Guide to authors| Journal of Mountain Science                                                                                           

1. Aims and Scope

2. Article Categories

3. Manuscript Structure

4. Submission Policies

5. Specific Guidelines 

5.1 Author information

5.2 Authorship

5.3 ORCID

5.4 Abstract

5.5 Keywords

5.6 Text

5.7 Figures and Tables

5.8 References

5.9 Manuscript submission and Processing 

6. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

7. Disclosure of Potential Conflict of Interests  

8. Author Contribution

9. Research Data Policy 

9.1 Availability of data/materials

9.2 Sharing datasets

9.3 Citing datasets

9.4 Code sharing

10. Electronic Supplementary Material 

11. Open Access 

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1. Aims and Scope

Journal of Mountain Science (JMS) is devoted to mountains and their surrounding lowlands - ecoregions of particular global importance, with a particular emphasis on the important highlands/ mountains in the world, such as the Tibetan Plateau, the Himalayas, the Alps, the Andes, the Rockies and many other mountain ranges of our planet.

This journal pays particular attention to the relationships between mountain environment changes and human activities, including the processes, characteristics and restoration of mountain ecosystem degradation; dynamic processes, and the theory and methods of controlling mountain hazards, such as debris, landslides and soil erosion; key scientific issues involved in large project construction in the mountain areas; the protection and development of special mountain resources; culture diversity and local economic development in mountain regions; and ethnic issues and social welfare in mountain areas.

We especially welcome papers which emphasize the application of new technologies in mountain research and development, and the papers on new concepts and new methods deriving from disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research in mountains.

2. Article Categories

All articles are assigned a type, depending on the content of the article. Editors have the final say on which type should be assigned to an accepted article.

1. Original Article

Original Articles are academic papers that display universal, strategic and innovative characteristics in both theory and practice. The work should report scientifically sound experiments and provide a substantial amount of new information. The article should include the most recent and relevant references in the field. The structure should include an Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions sections, with a suggested minimum word count of 4000 words.

2. Review

Review papers are high scholarly contributions articles written by experts who not only know very well the research and technical developments in the field but also are able to critically examine the state-of-the-art and express informed views and provide guidance/ideas of future developments of the research topic.

If you are considering writing a review paper, please take into consideration the following:

Potential authors should contact the Executive Editor-in-Chief (EEIC) to ensure the proposed review article is within the current aims and scope of the journal.

Potential authors should provide: (i) the title of the review paper; (ii) a detailed reason why, in the light of the state of the art, the review is needed; (iii) a brief description of the contents of the paper including, chapter titles.

The EEIC will evaluate the proposal and contact the authors with a decision on the matter. If the authors are invited to submit a full review paper, some preliminary feedback will be provided.

3. Technical Reports

Research/technologies/case studies/practices which will contribute to the disaster risk reduction of geohazards, or eco-restoration of degraded mountain environment other than the previous two categories. The structure is similar to an article but permits a higher degree of flexibility. The suggested minimum word count is 3500 words.

4. Communication

Communications are short articles that present groundbreaking preliminary results or significant findings that are part of a larger study over multiple years. They can also include cutting-edge methods or experiments, and the development of new technology or materials. The structure is similar to an article and there is a suggested minimum word count of 2000 words.

5. Perspective

Perspectives are usually an invited type of article that showcase current developments in a specific field. Emphasis is placed on future directions of the field and on the personal assessment of the author. Comments should be situated in the context of existing literature from the previous 3 years. The structure is similar to a review, with a suggested minimum word count of 3500 words.

6. Opinion

Opinions are short articles that reflect the author’s viewpoints on a particular subject, technique, or recent findings. They should highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the topic presented in the opinion. The structure is similar to a review; however, they are significantly shorter and focused on the author’s view rather than a comprehensive, critical review. The suggested minimum word count is 2000 words.

7. Conference Report

Conference reports are records of the events of a conference, seminar, or meeting. They should provide a comprehensive overview of a meeting or session, along with relevant background information for the reader. The structure should contain Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Conference Sections, and Concluding Remarks, with a suggested minimum word count of 2500 words. They can also include all accepted meeting abstracts.

8. Project Report

Project reports are short and/or rapid announcements of project results and implications. They should include a research strategy or approach, the activities, technologies, and details of the project undertaken, conclusions, and recommendations for the future direction of work in the field. The structure is similar to an article, but permits a higher degree of flexibility. The suggested minimum word count is 3500 words.

9. Book Review

Book reviews are short literary criticisms analyzing the content, style, and merit of a recently published book. Full book details should be provided at the beginning of the article. The structure should only include an Introduction and be a discussion of critical points with no sections or conclusions, with a suggested minimum word count of 500 words.

All published items will be assigned a digital object identifier (DOI) and be citable, and posters, videos, or PPT presentations can be published together as the Supplementary Materials.

For updating published papers, please see the descriptions for Corrections, Retractions, Comments and Replies, and Expressions of Concern online at Research and Publication Ethics.

10. Editorial

Editorials are non-peer-reviewed texts used to announce the launch of a special issue or special topic, and journal events.

3.  Manuscript Structure

All articles are unique but as a general rule the main text should comprise the following sections, as appropriate:

• Title;
• Abstract;
• Keywords;
• Introduction;
• Main body (subdivided as appropriate for the work in question);
• References;
• Figures and figure legends (included in sequence at the end of the paper);
• Tables (included in sequence at the end of the paper);
• Acknowledgements (optional);
• Author contribution (all papers)
• Data availability (all papers);
• Competing interests (all papers);
• Ethical statements (all papers);
• Supplementary Information (optional).

Conference Report, Project Report and Book Review can use more simple structure.

4. Submission Policies

Manuscript should be written in good and easily-understood English with a definite theme and concise contents. Manuscript should be provided in electronic format (in Microsoft Word). Manuscript is required with single spacing and 10-point type in A4 papers.

The metric system should be applied for all the measures. Numerical values should be identical with the international system of units. The names of places should be transliterated into the phonetic alphabet form that is officially regulated by the country where the research has been conducted. The author should also provide the latitude and longitude for the places in the text (preferably in the part of "Study Area").

Submission of a manuscript to JMS is taken to imply that the submitted manuscript has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Submissions cannot be made by email. All submissions must be made via the journal's online submission system.

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Prior to publication all listed authors will be alerted when a proof of the paper is ready. Contributors will be able to correct major errors or inaccuracies in the title or author list, but the journal reserves the right to limit the scope of changes.

We reserve the right to reject a paper even after it has been accepted if it becomes apparent that there are serious problems with its academic content, or our publishing policies have been violated.

5. Specific Guidelines

Journal of Mountain Science (JMS) takes DOUBLE-BLINDED PEER-REVIEW policy.  Only manuscripts of high relevance and suitability will enter into the peer review process, which will be conducted by at least two known experts in the field, and will aim to ensure that all published manuscripts provide new scientific knowledge. 

5.1 Author Information 

The authors should provide the following information for all authors when submitting a paper: author names, institutions, mailing addresses, email addresses, and research interest. Each letter of the family names of all authors should be capitalized. 

5.2 Authorship

Authorship of articles is hugely important in academic careers as it is used to measure research productivity and as the basis for decisions on appointments, promotions, tenure and funding.

The authorship of academic papers should reflect who did the work. Papers submitted to the JMS should follow these rules:

1.  A person who has not made a sufficient contribution to the work should not be included in the authors.

2.  A person who has contributed substantially should be included in the authors.

3.  If there are two or more authors, the corresponding author should be assigned. The first author will be taken as the corresponding author when no corresponding author is assigned.

4.  All authors must sign to consent the submission.  

5.  The author list and the author sequence should be fixed before submission. Requests to add or delete authors at revision stage or after submission can only be considered after receipt of written approval from all original authors and a detailed explanation from the corresponding author about the role/deletion of the new/deleted author (s). 

 Once an authorship dispute arises before publication, the process should be halted until the dispute is resolved.  Changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

5.3 ORCID

ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized. Journal of Mountain Science requires every author provide his/her ORCID number.

5.4 Abstract

Please provide an abstract of 150 to 300 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.

5.5 Keywords

Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes. Only notional words are used for keywords.

5.6 Text

Text Formatting

Manuscripts should be submitted in Word.

    ·  Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text.

    ·  Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.

    ·  Do not use field functions.

    ·  Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.

    ·  Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.

    ·  Use the equation editor or MathType for equations.

    ·  Save your file in docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (older Word versions).

Headings

Please use the decimal system of headings with no more than three levels.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

Footnotes

Footnotes can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.

Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols.

Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

Ethics Declaration

A declaration on ethics involved conflict of interest, data handling, reporting of results, and study conduct should be placed in a separate section on the title page.

5.7 Figures and Tables 

The Copyright and License Policies that apply to articles also apply to figures. Any figures, photos, or tables that have been previously copyrighted should not be included unless you have and can supply written permission from the copyright holder(s) to publish under the CC-BY or CC0 license.

Figures (photographs, graphs and diagrams) should be in high quality. We encourage authors to provide color figures but white and black or grey lines (backgrounds) are preferred.

Figure legends should be related to figures or plates, and they should be placed outside the figures or plates, NOT inside. The size of all letters and symbols should be appropriately fitting figures. The plate number and author's (photographer) name should be placed below or beside plates.

Words in figures must be in Times New Roman. Suggested figure sizes are 7-8 cm or 14-16 cm at width with font size at 8-9 point.

Tables should be editable in Microsoft Word easily, i.e., they should NOT be in picture format. Table titles should be concise and exactly to explain what the table shows.

5.8 References

The references are listed by the "author-publishing year" system. When a reference is cited in the text, the author(s) name(s) should be given if there are one or two authors (Zhang and Li 2009). If there are more than two authors, et al. is added after the first author. The year of publication should be indicated after the author(s) name(s)( Zhang et al. 2000). If a same author has more than one paper cited in one year, a, b, c … should be added after year of publication (Guo 2001a). When two or more references are cited in the same place in the text, ";" should be added between them (Zhang et al. 2000; Guo 2001a).

References after the text (cited list) should be a list of all the sources used in your paper, and arranged alphabetically by author's last name (family name), or when there is no author, by the first word of the title (except A, An or The). The author name should be written in the form of family name (written in full) first and then the initials (the capitalized first letter of the given name). The year of publication, the volume number of journals, the page range, the place of publication and the name of the publisher for each book cited should be provided in the references. For Non-English publication, the language should be marked at the end. All the items in reference should be shown as complete unabbreviated source citation except for author's name. All the listed references should be cited in the text.

For journal articles，DOI should be added at the end of each item of reference if they have ones. 

Please refer to the following examples for the reference.

Book or monograph

Shrestha TB, Joshi RM (1996) Rare, Endemic and Endangered Plants of Nepal. Kathmandu: WWF, Nepal Program. p 244.

Hao F, Quan J, Yang ZS, et al. (2000) Land Resources of Yunnan, Kunming, China. Yunnan Science and Technology Press. pp 60-62. (In Chinese)

Thesis

DeConto RM (1996) Late Cretaceous Climate, Vegetation, and Ocean Interactions: An Earth System Approach to Modeling an Extreme Climate. PhD thesis, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado. p 10.

Paper from a proceedings or monograph

Smaling EMA, Nandwa SS, Janssen BH (1997) Soil fertility in Africa is at stake. In: Buresh RJ et al. (eds.), Replenishing Soil Fertility in Africa. SSSA Special Publication No. 51. Wisconsin, USA. pp 47-61.

Paper from a serial publication

Only index three authors if there are more than three authors. DOI is strongly suggested to add at the end. Journal names should be in standard abbreviation.

Viani C, Chiarle M, Paranunzio R, et al.(2020) An integrated approach to investigate climate-driven rockfall occurrence in high alpine slopes: the Bessanese glacial basin, Western Italian Alps. J Mt Sci 17(11): 2591–2610. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-020-6216-y

Godziek J, Gaidzik K (2020) Assessment of tectonic control on the development of low mountains moderate relief in the Outer Carpathians (Southern Poland). J Mt Sci 17(10): 2297–2320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-020-6121-4

Web resources

FAO (2017). Global food prices decline in March as sugar and vegetable oils slide.http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/878800/icode(Accessed on 7 April 2017)

5.9 Manuscript Submission and Processing 

All manuscripts have to be submitted online to the manuscript system at http://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/jmsjournal. 

The submitted files should include Title Page, Main Document, and Cover Letter.

Title Page should include the following information.

       · Title: The title should be concise and informative.

       · Author information: The name(s) of the author(s)*; The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country; the email address* of the author(s); (*required) ,A clear indication of the corresponding author, and the complete contact information of the corresponding author. 

       · Acknowledgement:Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc.

       · Ethics Declaration: If the authors have the items mentioned in the section Disclosure of Potential Conflict of Interests, then a clear declaration is required.

       · The first author's representative publications are strongly suggested to be listed too.

Main Document is used for peer-review, which may include the title, abstract, key words, main body, references, figures and tables and supplementary materials (Figures and Supplementary materials can be submitted separately). The names of all authors and their institutions should NOT be included in the main document.

Cover Letter should highlight the novelty of the submitted paper and make a statement: All authors agree the submission and the paper has not been published or considered for publication elsewhere in part or as a whole, and state the conflicts of interest. The corresponding author should be on behalf of the authors to sigh his name in the cover letter. 

During the submission process, all authors listed in the manuscript should have their information filled in the online submission system and their affiliations and email addresses provided. Thus, the author who is responsible for the submission should check the consistency of the listed authors in the manuscript and the filled-in names of the authors in the manuscript system. If the administrator detects the required information is incomplete, the manuscript will be unsubmitted. 

The authors are required to recommend three potential reviewers. Suggested reviewers should NOT be at your institution (preferred outside your country or regions) and should have expertise in your content area/method. You should NOT have substantially worked with the reviewer in the past few years, and in particular, this should not be someone who has already reviewed or otherwise contributed to the manuscript. To the best of your knowledge, reviewers should not have conflicts (financial, personal) which would interfere with their objectivity. The journal reserves the rights not to send your manuscript to the author-recommended reviewers for peer-review.

Authors can check their own manuscript status online. It is required that manuscript ID number be mentioned any time when the authors correspond with the editors for inquiring the manuscript status or dealing with affairs related to the manuscript via emails or phone or other channels.

6. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics(COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.  

 Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour.  Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by following the rules of good scientific practice, which includes:

·  The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.

·  The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling ("self-plagiarism")).

·   A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g.  "salami-publishing").

·  No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions

·  No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the authors own ("plagiarism"). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions are secured for material that is copyrighted.

·  Consent to submit has been received from all co-authors and responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out before the work is submitted.

·  Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.

 In addition:

·        Changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

·        Requests to add or delete authors at revision stage or after submission is a serious matter, and can only be considered after receipt of written approval from all authors and a detailed explanation about the role/deletion of the new/deleted author (s). The decision on accepting the change rests with the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

·        Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc.

·  Once an authorship dispute arises before publication, the process should be halted until the dispute is resolved.

 If there is a suspicion of misconduct, the journal will carry out an investigation following the COPE guidelines.  If, after investigation, the allegation seems to raise valid concerns, the accused author will be contacted and given an opportunity to address the issue. If misconduct has been proven, this may result in the Editor-in-Chief's implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

·  If the article is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.

·  If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either an erratum will be placed with the article or in severe cases complete retraction of the article will occur. The reason must be given in the published erratum or retraction note.

·  The author's institution may be informed.

7. Disclosure of Potential Conflict of Interests 

Authors are requested to disclose interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests within the last 3 years of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 3-year time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work. Disclosure of interests provides a complete and transparent process and helps readers form their own judgments of potential bias. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate.

Editorial Board Members and Editors are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists. In addition, they should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. This may include – but is not limited to – having previously published with one or more of the authors, and sharing the same institution as one or more of the authors. Where an Editor or Editorial Board Member is on the author list they must declare this in the competing interests. If they are an author or have any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another Editor or member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review. These submissions are subject to the exact same review process as any other manuscript.

Editorial Board Members are welcome to submit papers to the journal. These submissions are not given any priority over other manuscripts, and Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration.

 

Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:

.  Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)

·  Honoraria for speaking at symposia

·  Financial support for attending symposia

·  Financial support for educational programs

·  Employment or consultation

·  Support from a project sponsor

·  Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships

·  Multiple affiliations

·  Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest

·  Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights)

·  Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work

In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.

Funding: Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number) and/or research support (including salaries, equipment, supplies, reimbursement for attending symposia, and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript.

Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript. This includes multiple affiliations (if applicable).

Financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies (including holdings of spouse and/or children) that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication of this manuscript.

It is difficult to specify a threshold at which a financial interest becomes significant, any such figure is necessarily arbitrary, so one possible practical guideline is the following: "Any undeclared financial interest that could embarrass the author were it to become publicly known after the work was published."

Non-financial interests: In addition, authors are requested to disclose interests that go beyond financial interests that could impart bias on the work submitted for publication such as professional interests, personal relationships or personal beliefs (amongst others). Examples include, but are not limited to: position on editorial board, advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships; writing and/or consulting for educational purposes; expert witness; mentoring relations; and so forth.

Primary research articles require a disclosure statement. Review articles present an expert synthesis of evidence and may be treated as an authoritative work on a subject. Review articles therefore require a disclosure statement. Other article types such as editorials, book reviews, comments (amongst others) may, dependent on their content, require a disclosure statement. If you are unclear whether your article type requires a disclosure statement, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Please note that, in addition to the above requirements, funding information (given that funding is a potential competing interest (as mentioned above)) needs to be disclosed upon submission of the manuscript in the peer review system.

The above should be summarized in a statement and included on a title page that is separate from the manuscript with a section entitled “Ethics declarations” when submitting a paper. Having all statements in one place allows for a consistent and unified review of the information by the Editor-in-Chief and/or peer reviewers and may speed up the handling of the paper. Declarations include Funding, Competing interests, Ethics approval, Consent, Data, Materials and/or Code availability and Authors’ contribution statements. Please use the title page for providing the statements.

Once and if the paper is accepted for publication, the production department will put the respective statements in a distinctly identified section clearly visible for readers.

Please see the various examples of wording below and revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

When all authors have the same (or no) competing interests and/or funding it is sufficient to use one blanket statement.

Examples of statements to be used when funding has been received:

• Partial financial support was received from [...]
• The research leading to these results received funding from […] under Grant Agreement No[…].
• This study was funded by […]
• This work was supported by […] (Grant numbers […] and […]

Examples of statements to be used when there is no funding:

• The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.
• No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.
• No funding was received for conducting this study.
• No funds, grants, or other support was received.

Examples of statements to be used when there are interests to declare:

• Financial interests: Author A has received research support from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company Wand owns stock in Company X. Author C is consultant to company Y.

Non-financial interests: Author C is an unpaid member of committee Z.

• Financial interests: The authors declare they have no financial interests.

Non-financial interests: Author A is on the board of directors of Y and receives no compensation as member of the board of directors.

• Financial interests: Author A received a speaking fee from Y for Z. Author B receives a salary from association X. X where s/he is the Executive Director.

Non-financial interests: none.

• Financial interests: Author A and B declare they have no financial interests. Author C has received speaker and consultant honoraria from Company M and Company N. Dr. C has received speaker honorarium and research funding from Company M and Company O. Author D has received travel support from Company O.

Non-financial interests: Author D has served on advisory boards for Company M, Company N and Company O.

Examples of statements to be used when authors have nothing to declare:

• The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
• The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
• All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.
• The authors have no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.

Authors are responsible for correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript. See also Authorship Principles. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject submissions that do not meet the guidelines described in this section.

Examples of statements to be used for Editor-in-Chief/Editorial board members

       Conflict of interest: XXX is Editor-in-Chief/editorial board member of (journal title). He/she was not involved in the journal’s review of, or decisions related to, this manuscript. The authors have no other competing interests to disclose.

       Conflict of interest: XXX is an Editor-in-Chief/EBM of (journal title). He/she was not involved in the peer-review or handling of the manuscript. The authors have no other competing interests to disclose.

8. Author Contributions

In absence of specific instructions and in research fields where it is possible to describe discrete efforts, the journal recommends authors to include contribution statements in the work that specifies the contribution of every author in order to promote transparency. These contributions should be listed at the separate title page.

Examples of such statement(s) are shown below:

• Free text:

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Example: CRediT taxonomy:

• Conceptualization: [full name], …; Methodology: [full name], …; Formal analysis and investigation: [full name], …; Writing - original draft preparation: [full name, …]; Writing - review and editing: [full name], …; Funding acquisition: [full name], …; Resources: [full name], …; Supervision: [full name],….

For review articles where discrete statements are less applicable a statement should be included who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search and data analysis, and who drafted and/or critically revised the work.

For articles that are based primarily on the student’s dissertation or thesis, it is recommended that the student is usually listed as principal author:

A Graduate Student’s Guide to Determining Authorship Credit and Authorship Order, APA Science Student Council 2006

9. Data Policy

We advance discovery by publishing trusted research, supporting the development of new ideas. We also aim to facilitate compliance with research funder and institution requirements to share data.

To help accomplish this we have established a standard research data policy for the journal, based on transparency around supporting data. This policy applies to all datasets that are necessary to interpret and replicate the conclusions reported in a research article.

9.1 Availability of data/materials

An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to replicate and build upon the authors' published claims. Therefore, a condition of publication is that authors are required to make materials, data and associated protocols promptly available to readers without undue qualifications. Any restrictions on the availability of materials or information must be disclosed to the publishing team at the time of submission. Any restrictions must also be disclosed in the submitted manuscript, including details of how readers can obtain materials and information. If materials are to be distributed by a for-profit company, this must be stated in the paper.

Supporting data must be made available to the journal and peer-reviewers at the time of submission for the purposes of evaluating the manuscript. Peer-reviewers may be asked to comment on the terms of access to materials, methods and/or datasets; the journal reserves the right to refuse publication in cases where authors do not provide adequate assurances that they can comply with the publication's requirements for sharing materials.

After publication, readers who encounter refusal by the authors to comply with these policies should contact the publishing team. In cases where we are unable to resolve a complaint, the matter may be referred to the authors' institution or funding institution and/or a formal statement of correction may be published, attached online to the publication, stating that readers have been unable to obtain necessary materials to replicate the findings.

All original articles should include a data availability statement. This should, wherever possible, include a link to and citation of any datasets analyzed or generated in the study, when these are available in an appropriate public repository.

The preferred way to share datasets is via specialized public repositories, if one exists, or through a general data repository that can assure permanence and unique identification of deposited datasets.

Authors who make their datasets publicly available should use the most broadly supported and recognized repository for their research community.

Some of these repositories offer authors the option to host data associated with a manuscript confidentially, and provide anonymous access to peer-reviewers before public release. Some of these repositories coordinate public release of the data with the journal's publication date. This option should be used when possible, but it is the authors' responsibility to communicate with the repository to ensure that public release is made promptly on the publication date. In the unlikely event there is no public repository to accommodate supporting datasets, they must be made available as Supplementary Information files that will be freely accessible on the journal website upon publication. In cases where it is technically impossible for such files to be provided to the journal, the authors must make the data available to the journal and peer-reviewers at submission, and directly upon request to any reader on and after the publication date, the authors providing a URL or other unique identifier in the manuscript.

The journal’s data availability policies are compatible with the standardised research data policies set out by Springer Nature.

9.2 Sharing datasets

A condition of publication is that authors are required to make materials, data and associated protocols promptly available to others without preconditions.

Datasets must be made freely available to readers from the date of publication, and must be provided to the journal and peer-reviewers at submission, for the purposes of evaluating the manuscript.

9.3 Citing datasets

Citing datasets in an equivalent way to citing journal articles and other types of publication helps enable researchers to earn appropriate credit for the collection and publication of datasets. Data citation also makes reuse and verification of scholarly research more efficient, and can help measure the impact and reuse of datasets. We recommend authors cite, in their reference list, any public datasets that are used or produced in any work described, provided the datasets have been assigned a persistent identifier. When citing datasets the format preferred by DataCite should be used, where persistent identifiers, such as digital object identifier (DOI) names, are displayed as linkable, permanent URLs. 

9.4 Code sharing

We request that authors, where applicable, make available, to editors and reviewers, any previously unreported custom computer code used to generate results that are reported in the paper and central to its main claims. Upon publication, authors are encouraged to release custom computer code in a way that allows readers to repeat the published results. For all studies using custom code that is deemed central to the conclusions, a statement must be included in the paper (e.g. as a footnote), indicating whether and how the code can be accessed, including any restrictions to access.

10. Electronic Supplementary Material

Journal of Mountain Science accepts electronic multimedia files (animations, movies, audio, etc.) and other supplementary files to be published online along with an article or a book chapter in the SpringerLink. This feature can add dimension to the author's article, as certain information cannot be printed or is more convenient in electronic form.

Submission
Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.

Audio, Video, and Animations
Always use MPEG-1 (.mpg) format.

Text and Presentations
You can submit your materials in doc., ppt. files and other file formats, we'll prepare pdf files after editing and typesetting.

Spreadsheets
Spreadsheets should be converted to PDF if no interaction with the data is intended.
If the readers should be encouraged to make their own calculations, spreadsheets should be submitted as .xls files (MS Excel).

Specialized Formats
Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.

Numbering
If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.
Refer to the supplementary files as Appendix1, 2, ect..

Caption

For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the files.

Accessibility
In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary files, please make sure that the manuscript contains a descriptive caption for each supplementary material.
Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk).

11. Open Access

OPEN CHOICE: Journal of Mountain Science takes hybrid Open Access (OA) publication. Authors can decide by themselves whether to have the article published in Subscription form or in OA form. For detailed information about the OA article's copyright ownership and publication charge, you can visit Springer's website at https://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/springer-open-choice. 

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