Guidelines For Editors

The Editor’s Responsibilities

  • Establishing and maintaining quality of the journal by publishing quality papers.
  • Promotion of freedom of expression within the cultural, constitutional/legal framework.

Good Practices

  • Encouraging new ideas and suggestions for improving quality of Al-Mīthāq.
  • Appling the process of blind peer review in its true letter and spirit.
  • Promoting & implementing anti plagiarism & journal’s policy without institutional pressure.

Fair Play and Impartiality

  • Will ensure impartial evaluation of the content of research papers.
  • Disregard the all discriminating factors during selection of articles, e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, etc. of author(s).

Confidentiality

  • Confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the peer review process will be ensured.
  • Confidentiality of the participants of the research should also be ensured.
  • Prior to publication, the content of the manuscript would be kept confidential.

Editing and Formatting Guidelines

  • Clear guidelines about preparing and formatting of a paper are available on Al-Mīthāq webpage.

The Review Process

  • Articles are initially scrutinized and then go through double-blind peer review process.
  • Sufficient guidelines along with a Reviewer’s Proforma are provided to reviewers.
  • Sharing the reviewer’s comments with author and incorporation of suggested corrections.
  • Referring troublesome cases to Advisory Committee.

Dealing with Misconduct

  • Will encourages reviewers to comment on ethical issues and possible misconduct.
  • Confirmation of plagiarism through Turnitin and/or searching for similar titles etc.
  • Will publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a plagiarized article.

Transparency

  • Only one paper as a Principle Author should be published in the same issue.
  • Editorial Board Members will only be limited to ONE paper per issue.
  • Authorship & co-authorship policy will be strictly adopted.

Conflict of Interest

  • The editors and reviewers will not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against which s/he has any conflicts of interest.

Disclosure

  • will not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s).

 Publication Decisions

  • Only shortlisted research papers relevant to the scope of the journal will be published after completion of the review process.
  • Acceptation or rejection of a paper will be based on academic standards.
  • The Editor will justify the reason (s) of rejecting a research paper and will timely communicate the editorial decision to the author(s).

Procedure for Appeal
The Editor is responsible for establishing a proper mechanism for appeals launched against:

  • The rejection of a research paper.
  • Objections to publications causing harm to any party.
  • Infringement of Ethical boundaries in any manner.

NOTE:
These guidelines are retrieved from Higher Education Commission (HEC).