JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (JHSS) - 2708-504X EDITORIAL POLICY

Scope of the Journal

JHSS accepts journal articles in all spheres of humanities and social sciences including but not limited to areas such as criminology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, project planning, public administration, communication studies, corporate governance, history, cross-cultural studies, demography, political science, development studies, economics, ethics, geography, industrial relations, information science, international relations, law, linguistics, library science, media studies, political science, population studies, social welfare, literature, religious studies, gender studies among others.

Copyright & Permissions

 Article License

All articles published by the JHSS are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This permits anyone to copy, redistribute, remix, transmit and adapt the work provided the original work and source is appropriately cited.

Article Copyright

When an article is published in the journal, the author(s) of the article retain the copyright. Author(s) may republish the article as part of a book or other materials.

JHSS- Editorial Policies

This policy describes guidelines in the publication process of the JHSS articles. Specifically, the journal adopts and strives to adhere to the standards and requirements set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 

Authorship

An author is an individual who has significantly contributed to the development of a manuscript. JHSS recommends that authorship be based on the following four criteria: 

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
3. Final approval of the version to be published; and
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

 Acknowledgement

Individuals who participated in the development of a manuscript but do not qualify as an author should be acknowledged. Organizations that provided support in terms of funding and/or other resources should also be acknowledged.

Submission of Manuscript

Manuscript should be prepared according to the style and specifications as stated in the ‘Instructions for Authors/Article Template’ both accessible at specific journals home pages found at www.essrak.org.  Authors listed on the manuscript should have met the requirements for authorship specified above. Once a manuscript is submitted, it is therefore assumed that all authors have read and given their approval for the submission of the manuscript. Information of all authors should be stated on the manuscript i.e. Surname/Other names, and affiliation. Manuscripts should be submitted online using the journal management systems available at http://journals.essrak.org/index.php/jhss OR emailed directly to the editor through: editorjhss@essrak.org

Conflict of interest

“Conflict of interest (COI) exists when there is a divergence between an individual’s private interests (competing interests) and his or her responsibilities to scientific and publishing activities such that a reasonable observer might wonder if the individual’s behavior or judgment was motivated by considerations of his or her competing interests” World Association of medical Editors (WAME). 

• Authors should disclose all financial/relevant interest that may have influenced the development of the manuscript. 
• Reviewers should disclose any conflict of interest and if necessary, decline the review of any manuscript they perceive to have a conflict of interest. 
• Editors should also decline from considering any manuscript that may have conflict of interest. Such manuscripts will be re-assigned to other editors.

 Confidentiality

A submitted manuscript is a confidential material. JHSS will not disclose submitted manuscript to anyone except individuals who partake in the processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted). These individuals include editorial staff, corresponding authors, potential reviewers, actual reviewers, and editors.  However, in suspected cases of misconduct, a manuscript may be revealed to members of journals’ ethics committee and institutions/organizations that may require it for the resolution of the suspected case of misconduct.

Misconduct

Misconduct constitutes violation of this editorial policy, journal policies, publication ethics, or any applicable guidelines/policies specified by COPE and JHSS. Any other activities that threaten/compromise the integrity of the research/publication process are potential misconducts. Suspected cases of misconduct will be investigated according to COPE guidelines

 Correction and retraction of articles

Corrections may be made to a published article with the authorization of the Chief Editor of the journal. Editors will decide the magnitude of the corrections. Minor corrections are made directly to the original article. However, in cases of major corrections, the original article will remain unchanged, while the corrected version will also be published. Both the original and corrected version will be linked to each other. A statement indicating the reason for the major change to the article will also be published. When necessary, retraction of articles will be done according to COPE retraction guidelines

JHSS - Open Access Policy

Open Access is a publication model that enables the dissemination of research articles to the global community without any form of restriction. All articles published under open access can be accessed by anyone with internet connection.

JHSS is an Open Access Journal. Abstracts and full texts of all articles published in this journal are freely accessible to everyone immediately after publication without any form of restriction.

JHSS - Peer Review Process

JHSS employs a rigorous peer review system. All submitted manuscripts undergo a peer review process before publication.

Double Blind Peer Review

JHSS employs a double-blind peer review system. A double-blind peer review system is an anonymous review system whereby the identity of the author(s) of a manuscript is concealed from the selected reviewers. All details that may enable a reviewer to identify the author(s) of a manuscript are removed from the manuscript before the manuscript is sent to the reviewer. Similarly, the reviewers’ identities are also concealed from the author(s) when sending the reviewers’ comments to the author(s). JHSS considers the double-blind peer system as a more effective review system because it limits possible bias from either the selected reviewers or from authors.

The Peer Review Process

Each journal employs a three-stage review process – editorial office, external review and editors’ decision. The first stage of the review process takes place in the editorial office. On submission, a manuscript is reviewed to ensure that it meets the minimum requirements of the journal before it is sent to external reviewers. At this stage, the manuscript is reviewed for the following:

Possible plagiarism: The manuscript is evaluated to compare the level of similarity with other published works. Manuscripts that have high level of similarity with other works (including the author(s) previous works) are rejected at this stage. Authors are provided with the similarity report together with the decision to reject the manuscript. The acceptable similarity index by JHSS is 15%-20% and the Chief Editor will have discretion on what constitutes plagiarism on a specific manuscript guided by the said threshold. 

• Scope:After a manuscript has undergone similarity check and the level of similarity is judged to be appropriate, the content of the manuscript is checked to ensure that it fits within the scope of the journal.
• Recent references:The journal encourages authors to cite more recent articles. Preferably, considerable number of the cited articles should be works that were published within the last five years.
• English Language:JHSS publishes full text of articles only in English language. The manuscript is checked for the structure, organization, correctness and clarity of the language as it adheres to the journal's Instructions for Authors. The editorial office usually makes correction to minor grammatical errors in such a manner that it does not alter the manuscript. However, in situations where language is substantially difficult to comprehend, the manuscript is returned to the corresponding author to improve clarity of the language. Manuscripts that fail in this first stage of the review process are returned to the author(s) for modification and resubmission. This first stage of the review is very important as it enables the author(s) to improve the manuscript at an early stage.

Once a manuscript successfully completes the editorial office review process, it proceeds to the second stage. The second stage of the review process employs the double-blind review system. A minimum of two external reviewers are selected from our database, editorial board of the journal or other sources. These reviewers have expert knowledge of the subject area of the manuscript. Upon acceptance to review a manuscript, the full text of the manuscript is sent to the reviewers after the author(s) have been concealed.

Reviewers are required to evaluate the manuscripts and provide useful comments to enable the author(s) to improve the quality of the manuscript. Reviewers also score the manuscript in terms of originality, contribution to the field, technical quality, clarity of presentation and depth of research. Finally, reviewers make one of the following suggestions about the manuscript:

• Requires minor corrections
• Requires moderate revision
• Requires major revision
• Not suitable for further processing. In this case, the reviewer provides specific reason(s) why the manuscript may not be further processed.

Upon receipt of the reviewers’ comments, the editorial office reviews the comment. If the two reviewers’ comment have significantly different/or contradictory opinions about the same manuscripts, the manuscript is re-sent to a third reviewer. All reviewers’ comments (including the third reviewers’ comment where necessary) are thereafter sent to the author(s). The reviewers’ identities are concealed from the author(s). The total time taken to complete the second stage of the manuscript review is dependent on the availability of the reviewers.

Using the reviewers’ comments, author(s) make corrections to the manuscript and submits a revised manuscript. Upon receipt of the revised submission, the manuscript undergoes the third and final stage of the review process. The original manuscript, the revised manuscript and all the reviewers’ comments are sent to an editor of the journal. The editor reviews the manuscript and makes one of the following decisions:

• Accept as it is
• Accept with minor correction
• Requires major corrections
• Send revised manuscript for review again
• Reject

Manuscripts that are ‘accepted as it is’ are scheduled for publication. Manuscripts that require corrections (either minor or major) are sent to the author(s) to effect the corrections suggested by the editor. After effecting the corrections, the editor reviews the manuscripts again before the manuscripts are accepted for publication. In some cases, the editor may require authors to make corrections a second time. In other cases, the editor may request for the revised manuscripts with (or without) the additional corrections to be sent to a specific reviewer who had earlier reviewed the manuscript before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. Manuscripts that will go through all the required quality checks and any suggested corrections satisfactorily implemented by the author, will be published within three months after submission.

JHSS- Publication Ethics

JHSS requires authors to adhere to the ethical standards required of researchers in scientific writing. Specifically, the journal requires all authors to adhere to the ethical standards as prescribed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Authorship

Inclusion of a person who do not meet authorship requirement as specified by the editorial policies or the exclusion of a person who meets the requirement is a violation of ethical requirements of the journal.

Plagiarism

JHSS considers plagiarism a serious offense. Submitted manuscripts should be the original works of the author(s). The Journal will follow COPE guidelines in suspected cases of plagiarism. The Merriam Webster Online dictionary defines plagiarizing as: 

• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
• use (another's production) without crediting the source
• to commit literary theft
• present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

The Journal is committed to eliminating manuscripts with possible cases of plagiarism from its review and publication processes. JHSS checks each manuscript for possible cases of plagiarism. Manuscripts that are found to contain unacceptable level of similarity with other published works are immediately rejected as stated in the peer review section above.

Duplicate manuscripts

It is unethical for authors to submit a manuscript to JHSS Journal and at the same time, submit the same manuscript to another journal. This includes the submission of manuscripts derived from the same data in such a manner that there are no substantial differences in the manuscripts.

 Fabrication and falsification of data

Fabrication, manipulation or falsification of data is a violation of this publication ethics. JHSS shall employ the COPE guidelines in suspected cases of fabrication and falsification of data.

 Citations manipulation

Authors should use only citations that are relevant to their manuscripts.  Addition of references which are not relevant to the work is strongly discouraged. Similarly, irrelevant self-citation to increase one’s citation is unethical.

National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI) Research Permit

JHSS will also require a copy of research permit from the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI) in the case of a manuscript arising from scientific research that was to be pre-approved by the commission. Other relevant documents that show adherence to ethical considerations as well as permissions to conduct research in the targeted areas or with the targeted populations may also be sought if need arises.