This policy applies to authors, contributors, editors, and journal staff, and to every manuscript submitted to J-HyTEL that has previously been made public in whole or in part.

It covers, among other things:

• preprints and eprints;
• working papers and discussion papers;
• institutional, disciplinary, and project repositories;
• personal or project websites;
• theses and dissertations;
• conference abstracts, posters, slides, presentations, and proceedings;
• preregistrations, registered reports, protocols, datasets, code, and supplementary materials;
• reports prepared for institutions, funders, regulators, or professional bodies;
• media coverage, public summaries, and other public communication of findings;
• translations, secondary publications, and manuscripts derived from previously disseminated work.

A preprint is not a peer-reviewed article and must not be presented as having been reviewed, accepted, endorsed, or published by J-HyTEL unless that status is accurate and publicly verifiable.

Posting a manuscript as a preprint before submission does not normally prevent consideration by J-HyTEL. Authors may also maintain or revise a disclosed preprint while the manuscript is under review, subject to the confidentiality, version-control, and disclosure requirements stated in this policy.

A suitable preprint platform should ordinarily:

• clearly identify the work as a preprint or non-peer-reviewed manuscript;
• provide a persistent public landing page and stable identifier or URL;
• display authorship, posting date, version history, and relevant disclosures;
• permit correction, versioning, withdrawal notices, or links to later versions;
• operate under terms that do not prevent later journal publication;
• maintain transparent moderation, preservation, and content-governance procedures.

The following forms of dissemination do not ordinarily constitute prior journal publication, provided that they are disclosed and do not misrepresent the status of the work:

• a preprint posted on a recognised disciplinary, institutional, or general preprint platform;
• a manuscript deposited in an institutional repository or on an author-controlled scholarly website;
• a thesis or dissertation deposited in a university repository;
• a conference abstract, poster, slide deck, or oral presentation;
• a preregistration, study protocol, registered report proposal, data-management plan, or project registration;
• a working paper, discussion paper, technical memorandum, or non-peer-reviewed institutional report;
• publicly shared data, code, instruments, or supplementary materials that support the research;
• a brief public or media summary that does not reproduce the manuscript as a formal publication.

The submitted manuscript should cite or otherwise identify the earlier version when this is necessary for transparency, attribution, or understanding the development of the work.

The following forms may constitute prior publication or substantial overlap and therefore require case-by-case editorial assessment:

• a full conference paper formally published in peer-reviewed proceedings;
• a conference paper, report, or chapter carrying an ISBN, ISSN, DOI, or equivalent publication record;
• a manuscript closely derived from a previously published book chapter, journal article, or professional report;
• a translated or language-adapted version of a work published elsewhere;
• multiple manuscripts derived from the same dataset, intervention, project, or participant sample;
• a secondary publication intended for a different audience or jurisdiction;
• a document already accepted or contractually committed for publication elsewhere.

A substantially extended manuscript may be considered when it contains a clear new contribution, transparently cites the earlier work, explains the relationship between versions, complies with copyright and permission requirements, and does not create misleading duplicate publication or double-counting of evidence.

J-HyTEL does not impose an arbitrary percentage to define an acceptable extension. Editors assess the scholarly contribution, duplicated text, duplicated data, methodological development, new analysis, interpretation, audience, and transparency of the submitted work as a whole.

The following practices are prohibited:

• submitting the same or substantially the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal;
• concealing a preprint, conference paper, thesis, report, or related manuscript that materially overlaps with the submission;
• presenting previously published material as a wholly original and unpublished contribution;
• reusing substantial text, figures, tables, data, or results without attribution and explanation;
• fragmenting one study into multiple papers in a manner that obscures their common origin or distorts the evidence;
• posting journal proofs, typeset pages, or J-HyTEL-branded files without authorisation;
• altering a public version to conceal publication history or editorial concerns;
• claiming that a preprint has been peer reviewed, accepted, or endorsed by J-HyTEL when it has not.

Authors must disclose every public version or materially related work in the cover letter and in the appropriate manuscript or submission field. The disclosure should identify, as applicable:

• the title of the earlier or related work;
• the platform, repository, conference, institution, publisher, or dissemination venue;
• the DOI, accession number, registration number, or stable URL;
• the posting or publication date and version number;
• the relationship between the earlier version and the submitted manuscript;
• the new analyses, evidence, methods, interpretation, or contribution provided by the submission;
• any copyright, licence, permission, confidentiality, or contractual restriction.

The editorial office may request copies of related manuscripts, reports, proceedings, preprint versions, similarity reports, permissions, or other documentation needed to assess originality and overlap.

The existence of a preprint may make author identity discoverable. J-HyTEL will continue to operate double-blind peer review to the extent reasonably possible and will not reject a manuscript solely because an appropriately disclosed preprint exists.

• Authors must still submit an anonymised reviewer-facing manuscript in accordance with the Author Guidelines.
• Authors must not use public preprint discussion to identify, contact, pressure, or influence reviewers.
• Reviewers must not deliberately search for author identity when it is not necessary for scholarly evaluation.
• Reviewer reports, reviewer identities, editorial letters, and confidential correspondence must not be posted publicly without permission.
• Authors may revise a preprint during review, but material changes should be disclosed promptly to the handling editor.
• Public comments received on a preprint may inform author revisions, but the submitted manuscript and response to reviewers must remain complete and transparent.

Posting or updating a preprint does not guarantee editorial consideration, accelerate review, establish priority within J-HyTEL, or influence the journal's final decision.

Before acceptance

The preprint should retain a clear statement that it has not undergone formal J-HyTEL peer review. Authors should preserve version dates and avoid replacing earlier records in a manner that obscures the development of the manuscript.

After acceptance

Authors may update the preprint landing page to state that the manuscript has been accepted by J-HyTEL. The statement must not imply that the preprint itself is the final published article. Journal proofs, typeset files, or branded production material must not be posted without written authorisation.

After publication

Authors should update the preprint record with the complete J-HyTEL citation and DOI and should direct readers to the final Version of Record. The preprint may remain available when permitted by the platform and applicable licence; it does not need to be removed merely because the journal article has been published.

Citation of preprints

Preprints may be cited when they are relevant and no peer-reviewed version is available, but the reference must clearly identify the source as a preprint. Where a peer-reviewed Version of Record becomes available, authors should normally cite the published version instead and update references during revision or production.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that posting a preprint or other public version does not violate copyright, licence terms, contractual obligations, patent strategy, sponsor requirements, institutional policy, participant consent, ethics approval, confidentiality, privacy, data-protection law, or third-party rights.

• Third-party figures, instruments, datasets, screenshots, photographs, and excerpts must not be posted without sufficient permission or legal authority.
• Identifiable or sensitive participant information must not be disclosed beyond the scope of consent and ethics approval.
• Embargoed, security-sensitive, proprietary, or confidential information must not be made public without authorisation.
• Authors should consider whether early public disclosure may affect patentability or other intellectual-property interests.
• A preprint licence must not prevent the author from granting J-HyTEL the publication rights described in the journal's Copyright & License Policy.

The licence attached to a preprint does not automatically become the licence of the final J-HyTEL article. The Version of Record is governed by the licence displayed on the article page and in the published full text.

Editors assess prior dissemination by considering the type of earlier record, the degree of overlap, transparency of disclosure, originality of the new contribution, reuse of data and text, citation and attribution, rights and permissions, and the risk of misleading or double-counting the scholarly record.

Before publication, the journal may:

• request clarification, related files, permissions, or a revised disclosure;
• require citation of the earlier version and an explicit explanation of the new contribution;
• request revision to remove inappropriate overlap or misleading duplication;
• pause editorial processing while the relationship between versions is investigated;
• reject or withdraw the manuscript from consideration when the concern cannot be resolved.

After publication, confirmed undisclosed duplicate publication, material misrepresentation, copyright infringement, or related misconduct may result in a correction, editorial notice, expression of concern, retraction, or other proportionate action under the journal's post-publication policies.

Authors will normally be given an opportunity to explain the circumstances and provide relevant evidence before a final ethics decision is made, except where immediate action is required to protect participants, legal rights, confidentiality, or the scholarly record.

Related J-HyTEL policies

• Publication Ethics
• Author Guidelines
• Copyright & License Policy
• Plagiarism & Similarity Screening Policy
• Generative AI Policy
• Withdrawal, Retraction & Correction Policy

External guidance

• COPE — Best Practices for Preprints
• ICMJE — Overlapping Publications and Preprints
• Crossref — Posted Content and Preprints

External guidance informs this policy but does not transfer editorial authority to another organisation. J-HyTEL remains responsible for interpreting and applying its policy to each submission.