Author Guidelines
Welcome to the JIS submission portal.
Author submission guidelines
For all manuscript submitted to JIS, the following apply:
English Language:
Submissions should be in English. All papers and articles must be language edited before submission in order to allow the reviewers to comfortably read, review and understand the paper. In particular, non-native English speakers are strongly encouraged to have their writing edited before submission. A quality edit will render the work accessible to a wider community of professionals and novice readers.
Manuscript styles:
– The abstract should not exceed 250 words. It should be contained in a single paragraph and be free of citations.
– Your submission should be in Microsoft Word format using a 12 point Time New Roman font throughout the paper including tables, figures and captions. All document margins should be set at 2,54 cm (1 inch). Double line spacing should be used, with 0 point spacing before and after each line.
– Tables and figures should be numbered and inserted in the text where required, with captions and sources provided.
– Please check for plagiarism before submission. This remains the responsibility of the author. A number of plagiarism-check software is available, for example: ‘Turnitin’ and ‘iThenticate’. Please remember to submit the plagiarism-check report with the manuscript.
– The length of the paper should not exceed 10 000 (ten thousand) words including the abstract and references. However, certain conceptual papers, essays, commentary and editorial papers may be accepted up to 3500-6000 words excluding references.
Referencing:
There are number of citation styles. As an interdisciplinary journal, the JIS recommends the use of APA style. However, citation style can vary according to disciplines, but authors must ensure that all in-text citations are included in the references list. Whichever style is chosen, consistency of citation within the text and the reference list must be maintained.
Copyrights and agreements
Submission to and publication in Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS) is free.
Author’s must maintain and respect ethical consideration while submitting papers.
Author’s submitting of paper in JIS grants the JIS to produce the paper both online and in book version.
By submitting the papers for publication in JIS, author’s agrees to grant permission to produce/reproduce the paper by the journal, hereby agreeing that the paper has not been published and is not considered for publication elsewhere. Authors must take full responsibilities of ethical respects. Therefore, authors maintain the integrity of fairness to submission and publication in Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS).
Reviewers
List three reviewers who you consider best-equipped with the content of your paper.
- Name
- Title (Professor, Ph.D., Dr., Researchers/lecturers)
- Affiliation(s)
- Country
- Email address
- Telephone Number
- Reviewers should not belong to the same department/institute
- Reviewers must not be a co-author(s)
- Reviewers should not be an author or co-authors in any forthcoming publication.
In cases where authors do not provide reviewers, the journal editors will select the relevant reviewers. Identifying reviewers with the appropriate interest and expertise may cause a time delay.
All papers submitted for publication will be screened by the editorial team before the papers are sent for the review process.
Review Process:
All papers submitted to JIS will go through an initial screening process to ascertain appropriateness according to the journal’s aims, scope and focus. General criteria for selection will be applied by the editor and editorial team for guidelines adherence. Selected papers will proceed according to the journal’s rules and processes. Authors will be kept informed accordingly as the paper proceeds through these stages, to build author and journal relationships.
Submitted papers will be sent to the reviewers or returned to the corresponding author for corrections and re-submission if the submission guidelines are not met. Based on the review guidelines, the reviewers are expected to give feedback and comment on the paper. The decision of the reviewers is considered final.
The reviewers are expected to be fair and not biased within the domain of research interest, race, genders, age, and so forth. The reviewer’s expertise plays a vital role in the editorial process. Normally five weeks are allocated as for the review process. Sometimes, the reviewers may request additional time depending on their time constraints and the content of the article/paper.
The review of the paper represents a rigorous process on the basis of reviewer expertise, and suggestions or comments will be made on the article/paper reviewed.
Review articles, Case studies, Research articles, Editorials, Monographs, Essays, and Conference proceedings are reviewed on the basis of:
-Originality, argument of paper, purpose, aims and literature construction
-Sound methodology, research design, and conceptual/theoretical construction
-Sound presentation of data (Qualitative/Quantitative), conceptual development
-Sound discussion and interpretations. Logical sequencing and appropriate and accurate links within the content.
-Academically and scientifically sound and rigorous.
-Relevant literature referred and cited.
The manuscript will be grading from 1-10 (1 being the least and 10 being the most)
- Accept with or without editorial revisions:
- Accepted with minor revisions:
- Accepted with Major revisions:
- Serious Major Revisions:
- Rejected (a reasonable argument will be given and suggestions for further work to resubmit):
The reviewers report will be communicated with the corresponding author. Once the paper is finalized by the author, upon the acceptance for possible publication, the paper will go through the editorial process for formatting and layout according to the journal’s style. The galley proof will be sent to the author for any correction(s) needed before the paper is released.
Initial screening and Editorial Review
All submission will go through the initial screening for evaluation of paper before it is sent to peer review. During the initial screening, manuscripts are scrutinized and screened with line to structural and technical aspects, quality of language, methodology, results, discussion, referencing. Once the initial screening is completed, manuscripts are proceeded to editorial review where necessary scientific changes are made to reflect the quality of paper, which is further sent back to the corresponding author to verify and confirm the scientific and academically sound reviews are requested to make within the paper. During this phase, academic collaboration is maintained between the editor and the author (this is initiated only when the paper meets scientific and academic criterion). After receiving the revised version of manuscript from the author, the paper is then sent for peer review (Suggested or Peer Blind Review).
Publication process
Manuscript that has been accepted by the reviewers (peer Review) will be sent to author for final revision in the Ms-word document. Author(s) are encouraged to make necessary revision within the word file and indicate where the changes are made. Author(s) are also requested not to format the MS-Word file. After receiving the final revision file from the corresponding author, the paper layout will be sent to the author for final revision for correction of typos or any error during the process of publication. The paper layout will be sent to author in a pdf format where changes within the paper cannot be made, however, author can indicate the error and correction needed which will further be rectified before the publication.
Publication schedule and time
The Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS) publishes two issue per annum (May and November), which will be published on the 2nd day of the month, which will be available online for all readers for free downloading. The publication of issue will also be announced in the journal’s announcement portal and shared through various means and method to the general public.
Archiving
All manuscript published in the journal will be archived after the current publication is released. The archived publication is maintained in the archived folders of the journal website. In addition to this, the archived volume and issue is also maintained in the journal’s indexing platform.
Author(s) responsibilities
Corresponding author are responsible to maintain communication with the editor while the editorial team will be giving the feedback about the publication process. During the review process of the manuscript, authors are responsible to confirm the revision as stated by the reviewers unless the concept of the manuscript contradicts from the opinion of the authors and the theoretical constructions. In such cases, the journal can proceed with the peer review again and this will be conducted with the mutual understanding between the author(s) and the editorial board.
Moreover, author(s) are also responsible and be authentic to prevent plagiarism and if unforeseen circumstances exists, such as copied materials, high percentage of similarities, conflicts of interest after the publication, the manuscript will be retracted and the author(s) will take full responsibilities on this matter. Under such conditions, the Journal will announce it retracted paper with the authors name, affiliations on its announcement portal, which will also be shared through different means and methods or media to keep away such circumstance from repeating. Importantly, under such cases, the journal will black list the author(s) and will not entertain their manuscript for submission.
The Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS) is dedicated towards academic contributions and it enables and enriches the authors to disseminate their knowledge through publication, in this regards the Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS) has an open access platform for downloading of published papers, and also maintained free submission and free publication. While all these creates a platform for author(s) for publication, it is important that author(s) must equally be fair with writing their paper and must reflects their ownership of work with proper citation and referencing in the case of direct quoting (with page number), citing, paraphrasing etcs.
Reviewers responsibilities
The Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences will forward the manuscript that has been approved after initial screening and editorial reviews (but not accepted yet for publication unless decision received after peer reviewed) to the reviewers (peer reviewers or blind peer review). All manuscript that has been accepted in the first round (Initial screening and Editorial review) will only be forwarded for peer review. Generally, reviewers are allocated a time frame of 4 weeks duration for sending their peer reviewed comments/suggestions, however, sometimes additional times is allocated if incase the time frame for review is not enough. The Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS) does not involve pay for review process and the reviewer accept to review the manuscript upon the understanding that their contribution generates academic values. The reviewer must take the responsibilities of fair judgement of review and must not remain biased on their own opinion; however, reviewers must provide informative comments and constructive review. The reviewers must not have any conflict of interest. The reviewers are provided a review framework to highlight their comments, while optional comments are also welcomed. However, during the peer review, reviewers’ responsibilities must be focused on the concept of the paper that will provide scientific contribution and to judge fairly that the contribution of the paper offers additional insights to the academic society. Although, some reviewers are interested with language editing but it is not the sole duty that reviewers must conduct. While the peer review process is considered as an important part of publication, the reviewers must take the responsibilities of giving their feedback/comments/suggestions on the basis of scientific rigor, academic contribution the paper offer to scientific community, maintain quality of the journal, avoid racism, personal critics, prejudice and must maintain confidentiality by not sharing the paper to others. Review guidelines is provided to the reviewers.
While reviewers’ contributions are an utmost important aspect, it is also advised to the reviewers to provide few lines of notes to the authors and to the editor. The Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS) will highly appreciate and value the reviewer’s work, time and effort and their knowledgeable comments and will list their names in each issue published in the column “Acknowledgement to Reviewers”. However, sometimes, the manuscript although approved in the initial screening and editorial review may be rejected after the peer review, in such cases if the majority of reviewers decision are the same, the editorial board will consider this decision, in some cases the peer review decisions are not consistent and in such case, the editorial board will send the manuscript again for blind peer review to further seek for additional views while making the final decision on the particular manuscript by the editor.
Roles, responsibilities and duties of Editor(s)
The Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS) is committed towards maintaining the quality of the journal and the publication of every manuscript that meets the scientific merit, academic rigor, originality, knowledgeable work. Along with this, the Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS) opens a platform to all authors from different disciplines areas of research. In doing so, the Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS) follows standardized guidelines and this is applied to all authors from various area of disciplines.
The roles of editor(s) are to confirm the quality of the journal by maintaining frequent communication with the reviewers and interacting with the authors on the development of their manuscript once the submission is made by the authors. Apart from the interactions and the communication with the reviewers and authors, the editorial board and editorial team perform editorial task and become responsible of the confidentiality of the manuscript and will not share the paper to others during the pre-publication and post-publication. Only published papers are released for general readers.
The editor(s) maintains strict norms with publication of the issue and are serious with timely publication of its Volume and Issue which is on the 2nd day of May and November.
The editor(s) are responsible towards initial screening and editorial review of every manuscript that has been submitted to the Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences (JIS). During this process, the duties that is carried by the editor(s) are to check the quality of manuscript, technical and structuring of the manuscript, the concept that relates to the context of the research work by checking the scientific rigor and merit. During this time, the editor(s) performs the duty as an initial round reviewer and suggest the author(s) for further improvement and developing their paper. Very few manuscript (almost none) passes the first initial screening and editorial review process without requirement for authors revision before it is sent for peer review. The Editor executives, Editorial team and the Editorial support perform their duties of initial screening and editorial review during the first round of review or pre-peer review process.
The editor(s) performs their responsibilities and maintain regular follow up on the publication process, which will be interacted with the authors about the progress on their paper while manuscripts are being “in review process”. The editor maintains the responsibilities and their duties by timely publication for which, the editor establishes the publication standard, read the manuscript (pre and post review), initiating and designing manuscript paper layout, forwarding paper layout to authors and proceed to publication. The editor(s) also perform the duty about general updates and are responsible to initiate timely updates, which are announced on the journal announcement page and is shared to all through various means, methods and media. The editor takes the responsibility of announcement of call for submission of manuscript from every interested author(s) from various disciplines
Other duties that editors perform and take responsibilities are with improvement of paper by making it readable and understandable to all readers. In some cases, the editor can/may suggest the authors to language edit if the author is not a native English-speaking individual.
With every issue, editorial column is published to briefly address the content of publication that has published in its current issue. For the development of journal, the editor(s) initiates the strategic option to build academic partners for promotional activities, development and growth.
Publication ethics and malpractices
The paper submitted to the journal must meet the scientific and publication standard. The contribution of author and co-authors must be significantly reflected in the paper. Any conflict of interest between the author and co-authors can lead the paper towards withdrawal category. Moreover, it is the responsibilities of the author and the co-authors to maintain the publication ethic and norms. The ethical consideration is a moral practice that all author and co-author(s) are obliged to follow starting from writing of manuscript/articles, submission, abiding peer review, revising, pre-publication and to the post-publication of their manuscript.
The manuscript that is published with the JIS although copyright is with the author(s), the same paper must not be submitted or published with the other journal. Importantly, while maintaining the ethical consideration and practices, authors and co-author(s) must not submit their paper that is being considered for publication elsewhere at another academic journal platform both online and print. This is considered as an unethical behaviour and in doing so, the journal will not consider the paper from these author(s) and Co-authors in future in any circumstance and will be in a category of blacklisted upon malpractice and practicing unethical and reflecting the dysfunctional behaviour.