Policy

International Journal of Kashmir Studies (IJKS) is an open-access peer-reviewed journal published on a biannual basis. IJKS is committed to publishing high-quality studies in computing and related fields and is widely circulated, both nationally and internationally.
ICR follows guidelines and policies of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and HEC guidelines and policies.

  1. Editorial and Peer Review Policy
    2. Publication Charge Policy
    3. Publication Malpractice Statement
    4. Authorship Policy                                                                                                                                                      a. Authorship Credit
    b. Changes in Authorship
    c. Order of Authors
    d. Guest Authorship
    e. Anonymous Authorship
    f. Acknowledgment
    g. Contributors
    h. Duplicate Submission
    i. Citation Manipulation                                                                                                                                                  5. Accessibility Policy                                                                                                                                                    6. Corrections and Retraction Policy                                                                                                          7.Conflict of Interests Policy                                                                                                                                     8. Ethical Policy

 

  1. Editorial and Peer Review Process

All submissions are screened using Turnitin – similarity detection software. The Journal of Kashmir Studies follows a strict zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism. Articles shortlisted by the Editorial Board undergo three double-blind peer reviews (one national and two international). During this stage, articles may not be approved for publication by the referees. However, if they are found suitable for the Journal, reviewers may recommend either major or minor changes in the manuscript. The revision process might comprise multiple rounds. Peer review timelines vary depending on reviewer availability and responsiveness.

  1. Publication Charge Policy
    All articles published in our journals are open access and freely available online, after the publication

The journal does not charge an article submission/ Publication fee.


Authors do not pay Article submission Charge(ASC)  Processing Charge (APC) and Article Publication Fee (APF) to cover the costs of peer review administration and management, professional production of articles in PDF and other formats, and dissemination of published papers in various venues, in addition to other publishing functions.
All the expenses are borne by its publisher, the University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. There are no charges for rejected 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.

  1. Publication Malpractice Statement

International Journal of Kashmir studies (IJKS) and its publisher follow the ethical guidelines for publication outlined by the COPE (Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers) as well as the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. In view of that, the authors, the reviewers, and the editors are expected to follow the best-practice guidelines:

HEC Guidelines: https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/services/faculty/SSAH/Docu-ments/JCR/HEC%20Approved%20Ethical%20Guidelines.pdf

  1. Authorship Policy                                                                                                                                            a.Authorship Credit

Authorship credit is only provided to significant contributors; those that have developed the article.

The corresponding author has the responsibility to assign co-authors to the article. It is also the task of the corresponding author to ensure the final version of the article has been approved by all those involved. Besides authors and co-authors, other individuals who have added to the research in an important manner should be listed under the acknowledgment section of the article. Discussed in further detail under the acknowledgment section

b. Amendments in Authorship after submission

It is the responsibility of the author submitting the article to ensure that all author names are included at the time of submission. Any additions, eliminations, and alterations in author names shall not be allowed without the approval of the Journal Editor for articles already approved for publication. It may be noted that amendments will only be entertained under extraordinary circumstances. Following a request for amendment, the publication of the article will be put on hold. However, in case the article has been published in an online issue no requests will be accepted. The procedure for requesting amendments in authorship is as follows:

  1. The request must be addressed to the Editor.
  2. It must state why the amendment is necessary and discuss in detail the nature of the amendments being requested.
  3. Written evidence of consent must accompany the request. Clearly stating acceptance of the proposed amendments from all parties involved i.e. all co-authors and any new authors. Consent can be in the form of emails and/or letters                                                                                                                                

 c. Order of Author Names

In order to eliminate any incongruities before submission to the journal; The author submitting the article must get approval from all involved as to the order of names appearing on the article, prior to submission. It is the responsibility of the authors to have a mutual agreement on the order of the authors before submitting the article to the journal. Any such incongruities must be ruled out before submission.

d. Guest Authors

It is stated that IJKS does not recognize guest authorship and hence does not allow it on the articles, as guest authors do not make any important additions to the research.

e. Anonymous Authors:

To ensure transparency and accountability of research no articles are allowed to be published anonymously or under aliases. However, under very rare circumstances, this may be allowed only if the publication may result in a threat to the author’s life, personal safety, or loss of employment. It is at the discretion of the Editor to publish anonymous material.

f. Acknowledgment section

This section may include the names and assistance of individuals who facilitated the research/study in a significant way but due to the journal policy could not be added as authors.

g. Contributors to the article.

It is expected and recommended that only those who have made an actual material impact in the research be listed by name in the manuscript submitted to the journal.

h. Duplicate work

Studies that have already been published in another journal or on another platform will be considered duplicate in nature. The same is true for work that is already submitted and under review at another place for publication. However in case an author uses own previous work, it must be cited and the onus is on them to establish novelty and value addition of this work specifically with regards to their previous work.

i. Citation Manipulation

 Manuscripts that contain references specifically inserted to increase the number of citations or references that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article will be categorized as citation manipulation.

  1. Accessibility Policy
    We are committed to continuously enhance the accessibility of our published database to maximize readability without any interruption. We process all our articles through the Open Journal System (OJS) that automatically generates the files in ‘HTML’ and converts those that are not in the desired format, making our files easily accessible on the web to all kinds of users.
    Open Access Statement
    This is an open-access journal which means 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.
    All articles are available on the internet to all users immediately upon publication. Non-commercial and commercial use and distribution in any medium are permitted, provided the author and the journal are properly credited.
  2. Corrections and Retraction Policy
    Authors who discover errors in articles they have published should have the corresponding author contact the journal’s editorial office with a detailed description of the correction that is needed. Corrigenda (corrections of author’s errors) and errata (corrections of publisher’s errors) will be published at no charge to the authors. Requests for corrections that affect the interpretation or conclusions of a published article will be reviewed by the editors.
    An article may be retracted when the integrity of the published work is substantially undermined owing to errors in the conduct, analysis, and/or reporting of the study. Violation of publication or research ethics may also result in a study’s retraction. The original article is marked as retracted but a PDF version remains available to readers, and the retraction statement is bi-directionally linked to the original published paper. Retraction statements will typically include a statement of assent or dissent from the authors.
    In exceptional circumstances, the editorial office reserves the right to remove an article from the journal’s online platforms. Such action may be taken when (i) the editorial office has been advised that content is defamatory, infringes a third party’s intellectual property right, right to privacy, or another legal right, or is otherwise unlawful; (ii) a court or government order has been issued, or is likely to be issued, requiring removal of such content; (iii) content, if acted upon, would pose an immediate and serious risk to health. Removal may be temporary or permanent. Bibliographic metadata (e.g. title and authors) will be retained and will be accompanied by a statement explaining why the content has been removed regularly.
  1. Conflict of Interests Policy

This refers to the formal conflict of interest policy adopted by IJKS. The journal defines Conflict of interest as stated by COPE.

In its Guidelines on Good Publication Practice (2003) the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) states that: “Conflicts of interest arise when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgments on what is published. When revealed later, they have been described as those that would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived.”

The Journal requires a formal declaration of conflicting interests allowing a statement to be made within the published article to cover a potential conflict of interest situation should it affect the author’s research.

A potential conflict of interest influences one's judgment or actions. This conflict of interest can arise from relationships, allegiances, or hostilities to particular groups, organizations, or interests.

A fair evaluation of all articles is undertaken by the journal and not rejected in the event competing interests are declared. In the event that editors are publishing their editorials for the journal the same obligations equally apply to the editors or guest editors as well.

Below is a list of non-exhaustive conflict of interest examples for guidance:

  1. Fees received for consultations
  2. Received research funding
  3. Employment in a related company.
  4. Holding stocks or shares in a company that might be affected by the publication of your paper.
  5. Receiving reimbursement funds against the attendance of related symposia or talks.

In addition to the above list if the author feels the reader may feel the research was affected by any other interests then they may be declared as well. It may be noted that disclosure of financial arrangement details is not necessary when declaring competing interests*

*No Conflict of Interest Statement will appear in the journal that does not require a declaration of conflicting interests. Where a declaration is required the disclosure information must be specific and include any financial relationship that all authors of the article have with any sponsoring organization and the for-profit interests the organization represents, and with any for-profit product discussed or implied in the text of the article.

Declaration of Conflict of interests

The following information should be included when expressing any conflict of interest for the perusal of the editor.

  1. Acknowledgment of all forms of financial support/sponsorship.
  2. Any commercial or financial involvements which appear as a conflict of interest related to the article should be disclosed in a covering letter accompanying the manuscript. A discussion will be held with the editor to ascertain if disclosure of information on all such potential conflicts of interest is made part of the journal with the published manuscript.
  3. Confirm if the author has signed an agreement with any sponsor of the research reported in the article that prevents the author from publishing both positive and negative results or that forbids the author from publishing the research without prior approval of the sponsor.
  4. Certify that the author has checked the manuscript submission guidelines to ensure whether the journal requires a Declaration of Conflicting Interests and has complied with the requirements specified where such a policy exists.
  5. Authors are required to fill and sign the Copyright and Author Consent Form upon submitting the manuscript.
  6. The declaration is to be added at the end of the manuscript after any Acknowledgements and prior to the Funding Acknowledgement, Notes (if relevant), and References, under the heading “Declaration of Conflicting Interest”.
  7. In the event that no conflict of interest exists, the author must submit that “The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest”.
  1. Ethical Policy of IJKS

International journal of Kashmir studies soon will be the member of the committee on publication ethics COPE and conducts its operations according to the code of ethics for journal editors.

Editors and Referees: Three Double-Blind Peer Review Guidelines

Double-Blind peer review means that the identities of both the reviewer and the authors are hidden from each other throughout the review process. This ensures strict ethical standards are followed by the IJKS. Additionally, the editors and referees are required to declare any conflict of interest that may arise in the evaluation of articles entrusted to them. It is also the practice of IJKS to forward papers submitted by its editor or associate editor to another impartial editor, while the author will be unable to identify the reviewers. 

Ethical standards for articles submitted for publishing

Authors are expected to adopt high ethical standards in their research and writing, ensuring that all research submitted to the IJKS adheres to the following ethical standards:

  1. The work submitted must not contain plagiarism. IJKS follows the same anti-plagiarism standards as the Higher Education Commission (HEC) with a tolerance level of less than 19% plagiarism for “Turnitin”. Additionally, all submitted manuscript(s) and/or any material contained therein should not have been previously published in a scholarly journal.
  2. All references and citations by the authors must be cited in Chicago Manual of Style format (16th edition).
  3. In case funded research is submitted to the journal sources of funding must be listed in the acknowledgment section and a No Objection Certificate must be provided from the funding sources.
  4. Sanctioned permission of all stakeholders, who contributed to the article, must be provided at the time of manuscript submission to the journal.
  5. The primary results of the study must be retained for at least five years and may be made available for verification if and when required.
  6. If the published article or any material contained therein is found to have been formerly published elsewhere or in case any misconduct is found, the journal will take the following actions:
    1. Publish a notice
    2. Retraction of the paper
    3. The misconduct will be reported to the corresponding authors, co-authors, employers, heads of department, and funding bodies.

Complaint handling

If there are significant errors by the author the corrections are published as corrigenda and editorial mistakes are published as Errata. Complaints regarding internal procedures of the IJKS will be handled by the Editor in Chief in consultation with relevant members of the editorial board for swift resolution of the same.  However, if the resolution is not achieved the issue may be forwarded to COPE for adjudication.