International Journal of African Studies
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Overview
The editorial policies of the International Journal of African Studies can be found on the pages listed below. This policy describes guidelines in the publication process of our journals. This policy closely follows the Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE).
Authorship
Authorship provides credit for a researcher's contributions to a study and carries accountability. Authors of the International Journal of African Studies are expected to fulfill the criteria below that are guided by the ICMJE.
International Journal of African Studies encourages collaboration with colleagues in the locations where the research is conducted and expects their inclusion as co-authors when they fulfill all authorship criteria described above. Contributors who do not meet all criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section.
International Journal of African Studies does not require a manuscript submission letter from all the authors, nor do they impose an order on the list of authors. Submission of a manuscript to an International Journal of African Studies means that all the listed authors have agreed to all of the contents, including the author list and author contribution statements. The corresponding author is responsible for having ensured that this agreement has been reached and that all authors have agreed to be so listed, and have approved the manuscript. The corresponding author is also responsible for submitting a competing interests' statement on behalf of all authors of the manuscript; please refer to our conflicts of interests' policy for more information.
Acknowledgment
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section of the manuscript. They include names of people who have contributed technical help, assistance in scientific writing and preparing the manuscript, contributed financially or material support, and institution/department head who has supported with access/permissions, etc. Organizations that provided support in terms of funding and/or other resources should also be acknowledged.
Changes in authorship
Once a manuscript have been submitted, changes with respect to the authorships (example: additions, deletions, change in order of names or change in the contributions) must be approved by all the authors of the manuscript. If the changes are appropriate and acceptable, the editor will require a written confirmation from the corresponding author that all the authors have provided their consent for the change in authorship. The editor also has the right to contact any or all of the authors to confirm if they have consented to the change in authorship. The changes will be implemented according to COPE specifications.
Conflicts of interest
Every author of content submitted to an International Journal of African Studies is required to disclose affiliations, funding sources, and competing interests that might be perceived as sources of bias related to the reported research and/or presented content.
Authors should disclose any funding and contributions, financial competing interests but also any non-financial competing interests.
All authors must disclose complete and correct information about any and all financial contributions to the work being reported. This information should be listed in the Funding statement in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript to ensure transparency during the review process and will be included in the final published work. Non-monetary contributions of goods or services may, if appropriate, be cited in published acknowledgments in the paper.
Confidentiality
A submitted manuscript is confidential material. International Journal of African Studies will not disclose submitted manuscripts to anyone except individuals who partake in the processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted). These individuals include editorial staff, corresponding authors, potential reviewers, actual reviewers, and editors.
Editors, authors and reviewers are required to keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted manuscripts. Unless otherwise declared as a part of open peer review, the peer review process is confidential and conducted anonymously; the identities of reviewers are not released. Reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts. Reviewers should be aware that it is our policy to keep their names confidential and that we do our utmost to ensure this confidentiality. However, in suspected cases of misconduct, a manuscript may be revealed to members of the International Journal of African Studies’ ethics committee and institutions/organizations that may require it for the resolution of the misconduct.
International Journal of African Studies reserves the right to contact funders, organizations, regulatory bodies, journals and the authors’ institutions in cases of suspected research or publishing misconduct.
Originality and duplication of publication
Manuscripts submitted to an International Journal of African Studies must be original, or substantial parts of it, must not be under consideration by any other journal. In any case, where there is the potential for overlap or duplication we require that authors are transparent. Authors should declare any potentially overlapping publications on submission and, copies of existing manuscripts with overlapping or duplicated material should be submitted together with the manuscript as supplemental data files so that the Editors can judge the originality of the material and its suitability for publication. Submission of duplicate content, already published elsewhere, will be considered a breach of ethical conduct and will trigger severe consequences. See also section III. D. “Overlapping Publications” of the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work.
Plagiarism
International Journal of African Studies uses plagiarism detection software to screen submitted manuscripts for originality. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript will be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we will issue a correction or retract the paper, as appropriate. We follow COPE definition of plagiarism.
Peer-review policy
Reviewers play a vital role in scholarly publishing. Peer review exists to ensure that journals publish good science which is of benefit to the entire scientific community. All research/review articles, and other article types, published in the International Journal of African Studies undergo a thorough double-blind peer review. This usually involves review by two independent peer reviewers.
Availability of data and materials
Submission of a manuscript to an International Journal of African Studies implies that materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any scientist wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes.
We encourage authors to ensure that their datasets are either deposited in publicly available repositories or presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, in machine-readable format (such as spreadsheets rather than PDFs) whenever possible. For more information to authors on how to indicate about the source of data and readers who have difficulty in obtaining materials or accessing data, are encouraged to contact the journal editorial office.
Misconduct
All allegations of research or publication misconduct are taken seriously. We will vigorously investigate allegations and reserve the right to contact authors’ institutions, funders, or regulatory bodies if needed. Misconduct constitutes a violation of the editorial policy, journal policies, publication ethics, or any applicable guidelines or policies specified by COPE and ICMJE. Any other activities that threaten or compromise the integrity of the research or publication process are potential misconduct. Suspected cases of misconduct will be investigated according to COPE guidelines.
Ethics and consent
Research involving human participants, human material, human data, and animal experimentation must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing this, including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate, must appear in all manuscripts reporting such research. If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption). Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor considers that the research has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. In rare cases, the Editor may contact the ethics committee for further information.
Self-archiving and license to publish
International Journal of African Studies encourages self-archiving by authors of manuscripts accepted for publication in its journals. International Journal of African Studies implements the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license for works we publish. This license allows users to copy, distribute and transmit an article, and adapt the article as long as the author is attributed. The CC BY license permits commercial and non-commercial reuse.
Corrections and retractions
Rarely, it may be necessary for the International Journal of African Studies to publish corrections to, or retractions of, articles published in its journals, so as to maintain the integrity of the academic record. Corrections may be made to a published article with the authorization of the editor of the journal. Editors will decide the magnitude of the corrections. Minor corrections are made directly to the original article. However, in cases of major corrections, the original article will remain unchanged, while the corrected version will also be published. Both the original and corrected version will be linked to each other. A statement indicating the reason for the major change to the article will also be published. When necessary, retraction of articles will be done according to COPE retraction guidelines.
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