Policies
Open Access & Copyright
CACTUS – Journal of Tourism for Research, Education, Culture, and Soul is an open access scholarly journal. All articles are freely available online to readers without financial, legal, or technical barriers, ensuring that the integrity of the published content is maintained.
The journal applies no article processing charges (APCs) and no submission fees. The full text of all published content is available free of charge. The journal supports the free dissemination of research results and compliance with international open access policies. Copyright of published articles remains with CACTUS – Journal of Tourism for Research, Education, Culture, and Soul.
All published material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. This allows users to copy, distribute, and adapt the material for academic, educational, or other non-commercial purposes, provided that proper attribution is given to the authors and the journal.
Revenue sources: CACTUS journal is a non-commercial scientific publication, operating without a business model based on fees or direct revenues. The journal does not obtain income from subscriptions, advertising, reprints or commercial sponsorships. The editorial activity is supported exclusively by the volunteerism of the editorial staff and institutional resources.
Advertising policy: The CACTUS Journal does not place commercial adverts. We may, however, with the approval of the Editorial Board, publish announcements of academic events, conferences, or funding opportunities relevant to the scientific community. Such announcements have no influence on the editorial process or the selection of content.
Direct marketing: CACTUS Journal does not engage in spamming or aggressive promotional practices. Any direct marketing activities, including the solicitation of manuscripts, will be conducted in an appropriate, well-targeted, and unobtrusive manner.
Ethics Policy
CACTUS Journal is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards in scientific publishing. Our publication ethics policies are consistent with the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines and adhere to the principles of transparency and good practices.
- Publication decision
- fair play
- confidentiality
- disclosure and conflicts of interest
- involvement and cooperation in investigations
- Contribution to editorial decision
- promptness
- confidentiality
- standards of objectivity
- acknowledgement of source
- disclosure, and conflicts of interest
- Academic standards
- reporting standards
- data access and retention
- originality and plagiarism
- multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
- acknowledgement of sources
- authorship of the paper
- hazards and human or animal subjects
- disclosure and conflicts of interest
- fundamental errors in published works
CACTUS Journal supports the observance of ethical principles in scientific research, but does not automatically require the submission of an opinion from an ethics committee, except in cases where the nature of the research justifies it.
The authors bear full responsibility for observing the ethical norms of the institutions or fields in which they operate. By submitting the manuscript, the authors confirm that the study was conducted ethically and in compliance with academic standards. The editorial board reserves the right to request supporting documents (e.g., approval of an ethics committee, declaration of consent) in cases where the nature of the research raises specific ethical issues.
Editorial decisions must be independent of the publisher's commercial interests. The editors make their decisions on the basis of: the scientific quality of the manuscript, methodological validity, and compliance with ethical standards.
The publisher does not intervene in editorial decisions, except in cases of scientific integrity and legal aspects (plagiarism, defamation, etc.). The editorial structures (editorial board, scientific advisory board, etc.) are responsible for handling complaints related to the editorial process.
Use of inclusive language: Language should be respectful, inclusive, and free from bias in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability, or health status. Avoid stereotypes and assumptions about readers, the use of terms that imply superiority or exclusion, and neutral formulations such as "authors", "researchers" are recommended.
Jurisdictional claims: CACTUS Journal takes a neutral stance on territorial disputes. Maps or institutional affiliations must be accurate and reflect only the area under study. Editors may request changes to maps if they do not meet neutrality standards.
Artificial Intelligence Policy
Authors are responsible for the entire content of the manuscripts and must disclose the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the writing process. Authors using generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation must adhere to the following guidelines:
- No AI authorship: AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors, as authorship requires human accountability and intellectual contribution.
- Limited use in writing: AI tools may only be used to enhance readability and language in the manuscript, not for generating substantive content or research insights.
- Human oversight & responsibility: Authors must critically review and edit AI-generated outputs to ensure accuracy, completeness, and absence of bias. Authors remain fully responsible for the manuscript's content.
- Mandatory AI disclosure: Use of AI tools in the writing process must be declared in a "Declaration of AI Use" section before the References, specifying the tool (name and version), its purpose, and how outputs were verified.
Non-compliance may result in manuscript rejection or retraction. This policy does not apply to basic tools for grammar, spelling, or reference checking. AI tools are not permitted in the peer review or editorial process to protect confidentiality.
Data Sharing & Preprints
The journal encourages research transparency (e.g., publishing raw data, citing open data sources etc). Authors are encouraged to upload this data to specialized platforms and include links in the article.
The journal accepts original and innovative papers. Replication of studies is permitted only to the extent that it makes new methodological or theoretical contributions.
Preprint policy: CACTUS Journal does not accept manuscripts that have been previously published as preprints on public platforms, whether peer-reviewed or not.
Authors are requested to ensure that the manuscript submitted for publication in CACTUS: (1) has not already been published in any other form (including as a preprint), (2) is not available online on scientific content sharing platforms or academic networks.
If it is determined that a manuscript has already been published as a preprint, it will be automatically rejected, regardless of its stage in the editorial process.
Intellectual Property
We take the obligation to assist the scientific community in all aspects of publishing ethics, especially in cases of (suspected) duplicate submission or plagiarism. We use the institutional (Bucharest University of Economic Studies) plagiarism detector.
CACTUS maintains published content on institutional servers and in internal backups. We are also considering including the journal in international archiving services, such as CLOCKSS and PubMed Central, to strengthen long-term access to articles.
In the case that The CACTUS — Journal of Tourism for Research, Education, Culture, and Soul is no longer published, we will use reasonable efforts to ensure that either the published volumes remain available through the website.
Authors publishing in this journal make an official declaration of originality of the material, that it meets the standards of research ethics, and that it has not been published or submitted for peer review elsewhere.
Download the required template: Declaration of Originality.
Other Policies
Authors retain the right to share their work in accordance with the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Authors may:
- Post the accepted manuscript on their personal website or institutional repository after publication.
- Share the published Version of Record with proper attribution and a link to the original CACTUS publication.
- Use the article for educational and research purposes.
Authors should not post the article on commercial repositories or services that charge for access.
CACTUS Journal permits automatic deposit of published articles into institutional repositories. Repositories and indexing services may harvest and archive articles according to standard OAI-PMH protocols.
We encourage institutions to archive CACTUS articles to ensure long-term preservation and accessibility of scholarly research.
CACTUS Journal supports machine readability and text/data mining (TDM) for non-commercial research purposes. All open access content may be:
- Crawled by search engines and academic indexing services.
- Downloaded in bulk for text and data mining by authorized researchers.
- Processed by AI systems for research analysis (with proper attribution).
Commercial TDM activities require prior permission from the editors.
Complaints, Appeals & Corrections
Any author, reviewer or reader has the right to file a complaint regarding:
- Editorial decisions
- Inappropriate behavior of editorial staff
- Suspicions of ethical violations (plagiarism, data manipulation etc.)
Complaints should be sent to: cactus.journal@ase.ro
The editorial team is committed to responding within a maximum of 30 working days, ensuring a fair and confidential process.
Post-publication Discussions and Corrections
EXPRESSIONS OF CONCERN may be issued by the editors if there are reasons to doubt the validity or reliability of published research, pending the outcome of an investigation. These will be clearly linked to the original article and remain publicly accessible.
RETRACTION will be issued when there is an evidence of: data fabrication, data recycling in a purportedly original research article, severe plagiarism, double publication, copyright infringement, unreliable findings, unethical research practices, any other practice or act considered potentially harmful to the scientific community.
CORRECTION (Erratum/Corrigendum) may be issued if minor errors are detected, which do not significantly affect the interpretation of the results or conclusions. Authors are encouraged to report any errors promptly.