Publisher Policy

*(Our publisher policy is deposited with SHERPA/RoMEO. Our RoMEO publisher ID is 3265. Permalink)

We publish peer-reviewed open access journals, journals and magazines and news services.

The publisher policy in Section A is applicable to all our peer-reviewed open access journals European Journal of Sciences (EJS)®, European Journal of Social Sciences (EJSS)®,European Journal of Medicine and Dentistry(EJMD)® and European Journal of Law and Management (EJLM)®.

The publisher policy in Section B is applicable to all our journals and magazines: Scientific European® and India Review®.

The publisher policy in Section C is applicable to all our News services: The India Review®

Section A

This policy is applicable to all our peer-reviewed open access journals: European Journal of Sciences (EJS)®, European Journal of Social Sciences (EJSS)®,European Journal of Medicine and Dentistry(EJMD)® and European Journal of Law and Management (EJLM)®.

1. Privacy Policy

This Privacy Notice explains how peer-reviewed open access journals published by UK EPC Ltd (fomerly UK Education Consultancy Services Ltd), (Company Number 10459935 Registered in England) processes your personal information and your rights in relation to the personal information. Our policy takes into account the Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act) and, with effect from 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

1.1 How we collect your personal information

1.1.1  Information which you provide to us

This information is generally provided by you when you

1. Engage with us as authors, peer-reviewers, editor and/or advisor, fill in forms on our website or our apps, for example to order products or services, to sign up for a mailing list, or to register to use our website, make an application for employment, add to comments section, complete surveys or testimonials and/or request any information from us.

2. Communicate with us by post, telephone, fax, email, social media etc

The information you give may include biographical information (your name, title, date of birth, age and gender, academic institution, affiliation, job title, subject specialism), contact information (email address, mailing address, telephone number) and financial or credit card details.

1.1.2  Information we collect about you

We do not collect any details of your browsing on our websites. Please see our Cookie Policy. You can disable cookies through your web browser’s settings and still access our websites.

1.1.3  Information from other sources

Data analysis partner such as Google who analyse visits to our websites and apps. This includes browser type, browsing behaviour, type of device, geographical location (only country). This does not include any personal information of the website visitor.

1.2  How we use your information

1.2.1 When you engage as an author or peer reviewer or editor or advisor for our journals, your information which you submit is stored on the web-based academic journal management system epress (www.epress.ac.uk) of University of Surrey. Read their Privacy Policy at www.epress.ac.uk/privacy.html

We use this information for communication with you for sending article review requests and for the purpose of peer review and editorial process only.

1.2.2  When you subscribe to our journals or magazines, we collect your personal information (Name, Email and affiliation). We use this information to carry out subscription obligations only.

1.2.3 When you fill out ‘Work with Us’ or ‘Contact’ Us forms or upload manuscripts (for journals) on our websites, the personal information submitted by you is used solely for the purpose for which the form was filled.

1.3  Sharing your information with third parties

We do not share your personal data with any Third party. When you engage as an author or peer reviewer or editor or advisor your information which you submit is stored on the web-based academic journal management system epress (www.epress.ac.uk) Read their Privacy Policy at https://www.epress.ac.uk/privacy.html

1.4  Transfer outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

We do not transfer personal information to any third party within or outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

1.5  How long do we keep your information

We retain information about you for as long as it is required to provide our products or services to you or is necessary for our legal purposes or our legitimate interests.

However, the information can be erased, restricted for use or modified by sending an email request to info@uk-education.com or to editors of the respective journals and magazines.

To receive information that we hold about you, an email request should be sent to info@uk-education.com or to editors of the respective journals and magazines.

1.6  Your rights in respect of your personal information

Data protection legislation gives you a number of rights to protect you against an organisation mishandling your personal information.

  1.6.1  Under the Data protection Act you have the following rights

  a) to obtain access to, and copies of, the personal information that we hold about you;

  b) to require that we cease processing your personal information if the processing is causing you damage or distress; and

  c) to require us not to send you marketing communications.

  1.6.2  With effect from 25 May 2018 after GDPR, you have the following additional rights

  a) To request that we erase your personal data;

  b) To request that we restrict our data processing activities in relation to your personal data;   c) To receive from us the personal data we hold about you, which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you, including for the purpose of transmitting that personal data to another data controller; and

  d) To require us to correct the personal data we hold about you if it is incorrect.

Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and requests may be refused where exceptions apply.

1.7 Contact us

If you have any comments, questions or concerns about anything you have read on this page or you are concerned how your personal information has been handled by UK EPC Ltd (formerly UK Education Consultancy Services Ltd.) you can contact us at info@uk-education.com

1.8  Referral to the UK Information Commissioner

If you are an EU Citizen and are not satisfied with how we are processing your personal data, you can refer us to the Information Commissioner. You can find out more about your rights under data protection legislation from the Information Commissioner’s Office website available at: www.ico.org.uk

1.9  Changes in our Privacy Policy

If we make changes to this policy we will detail them on this page.  If it is appropriate we may provide you with details by email; we suggest that you regularly visit this page to see any changes or updates to this policy.

2. Peer Review and Editorial Policy

All original research articles, short communications and mini or in-depth review articles received by our journals are peer-reviewed. We value peer reviewer’s contribution and the time that reviewers devote in assessing the manuscripts. We consider peer-review as an essential part of the publication process and immensely appreciate the tremendous collective contribution that reviewers make to our journals. We ensure that the peer review process is fair and we aim to minimise bias. Ideally, we aim to complete the peer review process in eight weeks. However, practically this may take up to nine to twelve months or even longer in rare circumstances depending upon satisfactory completion of peer review and editorial process.

2.1 Initial evaluation

The manuscript is first evaluated by an editor and is checked for scope, framework and technical aspects. If approved, it is then checked for plagiarism by the editor before being sent for peer review. If not approved at this stage, manuscript is ‘rejected’ and author(s) are informed about the decision.

2.2 Plagiarism

All manuscripts received by our peer-reviewed journals are checked for plagiarism at every stage of the peer-review and editorial process. Please see Section 4 for our Plagiarism Policy

2.3 Selection of reviewers

Reviewer selection is critical to the publication process. Reviewers are matched to the manuscript according to their area of expertise and experience. All manuscripts are sent to at least two or sometime more independent reviewers selected by the journal editors. In case a peer reviewer is not immediately available, we ask authors to suggest reviewers but the editor’s decision is final on the choice of referees.

2.4 Peer-review process

2.4.1 Papers submitted are peer reviewed in a double-blind fashion (both author and referee names are concealed). Editors, authors and reviewers are required to keep all details of the editorial and peer review process on a manuscript as confidential. The entire peer review process is confidential and conducted anonymously and identities of authors or reviewers are not released. Reviewers must maintain confidentiality of manuscripts. All correspondence with between editors and referees and editors and authors is confidential. If any confidential discussions have taken place between an author, editor and referee, they will remain in confidence unless explicit consent has been given by all concerned parties or if there are exceptional circumstances.

2.4.2 Our journals are committed to rapid editorial process. Reviewers should provide speedy, accurate, courteous and unbiased reports. Reviewers are sent invite email through our web-based Journal Management system epress of University of Surrey (www.epress.ac.uk). Reviewers are asked to respond within 15 days after they receive first invite to review a manuscript. Reviewers should be aware that such messages contain confidential information and should be treated as such. If the reviewers are unable to review due to time constraints or if a reviewer feels they are not qualified to evaluate a particular manuscript, they may decline the invite request and may suggest alternative reviewers.Reviewers must inform the journal promptly if their circumstances change after they have accepted to review a manuscript. A first reminder for submitting report is sent after lapse of 15 days. If selected reviewers do not return the report in the stipulated time, editor will match and select a third reviewer and so on. Editor may ask the authors to suggest reviewers, however, editor will take the final decision on choice the reviewers. Reviewers must do the review themselves without involving another person.

2.4.3 Reviewers are provided with access to Crossref Similarity Check Services (iThenticate) to assist them in conducting plagiarism checks on the manuscripts.

2.2.4 Reviewers are asked to submit their reports via our secure and user-friendly web-based journal management system epress (www.epress.ac.uk) by following the link provided in the editor’s invite email.

2.2.5 Reviewers evaluate a manuscript and then submit their report online on an epress link provided to them in the invite email. Their recommendations are one of the following:

• Accept (manuscript can be accepted without any changes)
• Minor Revisions (manuscript can be accepted after the author makes some minor revisions)
• Revise and Resubmit (manuscript needs to be revised and resubmitted making major revisions)
• Reject (manuscripts is rejected and reasons are provided to author for any likely resubmission)

2.4.6 Reviews should do objective evaluations of the research. The main purpose of the review is to provide the editors with the information needed to reach a decision but the review should also instruct the authors on how they can strengthen their paper to the point where it may be acceptable. Reviewers must be constructive and courteous. A negative review should explain to the authors the major weaknesses of their manuscript so that the authors can improve their manuscripts and decide to resubmit later. Reviewers are thus welcome to give a recommendation but their comments which include the information on which the decision should be based are most useful for editors to evaluate and take a final decision on the manuscript. Providing arguments for and against publication for a manuscript is more helpful to the editors than a direct recommendation.

In their online report in epress reviewers are asked to submit
(i) comments for author(s)
(ii) comments for editor(s)
Reviewers are encouraged to have same tone for both sets of comments.

The sections of the report include the following:
(i) Please provide information on plagiarism
(ii) Please provide some constructively expressed feedback for the author, designed to help them revise or rewrite the article for this journal or another.
(iii) Has the author sufficiently taken advantage of the opportunities available through electronic publication (e.g. access to program code or data; colour illustrations; animations)? If not, have you any suggestions that could be forwarded to the author

Reviewer’s recommendation should be congruent with the comments provided in the review report. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate and no defamatory or derogatory language should be used in the comments.

2.5 Criteria for publication

To be published in our journals, we encourage reviewers to evaluate a paper such that it meets the following general criteria:

a. The work described is novel
b. Authors have provided strong evidence for its conclusions.
c. The work is of significant important for the relevant field and also interesting for other related fields.

Referees are expected to identify flaws and also suggest improvements.

Editors mediate all communication exchanges between authors and referees during the entire peer review process (i.e. prior to publication of the manuscript). If at any stage agreement cannot be reached then the editors may consider inviting comments from additional reviewer(s) if needed.

2.6 Editorial decision

2.6.1 Our journal editors generally take a decision by following a majority recommendation by reviewers. They also evaluate the arguments raised by reviewers and authors to arrive to a decision. Sometimes additional reviewers are contacted to resolve any disparity. At many occasions revised manuscripts may be sent back to reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final.

2.6.2 A final decision to accept or reject a manuscript is sent to the author along with recommendations made by the reviewers, and may include verbatim comments by the reviewers. A copy of this final decision is generally sent to all peer reviewers of the article. We do not edit the report when sending to author and we generally send all referee comments intended to the author. However, we reserve the right to edit the report if deemed necessary because of language concerns. We do not publish peer review reports for articles published in our journals. After a manuscript is revised and resubmitted to the journal, editors may send the revised submission for review again to same reviewers to maintain consistency of the review process. The decision on a manuscript is one of the following:

a. If both reviewers recommend ‘Accept’, the manuscript is accepted by the editors. Following this case, the manuscript moves to Section 2.7
b. If both reviewers recommend ‘Minor Revisions’, manuscript is returned to authors and they are given a conditional acceptance subject to these revisions. Following this case, the manuscript moves to Section 2.7.1
c. If both reviewers recommend ‘Revise and Resubmit’, manuscript is returned to authors asking them to make revisions and resubmit the manuscript. Following this case, the manuscript moves to Section 2.7.1
d. If one reviewer recommends ‘Accept’ and second reviewer recommends ‘Minor Revisions’, manuscript is returned to authors and they are given a conditional acceptance subject to these revisions. Following this case, the manuscript moves to Section 2.7.1
e. If one reviewer recommends ‘Accept’ or ‘Minor Revisions’ and second reviewer recommends ‘Revise and Resubmit’, manuscript is returned to authors asking them to make revisions and resubmit the manuscript. Following this case, the manuscript moves to Section 2.7.1
f. If either or both of the reviewers recommend ‘Reject’, editor will evaluate comments of the reviewer and take a decision of either a) return the manuscript to authors asking them to make revisions suggested by the reviewers and resubmit a fresh manuscript or b) send the manuscript to one or two new reviewer(s) for evaluation or (c) reject the manuscript. The editor may consult editorial board members in arriving at this decision. Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final.

In particular situations, example if reviewer has suggested an experiment which authors are unable to perform because of practical/logistical reasons and authors are able to justify it, then suitable decision on the manuscript will be taken by the editor in consultation with editorial board members. Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication is based only on the paper’s importance, novelty, and clarity and the relevance of the study. Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final.

2.7 Notification to the author(s)

The final decision regarding a manuscript is sent to the author along with recommendations made by the reviewers along with verbatim comments by the reviewers. A copy of this final decision is generally sent to all peer reviewers of the manuscript. We do not edit the review report when sending to the author and we generally send all reviewer comments intended to the author. However, we reserve the right to edit the report if deemed necessary because of language concerns. We do not publish peer review reports for articles published in our journals.

2.7.1 Revision and Resubmission of manuscripts

Authors will resubmit the revised manuscript along with point by point response to the issues raised by the reviewers. Editor will normally send the revised submission and the author responses for review again to same two reviewers for their further recommendation and to maintain consistency of the review process.

a) If recommendation is ‘Accept’ the manuscript will be accepted b) If recommendation is ‘Minor Revision’ the manuscript will go back to Section 2.6.2 d
c) If recommendation is ‘Revise and Resubmit’ the manuscript will go back to Section 2.6.2 e
d) If recommendation is ‘Reject’ the manuscript will go back to Section 2.6.2 e and editor will take a decision in consultation with editorial board members. Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final.

Once authors return the second revised (if any) of manuscript, editor will take a final editorial decision on the manuscript in consultation with Editor-in-chief. Authors will be informed of the decision.

2.7.2 Appeals

Authors have a right to appeal editorial decisions taken by our peer-reviewed journals. The author should submit the grounds for their appeal to the editorial office through email. Authors are discouraged from directly contacting any editorial board members or editors with their appeals. Following an appeal, all editorial decisions are conclusive and final decision rests with the Editor-in-chief.

2.7.3 Proofing and Acceptance

After peer review is complete and authors have been informed, the manuscript is formally accepted. This date is the original ‘Data of Acceptance’. The final proofs are now sent to authors for correction of minor errors and grammar only. No other change is allowed at the proofing stage. We reserve the right to set the size of images and tables etc in the manuscript in its published form. The final accepted manuscript is assigned a DOI.

2.8 Retraction Policy

See Section 5 for our Retraction policy

2.9 Editorial Advisory Board

The Editorial Advisory Board of our journals is suitable for well networked academics of standing in their fields whose judgements are highly regarded within their discipline, have good track record of publication and have sound academic aptitude. The members of Editorial Advisory Board of have the following responsibilities:

• To support editors in the review process by providing suggestions and/or opinions on submitted papers.
• To provide guidance and advise to editors from time to time on journal policy, scope and content.
• To contribute in promotion and development of the journal inter alia, by endorsing it to academics and institutions
• To participate in the meetings of the board
• To recommend suitable measures for improvement of the journal

This membership is a voluntary position with no remuneration attached to the role.

3. Submission Policy

All authors must read and agree to terms in our Submission Policy before submitting a manuscript to our peer reviewed journals

3.1 Manuscript Submission

All author(s) who submit manuscript to our peer-reviewed journals must agree to the points below.

3.1.1 Scope

European Journal of Sciences (EJS)® covers all scientific areas including but not limited to physical sciences, biological sciences, chemical sciences, mathematical sciences, computer sciences, engineering sciences, environmental sciences and earth sciences. For example, in biological sciences, the topics may include but not limited to Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Biophysics, Physics, Physical Chemistry, Chemical Sciences, Immunology, Genomics and Proteomics, Cellular Biology, Plant Biology, Animal Biology, Human Biology and Genetics.

European Journal of Social Sciences (EJSS)® covers all areas of social sciences including but not limited to anthropology, archaeology, behavioural sciences, criminology, cultural studies, demography, developmental studies, economics, education, gender studies, geography, gerontology, history, international studies, linguistics, media studies, philosophy, political sciences, psychology, public administration, rural and urban studies, social work, sociology and sustainability studies.

European Journal of Law and Management (EJLM)® covers all areas of law and management. We cover all areas of law including but not limited to Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, Civil or Common Law, Criminal Law, Family Law, Constitutional Law, Property laws, Commercial Law, Corporate and Insolvency Law, Banking and Finance Law, Insurance Law, Taxation Law, Environmental Law, Human Rights Law, Immigration Law, Intellectual Property Law, International Law and Dispute Resolution, European Law, Energy Law, Oil & Gas Law, Media Law, Medical Law and Ethics, Maritime and Shipping Law, Public Law, Employment and Industrial law and Entertainment Law. Similarly, we cover all areas of management including but not limited to Business Management, International Business Management, Financial Management, Investment and wealth Management, Actuarial Management, Marketing Management, Digital Marketing, Project Management, Operations, Logistics & Supply Chain Management, Strategic Management, Human Resource Management, Organisational Behaviour, Leadership and Change Management, Entrepreneurship, Events Management, Hospital and Healthcare Management, Education Leadership and Management, Creative Industries Management, Hospitality and Tourism Management, Environmental Management and Information Management.

European Journal of Medicine and Dentistry (EJMD)® covers non-clinical and clinical (speciality and super-speciality) areas of medical and dental sciences. We cover all aspects of medical sciences including but not limited to anaesthesiology, anatomy, biochemistry, cardiology, dermatology, endocrinology, epidemiology, gastroenterology, medicine, nephrology, neuro-sciences, obstetrics and gynaecology, ophthalmology, oncology, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthopaedics, paediatrics, pharmacology, physiology, psychiatry, radiology, surgery and urology. Similarly, in dental sciences we cover all areas including but not limited to oral pathology, oral medicine, prosthodontics, endodontics, implantology, restorative dentistry, preventive dentistry, orthodontics, periodontology, and paediatric dentistry.

3.1.2 Types of paper

European Journal of Sciences (EJS)® accepts original research articles, mini or in-depth reviews and short communications.

European Journal of Social Sciences (EJSS)® accepts original research articles, case study reports, mini or in depth reviewes and short communications.

European Journal of Law and Management (EJLM)® accepts original research articles, case study reports, mini or in depth reviews and short communications.

European Journal of Sciences (EJMD)® accepts original research articles, case reports or clinical cases, mini or in depth reviewes and short communications.

Articles must be written in English.

3.1.3 Criteria for submission

3.1.3.1 Author can submit work on any topic mentioned in the scope of the journal. The content should be original, unique and the presentation must be of potential interest to the readers.

The work described should not have been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis) and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. It is implied that all author(s) who submit to our peer-reviewed journals agree to this. If any part of the manuscript has been published previously, author must clearly state to the editor.

If plagiarism in any form is detected anytime during the peer review and editorial process of the journal, the manuscript will be rejected and a response will be sought from the authors. The editors may contact the author’s head of department or institute and can also choose to contact the author’s funding agency. See Section 4 for our Plagiarism Policy.

3.1.3.2 The corresponding (submitting) author should ensure that all agreements between multiple authors has been achieved. The corresponding author will manage all communication between the editor and on behalf of all co-authors if any, before and after publication. He/she is also responsible for managing communication between co-authors.

Authors must ensure the following: a. The data in the submission is original b. The presentation of the data has been approved c. The obstacles to sharing of data, materials, or reagents etc which are used in the work are minimal.

3.1.3.3 The average length for research articles is 2500-3000 words and for short communications is upto 1500 words. Review articles, case study reports and clinical reports can have varied lengths.

Research articles and short communications should accompany:

Title Page
Main Text
Figures
Tables
References

5 keywords must be provided. Acknowledgements must be added in the end before references. We use Harvard formatting and style for references.

3.1.4 Authorship

The authors who submit to our journals could be academics, scientists, social scientists, clinical specialists, medical scientists, legal or management professionals, industry specialists, researchers and/or scholars who have extensive first-hand knowledge of the subject matter. They may have sound credentials for writing about the topic and would also have made significant contribution in the area described.

3.1.4.1 Author Listing

Authors must meet all of the following conditions and no author should be omitted from the list if he/she meets all these criteria.
a. substantial contributions to conception and design of the study, performing experiments and/or analysis of data;
b. drafting the manuscript or revising it;
c. agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and ensuring that queries/questions related to the accuracy or integrity of the research work carried out are appropriately resolved.
d. final approval of the manuscript version by all authors and tacitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out.

There is no limit to the number of authors for a manuscript. Authors are expected to carefully examine the listing order before submitting their manuscript and provide a definitive list at the time of the original submission. First and last authors are important. Equal contribution of two or more authors must be clearly stated. For non-authors who have proof read or evaluated with manuscript, their names should be included in the ‘Acknowledgments’ Section. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. An email from the corresponding author requesting the change needs to be sent to Editor-in-Chief of the journal which should include written confirmation that all authors agree with any addition, removal or rearrangement. Under no circumstances will we consider any changes in the listing of authors once the manuscript has been accepted.

The author(s) must declare any competing interests.

3.1.4.2 Author Affiliation

The primary affiliation for every author should be the institution/organisation/university where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address can also be stated. If authors are part of a consortium, only the name of the consortia should be indicated and author names can be included in a foot note. Emails of all authors apart from corresponding authors must be provided. Authors must ensure that they provide up to date information about email and address.

3.1.4.3 Confidentiality

Our journal editors will treat the submitted manuscript and all communication with authors and referees as confidential. Authors must also treat any communication with the journal as confidential including reviewers’ reports. Material from the communication must not be posted on any website.

3.1.4.4 Article Retraction

See Section 5 for our Retraction Policy.

If authorship is disputed after publication but there is no reason to doubt the validity of the study or the reliability of the data then the publication will not be retracted. Instead a corrigendum will be issued along with necessary evidences.

All authors must agree that they cannot dissociate themselves from a retracted publication because it is the joint responsibility of all authors when they submit manuscript to our journals. Authors should have no reason to legally challenge a retraction. Before retraction, we will conduct a proper investigation and editor may decide to contact author’s institute or funding agency to discuss the matter. Editor-in-chief’s decision will be final.

3.1.5 Article Submission

Authors can submit manuscripts electronically on our epress page for the journal or send to the editorial team via email of the respective journal.

European Journal of Sciences (EJS)® click http://www.epress.ac.uk/ejs/webforms/author.php or manuscripts can be emailed to Editors@EJSci.com

European Journal of Social Sciences (EJSS)® click http://www.epress.ac.uk/ejss/webforms/author.php or manuscripts can be emailed to Editors@EJSS.co.uk

European Journal of Law and Management (EJLM)® click http://www.epress.ac.uk/ejlm/webforms/author.php or manuscripts can be emailed to Editors@EJLM.co.uk

European Journal of Medicine and Dentistry (EJMD)® click http://www.epress.ac.uk/ejmd/webforms/author.php or manuscripts can be emailed to Editors@EJMD.co.uk

Authors receive an acknowledgment email upon manuscript submission and this date is the original ‘Data of Submission’. Authors can track their manuscripts through the peer review and editorial process at any time by clicking on a link provided to them in acknowledgement email.

3.1.6. Licensing

All articles in our peer-reviewed journals are published under the creative commons license, which allows reuse and redistribution with attribution to the authors. See Section 6 for our Copyright and License policy

All authors are required to agree to our licence requirements when submitting their work. By submitting manuscript to our journals and agreeing to this licence, the corresponding/submitting author agrees on behalf of all authors that:
a. the work is original, has not previously been published and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere; and
b. the author(s) has obtained permission to use any material which has been sourced from third parties (e.g. illustrations or charts), and the terms have been granted.

3.1.7 Timeline

Ideally, we aim to complete the peer review process in eight weeks. However, practically this may take up to nine to twelve months or even longer in rare circumstances depending upon satisfactory completion of peer review and editorial process. Final decision will rest with the Editor-in-chief.

4. Plagiarism Policy

4.1 What is considered plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as unreferenced use of others published and unpublished ideas in same or other language. The extent of plagiarism in a manuscript can be defined as follow:

4.1.1 Major plagiarism

a. ‘Clear plagiarism’: unattributed copying of another person’s data / findings, resubmission of an entire publication under another author’s name (either in the original language or in translation) or major verbatim copying of original material in the absence of any citation to the source, or unattributed use of original, published academic work, such as hypothesis/idea of another person or group where this is a major part of the new publication and there is evidence that it was not developed independently.
b. ‘self-plagiarism’ or redundancy: When author(s) copy her or his own previously published material either in full or in part, without providing appropriate references.

4.1.2 Minor plagiarism

‘Minor copying of short phrases only’ with ‘no misattribution of data’, minor verbatim copying of < 100 words without indicating in direct quotation from an original work unless the text is accepted as widely used or standardized (eg. as a Material or Method), copying (not verbatim but changed only slightly) of significant sections from another work, whether or not that work is cited.

4.1.3 Use of images without acknowledgement of the source: republication of an image (image, chart, diagram etc)

4.2 When do we check for plagiarism

All manuscripts received by our peer-reviewed journals are checked for plagiarism at every stage of the peer-review and editorial process.

4.2.1 After Submission and before Acceptance

a. Every manuscript submitted to our journals is checked for plagiarism after submission and initial evaluation and before being sent for peer review. We use Crossref Similarity Check (by iThenticate) for conducting a similarity check. This service enables text-matching from sources which are either not referenced or have been plagiarised in the submitted manuscript. Plagiarism check is conducted for Title, Abstract, Results and Discussion sections. Sometimes Materials and Methods are included. Subsequently a decision is taken by the editor based on the extent of plagiarism present in Title, Abstract, Results and Discussion sections. However, this matching of words or phrases could be by chance or due to use of technical phrases. Example, similarity in Materials and Methods section. The editor will make a sound judgement based upon various aspects. When minor plagiarism is detected at this stage, manuscript is immediately sent back to the authors asking to disclose all sources correctly. If major plagiarism is detected, manuscript is rejected and the authors are advised to revise and resubmit it as a fresh manuscript. See Section 4.2.4 Decision on plagiarism

Once authors revise the manuscript, plagiarism check is done once again by editor and if no plagiarism is seen in Title, Abstract, Results and Discussion sections of the manuscript, it is sent for peer review. Else, it is again returned to the authors.

b. Peer review

Peer reviewers are expected to evaluate manuscript which has been sent to them for peer review and comment upon plagiarism (in terms of idea) detected by them in the manuscript. Reviewers are also provided with access to Crossref Similarity Check Services (iThenticate) to assist them in conducting plagiarism checks on the manuscripts. They are expected to provide constructive comments to editor about the novelty of the work and any likely plagiarism.

c. Editorial process

If plagiarism is detected at any stage of the peer review and editorial process before acceptance of a manuscript, editors will consult editorial advisory board members and take a decision based upon Crossref Similarity Check and comments of peer reviewers. We evaluate any case of plagiarism on its own merits. We will ask the corresponding author(s) to rewrite the text or quote the text exactly and cite the original source. If plagiarism is major, the manuscript will be rejected. See Section 4.2.4 Decision on plagiarism

4.2.2 After Acceptance

We will use Crossref Similarity Check once again once a manuscript has been accepted. The accepted manuscript is defined as the final draft of the manuscript, as accepted for publication by the journal, including all modifications based on referees’ suggestions, before it has undergone copyediting and proof correction. Open access is allowed for accepted version. The embargo length is set to zero. See Section 6.6.2 Self Archiving (by authors).

We permit authors to archive accepted versions on non-commercial websites. This can be either authors’ own personal websites, their institution’s repository, funding body’s repository, online open access repository, Pre-Print server, PubMed Central, ArXiv or any non-commercial website.

If plagiarism is detected after accepted version has been self-archived by the author, we will ask for evidences to be sent to us. We will conduct an investigation where editor will ask the peer reviewers who had reviewed the manuscript to examine the evidences. After receiving feedback from peer reviewers, editor will take a decision in consultation with editorial board members and Editor-in-Chief. Final decision rests with Editor-in-chief. If plagiarism is found, editors will contact the author’s institute and/or funding agencies. Depending on the extent of the plagiarism, the paper may be formally retracted. See Section 5 for our Retraction Policy.

4.2.3 After Publication

If plagiarism is detected after publication, we will ask for evidences to be sent to us. We will conduct an investigation where editor will ask the peer reviewers who had reviewed the manuscript to examine the evidences. After receiving feedback from peer reviewers, editor will take a decision in consultation with editorial board members and Editor-in-Chief. Final decision rests with Editor-in-chief. If plagiarism is found, editors will contact the author’s institute and/or funding agencies. Depending on the extent of the plagiarism, the paper may be formally retracted. See Section 5 for our Retraction Policy.

4.2.4 Decision on plagiarism

Editor will respond appropriately, proportionately and consistently to the plagiarism detected at various stages of peer review and editorial process. When plagiarism is detected, the editor will take one of the following decisions in consultation with editorial board members. Manuscript can be rejected at any stage – just after submission, before or after acceptance or after publication. The final decision rests with Editor-in-chief.

4.2.4.1 Submitted Article at any stage of Peer review and Editorial process:

a. Minor plagiarism in submitted article – Authors will be asked to rewrite copied text and resubmit article
b. Major plagiarism in submitted article – A response will be sought from all the authors and about who was and who wasn’t aware of the plagiarism. Did the author intend to plagiarise or it occurred by chance or as an error? It is understood that senior authors should not be plagiarising based upon their experience. Editor will consult with editorial board members. Authors will be informed that they should take responsibility for the plagiarism and that editor may contact authors institution and/or funding agencies.
c. Use of images without acknowledgement of the source – Authors will be asked to add appropriate attribution or acknowledgement.

4.2.4.2 Accepted Article

a. Minor plagiarism in accepted article – Response will be sought from author and discussion with take place. Journal will suitably modify the article before publication.
b. Major plagiarism in accepted article – A response will be sought from all the authors and about who was and who wasn’t aware of the plagiarism. Authors will be informed that they should take responsibility for the plagiarism and that editor will contact authors institution and/or funding agencies. The article will be retracted. See section 5 for our Retraction Policy.
c. Use of images without acknowledgement of the source – A response will be sought from the author and author will be asked to add appropriate attribution or acknowledgement. Journal will issue a corrigendum giving the appropriate acknowledgements.

4.2.4.3 Published article

a. Minor plagiarism in published article – Response will be sought from author and discussion with take place. Journal will issue corrigendum and apology.
b. Major plagiarism in published article – A response will be sought from all the authors and about who was and who wasn’t aware of the plagiarism. Authors will be informed that they should take responsibility for the plagiarism and that editor will contact authors institution and/or funding agencies. The article will be retracted. See section 5 for our Retraction Policy.
c. Use of images without acknowledgement of the source – A response will be sought from the author and author will be asked to add appropriate attribution or acknowledgement. Journal will issue a corrigendum giving the appropriate acknowledgements.

5 Retraction Policy

5.1 Grounds for retraction

The following are the grounds for retraction of published articles in our peer reviewed journals

a. False authorship,
b. Clear evidence that findings are unreliable due to fraudulent use of data, data fabrication or multiple errors.
c. Redundant publication: findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing or permission
d. Major plagiarism ‘Clear plagiarism’: unattributed copying of another person’s data / findings, resubmission of an entire publication under another author’s name (either in the original language or in translation) or major copying of original material in the absence of any citation to the source, or unattributed use of original, published academic work, such as the hypothesis/idea of another person or group where this is a major part of the new publication and there is evidence that it was not developed independently. “self-plagiarism” or redundancy: When author(s) copy her or his own previously published material either in full or in part, without providing appropriate references.
e. Research conducted is unethical

5.2 Retractions

The main purpose of retractions is to correct the literature and ensure its academic integrity. Articles maybe retracted by the authors or by journal editor. Normally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or in publication. However, we reserve the right to retract entire papers even after they have been accepted or have been published.

5.2.1 Erratum

Notification of a critical error made by the journal which can affect the publication in its final form, its academic integrity or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

5.2.2 Corrigendum (or correction)

Notification of a critical error made by the author(s) which can affect the publication in its final form, its academic integrity or the reputation of the authors or the journal. This can be either a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading, the author / contributor list is incorrect. For redundant publication, if article is published in our journal first, we will issue a notice of redundant publication, but the article will not be retracted.

5.2.3 Expression of concern

An expression of concern will be issued by the journal editors if they receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors, or if there is evidence that findings are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case, or if editors believe that that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, impartial or conclusive, or if an investigation is ongoing but a judgement will not be available for a stipulated time

5.2.4 Complete article retraction

Journal will promptly retract a published article if conclusive evidence is available. However, if an investigation is ongoing on the article at author’s institution or funding agencies then the editor will wait for outcome and then take a decision. When a published article is formally retracted, the following will be published promptly in all versions of the journal (print and electronic) to minimize harmful effects of misleading publication. Journal will also make sure retractions appear in all electronic searches.

a. For print version a retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” which is signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the subsequent issue of the journal in the print form.
b. For electronic version the link of the original article will be replaced by a note containing the retraction note and a link to the retracted article page will be given and it will be clearly identified as a retraction. The article contents will display the ‘Retracted’ watermark across its content and this content will be freely available.
c. It will be stated who retracted the article – author and/or journal editor
d. The reason(s) or basis for retraction will be clearly stated
e. Statements that are potentially defamatory will be avoided

If authorship is disputed after publication but there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings or the reliability of the data then the publication will not be retracted. Instead a corrigendum will be issued along with necessary evidences. Any author cannot dissociate themselves from a retracted publication because it is the joint responsibility of all authors and authors should have no reason to legally challenge a retraction. See Section for our Submission Policy. We will conduct a proper investigation before a retraction and editor may decide to contact author’s institute or funding agency in such matters. Final decision rests with Editor-in-chief.

5.2.5 Addendum

Notification of any additional information about a published paper which is of value to the readers.

6. Copyright and License Policy

6.1 Copyright on any open access article in our journals is retained by the author(s) without restrictions.

6.2 Authors grant the journal a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.

6.3 Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified. All users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of all articles published in the journal.

6.4 The Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 formalizes these and other terms and conditions of publishing articles.

6.5 Our peer-reviewed journals also operate under the Creative Commons Licence CC-BY. It grants unrestricted, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, indefinite rights to use the work in any way, by any user and for any purpose. This allows for the reproduction of articles, free of charge with the appropriate citation information. This license allows to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon work with the appropriate citation information. All authors publishing in our journals accept these as the terms of publication. The copyright of the content of all articles remains with the designated author of the article.

Full attribution must accompany any re-use and publisher source must be acknowledged. This should include the following information about the original work:

Author(s)
Article Title
Journal
DOI
Volume
Issue
Page numbers
Date of publication
[Journal title] as the original publisher

6.6 Self archiving (by authors)

We permit authors to archive their contributions on non-commercial websites. This can be either authors’ own personal websites, their institution’s repository, funding body’s repository, online open access repository, Pre-Print server, PubMed Central, ArXiv or any non-commercial website. Author does not require to pay any fee to us for self-archiving.

6.6.1 Submitted version

The submitted version of a manuscript is defined as the un-refereed author version, including content and layout, of an article that the authors submits to the journal for formal peer review. Open access is allowed for submitted version. The embargo length is set to zero. On acceptance, the following statement should be added if possible: “This article has been accepted for publication in the journal and is available at [Link to final article using the DOI].”

6.6.2 Accepted version

The accepted manuscript is defined as the final draft of the manuscript, as accepted for publication by the journal, including all modifications based on referees’ suggestions, before it has undergone copyediting and proof correction. Open access is allowed for accepted version. The embargo length is set to zero.

When uploading an accepted manuscript to a repository, authors should include the following acknowledgment: “This is the peer reviewed, pre-copyedited version of the following article: [FULL CITE], which has been published in final form at [Link to final article using the DOI].”

6.6.3 Published version

Open access is allowed for published version. A published article in our journals can be made publicly available by the author upon publication immediately. The embargo length is set to zero. The journal must be attributed as the original publisher and [Link to final article using the DOI] must be added.

7. Open Access

Our journals are committed to real and immediate open access for academic work. All the original articles published in this journal are free to access immediately and permanently from the date of publication. We don’t charge any fees for any reader to download articles at any time for their own scholarly use.

Our journals also operates under the Creative Commons Licence CC-BY. This allows all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, free of charge subject to proper attribution of authorship. All authors publishing with the journal accept these as the terms of publication. The copyright of the content of all articles remains with the designated author of the article.

A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials in an appropriate standard electronic format is deposited in online repository which is supported and maintained by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, inter operability, and long-term archiving.

8. Archiving Policy

We are committed to permanent availability, accessibility and preservation of scholarly research.

8.1 Digital Archiving

8.1.1  As a member of Portico (a community-supported digital archive), we archive our digital publications with them.

8.1.2 We submit our digital publications to British Library (National Library of United Kingdom).

8.2 Archiving of print copies

We submit print copies to British Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales, Oxford University Library, Trinity College Dublin Library, Cambridge University Library and few other national libraries in EU and USA.

More information is available at journal websites.

9. Publication Ethics

9.1 Conflicting interests

All authors, referees and editors must declare any conflicting interests related to the submitted manuscript. Referees are asked to declare their competing interests when they are returning their report on a manuscript. If an editor has a conflicting interest which could prevent them from making an unbiased decision on a manuscript then the editorial office will send the manuscript to an alternative editor for assessment.

Competing interests include the following:

For authors:

a. Employment – recent, current and anticipated by any organisation that may gain or lose financially through publication

b. Sources of funding – research support by any organisation that may gain or lose financially through publication

c. Personal financial interests – stocks and shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication

d. Any forms of remuneration from organisations that may gain or lose financially

e. Patents or patent applications which may be affected by publication

f. Membership of relevant organisations

For editors or referees:

a. Having a personal relationship with any of the authors or an editor

b. Working or having recently worked in the same department or institution as any of the authors.

c. Having recently been a supervisor or close collaborator or joint grant holder with any of the authors.

The authors must include the following at the end of their manuscript: The author(s) declare no competing interests.

9.2 Funding

Funding received for the research work described in the paper must be declared within the publication under the Acknowledgements section. This should include research funds (source and/or grant number), funding of the article processing charge and/or funding for writing or editing assistance.

9.3 Author conduct and copyright

All authors are required to agree to our licence requirements when submitting their work. By submitting to our journals and agreeing to this licence, the submitting author agrees on behalf of all authors that:

a. the work is original, has not previously been published and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere; and

b. the author has obtained permission to use any material which has been sourced from third parties (e.g. illustrations or charts), and the terms have been granted.

All articles are published under the creative commons license, which allows reuse and redistribution with attribution to the authors. See Section 6 for our Copyright and License policy

9.4 Referee conduct

Authors are entitled to expect that referees or other individuals including editors privy to the work an author submits to a journal will not steal their research ideas or plagiarise their work. Our journals require all referees to treat submitted material in confidence until it has been published. Any allegations of plagiarism or theft must be substantiated and will be treated seriously. See Section 4 for our Plagiarism Policy

9.5 Misconduct

9.5.1 Research misconduct

Research misconduct includes falsification, fabrication or plagiarism in proposing, performing, reviewing and/or reporting research results. Research misconduct does not include minor honest errors or differences of opinion.

If after assessment of the research work, the editor has concerns about a publication; a response will be sought from the authors. If the response is unsatisfactory, the editors will contact the author’s head of department or institute and can also choose to contact the author’s funding agency. In cases of published plagiarism or dual publication, an announcement will be made on the journal explaining the situation, including ‘retractions’ if work is proven to be fraudulent. See Section 4 for our Plagiarism Policy and Section 5 for our Retraction Policy

9.5.2 Redundant publication

Our journals only consider article submissions which have not been published previously. Redundant publication, duplicate publication and text recycling is not acceptable and the authors must ensure that their research work is only published once.

Minor overlap of content may be unavoidable and must be reported transparently in the manuscript. In review articles, if text is recycled from an earlier publication, it must be presented with a novel development of previously published opinions and appropriate references to previous publications must be cited. See Section 4 for our Plagiarism policy.

9.6 Editorial standards and processes

9.6.1 Editorial independence

Editorial independence is respected. The Editor-in-chief’s decision is final.

9.6.2 Peer review systems

Our journals ensure that the peer review process is fair and we aim to minimise bias.

Papers submitted are normally peer reviewed in a double-blind fashion (both author and referee names are concealed). If any confidential discussions have taken place between an author, editor and referee, they will remain in confidence unless explicit consent has been given by all concerned parties or if there are exceptional circumstances.

Editors or board members are never involved in editorial decisions about their own work and in these cases papers may be referred to other editors or the editor-in-chief. Editor-in-chief shall not be involved in editorial decisions about his/her own at any stage of the editorial process. We do not accept any kind of abusive behaviour or correspondence towards our staff or editors. Any author of a paper submitted to our journals who engages in abusive behaviour or correspondence towards staff or editors will have their paper immediately withdrawn from consideration for publication by the journal concerned. Consideration of subsequent submissions will be at the discretion of the Editor-in-chief.

See Section 2 for our Peer Review and Editorial Policy

9.6.3 Appeals

Authors have a right to appeal editorial decisions taken by the journal. The author should submit the grounds for their appeal to the editorial office through email. Authors are discouraged from directly contacting any editorial board members or editors with their appeals. Following an appeal, all editorial decisions are conclusive and final decision rests with the Editor-in-chief. See Section 2.7.2 of our Peer Review and Editorial Policy

9.6.4 Standards of accuracy

Our journals shall have the duty to publish corrections or other notifications. A ‘correction’ shall be normally used when a small part of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading to the readers. A ‘retraction’ (notification of invalid results) will be issued if work is proven to be fraudulent or as a result of a significant error. See Section 5 for our Retraction Policy

9.7 Preprints

We are committed to increasing the accessibility of research and ensuring that it is communicated as rapidly as possible. To accelerate this process, we encourage researchers to deposit early versions of articles they intend to submit to a peer-reviewed journal in appropriate preprint repositories such as arXiv.

Preprints may be deposited at any time and made freely available. Posting a preprint on a recognised preprint server or repository does not constitute as a prior publication and will prejudice neither the peer review process nor publication in our journals.

Please note that once a manuscript has been revised and accepted to the journal it is no longer classed as a preprint, and the authors will grant license to publish.

When posting a preprint on a preprint server or a repository, we recommend that you:

a. make clear the status of the work, e.g. that it has not been formally peer reviewed or accepted by a journal (or other recognised venue);

b. take responsibility to safeguard sensitive information, such as identities of the participants (wherever applicable) or the location of endangered species (wherever applicable), and adhere to appropriate standards of reporting and ethical oversight.

c. add a link to the final publisher version, once the article is accepted and formally published.

See Section 6.6 Self archiving (by authors) of our Copyright and License policy

9.8 Data sharing

9.8.1 Open data policy

To allow others researchers to verify and further build upon the work published in the journal, the authors must make available the data, code and/or research materials which are integral to the results in the article. All Datasets, files and code should be deposited in appropriate, recognised publicly available repositories. Authors should disclose during submission of the manuscript itself if there are any restrictions on the availability of data, code and research materials from their work.

Datasets, files and codes that have been deposited in an external repository should be appropriately cited in both the reference list and methods section.

See Section 7 for our Open Access policy

9.8.2 Supplementary material

The supplementary material feature can also be used to upload supporting figures, videos and other small files that do not contain raw data. All supplementary material will be made available on our journal websites under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence, meaning that others are free to share, reuse and build upon the information, as long as they properly credit the original author. See Section 7 for our Open Access policy

9.8.3 Source code

Source code should be made available under an open source licence and deposited in an appropriate repository. Small amounts of source code can be included in the supplementary material.

9.9 Research ethics and animal treatment (wherever applicable)

Articles will be accepted only if they are considered ethically sound in the judgement of the editor(s). The studies should have obtained prior approval from relevant ethics committee and regulatory bodies in line with the Declaration of Helsinki. The authors should confirm that they have obtained informed consent from all the participants.

Authors should include details of animal welfare and relevant details of steps taken to ameliorate suffering in the Methods section of the paper. We encourage all authors to comply with the ‘Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments’ (ARRIVE) guidelines. Articles describing work with animals will be accepted only if the procedures/experiments used are clearly described and conform to institutional guidelines and the legal requirements of the country in which the work was carried out. A brief statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments must be included at the end of the article.

Referees are invited to express any ethical concerns regarding animal experimentation, human studies, conservation issues or potential risk of misuse or maltreatment of animals.

10. Pricing Policy

10.1 Article Submission Charge

Article submission charge is nil.

10.2. Article Processing Charge (APC)

Article Processing Charge or Article Publishing Charge (APC) is payable once manuscript has been accepted for publication. This provides immediate, permanent and worldwide access to the full article text after publication.

10.2.1 The APC covers

a. Editorial process: peer review and editorial support.
b. Technical infrastructure: development, maintenance and operation of journal website.
c. Production of articles: formatting, color charges, page charges.
d. Marketing of the journal
e. Customer Services: responding to authors and readers

10.2.2 APC is progressive in nature based on income-based country classification. Low-income countries are charged less.

10.2.3 The APC is the following: High-income countries* £ 1000 plus applicable VAT Upper-middle-income countries* £ 700 plus applicable VAT Lower-middle-income countries* £ 400 plus applicable VAT Low income economies countries* £ 200 plus applicable VAT

10.2.4 Article Processing Charge or Article Publishing Charge (APC) is nil for manuscripts submitted up till Dec 31, 2018. Applicable APC will be charged at above rate upon acceptance of manuscripts submitted on or after Jan 1, 2019.

*Country of primary affiliation of the corresponding author shall be used to decide the applicable APC.

*Based on Income-based country classification by The World Bank

High-income countries: Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, The, Bahrain, Barbados, Belgium, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Cayman Islands, Channel Islands, Chile, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Hong Kong SAR, China, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Rep., Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao SAR, China, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, Oman, Palau, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Singapore, Sint Maarten (Dutch part), Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Martin (French part), Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan (China), Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Virgin Islands (U.S.)

Upper-middle-income countries: Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Ecuador, Fiji, Gabon, Grenada, Guyana, Iran, Islamic Rep., Iraq, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, FYR, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Montenegro, Namibia, Nauru, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Romania, Russian Federation, Samoa, Serbia, South Africa, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Thailand, Tonga, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Venezuela, RB

Lower-middle-income countries: Angola, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bolivia, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Congo, Rep., Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Arab Rep., El Salvador, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Mauritania. Micronesia, Fed. Sts., Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, São Tomé and Principe, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen, Rep., Zambia

Low income economies countries: Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Dem. Rep, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, The, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Korea, Dem. People’s Rep., Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe

10.3 Waiver

If an author cannot afford the APC, then individual waiver requests are considered on a case-by-case basis and may be granted in cases of genuine need. Editor-in-Chief’s decision will be final.

10.4 Payment methods

The following methods of payment are accepted:
a. By bank transfer GBP (£) to account name: UK EPC LTD, account number: ‘00014339’ Sort code: ’30-90-15′ BIC: ‘TSBSGB2AXXX’ IBAN:‘GB82TSBS30901500014339’. Please quote our invoice number and subscriber number when making payment and send information by email of the respective journal.
b. By Debit or Credit card

10.5 Refunds

If our journals fail to publish an article under the license and open access terms which were agreed upon by the author and if this error is not corrected by us within 30 days of publication, Article Processing Charge (APC) shall be refunded to the author within 28 days.

Under no circumstances will the APC be refunded if a published article has been retracted due to author’s misconduct. See Section 5 for our Retraction Policy.

10.6 Subscription Charges

Print 1-year subscriptionIndividual Issue
Corporate£ 150£ 60
Institutional
-High income countries£ 100£ 45
-Upper-middle-income countries£ 70£ 35
-Lower-middle-income countries£ 40£ 25
-Low-income countries£ 30£ 15
-Personal£ 50£ 15

10.6.1 Terms and conditions

a. All subscriptions are entered on a calendar year basis running from January to December.
b. Full advance payment is required for all orders.
c. Subscription payments are non-refundable after the first issue has been dispatched.
d. An Institutional or Corporate subscription may be used by multiple individuals within an organization.
e. A Personal subscription may only be used by the individual subscriber for personal use. By purchasing subscriptions at the personal rate you agree that the journal will be used only for personal, non-commercial purposes. Resale of journals purchased at the personal rate is strictly prohibited.

10.6.2 Taxes

All prices shown above are exclusive of any taxes. All customers will pay VAT at the applicable UK rate.

10.6.3 Delivery

All prices shown include standard delivery. Please allow up to 10 working days for delivery within UK and Europe and 21 days for rest of the world.

11 Advertising Policy

11.1 All advertisements on our journal website and print form are independent from peer review and editorial process and editorial decisions. Editorial content is in no way compromised or influenced by any commercial or financial interests with advertising clients or sponsors or marketing decisions.

11.2 Advertisements are displayed randomly and are not linked with content on our websites. Advertisers and sponsors have no control or influence over the results of searches a user may conduct on the website by keyword or search topic.

11.3 Criteria for advertisements

11.3.1 Advertisements should clearly identify the advertiser and the product or service being offered

11.3.2 We do not accept advertisements which are deceptive or misleading or appear to be indecent or offensive in either text or artwork, or if they relate to content of a personal, racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, or religious nature.

11.3.3 We reserve the right to decline any type of advertising which is likely to affect reputation of our journals.

11.3.4 We reserve the right to withdraw advertisement from the journal site at any time.

Editor-in-chief’s decision is final.

11.3 Any complaints regarding advertising on our peer reviewed journals should be sent to: info@uk-education.com

Section B

This policy is applicable to all our journals and magazines: Scientific European® and India Review®.

1. Privacy Policy

This Privacy Notice explains how journals and magazines published by UK EPC Ltd (formerly UK Education Consultancy Services Ltd), (Company Number 10459935 Registered in England) processes personal information and your rights in relation to the personal information. Our policy takes into account the Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act) and, with effect from 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

1.1 How we collect your personal information

1.1.1  Information which you provide to us

This information is generally provided by you when you

1. Engage with us as authors, reviewers, editor and/or advisor, fill in forms on our website or our apps, for example to order products or services, to sign up for a mailing list, or to register to use our website, make an application for employment, add to comments section, complete surveys or testimonials and/or request any information from us.

2. Communicate with us by post, telephone, fax, email, social media etc

The information you give may include biographical information (your name, title, date of birth, age and gender, academic institution, affiliation, job title, subject specialism), contact information (email address, mailing address, telephone number) and financial or credit card details.

1.1.2  Information we collect about you

a) When your visit our website to our apps

We do not collect any details of your browsing on our websites. Please see our Cookie Policy. You can disable cookies through your web browser’s settings and still access our websites.

1.1.3  Information from other sources

Data analysis partner such as Google who analyse visits to our websites and apps. This includes browser type, browsing behaviour, type of device, geographical location (only country). This does not include any personal information of the website visitor.

1.2  How we use your information

1.2.1 When you engage as an author or reviewer or editor or advisor for our journals or magazines, your information which you submit is stored on the web-based journal management system epress (www.epress.ac.uk) of University of Surrey. Read their Privacy Policy at https://www.epress.ac.uk/privacy.html

We use this information for communication with you for review and editorial process only.

1.2.2 When you subscribe to our journals or magazines, we collect your personal information (Name, Email and affiliation). We use this information to carry out subscription obligations only.

1.3  Sharing your information with third parties

We do not share your personal data with any Third party. When you engage as an author or peer reviewer or editor or advisor your information which you submit is stored on the web-based journal management system epress (www.epress.ac.uk) of University of Surrey. Read their Privacy Policy at https://www.epress.ac.uk/privacy.html

1.4  Transfer outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

We do not transfer personal information to any third party within or outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

1.5  How long do we keep your information

We retain information about you for as long as it is required to provide our products or services to you or is necessary for our legal purposes or our legitimate interests.

However, the information can be erased, restricted for use or modified by sending an email request to info@uk-education.com or to editors of the respective journals and magazines.

To receive information that we hold about you, an email request should be sent to info@uk-education.com or to editors of the respective journals and magazines.

1.6  Your rights in respect of your personal information

Data protection legislation gives you a number of rights to protect you against an organisation mishandling your personal information.

  1.6.1  Under the Data protection Act you have the following rights

  a) to obtain access to, and copies of, the personal information that we hold about you;

  b) to require that we cease processing your personal information if the processing is causing you damage or distress; and

  c) to require us not to send you marketing communications.

  1.6.2  With effect from 25 May 2018 after GDPR, you have the following additional rights

  a) To request that we erase your personal data;

  b) To request that we restrict our data processing activities in relation to your personal data;   c) To receive from us the personal data we hold about you, which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you, including for the purpose of transmitting that personal data to another data controller; and

  d) To require us to correct the personal data we hold about you if it is incorrect.

Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and requests may be refused where exceptions apply.

1.7 Contact us

If you have any comments, questions or concerns about anything you have read on this page or you are concerned how your personal information has been handled by UK EPC Ltd (formerly UK Education Consultancy Services Ltd.) you can contact us at info@uk-education.com

1.8  Referral to the UK Information Commissioner

If you are an EU Citizen and are not satisfied with how we are processing your personal data, you can refer us to the Information Commissioner. You can find out more about your rights under data protection legislation from the Information Commissioner’s Office website available at: www.ico.org.uk

1.9  Changes in our Privacy Policy

If we make changes to this policy we will detail them on this page.  If it is appropriate we may provide you with details by email; we suggest that you regularly visit this page to see any changes or updates to this policy.

2. Copyright and License

2.1 Copyright on any open access article in our journals and magazines is retained by the author(s) without restrictions.

2.2 Authors grant the journal or magazine a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.

2.3 Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified. All users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of all articles published in the journal or magazine.

2.4 The Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 formalizes these and other terms and conditions of publishing articles.

2.5 Our journals and magazines also operate under the Creative Commons Licence CC-BY. It grants unrestricted, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, indefinite rights to use the work in any way, by any user and for any purpose. This allows for the reproduction of articles, free of charge and with the appropriate citation information. All authors publishing in our journals and magazines accept these as the terms of publication. The copyright of the content of all articles remains with the designated author of the article.

Full attribution must accompany any re-use and publisher source must be acknowledged. This should include the following information about the original work:

Author(s)
Article Title
Journal
Volume
Issue
Page numbers
Date of publication
[Journal or magazine title] as the original publisher

2.6 Self archiving (by authors)

We permit authors to archive their contributions on non-commercial websites. This can be either authors’ own personal websites, their institution’s repository, funding body’s repository, online open access repository, Pre-Print server, PubMed Central, ArXiv or any non-commercial website. Author does not require to pay any fee to us for self-archiving.

2.6.1 Submitted version

The submitted version of a manuscript is defined as the author version, including content and layout, of an article that the authors submits for formal review. Open access is allowed for submitted version. The embargo length is set to zero. On acceptance, the following statement should be added if possible: “This article has been accepted for publication in the journal/magazine and is available at [Link to final article].”

2.6.2 Accepted version

The accepted manuscript is defined as the final draft of the manuscript, as accepted for publication by the journal or magazine, before it has undergone copyediting and proof correction. Open access is allowed for accepted version. The embargo length is set to zero.

When uploading an accepted manuscript to a repository, authors should include the following acknowledgment: “This is the reviewed, pre-copyedited version of the following article: [FULL CITE], which has been published in final form at [Link to final article].”

2.6.3 Published version

Open access is allowed for published version. A published article in our journals or magazines can be made publicly available by the author upon publication immediately. The embargo length is set to zero. The journal must be attributed as the original publisher and [Link to final article] must be added.

3. Open Access

Our journals and magazines are committed to real and immediate open access for academic work. All the original articles published are free to access immediately and permanently from the date of publication. We don’t charge any fees for any reader to download articles at any time for their own scholarly use.

Our journals and magazines also operates under the Creative Commons Licence CC-BY. This allows all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, free of charge subject to proper attribution of authorship. All authors publishing accept these as the terms of publication. The copyright of the content of all articles remains with the designated author of the article.

A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials in an appropriate standard electronic format is deposited in online repository which is supported and maintained by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, inter operability, and long-term archiving.

4. Archiving Policy

We are committed to permanent availability, accessibility and preservation of scholarly research.

4.1 Digital Archiving

4.1.1 As a member of Portico (a community-supported digital archive), we submit our digital publications with Portico for archiving them.

4.1.2 We submit our digital publications to British Library (National Library of United Kingdom).

4.2 Archiving of print copies

We submit print copies to British Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales, Oxford University Library, Trinity College Dublin Library, Cambridge University Library and few other national libraries in EU and USA.

More information is available at specific websites.

5. Publication Ethics

5.1 Conflicting interests

All authors, reviewers and editors must declare any conflicting interests related to the submitted manuscript. Reviewers are asked to declare their competing interests when they are returning their report on a manuscript. If an editor has a conflicting interest which could prevent them from making an unbiased decision on a manuscript then the editorial office will send the manuscript to an alternative editor for assessment.

Competing interests include the following:

For authors:

a. Employment – recent, current and anticipated by any organisation that may gain or lose financially through publication

b. Sources of funding – research support by any organisation that may gain or lose financially through publication

c. Personal financial interests – stocks and shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication

d. Any forms of remuneration from organisations that may gain or lose financially

e. Patents or patent applications which may be affected by publication

f. Membership of relevant organisations

For editors or referees:

a. Having a personal relationship with any of the authors or an editor

b. Working or having recently worked in the same department or institution as any of the authors.

c. Having recently been a supervisor or close collaborator or joint grant holder with any of the authors.

The authors must include the following at the end of their manuscript: The author(s) declare no competing interests.

5.2 Funding

Funding received must be declared within the publication under the Acknowledgements section. This should include any funding for writing or editing assistance.

5.3 Author conduct and copyright

All authors are required to agree to our licence requirements when submitting their work. By submitting to our journals and magazines and agreeing to this licence, the submitting author agrees on behalf of all authors that:

a. the work is original, has not previously been published and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere; and

b. the author has obtained permission to use any material which has been sourced from third parties (e.g. illustrations or charts), and the terms have been granted.

All articles are published under the creative commons license, which allows reuse and redistribution with attribution to the authors. See Section 2 for our Copyright and License policy

5.4 Reviewers conduct

Authors are entitled to expect that referees or other individuals including editors privy to the work an author submits to a journal will not steal their research ideas or plagiarise their work. Our journals require all reviewers to treat submitted material in confidence until it has been published. Any allegations of plagiarism or theft must be substantiated and will be treated seriously.

5.5 Misconduct

Misconduct includes falsification, fabrication or plagiarism in proposing, performing, reviewing and/or reporting research results. Research misconduct does not include minor honest errors or differences of opinion.

5.5.1 Redundant publication

Our journals only consider article submissions which have not been published previously. Redundant publication, duplicate publication and text recycling is not acceptable and the authors must ensure that their research work is only published once.

Minor overlap of content may be unavoidable and must be reported transparently in the manuscript. In review articles, if text is recycled from an earlier publication, it must be presented with a novel development of previously published opinions and appropriate references to previous publications must be cited. See Section 6 for our Plagiarism policy

5.6 Editorial standards and processes

5.6.1 Editorial independence

Editorial independence is respected. The Editor-in-chief’s decision is final.

5.6.2 Review systems

Our journals and magazines ensure that the review process is fair and we aim to minimise bias.

Papers submitted are normally reviewed in a double-blind fashion (both author and reviewer names are concealed). If any confidential discussions have taken place between an author, editor and referee, they will remain in confidence unless explicit consent has been given by all concerned parties or if there are exceptional circumstances.

Editors or board members are never involved in editorial decisions about their own work and in these cases papers may be referred to other editors or the editor-in-chief. We do not accept any kind of abusive behaviour or correspondence towards our staff or editors. Any author of a paper submitted to our journals who engages in abusive behaviour or correspondence towards staff or editors will have their paper immediately withdrawn from consideration for publication by the journal concerned. Consideration of subsequent submissions will be at the discretion of the Editor-in-chief.

5.6.3 Appeals

Authors have a right to appeal editorial decisions. The author should submit the grounds for their appeal to the editorial office through email. Authors are discouraged from directly contacting any editorial board members or editors with their appeals. Following an appeal, all editorial decisions are conclusive and final decision rests with the Editor-in-chief.

Editors will mediate all communication exchanges between authors and referees during the entire review process (i.e. prior to publication of the manuscript). If agreement cannot be reached then the editors may consider inviting comments from additional referee(s) if needed.

5.6.4 Standards of accuracy

We shall have the duty to publish corrections or other notifications. A ‘correction’ shall be normally used when a small part of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading to the readers. A ‘retraction’ (notification of invalid results) will be issued if work is proven to be fraudulent or as a result of a significant error. See Section 7 for our Retraction policy

5.7 Preprints

We are committed to increasing the accessibility of research and ensuring that it is communicated as rapidly as possible. To accelerate this process, we encourage researchers to deposit early versions of articles they intend to submit to a journal or magazine in appropriate preprint repositories such as arXiv.

Preprints may be deposited at any time and made freely available. Posting a preprint on a recognised preprint server or repository does not constitute as a prior publication and will prejudice neither the review process nor publication in our journals.

Please note that once a manuscript has been revised and accepted to the journal it is no longer classed as a preprint, and the authors will grant license to publish.

When posting a preprint on a preprint server or a repository, we recommend that you:

a. make clear the status of the work, e.g. that it has not been formally reviewed or accepted by a journal or magazine (or other recognised venue);

b. take responsibility to safeguard sensitive information, such as identities of the participants (wherever applicable) or the location of endangered species (wherever applicable), and adhere to appropriate standards of reporting and ethical oversight.

c. add a link to the final publisher version, once the article is accepted and formally published.

See Section 2.6 Self archiving (by authors) of our Copyright and License policy

6. Plagiarism policy

6.1 What is considered plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as unreferenced use of others published and unpublished ideas in same or other language. The extent of plagiarism in a manuscript can be defined as follow:

6.1.1 Major plagiarism

a. ‘Clear plagiarism’: unattributed copying of another person’s data / findings, resubmission of an entire publication under another author’s name (either in the original language or in translation) or major verbatim copying of original material in the absence of any citation to the source, or unattributed use of original, published academic work, such as hypothesis/idea of another person or group where this is a major part of the new publication and there is evidence that it was not developed independently.

b. ‘self-plagiarism’ or redundancy: When author(s) copy her or his own previously published material either in full or in part, without providing appropriate references.

6.1.2 Minor plagiarism

‘Minor copying of short phrases only’ with ‘no misattribution of data’, minor verbatim copying of < 100 words without indicating in direct quotation from an original work unless the text is accepted as widely used or standardized (eg. as a Material or Method), copying (not verbatim but changed only slightly) of significant sections from another work, whether or not that work is cited.

6.1.3 Use of images without acknowledgement of the source: republication of an image (image, chart, diagram etc)

6.2 When do we check plagiarism

6.2.1 All articles in our journals and magazines are checked for plagiarism at every stage review and editorial process. We use Crossref Similarity Check (by iThenticate) for conducting a similarity check. This service enables text-matching from sources which are either not referenced or have been plagiarised in the submitted article. The editor will make a sound judgement based upon various aspects. When minor plagiarism is detected at this stage, manuscript is immediately sent back to the authors asking to disclose all sources correctly. If major plagiarism is detected, article is rejected and the authors are advised to revise and resubmit it as a fresh articles. See Section 6.2.4 Decision on plagiarism.

a. Review

Reviewers are expected to evaluate manuscript which has been sent to them for review and comment upon plagiarism (in terms of idea) detected by them in the article. Reviewers are also provided with access to Crossref Similarity Check Services (iThenticate) to assist them in conducting plagiarism checks on the manuscripts. They are expected to provide constructive comments on the article and also on plagiarism.

b. Editorial process

If plagiarism is detected at any stage of the review and editorial process before acceptance of a manuscript, editors will consult editorial advisory board members and take a decision based upon Crossref Similarity Check and comments of peer reviewers. We evaluate any case of plagiarism on its own merits. We will ask the corresponding author(s) to rewrite the text or quote the text exactly and cite the original source. If plagiarism is major, the manuscript will be rejected. See Section 6.2.4 Decision on plagiarism

6.2.2 After Acceptance

We will use Crossref Similarity Check once again once an article has been accepted. The accepted article is defined as the final draft, as accepted for publication by the journal, including all modifications based on referees’ suggestions, before it has undergone copyediting and proof correction. Open access is allowed for accepted version. The embargo length is set to zero. See Section 2.6 Self Archiving (by authors).

We permit authors to archive accepted versions on non-commercial websites. This can be either authors’ own personal websites, their institution’s repository, funding body’s repository, online open access repository, Pre-Print server, PubMed Central, ArXiv or any non-commercial website.

If plagiarism is detected after accepted version has been self-archived by the author, we will ask for evidences to be sent to us. We will conduct an investigation where editor will ask the reviewers who had reviewed the article to examine the evidences. After receiving feedback from peer reviewers, editor will take a decision in consultation with editorial board members and Editor-in-Chief. Final decision rests with Editor-in-chief. If plagiarism is found, editors will contact the author’s institute and/or funding agencies. Depending on the extent of the plagiarism, the paper may be formally retracted. See Section 7 for our Retraction Policy.

6.2.3 After Publication

If plagiarism is detected after publication, we will ask for evidences to be sent to us. We will conduct an investigation where editor will ask the peer reviewers who had reviewed the article to examine the evidences. After receiving feedback from eviewers, editor will take a decision in consultation with editorial board members and Editor-in-Chief. Final decision rests with Editor-in-chief. If plagiarism is found, editors will contact the author’s institute and/or funding agencies. Depending on the extent of the plagiarism, the paper may be formally retracted. See Section 7 for our Retraction Policy.

6.2.4 Decision on plagiarism

Editor will respond appropriately, proportionately and consistently to the plagiarism detected at various stages of review and editorial process. When plagiarism is detected, the editor will take one of the following decisions in consultation with editorial board members. Article can be rejected at any stage – just after submission, before or after acceptance or after publication. The final decision rests with Editor-in-chief.

6.2.4.1 Submitted Article at any stage of review and Editorial process:

a. Minor plagiarism in submitted article – Authors will be asked to rewrite copied text and resubmit article

b. Major plagiarism in submitted article – A response will be sought from all the authors and about who was and who wasn’t aware of the plagiarism. Did the author intend to plagiarise or it occurred by chance or as an error? It is understood that senior authors should not be plagiarising based upon their experience. Editor will consult with editorial board members. Authors will be informed that they should take responsibility for the plagiarism and that editor may contact authors institution and/or funding agencies.

c. Use of images without acknowledgement of the source – Authors will be asked to add appropriate attribution or acknowledgement.

6.2.4.2 Accepted Article

a. Minor plagiarism in accepted article – Response will be sought from author and discussion with take place. Journal will suitably modify the article before publication.

b. Major plagiarism in accepted article – A response will be sought from all the authors and about who was and who wasn’t aware of the plagiarism. Authors will be informed that they should take responsibility for the plagiarism and that editor will contact authors institution and/or funding agencies. The article will be retracted. See section 7 for our Retraction Policy.

c. Use of images without acknowledgement of the source – A response will be sought from the author and author will be asked to add appropriate attribution or acknowledgement. Journal will issue a corrigendum giving the appropriate acknowledgements.

6.2.4.3 Published article

a. Minor plagiarism in published article – Response will be sought from author and discussion with take place. Journal will issue corrigendum and apology.

b. Major plagiarism in published article – A response will be sought from all the authors and about who was and who wasn’t aware of the plagiarism. Authors will be informed that they should take responsibility for the plagiarism and that editor will contact authors institution and/or funding agencies. The article will be retracted. See section 7 for our Retraction Policy.

c. Use of images without acknowledgement of the source – A response will be sought from the author and author will be asked to add appropriate attribution or acknowledgement. Journal will issue a corrigendum giving the appropriate acknowledgements.

7 Retraction Policy

7.1 Grounds for retraction

The following are the grounds for retraction of published articles in our peer reviewed journals

a. False authorship,

c. Redundant publication: findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing or permission

d. Major plagiarism ‘Clear plagiarism’: unattributed copying of another person’s data / findings, resubmission of an entire publication under another author’s name (either in the original language or in translation) or major copying of original material in the absence of any citation to the source, or unattributed use of original, published academic work and there is evidence that it was not developed independently. “self-plagiarism” or redundancy: When author(s) copy her or his own previously published material either in full or in part, without providing appropriate references.

7.2 Retractions

Articles maybe retracted by the authors or by journal editor. Normally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or in publication. However, we reserve the right to retract entire papers even after they have been accepted or have been published.

7.2.1 Erratum

Notification of a critical error made by the journal which can affect the publication in its final form, its integrity or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

7.2.2 Corrigendum (or correction)

Notification of a critical error made by the author(s) which can affect the publication in its final form, its academic integrity or the reputation of the authors or the journal. This can be either a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading, the author / contributor list is incorrect. For redundant publication, if article is published in our journal first, we will issue a notice of redundant publication, but the article will not be retracted.

7.2.3 Expression of concern

An expression of concern will be issued by the journal editors if they receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors, or if there is evidence that findings are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case, or if editors believe that that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, impartial or conclusive, or if an investigation is ongoing but a judgement will not be available for a stipulated time

7.2.4 Complete article retraction

Journal will promptly retract a published article if conclusive evidence is available. However, if an investigation is ongoing on the article at author’s institution or funding agencies then the editor will wait for outcome and then take a decision. When a published article is formally retracted, the following will be published promptly in all versions of the journal (print and electronic) to minimize harmful effects of misleading publication. Journal will also make sure retractions appear in all electronic searches.

a. For print version a retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” which is signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the subsequent issue of the journal in the print form.

b. For electronic version the link of the original article will be replaced by a note containing the retraction note and a link to the retracted article page will be given and it will be clearly identified as a retraction. The article contents will display the ‘Retracted’ watermark across its content and this content will be freely available.

c. It will be stated who retracted the article – author and/or journal editor

d. The reason(s) or basis for retraction will be clearly stated

e. Statements that are potentially defamatory will be avoided

If authorship is disputed after publication but there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings or the reliability of the data then the publication will not be retracted. Instead a corrigendum will be issued along with necessary evidences. Any author cannot dissociate themselves from a retracted publication because it is the joint responsibility of all authors and authors should have no reason to legally challenge a retraction. See Section for our Submission Policy. We will conduct a proper investigation before a retraction and editor may decide to contact author’s institute or funding agency in such matters. Final decision rests with Editor-in-chief.

7.2.5 Addendum

Notification of any additional information about a published paper which is of value to the readers.

6. Pricing Policy

Pricing policy for our journals and magazines is available on specific website.

Scientific European® Details

India Review® Details

Section C

This policy is applicable to all our News services: The India Review®

1. Privacy Policy

This Privacy Notice explains how news services by UK EPC Ltd (formerly UK Education Consultancy Services Ltd), (Company Number 10459935 Registered in England) processes personal information and your rights in relation to the personal information. Our policy takes into account the Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act) and, with effect from 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

1.1 How we collect your personal information

1.1.1  Information which you provide to us

This information is generally provided by you when you

1.  Engage with us as authors, reviewers, editor and/or advisor, fill in forms on our website or our apps, for example to order products or services, to sign up for a mailing list, or to register to use our website, make an application for employment, add to comments section, complete surveys or testimonials and/or request any information from us.

2.  communicate with us by post, telephone, fax, email, social media etc

The information you give may include biographical information (your name, title, date of birth, age and gender, academic institution, affiliation, job title, subject specialism), contact information (email address, mailing address, telephone number) and financial or credit card details.

1.1.2  Information we collect about you

We do not collect any details of your browsing on our websites. Please see our Cookie Policy. You can disable cookies through your web browser’s settings and still access our websites). You can disable cookies through your web browser’s settings and still access our websites.

1.1.3  Information from other sources

Data analysis partner such as Google who analyse visits to our websites and apps. This includes browser type, browsing behaviour, type of device, geographical location (only country). This does not include any personal information of the website visitor.

1.2  How we use your information

1.2.1 When you engage as an author or reviewer or editor or advisor for our journals/magazines.

We use this information for communication with you for the purpose of review and editorial process only.

1.2.2 When you subscribe to our journals or magazines, we collect your personal information (Name, Email and affiliation). We use this information to carry out subscription obligations only.

1.2.3 When you fill out ‘Work with Us’ or ‘Contact’ Us forms or upload articles on our websites, the personal information submitted by you is used solely for the purpose for which the form was filled.

1.3  Sharing your information with third parties

We do not share your personal data with any Third party.

1.4  Transfer outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

We do not transfer personal information to any third party within or outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

1.5  How long do we keep your information

We retain information about you for as long as it is required to provide our products or services to you or is necessary for our legal purposes or our legitimate interests.

However, the information can be erased, restricted for use or modified by sending an email request to info@uk-education.com or to editors of the respective journals and magazines.

To receive information that we hold about you, an email request should be sent to info@uk-education.com or to editors of the respective journals and magazines

1.6  Your rights in respect of your personal information

Data protection legislation gives you a number of rights to protect you against an organisation mishandling your personal information.

  1.6.1  Under the Data protection Act you have the following rights

  a) to obtain access to, and copies of, the personal information that we hold about you;

  b) to require that we cease processing your personal information if the processing is causing you damage or distress; and

  c) to require us not to send you marketing communications.

  1.6.2  With effect from 25 May 2018 after GDPR, you have the following additional rights

  a) To request that we erase your personal data;

  b) To request that we restrict our data processing activities in relation to your personal data;   c) To receive from us the personal data we hold about you, which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you, including for the purpose of transmitting that personal data to another data controller; and

  d) To require us to correct the personal data we hold about you if it is incorrect.

Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and requests may be refused where exceptions apply.

1.7 Contact us

If you have any comments, questions or concerns about anything you have read on this page or you are concerned how your personal information has been handled by UK EPC Ltd (formerly UK Education Consultancy Services Ltd.) you can contact us at info@uk-education.com

1.8  Referral to the UK Information Commissioner

If you are an EU Citizen and are not satisfied with how we are processing your personal data, you can refer us to the Information Commissioner. You can find out more about your rights under data protection legislation from the Information Commissioner’s Office website available at: www.ico.org.uk

1.9  Changes in our Privacy Policy

If we make changes to this policy we will detail them on this page.  If it is appropriate we may provide you with details by email; we suggest that you regularly visit this page to see any changes or updates to this policy.

2. Copyright and License

2.1 Copyright on any open access article is retained by the author(s) without restrictions.

2.2 Authors grant unconditional, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully transferable, perpetual worldwide licence to use, publish or transmit content in any format and on any platform and identify News Service as the original publisher.

2.3 Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified. All users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of all articles published in the journal or magazine.

2.4 The Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 formalizes these and other terms and conditions of publishing articles.

2.5 We also operate under Creative Commons Licence CC-BY. It grants unrestricted, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, indefinite rights to use the work in any way, by any user and for any purpose. This allows for the reproduction of articles, free of charge with the appropriate citation information. All authors accept these as the terms of publication when submitting. The copyright of the content of all articles remains with the designated author of the article.

Full attribution must accompany any re-use and publisher source must be acknowledged. This should include the following information about the original work:

Author(s)

Article Title

Date of publication

[News Service title] as the original publisher

3. Open Access

We are committed to real and immediate open access for academic work. All articles published are free to access immediately and permanently from the date of publication. We don’t charge any fees for any reader to download articles at any time.

We operate under Creative Commons Licence CC-BY. This allows all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, free of charge and subject to proper attribution of authorship. All authors publishing accept these as the terms of publication. The copyright of the content of all articles remains with the designated author of the article.

A complete version of the work in an appropriate standard electronic format is deposited in online repository which is supported and maintained by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, inter operability, and long-term archiving.

4. Archiving Policy

We are committed to permanent availability, accessibility and preservation of content.

5. Publication Ethics

5.1 Conflicting interests

All authors and editors must declare any conflicting interests related to the submitted comments. If an editor has a conflicting interest which could prevent them from making an unbiased decision on an article then the editorial office will send the manuscript to an alternative editor for assessment.

Competing interests include the following:

For authors:

a. Employment – recent, current and anticipated by any organisation that may gain or lose financially through publication

b. Sources of funding – research support by any organisation that may gain or lose financially through publication

c. Personal financial interests – stocks and shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication

d. Any forms of remuneration from organisations that may gain or lose financially

e. Patents or patent applications which may be affected by publication

f. Membership of relevant organisations

For editors

a. Having a personal relationship with any of the authors or an editor

b. Working or having recently worked in the same department or institution as any of the authors.

c. Having recently been a supervisor or close collaborator or joint grant holder with any of the authors.

5.2 Funding

Funding received must be declared under the Acknowledgements section. This should include any funding for writing or editing assistance.

5.3 Author conduct and copyright

All authors are required to agree to our licence requirements when submitting their work. By submitting authors agree to this licence, the submitting author agrees on behalf of all authors that:

a. the work is original, has not previously been published and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere; and

b. the author has obtained permission to use any material which has been sourced from third parties (e.g. illustrations or charts), and the terms have been granted.

All articles are published under the creative commons license, which allows reuse and redistribution with attribution to the authors. See Section 2 for our Copyright and License policy

Authors acknowledge and agree that the views expressed by you and other users in this content do not necessarily reflect the views of News Service. Also, we does not support or endorse content submitted by a user.

Authors acknowledge that the news services shall have no obligation to screen,monitor, review, or edit any content provided to us. We reserve the right to refuse to publish, crop or edit or remove your content at our sole discretion.

5.4 Conduct and intellectual property

Authors are entitled to expect that editors or other individuals privy to the work an author submits to news servive will not steal their ideas or plagiarise their work. All submitted material is confidential until it has been published. Any allegations of plagiarism or theft must be substantiated and will be treated seriously.

5.4.1 Misconduct

Misconduct includes falsification, fabrication or plagiarism in proposing, performing, reviewing and/or reporting content.

(a) Authors must acknowledge and agree that the content submitted is at your own discretion and risk, including any reliance on the accuracy and/or completeness of this content.

(b) Authors must warrant that the content you submit is not obscene, offensive, threatening, harassing, libelous, deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another’s privacy, defamatory of any person or otherwise illegal.

(c) Authors warrant that the content submitted to us does not infringe any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other intellectual or proprietary or privacy right of any party or individual.

(d) Regarding involvement of Third parties, we accept no liability in respect of any content submitted by users and published by us or by authorized third-parties.

5.4.2 Redundant publication

We only consider article submissions which have not been published previously.Redundant publication, duplicate publication and text recycling is not acceptable and the authors must ensure that their research work is only published once.

Minor overlap of content may be unavoidable and must be reported transparently in the manuscript. In review articles, if text is recycled from another source, it must be presented with a novel development of previously published opinions and appropriate references to previous publications must be cited.

5.5 Editorial standards and processes

5.5.1 Editorial independence

Editorial independence is respected. The Editor-in-chief’s decision is final.

5.5.2 Review system

Our journals and magazines ensure that the review process is fair and we aim to minimise bias.

Papers submitted are normally reviewed by editors and possibly reviewers. If any confidential discussions have taken place between an author, editor and reviewer, they will remain in confidence unless explicit consent has been given by all concerned parties or if there are exceptional circumstances.

Editors or board members are never involved in editorial decisions about their own work. We do not accept any kind of abusive behaviour or correspondence towards our staff or editors. Any author of a submitted article who engages in abusive behaviour or correspondence towards staff or editors will have their paper immediately withdrawn from consideration for publication. Consideration of subsequent submissions will be at the discretion of the Editor-in-chief.

5.5.3 Appeals

Authors have a right to appeal editorial decisions. The author should submit the grounds for their appeal to the editorial office through email. Authors are discouraged from directly contacting any editorial board members or editors with their appeals. Following an appeal, all editorial decisions are conclusive and final decision rests with the Editor-in-chief.

Editors will mediate all communication exchanges between authors and reviewers during the entire review process (i.e. prior to publication of the manuscript). If agreement cannot be reached then the editors may consider inviting comments from additional reviewer(s) if needed.

5.5.4 Standards of accuracy

We shall have the duty to publish corrections or other notifications. A ‘correction’ shall be normally used when a small part of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading to the readers. A ‘retraction’ (notification of invalid results) will be issued if work is proven to be fraudulent or as a result of a significant error.

Page last updated May 27, 2019

Partners