JRAP POLICIES AND GUIDELINES
Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure
high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and
ensuring due credit to authors for their work and ideas. JRAP follows a policy
aligned with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Committee on Publication
Ethics (COPE) guidelines.
1. Ethical Policy
Editors and Referees
The manuscripts requested to be evaluated by editors and referees are
required to declare any conflicts of interest. The identities of both author and
referees are not disclosed to each other in order to ensure double- blind peer
review. As per HEC policy guidelines for the research journals, JRAP will not accept
manuscript submission from editor, management team or any member of the
editorial board. JRAP has an Editorial Board and a panel of referees whose full
names and affiliations are mentioned at
https://jrap.neduet.edu.pk/editorial_Advisory_board.html
The contact information for the editorial office can be found at
Contact Us.
Authors
There is no publication fee for publishing in JRAP, because the journal
supports scientific research sharing, innovation and publication.
- All authors should have significantly contributed to the research being
published.
- All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
- List of references should be mentioned at the
end of papers as per referencing style of journal given in author guidelines.
- Authors
can share their research on other forums giving due acknowledgement to its first publication source.
- Financial support and any other relevant support should be mentioned in the
acknowledgements section.
NOTE: If a published paper or its essential contents will be found published
elsewhere or in response to any unethical conduct, the journal
will take necessary action by notifying all concerned and their respective
departments.
Complaints
All authors have an obligation to inform and cooperate with journal editors to
provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works. If there
is a serious complaint about a journal’s own procedures, the Editor-in-Chief
will confer with the corresponding author and any relevant members of the
editorial board in order to resolve the problem.
2. Peer Review Process
JRAP is committed to prompt evaluation and publication of fully accepted papers.
To maintain a high-quality publication, all submissions undergo a double blind peer
review process, where each paper received for publication, after having
undergone an initial editorial review, is sent to two reviewers who are
experts in the field and have no conflict of interest.
- The peer review feedback is communicated to the authors and a revision is
requested if required.
- The revised papers go through peer review process again, if required.
- The journal also checks every paper for plagiarism using appropriate softwares
and other means
3. Publication Ethics
JRAP follows the ethical guidelines for publication outlined by the Committee on
Publication Ethics (COPE) as well as the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of
Pakistan. The authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to adhere strictly to
the publication ethics set forth as under:
HEC: Ethical Guidelines for Journals
COPE: Core Practices
Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines followed by JRAP Journal Editors and
Publisher
- Publishers and editors take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the
publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred.
- In the event that the journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any
allegation of research misconduct the publisher or editor shall deal with
allegations as taking appropriate action.
- The editors ensure that the comments of the reviewers are adequately addressed
and mistakes corrected as a mandatory requirement.
- Publishers and editors are always willing to publish corrections,
clarifications, retractions and apologies if any when needed.
4. Publication Charge Policy
All articles published in JRAP are Open Access with no processing or publication
charges to cover any publishing function (peer reviewing, language editing,
production of articles in PDF, dissemination etc).
There are no charges for declined articles, no submission charges, and no
surcharges based on the length of an article, figures or supplementary data. All
the items (Manuscripts, Editorials, Teaching Modules, Corrections, Addendums,
Retractions, Comments, etc.) are published free of charge.
5. Copyright Policy and Open Access
JRAP is committed to continuously enhance the accessibility of
published database to maximize the readability without any interruption.
The articles published have an online free open access which states that all content
is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are
allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full
texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking
prior permission from the publisher or the author. There is a nominal fee for
hard copies of the Journal, in order to cover the courier costs.
The authors retain the copyright of research. They are free to share their work
on other forums with due recognition of its publication in JRAP. JRAP is fully
complaint with open access mandates. The Agreement of copyright gives the NED
University Press the right to publish the research article as original work
approved by Editorial Board and also to protect copyright of author.
All articles published in JRAP are open-access articles, published and
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License which permits remixing, transformation, or building upon
the material, provided the original work is appropriately cited mentioning the
authors and the publisher, as well as the produced work is distributed under the
same license as the original.
Brief Summary of the License Agreement
By submitting your research article(s) to JRAP, you agree to Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License which states that:
Anyone is free:
o To copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
o To remix, transform, or build upon the material for any purpose, even
commercially Provided:
o The author and the publisher have been appropriately credited
o The link to license is provided o Indicated if any changes were made
o The material produced is distributed under the same liE-prints are sent out to the corresponding author of published
articles. A link is provided allowing the author to download the article
directly from the JRAP website and forward the link to their co-authors.
6. Authorship Policy
All those who have made a significant contribution should be
cited as authors. Other individuals who may have contributed to the work should be
acknowledged. Articles should include a full list of the current institutional
affiliations of all authors, both academic and corporate.
• It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all named
authors have approved the submitted version of the article, and all further
revisions, agree to its submission and are willing to take appropriate
responsibility for it.
• It is important that all authors have approved the (revised) final version of the
article as accepted for publication.
• It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure the paper is not
under consideration by any other journal at the time of submission.
• It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure the contact details
for all co-authors are entered and correct at the time of submission.
• In the Acknowledgments section, authors may wish to include the names and
contributions of those with whose support the research was conducted.
Changes in authorship
Any changes to authorship during the publication process must be approved by all
authors of the paper, and all authors must confirm to the journal that they give
their consent. In
addition, the corresponding author must explain to the journal the reasons behind the change in
authorship based on the guidelines above. JRAP reserves the right to
refuse requests if there is reason to doubt the contribution of any newly-added
author.
7.
Corrections and Retraction Policy
The journal will issue retractions if:
- There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error);
- The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication);
- It constitutes plagiarism;
- It reports unethical research.
- A small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error).
- The author list is incorrect (i.e., a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included).
8. Archiving Policy
The journal office maintains properly catalogued archives of the entire
correspondence, published papers and other relevant material for any reference
and response to the authors, peer reviewers and other stakeholders.
The published papers are available for free online access.
9. Confidentiality Policy
Editors will ensure that the information and material submitted by the authors
remains confidential while under consideration for the journal, and will only be
disclosed as appropriate to the author(s), referees, potential referees and
other editorial advisors of JRAP. Reviewer names will be kept strictly
confidential. Reviewer identities may only be disclosed to Journal Editorial
Board members, who are also instructed to maintain confidentiality.
10. Conflict of Interests Policy
Conflicts of interest (CoIs, also known as
'competing interests') occur when
issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality
or objectivity of the work or its assessment. This can happen at any stage in
the research cycle, including during the experimentation phase, while a
manuscript is being written, or during the process of turning a manuscript into
a published article.
If unsure, declare a potential interest or discuss with the editorial office.
Submissions with undeclared conflicts
that are later revealed may be rejected. Published articles may need to be
re-assessed, have a corrigendum published, or in serious cases be retracted.
Conflicts of interest do not always stop work from being published or prevent
someone from being involved in the review process. However, they must be
declared. A clear declaration of all possible conflicts – whether they actually
had an influence or not – allows others to make informed decisions about the
work and its review process.
If conflicts of interest are found after publication, this may be embarrassing
for the authors, the Editor and the journal. It may be necessary to publish a
corrigendum or reassess the review process.
Conflicts include the following:
Financial — funding and other payments, goods and services received or expected
by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with
an interest in the outcome of the work.
Affiliations — being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an
organization with an interest in the outcome of the work.
Intellectual property — patents or trademarks owned by someone or their
organization.
Personal — friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections.
Ideology — beliefs or activism, for example, political or religious, relevant to
the work
Academic — competitors or someone whose work is critiqued.
Authors must declare all potential interests in a ‘Conflicts of interest’ section, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict. If there are none, the authors should state “The author(s) declare(s) that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.” Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests. Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers and included in the published article.
Editors and Reviewers
Editors and reviewers should decline to be involved with a submission when they
- Have a recent publication or current submission with any author,
- Share or recently shared an affiliation with any author,
- Collaborate or recently collaborated with any author,
- Have a close personal connection to any author,
- Have a financial interest in the subject of the work,
- Feel unable to be objective.
11. Anti-plagiarism
Authors must not use the words, figures, or ideas of others without attribution.
All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wording must
be limited and be attributed or quoted in the text.
JRAP uses Turnitin Similarity Check Software to detect submissions that overlap
with published and submitted manuscripts. Manuscript submissions with more than
19% similarity index will not be accepted, as per HEC guideline.
Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other
authors, whether published or unpublished, will be rejected.
The following types of plagiarism should be avoided:
Complete Plagiarism: Submit another authors work in
your name
Source-based plagiarism: Reference an incorrect or
non-existent source
Direct Plagiarism: Copy text from another document
word-to-word
Self or auto Plagiarism: Reuse a major part of your
own work without attribution
Paraphrasing Plagiarism: Make minor changes and use
others’ writing
Mosaic Plagiarism: Interlay someone else’s phrases or
text within your work
Accidental Plagiarism: Unintentional paraphrasing or
copying due to neglect
Inaccurate Authorship:
Inaccuracy in naming mentioning entitied authors.
12. Appeal Policy
13. Advertisement Policy
JRAP holds an appeal policy on editor decisions. It is
encouraged that authors address reviewer’s concerns fully regarding revising/
rewriting the research paper as per reviewer comments and in cases where
recommended, manuscripts may be developed and resubmitted as new manuscript if
required. The rejected scholarly articles will be less likely to overturn an
editor’s decision. Editors rarely reverse their original decision, however,
right to appeal is to consider genuine cases.
In case authors wish to appeal a Journal editor’s decision, one has to submit an appeal letter to the editor’s email id. Please address this to the editor and explain clearly the basis for appeal. In addition, mention responses to editor’s or reviewer’s comments that contributed to the reject decision. Any further information or evidence in support of your appeal in case of technical error may be attached, for re- assessment of manuscript. In case reviewer have a conflict of interest, please provide evidence.
After receiving the appeal, editorial board may review the peer review process again and evaluate the nature of appeal. Editors may invite a revised manuscript or decline the manuscript after second review process. Editors will consider one appeal per article and all decisions on appeal are final. However, JRAP encourages new submissions than appeals.
