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This resource establishes CorayNova Academic Press's standards for reviewers who identify possible ethical or research integrity concerns during peer review.

Reviewers are not investigators and should not make unsupported allegations. Their responsibility is to alert editors privately, describe the concern clearly, and provide the basis for the concern so that the matter can be handled through the appropriate editorial and publisher-level process.

· Core Principle

Ethical concerns must be reported privately through the CorayNova Journals Platform or to editorial@coraynova.com. Reviewers must not contact authors, author institutions, funders, media, public authorities, research participants, or other third parties about a manuscript under review.

Publication ethics and research integrity concerns are routed to editorial@coraynova.com. Serious institutional-level matters may be escalated to executive@coraynova.com, with external contact handled by the Editorial Office or publisher-level route rather than by individual reviewers.

· Concerns Reviewers Should Recognize

Concern Area	Possible Signs	Reviewer Action
Plagiarism or text overlap	Substantial unattributed overlap, copied structure, unexplained reuse, or suspiciously inconsistent writing.	Report privately and provide details, examples, or sources where available.
Duplicate submission or redundant publication	Substantial overlap with another work, duplicate figures or data, or prior publication not disclosed.	Alert the editor and identify the related work if known.
Data fabrication or falsification	Implausible data patterns, inconsistent numbers, unsupported claims, unexplained changes, or suspiciously perfect results.	Describe the concern carefully without making unsupported accusations.
Image manipulation	Duplicated panels, spliced images, inconsistent backgrounds, inappropriate enhancement, or unexplained reuse.	Flag the figure, panel, or file and explain what appears concerning.
Missing ethics approval or consent	Human, animal, survey, interview, clinical, personal-data, or sensitive research without adequate ethics or consent reporting.	Ask the editor to check the required ethics documentation.
Undisclosed competing interests	Funding, affiliation, personal, commercial, or intellectual interests suggested by the manuscript but not disclosed.	Report privately and explain the apparent omission.
Authorship or identity anomalies	Unusual author changes, inconsistent affiliations, improbable contribution claims, or suspicious reviewer suggestions.	Alert the editor without contacting the authors or suggested reviewers.
AI misuse	Possible undisclosed AI-generated text, images, data, citations, analysis, or manipulated content affecting integrity.	Describe the basis for concern and ask the editor to assess under journal policy.
Citation manipulation	Unnecessary citation clusters, irrelevant citations, coercive citation signals, or citation patterns serving non-scholarly interests.	Explain the pattern and identify examples.

 

· How to Report Concerns

· Use the CorayNova Journals Platform confidential comments field or contact editorial@coraynova.com.

· State the concern factually and identify the manuscript section, figure, table, dataset, reference, or file involved.

· Provide evidence or examples where available, while avoiding defamatory or speculative language.

· Keep the concern confidential and do not conduct independent external investigations without editorial instruction.

· Continue to assess the manuscript within the reviewer's expertise unless the concern prevents responsible review.

· What Reviewers Must Not Do

Do Not	Reason
Do not contact authors directly.	Direct contact can compromise confidentiality, anonymity, fairness, and the editorial process.
Do not contact author institutions, funders, regulators, media, or third parties.	External contact must be handled through appropriate editorial and publisher-level routes.
Do not post concerns publicly.	Public allegations can harm authors, reviewers, journals, and due process.
Do not upload files to public plagiarism, image, AI, or external analysis tools.	Such tools may breach confidentiality and data protection obligations.
Do not make unsupported accusations.	Reviewers should report concerns and evidence; editors handle assessment and process.

 

· After Reporting

Editors may request clarification, additional review, author explanation, documentation, specialist advice, publisher-level ethics review, or other action depending on the concern. Reviewers should preserve confidentiality and avoid further discussion unless the editor asks for additional information.

Where a concern involves legal, privacy, safety, serious institutional, or high-risk ethical matters, CorayNova may escalate the matter through publisher-level routes, including executive@coraynova.com for serious institutional-level matters.