Policy Document

POLICY DOCUMENT OF JOURNAL DULY

FREQUENCY OF JOURNAL,

Al-Safiir is published quarterly, in March, June, September, and December.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION OF RESEARCH ARTICLES,

Manuscript submission at Al-Safiir is online via the OJS only. We do not accept submissions via email, nor hardcopies by hand or post.
A guide has been prepared to help the authors upload the manuscripts on OJS, which can be retrieved.
If you have trouble uploading and submitting the manuscript, email us at editor@alsafir.com/for guidance. The office contact details are given below:
Students Consultancy Home P-14 Marghzar Society Multan Road Lhr.
Telephone: +92 – 3087275875
Timings: 9am – 5pm (Monday to Saturday except public holidays)
Please note that no article will be processed without a cover letter, ethical approval of research, submission form, and processing fees.Upon initial submission, the team confirms if all the valid documents are present and complete. If the submission is complete, a request to submit processing fees is sent. If the submission is incomplete, the article is returned to the author for completion. Authors will have two weeks to complete the submission. Failure to do so within the time limit will result in automatic deletion of the article from the online submission system without prior notice. For this reason, we request all authors not to send the processing fees until our team emails the request.

PEER REVIEW POLICY,

Peer Review Process

Peer review is the evaluation of manuscripts submitted to Al-Safiir Studies by experts in related fields. Peer review enables authors to receive critical feedback from experts on individual manuscripts.
Reviewers evaluate the submitted manuscripts in an objective manner. They express their opinions clearly and support their comments.
All submitted manuscript is kept confidential. Reviewers are not allowed to share or disclose unpublished information in a manuscript.
Reviewers of Al-Safiir avoid evaluating manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest. They contact editors if there is any conflict of interest that could affect their evaluation of a manuscript. In those cases, they can reject reviewing the manuscript.
Reviewers can recommend to author/s any related work that is not cited.

We use a double-blind system for peer review: The identities of both reviewers and authors remain anonymous. Each submitted manuscript is peer reviewed by at least two experts. In some rare cases, we may start a third round of peer review according to the recommendations from editors and reviewers.

ORIGINALITY AND PLAGIARISM POLICY,

The Research Journal Al-Safiir uses turitin.com for pilgrims checking. Its acceptable rate is 18%.

SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS,

A non-refundable processing fee of Pak Rs. 10,000/- will be charged for manuscripts submitted within Pakistan. The fees can be submitted via a pay order, bank draft, or via online transfer. The details will be emailed upon submission of a complete manuscript.

For overseas manuscripts (outside Pakistan), a non-refundable processing fee of US$ 100/- will be charged. Overseas authors can send the fees through bank transfer. Exact details of the account and transfer will be emailed once a complete manuscript is submitted for processing.

Note the following important points regarding processing fees:

Submission of processing fees does not guarantee acceptance of a manuscript.
The publication fees are separate and are not included in the processing fees. Details regarding the publication fees can be found below.
If the article is withdrawn by the author after payment of the processing or publication fee, no refund will be made. This holds good for all authors, within the country and abroad, and for all categories of articles.
If an article is withdrawn by the authors after all the processing have been completed and before publication, the author will have to pay half of the respective publication charges before the article is considered withdrawn and the copyright is transferred to the author.
Withdrawal Form.

There is no processing fee for a comment written in response to our published article.

ETHICAL GUIDELINES,

Ethical approval of research in the form of letters from the ethical review committee (ERC), ethical review board (ERB), institutional review board (IRB), or any other relevant form of ethical approval is mandatory for all manuscripts submitted to Al-Safiir . The only exceptions to this rule include letters to the editor based on some new information, narrative reviews, and special communications in the form of a review. Reporting a case report or case series in retrospect does not require an IRB certificate but a letter of approval from the head of the department or institute on the institute’s letterhead is required. Ensure that you have read our editorial policy on ethical approval.

IRB number.
Date when IRB approval was given.
Permission of time period during which the research can be conducted.
Signature of chairperson of the IRB/ERB with additional designation of chairperson if any. Stamp of the IRB of the institute should be present.
Letter should be on the letter head of the IRB of the institute.

Download the Ethical Approval letter template

We follow rules as per suggested by HEC

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

PRIVACY STATEMENT

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

AUTHOR AGREEMENT FORM

Submission of work requires that the piece to be reviewed has not been previously published. Upon acceptance, the Author assigns to the Al-Safiir the right to publish and distribute the manuscript in part or in its entirety. The Author's name will always be included with the publication of the manuscript.

The Author has the following nonexclusive rights: (1) to use the manuscript in the Author's teaching activities; (2) to publish the manuscript, or permit its publication, as part of any book the Author may write; (3) to include the manuscript in the Author's own personal or departmental (but not institutional) database or on-line site; and (4) to license reprints of the manuscript to third persons for educational photocopying. The Author also agrees to properly credit the Al-Safiir as the original place of publication.

The Author hereby grants the Al-Safiir full and exclusive rights to the manuscript, all revisions, and the full copyright. Al-Safiir rights include but are not limited to the following:

(1) to reproduce, publish, sell, and distribute copies of the manuscript, selections of the manuscript, and translations and other derivative works based upon the manuscript, in print, audio-visual, electronic, or by any and all media now or hereafter known or devised; (2) to license reprints of the manuscript to third persons for educational photocopying; (3) to license others to create abstracts of the manuscript and to index the manuscript; (4) to license secondary publishers to reproduce the manuscript in print, microform, or any computer-readable form, including electronic on-line databases; and (5) to license the manuscript for document delivery. These exclusive rights run the full term of the copyright, and all renewals and extensions thereof.

I hereby accept the terms of the above Author Agreement.

Author :- Date :-

Editor in Chief:- Date:-

https://www.elsevier.com/__data/promis_misc/ARABJC_Elsevier_Author_Agreement.pdf

DEADLINES OF ALL PROCESSES I.E. DURATION OF PAPER SUBMISSION, REVIEW OF ARTICLES, ACCEPTANCE OF ARTICLES AND PUBLICATION OF ARTICLES,

TIMELINES OF PUBLICATION OF ISSUES,

	First Quarter Issue (March)	Second Quarter Issue (June)	Third Quarter Issue (September)	Fourth Quarter Issue (December)
Paper Submission	January	April	July	October
Review Process	February	May	August	November
Acceptance/Rejection Notification to Authors	March	June	September	December
Publication	March	June	September	December

STEPS INVOLVED FROM DATE OF RECEIPT OF RESEARCH ARTICLE TILL THE PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE,

ARTICLE PROCESSING/PUBLICATION FEE,

A non-refundable processing fee of Pak Rs.10,000/- will be charged for manuscripts submitted within Pakistan. The fees can be submitted via a pay order, bank draft, or via online transfer. The details will be emailed upon submission of a complete manuscript.

For overseas manuscripts (outside Pakistan), a non-refundable processing fee of US$ 200/- will be charged. Overseas authors can send the fees through bank transfer. Exact details of the account and transfer will be emailed once a complete manuscript is submitted for processing.

Note the following important points regarding processing fees:

Submission of processing fees does not guarantee acceptance of a manuscript.
The publication fees are separate and are not included in the processing fees. Details regarding the publication fees can be found below.
If the article is withdrawn by the author after payment of the processing or publication fee, no refund will be made. This holds good for all authors, within the country and abroad, and for all categories of articles.
If an article is withdrawn by the authors after all the processing have been completed and before publication, the author will have to pay half of the respective publication charges before the article is considered withdrawn and the copyright is transferred to the author.
Withdrawal Form.

There is no processing fee for a comment written in response to our published article.

DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST, CORRECTION AND RETRACTION OF RESEARCH ARTICLES, CONTRIBUTION AND CONSENTS OF EACH AUTHOR AND ANY OTHER INFORMATION.

When submitting a manuscript to Al-Safiir , authors are always asked to disclose potential conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest is any activity or role of an author that might cause bias in the research conducted in the paper. Ideally conflicts of interest should be avoided, but in reality this is not always possible; for example, an author might be a consultant for a drug company because he or she is an expert in the field. The purpose of declaring conflicts of interest in scientific papers is to provide transparency in reporting science to the public, and to give readers an opportunity to judge the value of the publication.

Conflicts of interest can be financial or non-financial. All journals require disclosure of financial relationships (funding, employment, stocks, consultant fees, lecturing fees, etc), while some journals also require disclosure of non-financial relationships (unpaid advisory role, membership, etc, sometimes even political or personal beliefs). Al-Safiir Form for Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest, which does include non-financial relationships. Nature journals only started requesting authors to disclose competing non-financial interests this year. Authors should always check journal guidelines about what to include. Only relationships relevant to the study in the manuscript need to be declared. There is no definite cut-off as to how relevant or how much money is involved when a conflict of interest has to be reported. The authors will need to make their own judgment, but if it is something that a reader might perceive as can affect the objectivity of the author, it should be disclosed.

If a conflict of interest is not disclosed in a published paper but later found out by a reader and reported to the journal, the journal usually will ask the authors to clarify whether such a claim is true and may ask the authors’ institution to investigate if the research is still credible. Failure to disclose conflicts of interest generally will not lead to retraction of the paper by the journal, but the authors will need to update their disclosure and the journal would publish a correction. However, retractions may happen if journals find that the authors have omitted major conflicts of interest that are likely to influence the study.

Of course, authors are not the only ones who need to disclose conflicts of interest during the publication process. Reviewers and editors are also required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest to the editorial board when handling a paper.