necessary to process:
Payment card information may be processed directly by an authorized third-party payment provider rather than being stored by United Scholars Publishing.
United Scholars Publishing may use personal information for legitimate publishing, administrative, legal, and operational purposes, including:
We use information to:
Personal information may be processed when necessary to:
Information associated with submissions, reviews, editorial decisions, and publication records may therefore need to be retained for an extended period.
We may use contact information to communicate with you regarding:
Where marketing or newsletter communications are provided, we will respect applicable consent and opt-out requirements.
Scholarly publishing necessarily involves making certain information publicly available. When an article, book, chapter, proceeding, or other scholarly work is published, information such as the following may become part of the public scholarly record:
Published scholarly records are intended to remain accessible and may be distributed through indexing services, repositories, libraries, scholarly databases, DOI registration services, and other legitimate channels. Because publication contributes to a permanent scholarly record, requests to remove information from a published work may be subject to legitimate scholarly, legal, and archival considerations.
United Scholars Publishing recognizes the importance of confidentiality in scholarly peer review. Depending on the review model used by a journal:
Reviewers, editors, and Publisher staff must not disclose confidential manuscript information except where authorized or required for legitimate publishing, ethical, or legal purposes. Manuscripts and unpublished research information must not be used for personal, competitive, or commercial purposes.
Where applicable data-protection law requires a lawful basis for processing personal information, United Scholars Publishing may rely on one or more of the following bases:
The applicable legal basis may depend on the nature of the information and the circumstances in which it was collected.
United Scholars Publishing does not sell personal information. We may share personal information where reasonably necessary for legitimate publishing, technical, administrative, legal, or operational purposes. This may include sharing information with:
Third-party service providers that process personal information on our behalf are expected to handle such information appropriately and securely.
To facilitate discovery, citation, preservation, and dissemination of published research, United Scholars Publishing may provide publication metadata to third parties such as:
Such metadata may include author names, affiliations, article titles, abstracts, publication dates, DOI information, funding information, and other bibliographic information. Once published and distributed through external scholarly systems, such information may be retained by those systems according to their own policies.
United Scholars Publishing may work with authors, reviewers, editors, institutions, service providers, and scholarly organizations located in different countries. As a result, personal information may be processed or stored in a country other than the country in which you reside. Where applicable law requires safeguards for international transfers of personal information, we will seek to use appropriate safeguards and contractual or other lawful mechanisms.
United Scholars Publishing retains personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by applicable law. Some information may need to be retained for an extended period because of the permanent or long-term nature of scholarly publishing. For example, publication metadata, authorship information, editorial records, ethical records, corrections, retractions, and other information necessary to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record may be retained indefinitely or for an extended period. Records relating to financial transactions, legal matters, complaints, and research-integrity investigations may also be retained for as long as reasonably necessary to satisfy legal, regulatory, accounting, or legitimate institutional requirements.
Our websites may use cookies and similar technologies to:
You may be able to manage or disable cookies through your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of some parts of our websites. Where required by applicable law, we will provide appropriate cookie notices or consent mechanisms.
We may use analytics and technical tools to understand how visitors use our websites and to improve the accessibility, performance, security, and functionality of our services. Analytics information may include IP addresses, device information, pages visited, referring pages, browser information, and usage patterns. Where possible, analytics data may be aggregated or otherwise processed in a manner that reduces direct identification of individual users.
United Scholars Publishing takes reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect personal information against unauthorized access, unauthorized disclosure, accidental loss, alteration, destruction, and other inappropriate processing. Security measures may include access controls, authentication procedures, secure systems, restricted access to confidential information, monitoring, backups, and other appropriate safeguards. However, no method of transmitting or storing information over the Internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Accordingly, while we take reasonable steps to protect personal information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Information submitted for editorial consideration is treated as confidential within the limits of the applicable journal's editorial and peer-review procedures. Access to manuscripts, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, and related information is restricted to individuals who require access for legitimate editorial, publishing, ethical, technical, or legal purposes. This confidentiality does not prevent disclosure where:
United Scholars Publishing recognizes that artificial intelligence tools may be used in scholarly publishing. Personal information and confidential publishing materials should not be entered into third-party artificial intelligence systems where doing so would compromise confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, or applicable contractual obligations. Editors, reviewers, authors, and Publisher staff are expected to follow the relevant policies concerning the responsible use of artificial intelligence. The Publisher may use appropriate technological tools to support publishing operations, quality control, security, fraud detection, or research-integrity activities, subject to applicable privacy and confidentiality requirements.
Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have certain rights concerning your personal information, which may include the right to:
These rights are subject to applicable legal exceptions and limitations. For example, information forming part of the permanent scholarly record may not always be capable of deletion where retention is necessary to preserve publication integrity, comply with legal obligations, or protect legitimate scholarly interests.
We encourage authors, reviewers, editors, and registered users to ensure that information provided to United Scholars Publishing is accurate and current. If your name, affiliation, email address, ORCID iD, or other relevant information changes, you may contact us to request an appropriate update. Where information has already been incorporated into a published scholarly record, changes may be subject to the Publisher's correction and publication policies.
Our websites may contain links to third-party websites, databases, repositories, indexing services, payment providers, or other external services. United Scholars Publishing is not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or security of third-party websites. When you leave our website or use an external service, the privacy policy of that third party may apply. We encourage users to review the privacy policies of external services before providing personal information.
Our publishing services are primarily intended for researchers, academics, professionals, authors, reviewers, editors, students, and other members of the scholarly community. We do not knowingly seek to collect personal information from children where such collection is prohibited by applicable law. If you believe that a child has provided personal information to us inappropriately, please contact us so that we can assess and address the matter.
United Scholars Publishing may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes in our publishing practices, technology, legal requirements, or data-protection standards. When significant changes are made, we may update the "Last Updated" date and, where appropriate, provide additional notice. We encourage users to review this Privacy Policy periodically.
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise a privacy right, or have concerns about how your personal information is handled, please contact:
Email: info@unitedscholarspublishing.com
When contacting us about personal information, please provide sufficient information for us to understand and respond to your request.
United Scholars Publishing is committed to responsible and transparent handling of personal information throughout the scholarly publishing process. We recognize that authors, reviewers, editors, researchers, and readers place significant trust in scholarly publishers. We therefore seek to protect personal information while preserving the confidentiality, accessibility, and long-term integrity of the scholarly record.