Confidentiality Protocols

Maintaining strict confidentiality is essential to protecting the sensitive spatial data and social research handled by URSDJ. These protocols ensure a secure and impartial environment for exploring urban and rural transformations.

1. Confidentiality of Manuscripts

  • Privileged Handling: Editors and reviewers must treat all submissions as confidential intellectual property. This includes demographic data, maps, and unpublished social theories.

  • Usage Restriction: Editors and reviewers are strictly prohibited from using unpublished ideas or data for personal research or external policy advisory roles.

  • Reviewer Duty: Digital files must be deleted, and any physical copies destroyed, immediately upon completion of the review.

2. Peer Review Anonymity

  • Double-Blind System: To prevent geographical or institutional bias, author identities are concealed from reviewers, and reviewer names remain anonymous to authors.

  • Metadata Security: The editorial office is responsible for scrubbing file metadata to prevent accidental disclosure of identity.

3. Secure Storage and Data Retention

  • System Integrity: Access to the editorial platform is restricted to authorized personnel using encrypted, password-protected connections.

  • Post-Decision Privacy: Even if a manuscript is rejected, its content and the accompanying review reports remain confidential indefinitely.