Policy Document of The Scholar

FREQUENCY OF JOURNAL:

Journal Name: The Scholar -Islamic Academic Research Journal

ISSN: 2413-7480 (Print Version) 2617-4308 (Online Version)

DOI: 10.29370/siarj

Frequency: Bi-Annual (2 issues per year)

Nature: Print and Online

Published by: Research Gateway Institute (ریسرچ گیٹ وے انسٹیٹوٹ)

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION OF RESEARCH ARTICLE:

Articles should contain a significant element of original research. They must not be under review with another journal. They must not have been published. elsewhere (including online or in a different form or different language). Articles must be in complete form at the time of submission, including full bibliographical references.

Language: The language of the manuscript can be Urdu, Arabic, and English.

Length of paper:

The length of the paper should not exceed 30 pages (Times New Roman, 12 Font) excluding tables, figures, references, and appendices (if any). Paper containing more than 30 pages will be returned to the author(s) to abridge. Articles should be typed in double space (including footnotes and references) on one side of the paper only (preferably A4) with wide margins. Authors are urged to write as concisely as possible, but not at the expense of clarity.

Title Page:
Title of Research Article
Author
Occupation
Field of Specialization/Interest
Date of submission
Address:
Name of Institution
Name of Department Full Postal Address
E-Mail Address
Telephone Number
Abstract:

Provision of abstract 150 to 200 words in English langue is essential. Papers in Urdu, Arabic should also have an abstract in English. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.

Keywords:

Please provide 4 to 6 keywords that can be used for indexing purposes.

Acknowledgment:

The author may use the acknowledgment section on the title page of the paper (if any).

Table and Figures:

Present tables and figures within the article, not at the end of the article. Please note that the article will be published in black and white (print), although the online version will contain colorful figures (if any).

References:

All submissions, citations, notes, references, tables, figures and charts must follow the Chicago Manual of Style

Citations in the text: Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Avoid citation in the abstract. Unpublished results and personal communications should not be in the reference list, but maybe mentioned in the text. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Reference List:

References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary.

Examples:

Reference to a Verse of Holy Quran:

Al-Quran 4:59 or Al Quran Surah 4, Ayat 59.

Reference to a Hadith Book:

-Bukhari, Muhammad, al- Jami’a al- Sahih, Dar Ibn Kathir, Beirut, 1987, 2:620

Reference to a journal publication:

John Eekelaar, The End of an Era, Journal of Family History January 2003 vol. 28 No. 1 P. 108-122,39.

Online available: http://jfh.sagepub.com/content/28/1/108.short

Reference to a book:

Mubarakpuri, Safi-al-Rahman, Maulana, Al-Rahiq al-Makhtum, p.107, Al-Maktabah al-salafiyah, Lahore, 1996A.D.

Reference to a web source:

Smith, Joe, (1999), One of Volvo's core values. [Online] Available:http://www.volvo.com/environment/index.htm (July 7, 1999)

Formatting Guidelines:

The articles submitted for consideration must be typed on one side of A4 size paper, with appropriate margins on each side and not less than 0.75 inches.

Urdu/Arabic /Sindh Articles:
Since the Journal is now uploaded on the net, it had been decided that no article typed in Inpage is accepted, instead, M.S. Word Urdu enabled in Jamil Nastilq Fonts, which is easily available on World Wide Web, is accepted.
Font size for body text must be 14.
Traditional Arabic Fonts are recommended for Arabic articles.
Heading font must not exceed 18 font size.
Keeping in view all the above instructions, the article must not exceed 15 pages.
English Articles:
English Articles must be typed with the 12-font size in Times New Roman Font.
Heading font must not exceed 18 font size.
The length of the article must not increase to 7000 words.

Guidelines detailed plan or explanation to guide you in setting standards or determining a course of action More (Definitions, Synonyms, Translation)

PEER REVIEW AND PUBLICATION POLICY:

The practice of peer review is applied to ensure that excellent research is published. Our referees, therefore, play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of the Journal of Writing Research and all manuscripts are peer-reviewed following the procedure outlined below.

The journal follows a systematic review and publication policy.

Acknowledgment: The submitted manuscript is acknowledged by OJS System. Automatically if system failed due to a technical reason, then Editorial team will acknowledge within 5 working days upon receipt.

Initial manuscript evaluation:

The Editors first evaluate all manuscripts. Those rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar, or are outside the aims and scope of the journal. Those that meet the minimum criteria are passed on to at least two experts for review.

Type of Peer Review:

This journal employs a double-blind review process, where the referee remains anonymous throughout the process. The manuscript/paper is sent to two reviewers (paper without the name and affiliations of the author(s). The review process takes a maximum of two months.

How long does the review process take?

Typically, the manuscript will be reviewed within six weeks. If the referees' reports contradict one another or a report is unreasonably delayed, a further expert opinion will be sought. Referees may request more than one revision of a manuscript.

Final report: A final decision to accept or reject the manuscript will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees.

Editor's decision: Referees advise the editors who are responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the article.

S.No	Steps of Submission and Review Process	Estimated Time
1	Submission of paper	When Journal announce call for papers
2	Acknowledgment	Acknowledgment by OJS System with completion of submission of article. if system fails then manually in five working days
2	First internal review *	3-4 weeks
3	External review	4-5 weeks
4	Communication of review reports to authors for minor/major revision **	1 week
5	Submission of the revised paper	4-8 weeks
6	Second internal review (to assess whether reviewers’ suggestions have been incorporated satisfactorily) ***	2-4 weeks
7	Acceptance of paper (on successful submission of revised paper)	1 week

* Paper is returned to authors if it does not meet the basic criteria.

** Paper is returned to authors if external reviewers find that the research paper has serious faults that cannot be resolved through a major revision.

*** Authors are requested for further revision if editors find that reviewers’ suggestions have not been incorporated satisfactorily.

DEADLINES OF ALL PROCESSES

The authors can submit their research paper though out the year. There is no submission deadline.

Reviewing and Editing

The Scholar is double blind peer-reviewed journal. Submitted papers and short communication are evaluated by independent referees or Editorial Board members specialized in the article field. Our Reviewers evaluate submitted material’s scientific significance and novelty, define its accordance to general journal profile, scrutinize its content for compliance with the journal’s publication ethics. After the refereeing process is complete, the paper may be rejected, returned to the author for revisions, or accepted for publication.

The authors are responsible for the contents of their paper or short communication. Editors may request an author, when considered necessary, to elaborate on the content or technical details of the paper. Scientific editing might change format and correct the writing to render it compliant with editorial policy of the journal.

Pictures and graphs are special subject to editorial consideration, as their quantity should be optimal and only necessary in the content of papers. Pictures, graphs and textual content alike are subject to ethical standards concerning authorship and integrity. Additionally, whenever images are included in accounts of research process or results, or in data collections, the author must provide an accurate description of how the images originated.

2-acceptance of articles and publication of articles:

The acceptance and publication of article is based on decision of the Editor of the journal. The Editor take decision in the light of review report received from reviewer.

3- Timelines of publication of issues:

The Journal releases two issues per year. The first issue release on 30^th June of every year and Second issue release on 31^st of every December. The Journal takes at least one month/ 4 weeks to complete the review process after the date of submission. The Journal publishes all research articles in the next issue which are being received in less than 4-week time before the release of current issue.

4-Steps involved from date of receipt of research article till the publication of article:

Authors are required to submit a complete manuscript without details of authors and their institution along with separate title page carries details pf authors and their affiliation.
The Editor/Manager of the Journal assigns manuscript with anonymous author to an editor from editorial board for desk review. The Journal uses an open journal system for Management of the journal. The editor of the journal also has right of the journal manager.
The Editorial board member sent article to editor after desk review/ Initial screening.
The Editor sent to review all those articles which successfully clear desk review and assign two reviewers including national/international reviewers to the article.
The review receives notification on his email and on Open Journal System.
The Editor take decision whether article is fine for publication or not. If the article is fine for publication. The Editor further sent article for Copy editing after receiving two positive review rom authors. Otherwise sent from revision.
Copy editing involves further proof reading of research articles and doing correction inn formatting of article.
Once the copyediting is done. The editor sent article for Production and Publication. A PDF of a research article is being attached on Open Journal System with Abstract and Affiliation details of Authors.

ORIGINALITY AND PLAGIARISM POLICY:

Scholar Islamic Academic Research Journal (SIARJ) strictly follows the plagiarism policy of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan in its true letter and spirit. Manuscripts submitted to SIARJ should be original and must not be plagiarized. Every submitted article is checked for plagiarism through Turnitin software. If the Similarity Index (SI) of the article is above 19% then it is sent back to the corresponding author to revision and bring its SI below 19%. If plagiarism is proved after the publication of the article, that article will be immediately withdrawn and removed from the journal website and the concerned authors will be considered ineligible for publication of their articles in SIARJ.

SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS:

The Scholar Islamic Academic Research Journal has adopted the Open Access Policy. All articles published in the Journal are available to everyone in accordance with the Open Access Policy under the License CCC BY-NC-SA 4.0)., but if anyone wants to request a hard copy of their journal, they can Choose the following subscription types:

Subscription Type	Subscription fee For Hardcopy (Print)	Period			Cost Outside Pakistan	Period
Individual	RS: 3000	One Year	RS: 6000	Two Year	150 USD	One Year
Library	RS: 2000	One Year	RS: 4000	Two Year	100 USD	One Year
Students	RS: 1800	One Year	RS: 3600	Two Year	90 USD	One Year

ETHICAL GUIDELINES:

Ethical Guidelines for the Author(s)/Reviewers/Editors

Ethical Guidelines for the Author(s):

These guidelines are retrieved from Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan manual for “Ethical Guidelines for Journals”, which has been prepared by Dr. Rukhsana Kausar, Director Institute of Applied and Clinical Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore”

Ethical Guidelines for the Author(s):

The following ethical guidelines are obligatory for all author(s) violation of which may result in application of penalties by the editor, including but not limited to the suspension or revocation of publishing privileges.

Reporting Standards:

It is the author(s)' responsibility to ensure that the research report and data contain adequate detail and references to the sources of information in order to allow others to reproduce the results.
Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Originality and Plagiarism:

It is the author(s)' responsibility to ascertain that s/he has submitted an entirely original work, giving due credit, by virtue of proper citations, to the works and/or words of others where they have been used.
Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is not acceptable.
Material quoted verbatim from the author(s)' previously published work or other sources must be placed in quotation marks.
As per HEC’s policy, in case the manuscript has a similarity index of more than 19%, it will either be rejected or left at the discretion of the Editorial Board for the purposes of a conditional acceptance.

Declaration: Authors are required to provide an undertaking / declaration stating that the manuscript under consideration contains solely their original work that is not under consideration for publishing in any other journal in any form.

Authors may submit a manuscript previously published in abstracted form, for e.g. in the proceedings of an annual meeting, or in a periodical with limited circulation and availability such as reports by the Government agencies or a university.
A manuscript that is co-authored must be accompanied by an undertaking explicitly stating that each author has contributed substantially towards the preparation of the manuscript in order to claim right to authorship.
It is the responsibility of the corresponding author that s/he has ensured that all those who have substantially contributed to the manuscripts have been included in the author list and they have agreed to the order of authorship.

Multiple, Redundant and Current Publication

Authors should not submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one journal or publication except if a re-submission of a rejected or withdrawn manuscript is.
Authors may re-publish previously conducted research that has been substantially altered or corrected using more meticulous analysis or by adding more data.
The authors and editor must agree to the secondary publication, which must cite the primary references and reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document.
Concurrent submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal is unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgment of Sources:

A paper must always contain proper acknowledgment of the work of others, including clear indications of the sources of all information quoted or offered, except what is common knowledge.
The author(s) must also acknowledge the contributions of people, organizations and institutes who assisted the process of research, including those who provided technical help, writing assistance or financial funding (in the acknowledgement).
It is duty of the author(s) to conduct a literature review and properly cite the original publications that describe closely related work.

Authorship Credit:

Authorship of the work may only be credited to those who have made a noteworthy contribution in conceptualization, design, conducting, data analysis and writing up of the manuscript.
It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to include the name(s) of only those co- authors who have made significant contributions to the work.
The corresponding author should ensure that all co- authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research should be acknowledged for their contribution in an "Acknowledgement" section.

Privacy of Participants:

Authors must respect the privacy of the participant of research and must not use any information obtained from them without their informed consent.
Authors should ensure that only information that improves understanding of the study is shared.
Authors must ensure that in instances where the identity of the participant needs to be revealed in the study, explicit and informed consent of the concerned party is obtained.
In the case of the demise of a participant, consent must be obtained from the family of the deceased.

Data Access and Retention:

If any question arises about the accuracy or validity of the research work during the review process, the author(s) should provide raw data to the Editor.

Images:

The author(s) should ensure that images included in an account of research performed or in the data collection as part of the research are free from manipulation,
The author(s) must provide an accurate description of how the images were generated and produced.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest:

The potential and relevant competing financial, personal, social or other interest of all author(s) that might be affected by publication of the results contained in the manuscript must be conveyed to the editor.
The author(s) should disclose any potential conflict of interest at the earliest possible stage, including but not limited to employment, consultancies, honoraria, patent applications/registrations, grants, or other funding.
All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed alongside a brief overview of the role played, if any, by the responses during various stages of the research.

Copyright:

Authors may have to sign an agreement allowing the journal to reserve the right to circulate the article and all other derivative works such as translations.

Manuscript Acceptance and Rejection:

The review period can last between 1-2 months or longer and during this period the author(s) reserve the right to contact the Editor to ask about status of the review.
Once the review process has been completed, the author will be informed about the status of the manuscript which could either be an acceptance, rejection or revisions. In the case of rejection, the author(s) reserves the right to publish the article elsewhere.
In case of revisions, the author(s) must provide an exposition of all corrections made in the manuscript and the revised manuscript should, then, go through the process of affirmation of revisions and be accepted or rejected accordingly.
In case of dissatisfaction over the decision of rejection, the author can appeal the decision by contacting the Editor.

Ethical Guidelines for the Reviewers:

Preamble:

Review of the manuscript by reviewers is not only an essential component of formal scholarly engagement but is also a fundamental step in the publication process as it aids Editor in the editorial decision making. It also allows author(s) improve their manuscript through editorial communications. Scholars accepting to review a research paper have an ethical responsibility to complete this assignment professionally. The quality, credibility and reputation of a journal also depend on the peer review process. The peer review process depends on the trust and demands that a reviewer is supposed to fulfill ethically. These professionals are the momentum arm of the review process, but they may be performing this job without any formal training. Consequently, they may be (especially young professionals) unaware of their ethical obligations. The Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan wants to list down 'Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers' so that all reviewers provide their valuable services in a standardized manner.

Suitability and Promptness: The Reviewers should:

Inform the Editor, if they do not have the subject expertise required to carry out the review and s/he should inform the Editor immediately after receiving a request.
Be responsible to act promptly and submit review reports on time.
Immediately inform the Editor of any possible delays and suggest another date of submission for a review report, and
Not unnecessarily delay the review process, either by prolonged delay in submission of their review or by requesting unnecessary additional data/information from the Editor or author(s).

Standards of Objectivity:

The reviews should be objectively carried out with a consideration of high academic, scholarly and scientific standards.
All judgments should be meticulously established and maintained in order to ensure the full comprehension of the reviewer's comments by the editors and the author(s).
Both reviewers and author(s) in rebuttal should avoid unsupported assertions,
The reviewer may justifiably criticize a manuscript, but it would be inappropriate to resort to personal criticism on the author(s), and
The reviewers should ensure that their decision is purely based on the quality of the research paper and not influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations or by intellectual bias.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest:

A reviewer should not, for the purpose of his/her own research, use unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript, without the approval of the Editor.
The data included in the research paper is confidential and the reviewer shall not be allowed to use if for his/her personal study,
A reviewer must declare any potentially conflicting interests (e.g. personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious). In such situation, s/he will be required to follow the journal's policies.
A reviewer should be honest enough to declare conflicts of interest, if, the research paper under review is the same as to his/her presently conducted study.
If the reviewer feels unqualified to separate his/her bias, s/he should immediately return the manuscript to the Editor without review and justify to him/her about the situation.

Confidentiality:

Reviewers should consider the research paper as a confidential document and must not discuss its content on any platform except in cases where professional advice is being sought with the authorization of the Editor, and
Reviewers are professionally and ethically bound not to disclose the details of any research paper prior to its publication without the prior approval of the Editor.

Ethical Considerations:

If the reviewer suspects that the research paper is almost the same as someone else's work, s/he will ethically inform the Editor and provide its citation as a reference.
If the reviewer suspects that results in the research paper to be untrue/unrealistic/fake, s/he will share it with the Editor,
If there has been an indication of violating ethical norms in the treatment of human beings (e.g. children, female, poor people, disabled, elderly, etc), then this should be identified to the Editor, and
If the research paper is based on any previous research study or is replica of an earlier work, or the work is plagiarized for e.g. the author has not acknowledged/referenced others' work appropriately, then this should be brought in the Editor's knowledge.

Originality:

For evaluating originality, the reviewers should consider the following elements:

■ Does the research paper add to existing knowledge?

■ Are the research questions and/or hypotheses in line with the objective of the research work?

Structure:

If the layout and format of the paper is not according to the prescribed version, the reviewers should discuss it with the Editor or should include this observation in their review report. On the other hand, if the research paper is exceptionally well written, the reviewer may overlook the formatting issues. At other times, the reviewers may suggest restructuring the paper before publication. The following elements should be carefully evaluated:

■ If there is serious problem of language or expression and the reviewer gets the impression that the research paper does not fulfill linguistic requirements and readers would face difficulties reading and comprehending the paper. The reviewer should record this deficiency in his/her report and suggest the editor to make its proper editing. Such a situation may arise when the author(s)’ native language is not English.

■ Whether the data presented in the paper is original or reproduced from previously conducted or published work. The papers which reflect originality should be given preference for publication.

■ The clarity of illustrations including photographs, models, charts, images, and figures is essential to note. If there is duplication, then it should be reported in the review report. Similarly, descriptions provided in the “Results” section should correspond with the data presented in tables/figures, if not then it should be clearly listed in the review report.

■ critically review the statistical analysis of the data. Also check the rational and appropriateness of the specific analysis.

■ The reviewers should read the “Methodology” section in detail and make sure that the author(s) has demonstrated the understanding of the procedures being used and presented in the manuscript.

■ The relationship between “Data, Findings and Discussion” requires a thorough evaluation thoroughly. Unnecessary conjecture or unfounded conclusions that are not based on the presented data are not acceptable.

■ Further questions to be addressed are whether: the organization of the research paper is appropriate or deviates from the standard or prescribed format?

■ Does the author(s) follow the guidelines prescribed by the journal for preparation and submission of the manuscript?

■ Is the research paper free from typographical errors?

Review Report:

The reviewer must explicitly write his/her observations in the section of 'comments' because author(s) will only have access to the comments reviewers have made,
For writing a review report, the reviewers are requested to complete a prescribed form (s).
It is helpful for both the Editor and author(s) if the reviewer writes a brief summary in the first section of the review report. This summary should comprise the reviewer's final decision and inferences drawn from a full review.
Any personal comments on author(s) should be avoided and final remarks should be written in a courteous and positive manner,
Indicating any deficiencies is important. For the understanding of the Editor and author(s), the reviewers should highlight these deficiencies in some detail with specificity. This should help justify the comments made by the reviewer,
When a reviewer makes a decision regarding the research paper, it should be clearly indicated as 'Reject', 'Accept without revision', or 'Need Revision' and either of the decisions should have justification.
The reviewers should indicate the revisions clearly and comprehensively, and show willingness to confirm the revisions submitted by the author(s), if Editor wishes so, and
The final decision about publishing a research paper (either accept or reject) will solely rest with the Editor and it is not a reviewer's job to take part in this decision. The editor will surely consider reviewer's comments and have a right to send the paper for another opinion or send it back to the author(s) for revision before making the final decision.
Ethical Guidelines for the Editors

The Editor of a research journal plays an important role in establishing and maintaining the professional standards. Publication of a paper in an HEC recognized journal is expected to be a reflection of quality work of the author (s) and the affiliating institution (if any). The Editor is expected to perform the responsibility towards the journal on its all aspects and at varied stages i.e. from receiving of an article to publishing it. Keeping this in view, it becomes prime responsibility of an editor to adapt the following guidelines while publishing papers in his/her research journal.

The Editor’s Responsibilities:

1.1 The Editor of a research journal should be responsible for:

Establishing and maintaining quality of the journal by publishing quality papers in his/her journal.
Promotion of freedom of expression within the cultural, constitutional/legal framework,
Providing integrity and credibility of the research contributions,
Meeting the needs of authors and readers,
Maintaining ethical standards of their journal,
Providing corrigendum for any correction, clarification and apologies where required.

1.2 Good practices for their job would include to:

Encourage new ideas and suggestions of authors, peer reviewers, members of editorial board and readers for improving quality of his/her journal,
Apply the process of blind peer review in true letter and spirit,
Promote innovative findings in respective field and publishing them on priority,
Promote anti plagiarism policy,
Educate contributors (authors) about ethical practices in research, and
Implement the journal’s policy without institutional pressure and revise the policy from time to time.
Formation of Editorial Board:
The Editor must ensure that the Editorial Board comprises prominent scholars of the field who can adequately promote the journal,
The Editorial Board should comprise of and be responsible for the following:
An Editorial Committee, who will be responsible for providing logistics, and
Advisory Committee, who will be responsible for reviewing the submitted research articles, this committee should have at least 50% representation of scholars from abroad.
May appoint Editorial Board members for a prescribed duration and add or revise constitution of the Board if required,
The Editor should inform new board members about ethical guidelines and their expected role and update the Editorial Board members about development, challenges and any changes made in the journal policy,
The Editorial Board should maintain the quality of the journal because an assigned category by the HEC (e.g. W, X, Y, and Z categories) will depend on the quality of published papers in it. It is the professional duty of the Board members to select credible research work, and
To ensure the smooth functioning of the journal, the Editors are responsible for conducting the Editorial Board meetings on a regular basis (at least twice a year).
Fair play and Impartiality:

The criteria for the selection of research papers must be impartial and the Editor should select academically and scientifically sound articles,
The Editor should:
Promptly respond to the author (s) of the papers submitted for publication, and
Assign a specific number to an article submitted for processing; and pay impartial consideration to all research papers submitted for publication.
To ensure evaluation of the content of research papers impartially,
Disregard the discriminating factors, e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, cultural sentiments, political affiliation, seniority and/or institutional association of the author(s) while selecting articles for publication,
To ensure impartiality of the review process by informing the reviewer (s) that s/he needs to disclose any conflicts of interest regarding the submitted research paper.

Confidentiality:

The Editor must ensure confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the process of double-blind peer review,
Information pertaining to a research paper should not be disclosed by the Editor to anyone except the author(s), reviewer(s), and editorial board members,
Upon reaching a decision about a research paper, only the Editor may disclose or announce title of the study and name of the author(s) that has been accepted for publication. Any other information may only be disclosed with the prior approval of the author(s), and
Confidentiality of the participants of the research should also be ensured by protecting personal information (e.g. identifiable personal details, images, and/or individual results). Editor should declare clear guidelines to the contributors (authors) regarding confidentiality of the individual participant.
Prior to publication, the content of the manuscript should be kept confidential, both the Editor and reviewer(s) will not share or use any part of the work.

Editing and Formatting Guidelines

The Editor should prepare clear guidelines about preparing and formatting of a paper and print these guidelines in each issue of the journal,
The guidelines should cover information related to 'content' and 'format' of a research paper,
Any preferred manual of style (e.g. APA, Chicago Manual, MLA Style, etc) should be declared as a policy decision.

The Review Process

Details about the review process should be declared,
Editor should ensure that all published papers have gone through a double-blind peer review, and at least one of the reviewers is from outside the country.
The Editor should ensure that peer-review is masked in both directions and as such the identity of the author is removed from the manuscript prior to its review in order to protect the confidentiality and privacy.
The Editor should provide sufficient guidelines to reviewers, including necessary information about the review process and provide them a reviewer comment form for recording his/her comments.
The Editor must ensure that peer review process is prompt, nondiscriminatory and highly professional.
The Editor should develop a system of confidentiality of research papers undergoing the review process.
The Editor is required to send reviewers' comments to author(s) promptly and should ensure that the corrections suggested by the reviewers are incorporated by the author(s) in true letter and spirit.
The Editor to critically evaluate peer review practices regularly and make improvements, if, require.
The Editor should maintain a database of competent and qualified reviewers. For this purpose, s/he may use various sources other than personal contacts to identify new reviewers (e.g. referring by author (s), citations and references section in a book/journal), and
The Editor should refer troublesome cases (e.g. in case of one acceptance and one rejection or any conflict arisen after review) to Advisory Committee in order to resolve the matter amicably.

Dealing with Misconduct:

The Editor should encourage reviewers to comment on ethical issues and possible research and publication misconduct (e.g. inappropriate research design, incomplete detail on participant's consent, data manipulation, and presentation).
The Editor should encourage reviewers to comment on the validity of submitted research paper and identify 'subtle (simply copy-paste)' and/or 'blatant (paraphrasing)' type of plagiarism, if, practised by the author(s).
The Editor should confirm plagiarism (carry out objective check through Turnitin) and/or searching for similar titles to the submitted research paper, and
The Editor should be prepared to publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a plagiarized article if it comes to his/her knowledge subsequent to its publication.

Transparency:

The Editor must ensure that multiple papers as a principal investigator submitted by an author should not be published in the same issue.
Only ONE co-authorship is allowed for those authors who also contribute a research paper as a principal investigator in the same issue.
For the members of the Editorial Board (including the Editor), it will only be limited to ONE paper per issue either to submit research paper as a principal investigator or co- author, and
The Editor should adopt authorship or co-authorship policy that will set an example in the scientific community and strictly discourage any misconduct (e.g. forcible inclusion of a name in the author list). Authorship should only be given to those individuals who have substantially contributed to the said article.

Conflict of Interest:

The Editor should not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against which s/he has any conflicts of interest (e.g. resulting from competitive, collaborative and/or professional standing).
The Editor should also apply this guideline on their reviewers and Editorial Board members.
To ensure unbiased review, the Editor should declare a clear-cut policy for his/her own submission and a research paper submitted by an Editorial Board member, and
The Editor must publish a list of common interests (e.g. financial, academic and/or any other type) for all Editorial Board members and editorial staff. This list should be updated from time to time.
To ensure unbiased review, the Editor should declare a clear-cut policy for his/her own submission and a research paper submitted by an Editorial Board member.
In case of article (s) submitted by the Editor, the decision pertaining to the editor's submitted article/s, one of the Associate Editors must take responsibility for the evaluation of the article and information pertaining to reviewers should be kept confidential.

Disclosure:

The Editor must not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s), and
Any information received after the peer review process must be kept confidential and not used for personal gains.

Publication Decisions:
- The Editor should only shortlist research papers which have relevance to the scope of the journal clearly stated in the Journal, using his /her judgment, but without any personal bias.
- After completion of the reviewing process, the submission of revised manuscript, and assessing the quality and validity, the Editor has a right to accept or reject a research paper.
- The Editor's decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based purely on merit, academic standards, and professional demands of the journal.
- The Editor must justify the reason (s) of rejecting a research paper to author(s). This may include:

Failure to fit in the scope of the journal (may be communicated after preliminary review)
Insufficient depth of content
Major errors related to design, analysis, write up and format.
Any misconduct or conflicting factors (e.g. plagiarism, copyright infringement, legal issues, fake data, authorship issues)
- The Editor is required to timely communicate the editorial decision to the author(s),
- The Editors should not reverse decisions in favor or against author(s) on their own.

Establishing a 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.

PRIVACY STATEMENT:

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

AUTHOR AGREEMENT FORM:

Authors of the research article are required to submit an Author Agreement Statement that declares originality, not accepted for publication anywhere, consent of Authors for paper publication in the journal and nomination of corresponding authors. The statement of author agreement must be signed by the Correspondence author.

ARTICLE PROCESSING/PUBLICATION FEE (APC) POLICY:

All articles published in The Scholar are published in full open access. In order to provide free access to readers, and to cover the costs of peer review, DOI Charges copyediting, typesetting, long-term archiving, and journal management, an article processing charge (APC) of 25,000 PKR applies to papers accepted after the peer-review process. Universities Ph.D. Scholars will submit only 20,000 PKR.

APC details for International Contributors:

APC after peer-review process.: $150 USD (Professionals)
Publishing Charges: $ 100 USD ([Ph.D. Research Scholars)

APC waivers and discounts:

There are no Article submission charges right now. All articles would be gone through desk and internal review. The articles selected for further international peer review will be subjected to the charges mentioned above.

Papers whose first authors are based in countries with lower-middle-income economies and with a 2020 gross domestic product (GDP) of less than 200 billion US dollars are eligible for a 50% discount (reference –(World Bank 1st July 2021).

Please request your waiver or discount at the point of submission.

Low-income countries: full APC waiver:

Afghanistan
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Central African Republic
Chad
Congo, Dem. Rep.
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gambia
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Haiti
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mozambique
Niger
Rwanda
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Sudan
Syrian Arab Republic
Tajikistan
Togo
Uganda
Yemen, Rep.

Lower-middle-income countries with GDP below $200 billion (USD): 50% APC discount:

Algeria
Angola
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Cabo Verde
Cambodia
Cameroon
Comoros
Congo, Rep.
Côte d'Ivoire
Djibouti
El Salvador
Eswatini
Ghana
Honduras
Kenya
Kiribati
Kyrgyz Republic
Lao PDR
Lesotho
Mauritania
Micronesia, Fed. Sts.
Moldova
Mongolia
Morocco
Myanmar
Nepal
Nicaragua
Papua New Guinea
São Tomé and Principe
Senegal
Solomon Islands
Sri Lanka
Tanzania
Timor-Leste
Tunisia
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
West Bank and Gaza
Zambia
Zimbabwe

DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:

Conflict of interest is a situation in which the process of research and publication may be corrupted, or its results may be biased because of some other interests of its participants. It may concern any one or more of the participants of research and publication process – the author, the reviewer, or the editor. Conflicts of interest may occur for financial (e.g., employment opportunities, fees or other compensation arrangements, beneficial ownership of stock) or other reasons (e.g., personal relationships, pursuit of academic career, intellectual passion, political involvement etc.) that can reasonably be expected to influence motivations or results of actions of participants of the publication process.

Conflicts of interest constitute a serious threat to the integrity and objectivity of both scientific research and publishing. Therefore, best practice for authors, reviewers and editors alike, is to avoid conflicts of interest situations whenever possible.

All participants in the publication process, who are in the situation of a conflict of interest, must disclose this fact. Of special importance is that if the original research study reported in the manuscript or the preparation of the manuscript was supported by one or more grants, the title and number of the grant(s) and the name of the institution(s) that provided the grants or financial support to conduct, analyze or write-up the study, must be specified in the manuscript.

Editors of The Scholar may use information disclosed in conflict-of-interest and financial-support statements as a basis for editorial decisions. The corresponding author must either notify the editor at the time of submission that there is no conflict of interest to declare, or fairly and effectively communicate all conflicts of interest, which will then be acknowledged in the published article.

CORRECTION AND RETRACTION OF RESEARCH ARTICLES:

The Editor of the Journal sends an email or starts a discussion on OJS Portal to the authors of the article for revision/correction proposed by Editorial board member and reviewers after the initial screening and the final review respectively.

CONTRIBUTION AND CONSENTS OF EACH AUTHOR AND ANY OTHER INFORMATION:

Authors are required to submit details of contribution of each author in title page that is uploaded separately and submit consent of each author in Author agreement statement.

REPOSITORY POLICY:

Author Self-Archiving Policy:

As The Scholar Islamic Academic Research Journal is an Open Access journal authors are entitled to make their article publicly available according to the terms of the CC BY license:

CC BY-NC-SA:

Authors who have published under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license may share and distribute their articles on non-commercial websites and repositories.

Re-use guidelines for open access content:

When uploading, disseminating, or repurposing Open Access publications, the journal should be clearly identified as the original source and proper citation information provided. In addition to the Version of Record, authors should deposit the URL/DOI of their published article in any repository.

We highly encourage writers to deposit the Version of Record when making their paper available under the terms of their Open Access license. This ensures that individuals viewing your material through such repositories have access to the definitive version, increasing the likelihood that your work will be accurately cited.

Because there are so many various ways to distribute different versions of your article as it progresses through the stages of publishing, a summary is provided.

Article versions:

Author’s Original Manuscript (AOM):

What is it? Your original manuscript before you submitted it to a journal for peer review.

What exactly is it? Before submitting your work to a journal for peer review, make a copy of it.

What's the best way for me to share it? You can share your AOM anywhere you like, including on social media, on a scholarly cooperation network, on your own personal website, or on a non-commercial preprint server (for example arXiv, bioRxiv, SocArXiv, etc.). Duplicate publication does not include posting on a preprint server. If you do wish to publish your AOM elsewhere, we ask that you recognise that it has been accepted for publication in the following manner:

“This article has been accepted for publication in ‘The Scholar Islamic Academic Research Journal’.”

Accepted manuscript:

The Accepted Manuscript is created when it is accepted for publication. This version has passed peer review and has been accepted by the journal editor. Keep a copy of your AM for any future postings after you receive the acceptance email from the Editorial Office.

Authors may post their Accepted Manuscript (AM) at any time after it has been accepted (this includes posting to Facebook, Google groups, and LinkedIn, plus linking from Twitter, ResearchGate, Academia, etc). To increase the citation of your work, we recommend that you include the following wording in a link from your accepted submission to the published article, along with the DOI:

“This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in ‘The Scholar Islamic Academic Research Journal’ on [date of publication], [Article DOI].”

Version of Record (VOR): This is your paper's final, definitive, citable version, which has been copyedited, typeset, metadata applied, and a DOI assigned (Digital Object Identifier). This is the version that has been published.

You can use the DOI to link to the Version of Record or post the article PDF on any non-commercial websites and repositories after publication.

Connecting your article's various versions

You may have already shared your AOM and AM in other places by the time your post is published. It's a good idea to link these to the VOR after they've been published, by adding something like:

“This is an [Accepted Manuscript / Author’s Original Manuscript] of an article published in “The Scholar-Islamic Academic Research Journal on [date of publication], available at [Article DOI].”

Article downloads, Altmetric data, and citations can all be tracked and compiled using a link including the DOI. All this information can assist you in determining the impact of your work.

Copy Right Policy/License Policy: Authors sign a publishing agreement where they will have original copyright but grant broad publishing and distribution rights to the Research Gateway Institute’s Journal, including the right to publish the article on The Scholar online platforms. They must transfer the non-exclusive publishing and distribution rights to Research Gateway Institute under the license creative common license “NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)”. Which entitles the journal to share this article on various platforms without any copyright violation and for non-commercial purposes. In accordance with above, as authors grant the Research Gateway Institute, a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free access to this article for publication and distribution in print as well as electronic media as per the conditions of the creative common license mentioned above. “THE SCHOLAR” Islamic Academic Research Journal (SIARJ) is published by Research Gateway Institute According to Journal Policy our preferred license is the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/(CCC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

OPEN ACCESS POLICY:

SIARJ is an open access journal, and it allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of its articles and to use them for any other lawful purpose under the license creative common license “NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)”.