Ethical Guidelines

Ethics and Malpractices Statement

The Journal is committed to meeting and upholding the standard of ethical behavior at all stages of the publication process. Conformance to the standards of ethical conduct is expected of all parties involved: authors, editors, and reviewers.  

The Journal is committed to the highest standards of both critical scholarly review and professional publishing judgment. By insisting on thorough peer review procedures combined with careful editorial assessments, The Journal performs an intellectual gatekeeping function, ensuring that only scholarship of the highest quality receives the acceptance for publication.

Furthermore, the following publication ethics and malpractice statements set out the specific responsibilities of all parties involved to ensure that The Journal complies with internationally accepted guidelines for ethical and culturally competent research.

Responsibilities of the Editors

• The Editors are responsible for examining all the submitted articles exclusively based on their academic merit, i.e., significance, timeliness, relevance, originality, and clarity.
• The Editors would not consider the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, language, citizenship, religious beliefs or institutional affiliation.  
• The editors will be responsible for the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions; and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct, if required.
• The editors and management staff will not disclose any information about a submitted article to anyone other than the corresponding author, editorial reviewers, potential peer reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher as necessary.
• Any Editor will not use unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript in their personal research.
• The Editors are responsible for ensuring the quality of the language used in the article and that the format and all required guidelines are fulfilled by the author(s) before peer review is processed.
• The Editors are responsible for ensuring a fair and appropriate double-blind peer-review process of all submitted articles.
• The Editors shall ensure that the reviewers are selected according to the expertise relevant to the submitted manuscript.
• The Editors shall seek to have at least one reviewer who belongs to or focuses on the country or region of the manuscript.
• The Editors shall ensure that the manuscript is reviewed by a minimum of two international (foreign) and one national (local) expert of international repute.
• Submissions from authors which have any conflict of interest with the Editor(s) concerned will be assessed, evaluated and processed by another editorial member.
• Submissions by an editor(s) will be assigned to another editorial member to ensure a fair and appropriate review process.
• The Editors will ask all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after the publication.
• The editorial members (editors & advisors) must be experts in the relevant field and have an international reputation in academic research.
• The Editors shall be responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal will be published based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers, scholars and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
• The Editor-in-Chief shall confer with editors, advisors, and reviewers in making these processes and decisions.

Responsibilities of the Reviewers

• Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in an article or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor and excuse themself from the review process.
• Any manuscript received for review shall be treated as a confidential document by the reviewers.
• Double-blind peer reviews are conducted objectively. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
• The Reviewers should identify relevant published work that the authors have not cited.
• The Reviewers must not use unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript in their personal research without the author's express written consent (s).

Responsibilities of the Publisher

• In cases of alleged or proven misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, i.e., The Journal, in close collaboration with the Editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification, or the retraction of the affected manuscript in the most severe case.
• As a publisher, THE JOURNAL is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and strives to ensure accessibility by partnering with organisations and maintaining its digital archive.
• If an inaccuracy, misleading text or wrong explanations are found in the published article, journal must correct it promptly.
• The Journal will forward all complaints to the Editor-in-Chief. He will be responsible for seriously investigating them regardless of who files the complaint.

Responsibilities of the Authors 

• It is the authors' responsibility to ensure that the manuscripts are reviewed/edited by an English language expert before submission to The Journal.
• The authors shall ensure that the referencing and citation style is maintained according to the APA guidelines (latest edition).
• The authors shall ensure an in-text citation style used with a list of references at the end of the manuscript.
• The correspondence author shall ensure that the manuscript is not submitted and/or is under review for publication elsewhere.
• The correspondence author shall ensure no conflict of interest between the principal author & the co-author(s).
• The correspondence author shall ensure that there is no plagiarism and/or similarity in the manuscript. Any data or ideas taken from other sources are cited correctly by international standards.
• The international standards of research ethics must be followed and ensured by the authors/co-authors. 
• Complete affiliation details of author/co-authors, either with one or more institutions, shall be provided during the submission of the manuscript.
• The correspondence author shall ensure that manuscript, once accepted for peer review, is not submitted/published elsewhere unless rejected by The Journal.
• Author(s) shall provide a signed agreement/undertaking allowing THE JOURNAL to reserve the right to circulate the article and all other derivative works such as translations.
• It is the authors' responsibility to carefully read the author (s) guidelines and make sure that all the requirements and conditions of The Journal are fulfilled before submission of the manuscript.