Our Commitment to Integrity (Broadly Defined)
At I3E TPAMI, we take research ethics seriously — we just take other things more seriously, such as impact factor metrics, page charges, and the unbroken optimism of authors who believe their 14th revision will finally satisfy Reviewer #2.
Data Fabrication and Falsification
We maintain a strict policy against data fabrication, which we define as “inventing data with no plausible basis whatsoever.” Exploratory fabrication — that is, generating data that could have been observed under conditions that might have existed — falls under our liberal methodology category and is classified as “speculative empiricism.” We find it enriches the literature considerably.
Authors are encouraged to report results that are “consistent with” their hypothesis. If results are inconsistent, authors are encouraged to reframe the hypothesis post-hoc until consistency is achieved. This practice, known in lesser journals as HARKing (Hypothesizing After Results are Known), we prefer to call “retroactive alignment of theoretical framing.”
Plagiarism
Verbatim copying without attribution is not permitted. However, we recognize that ideas, like good review scores, recirculate through the academic ecosystem. Substantial paraphrasing of prior work — especially your own prior work — constitutes a tribute, not a violation. We encourage authors to cite themselves generously, as this strengthens our journal’s impact factor and their h-index simultaneously. This is called synergy.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors must disclose conflicts of interest in a footnote that will be placed after the acknowledgments section, in a font size selected to discourage reading. Reviewers are under no obligation to disclose conflicts, as we believe that personal familiarity with an author “adds texture to the review process” and “may contribute positively to tone.”
The Editor-in-Chief has a conflict of interest with approximately 34% of active researchers in the field. This is disclosed here, in the ethics statement, which no one reads.
Animal and Human Subjects
Research involving human subjects must include an IRB approval number, which we do not verify. Research involving animal subjects must note the species in the methods section. Research involving imaginary subjects — datasets generated by large language models, simulated participants, or hypothetical respondents — need only note this in a supplementary appendix, which reviewers are not required to read.
Authorship
All listed authors must have “contributed meaningfully” to the work. We define “meaningfully” as: providing the lab, providing the funding, being the supervisor, attending at least one meeting during which the project was discussed, or being the PI who will be offended if not included. Student contributors who performed the actual experiments may be acknowledged in a footnote.
Corrections and Retractions
We support transparency in the scientific record. Corrections are published 18–36 months after errors are identified. Retractions are published 36–72 months after misconduct is confirmed, pending legal review and the author’s willingness to cooperate. Post-retraction citations continue to accumulate and are counted toward the journal’s impact factor. We see no reason to change this.
We consider this policy to be among the most robust in our tier of journals, which we define as journals that have not yet been formally listed on Retraction Watch.