JOURNAL POLICIES
Welcome to our Journal Policies page, where transparency, integrity, and excellence converge. At SJC Publishers, we are committed to fostering a scholarly environment that upholds the highest standards of publication ethics and ensures the credibility of the research we share with the global community. In this section, we outline the key policies and guidelines that govern our editorial and publishing processes, reinforcing our dedication to quality, fairness, and ethical conduct. Explore the principles that underpin our commitment to advancing knowledge and promoting a culture of responsible scholarship.
Below are some of the Journal Policies
COLLECTIONS AND SPECIAL ISSUES POLICY 2023
Due to the knowledge gap in Africa, Journals published by SJC Publishers company have the desire to make information available as much as possible. To achieve this, we publish collections and special issues from different Universities, Conferences and other academic organizations. Such materials may include slides used during the presentations, Original pictures, Abstracts and normal
manuscripts.
All content is peer reviewed in line with the journal standard peer review policy and are subject to all of the journal’s standard editorial and publishing policies. Because most of our editors and reviewers are from academic institutions, it’s a requirement for them to declare no competing interests with the submissions which they have handled through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editor who has no competing interests.
For consistency, the journal can publish collections and special issues only 4 times a year, and these include the months of January, April, August, and November. Authors and academic institutions who wish to contribute to the special issues need to contact the editor and request for the publication month 40 days before the desired month of publication.
COMMUNICATIONS CODE OF CONDUCT
At the SJC Publishers Company, we believe that good communication that involves respect for all persons is the way to we can contribute to communicating research findings more. Whereas we encourage everyone we work with to express themselves freely, we expect this to be done with respect.
Our staff are expected to behave professionally and respectfully at all times when engaging with authors, reviewers and readers. Likewise, we expect the same standards of behaviour from the academic community and the public in their interactions with our staff.
We do not tolerate aggressive behaviour, or any form of harassment, bullying or discrimination directed against SJC Publishers Company staff. We reserve the right to bring serious cases to the attention of employers, Universities, institutions or local authorities in Uganda and other countries we operate, if needed, and may refuse to interact, or do business, with individuals and institutions who repeatedly or seriously violate this policy.
CONSENT FOR PUBLICATION POLICY
Human Research Participant Publication Approval.
Students should draft consent forms that include a provision that allows participants to consent and the details must state that the details/images/videos will be freely available on the internet and may be seen by the general public. Such consents should be reviewed and accepted by a committee in place. For all manuscripts that include details, images, or videos relating to an individual person, written informed consent for the publication of these details must be obtained from that person (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18 years old). In Unfortunate circumstances when the person has died, consent for publication must be obtained from their next of kin. The manuscript must include a statement that written informed consent for publication was
obtained.
Research Supervisor Approval.
SJC Publishers Company understands that most of the studies published have students as the principal investigators. Students have the right to publish any materials that they presented in their final thesis or dissertation. Once the research supervisor and the institution has approved the students study and findings, and there is evidence that the student received adequate support in the study, students retain the right to prepare any results within the approved dissertation for publication. In such cases, approval from the supervisor may not be required. All papers submitted to us without evidence that their studies were supervised and approved by the research supervisor and faculty will not be accepted for publication. The final decision on whether to publish lies with the Editor.
PEER-REVIEW POLICY
SJC Publishers Company respects the Peer-review as a system that we use to assess the quality of a manuscripts before they are published. We get assistance from different Independent scholars from different research areas who assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to the field of study. It is the feedback that we use that helps our editors to determine whether the manuscript can be published.
There are cases when the journals are not able to find the most suitable reviewer for the papers submitted and when this happens, the journal informs the author that their research will delay to be reviewed for 7 working days. During this period, our editors invite scholars from different areas of the world who have done similar work and request them to participate in the review.
Although the name of the reviewer is not mentioned, SJC Publishers Company journals operate a very transparent peer-review system, and if the reader of the published papers is interested in knowing the reviewer reports, they are simply have to write to our editorial office and request for them. These notes are kept on file and are used to train new members joining the editorial board on our nature of peer review.
Manuscripts submitted to our journals are assessed by our editors and/or peer reviewers. Editors are expected to obtain a minimum of two peer reviewers for manuscripts reporting. It is important to note that in some rare circumstances, particularly in emerging fields, it may not be possible to obtain two independent peer reviewers. In such cases, the journal editors may wish to make a decision to publish based on one peer review report. In circumstances where a paper was assigned to 3 reviewers and 2 provide their comments, a decision to publish is done basing on that. However, if the 3 rd reviewer provides more comments that were not addressed by the two reviewers, they are considered and kept on file to facility future capacity building.
It’s a common practice of the editors to meet every day (Monday to Friday) to discuss the comments from the reviewers. During these meetings, each section editor presents what they are working on in their section, presents the reviewers comments and compares them to the original blind copy reviewed. Clarity of the comments is determined and this facilitates the decision to be made if the paper can be published or not.
ETHICS AND CONSENT POLICY
Ethics approval for Student Research .
SJC Publishers Company to a greater extent publishes research from students. All forms of Research involving human participants, human material such as blood, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee.
For Authors in Uganda, research published should be approved by the independent IRB that are recognised by the National Council for Science and Technology. A statement detailing this, including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate, must appear in all manuscripts reporting such research. If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption).
In circumstances where the institution or the University does not have an IRB, it is encouraged to form local committees for research that should guide the students on the ethics and consent processes of studies. Such members will need to need trained on how to support students through the research process as the institution waits for the approval from NCST. Evidence of training for research supervisors may be requested as a condition to accept results for publication.
For authors outside Uganda, we expect to see approval from the local ethics regulatory bodies in your countries and In rare cases, the Editor may contact the ethics committee for further information in case something is not clear.
Should the author and their affiliations fail to prove that ethics was observed, and the study participants consented fully during the conduct of research, such reports or Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor considers that the research has not been carried out within an appropriate international ethical framewor
Consent to participate in students Research.
For all research involving human participants, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18 years old) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript. For manuscripts reporting studies involving vulnerable groups (for example, unconscious patients) where there is the potential for coercion or where consent may not have been fully informed, manuscripts will be considered at the editor’s discretion and may be referred to an internal journal ethics editorial team for further scrutiny.
New clinical tools and procedures for case reports.
Authors reporting the use of a new procedure or tool in a clinical setting must give a clear justification in the manuscript for why the new procedure or tool was deemed more appropriate than usual clinical practice to meet the patient’s clinical need. Such justification is not required if the new procedure is already approved for clinical use at the authors’ institution.
Authors will be expected to have obtained approval from the head of department and informed patient consent for any experimental use of a novel procedure or tool where a clear clinical advantage based on clinical need was not apparent before treatment. This information has to be written clearly in the ethics consideration section of the manuscript.
Retrospective ethics approval for students research.
If a study has not been granted ethics committee approval prior to commencing, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review. The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the Editor's discretion.
POLICY ON AUTHORSHIP
Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions;
- The conception
- Design of the work
- The acquisition, analysis
- Interpretation of data
- The creation of new software used in the work
- Have drafted the work or substantively revised it
- Have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author's contribution to the study)
- Have agreed both to be personally accountable for the author's own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature.
SJC Publisher Company journals encourage collaboration with colleagues in the locations where the research is conducted, and expect their inclusion as co-authors when they fulfill all authorship criteria described above. Contributors who do not meet all criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section of the paper.
Each journal we publish has its Submission Guidelines for information on the format for listing author contributions. Please check to ensure that you comply with the journal of choice.
Any changes to the author list after submission, such as a change in the order of the authors or the deletion or addition of authors, must be approved by every author. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authors, and/or changes in Corresponding Author, and/or changes in the sequence of authors are not permitted after acceptance of a manuscript.
Corresponding authors
Corresponding authors are responsible for ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors, and that all authors receive the submission and all substantive correspondence with editors, as well as the full reviews, verifying that all data, figures, materials (including reagents), and code, even those developed or provided by other authors, comply with the transparency and reproducibility standards of both the field and journal.
This responsibility includes but is not limited to:
- Ensuring that original data/original figures/materials/code upon which the submission is based are preserved following best practices in the field so that they are retrievable for reanalysis.
- Confirming that data/figures/materials/code presentation accurately reflects the original paper.
- Foreseeing and minimizing obstacles to the sharing of data/materials/code described in the work. The corresponding author should be responsible for managing these requirements across the author group and ensuring that the entire author group is fully ware of and in compliance with best practices in the discipline of publication.
RESEARCH POLICY INVOLVING ANIMALS
Students and lecturers who would wish to write research papers for publication out of the experimental research on vertebrates or any regulated invertebrates must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. We encourage students to take advantage of the Basel Declaration outlines fundamental principles to adhere to when conducting research in animals and the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) has also published ethical guidelines.
All studies that students do should be approved by the head of department, and then later by the ethical review board for clearance. If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript.
Manuscripts presenting studies that have employed anesthesia or euthanasia methods inconsistent with the commonly accepted norms of veterinary best practice (e.g. chloral hydrate, ether, and chloroform) will not be considered. For experimental studies involving client-owned animals, authors must also document informed consent from the client or owner and adherence to a high standard (best practice) of veterinary care.
Field studies and other non-experimental research on animals must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing compliance with relevant guidelines and/or appropriate permissions or licences must be included in the manuscript.
POLICY ON COMPETING INTERESTS
Our journals require authors to declare all competing interests in relation to their work. All submitted manuscripts must include a ‘competing interests’ section at the end of the manuscript listing all competing interests (financial and non-financial). Where authors have no competing interests, the statement should read “The author(s) declare(s) that they have no competing interests”. Editors and reviewers are also required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.
Competing interest may include;
- Competing interests may be financial or non-financial.
- A competing interest exists when the authors’ interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by, or may be perceived to be influenced by, their personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations.
- Authors should disclose any financial competing interests but also any non-financial competing interests that may cause them embarrassment if they were to become public after the publication of the manuscript.
Editorial Board Members, Guest Editors and Editors
Editorial Board Members, Guest Editors and Editors have 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, Guest Editor or Editorial Board Member is on the author list they must declare this in the competing interests section on the submitted manuscript. If they are an author or have any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another Editor, Guest 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 staff
SJC Publishers Company editorial staff are required to declare to their employer any interests that might influence, or be perceived to influence, their editorial practices. Failure to do so is a disciplinary offence. SJC Publishers Company has a strict policy of editorial independence in individual acceptance decisions and editorial standards of quality and significance should never be compromised. Our editors are financially incentivised to achieve journals growth, despite this, we are clear in our internal policies and individuals’ contracts or formal objectives that this should be achieved by ensuring submissions of sufficient quality and never by compromising editorial standards.
RESEARCH POLICY INVOLVING THE USE OF PLANTS AND SEED SPECIMENS
Experimental research and field studies on plants (either cultivated or wild), including the collection of plant material, must comply with relevant institutional, national, and international guidelines and legislation.
Manuscripts should include a statement specifying the appropriate permissions and/or licences for collection of plant or seed specimens. For example, for the sake of Uganda, if a plant species of interest is from Entebbe Botanical gardens, then the student researcher should clearly demonstrate that they have got the authorization to collect this specimens.
To support reproducibility, voucher specimens for all wild plants described in a manuscript must be deposited in a University herbarium or other public collection that provides access to deposited material. Information on the voucher specimen and who identified it must be included in the manuscript. The editors may request to look at the pictures taken throughout the research process.
STANDARDS OF REPORTING
SJC Publishers Company adopts the use of the following checklists and reporting guidelines:
- Protocols for randomized controlled protocols (SPIRIT)
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) and protocols (PRISMA-P)
- Observational studies (STROBE)
- Case reports (CARE)
- Qualitative research (COREQ)
- Diagnostic/prognostic studies (STARD and TRIPOD)
- Economic evaluations (CHEERS)
- Pre-clinical animal studies (ARRIVE)