Ethical Guidelines for Editors

The Editor’s Responsibilities

  • Establishing and maintaining quality of the journalby publishing quality papers.
  • Promotion of freedom of expressionwithin the cultural, constitutional/legal framework

Good practices

  • Encouraging new ideas and suggestionsfor improving quality of AL-ABṢĀR.
  • Appling the process of blind peer reviewin its true letter and spirit,
  • Promoting & implementing anti plagiarism & journal’s policy without institutional pressure.
  • Editorial Board Members are prohibited to publish their papers in AL-ABṢĀR. Self-Institutional publication is not allowed as well, to ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest.

Fair play and Impartiality

  • Will ensure impartial evaluationof the content of research papers,
  • Disregard the all discriminating factorsduring selection of articles, e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, etc. of author(s)

Confidentiality

  • Confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewersduring the peer review process will be ensured
  • Confidentiality of the participants of the researchshould also be ensured.
  • Prior to publication, the content of the manuscript would be kept confidential

Editing and Formatting Guidelines

  • Clear guidelines about preparing and formatting of a paperare available on AL-ABṢĀR webpage.

The Review Process

  • Articles are initially scrutinized and then go through double-blind peer review process.
  • Sufficient guidelines along with a Reviewer’s Proformaare provided to reviewers (see: Reviewer’s Proforma download section)
  • Sharing the reviewer’s comments with author and incorporationof suggested corrections.
  • Referring troublesome casesto Advisory Committee.

Dealing with Misconduct

  • Will encourages reviewers to comment on ethical issues and possible misconduct.
  • Confirmation of plagiarismthrough Turnitin and/or searching for similar titles etc.
  • Will publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a plagiarized article.

Transparency

  • Only one paper as a PI (Principle Investigator) should be published in the same issue.
  • Editorial Board Members are prohibited to publish their papers in AL-ABṢĀR. Self-Institutional publication is not allowed as well, to ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest. After adoption of HEC new policy for research journals for July 2019 onwards, AL-ABṢĀR does not allow Editorial Board and Self-institutional publications, to ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest (if any).
  • Authorship & co-authorship policywill be strictly adopted.

Conflict of Interest

  • The editors and reviewers will not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against which s/he has any conflicts of interest.
  • Editorial Board Members are prohibited to publish their papers in AL-ABṢĀR. Self-Institutional publication is not allowed as well, to ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest. After adoption of HEC new policy for research journals for July 2019 onwards, AL-ABṢĀR does not allow Editorial Board and Self-institutional publications, to ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest (if any).

Disclosure

  • will not use any unpublished information/data fromthe submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s)

Publication Decisions

  • Only shortlisted research papers relevant to the scope of the journalwill be published after completion of the review process
  • Acceptation or rejection of a paper will be based on academic standards.
  • The Editor will justify the reason (s) of rejecting a research paper and will timely communicate the editorial decision to the author(s)

Procedure for Appeal

The Editor is responsible for establishing a proper mechanism for appeals launched against:

  • The rejection of a research paper.
  • Objections to publications causing harm to any party.

Infringement of Ethical boundaries in any manner.