Editorial Policies

Privacy Policy

The Open Journals Nigeria (OJN) is dedicated to protecting your personal information and will make every reasonable effort to handle collected information appropriately. All information collected will be handled with care in accordance with OJN’ standards for integrity and objectivity and respect for your privacy. OJN endeavors to comply with all laws and regulations that apply to the gathering and use of personal information, including but not limited to US privacy laws, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield etc. As used in this policy, “we” and “us” includes OJN and our staff, employees, officers, directors, volunteer editors and reviewers, and vendors and independent contractors under contract with us. “OJN Sites” includes the following: the web pages and content on the OJN websites, journal sites, and the tools, software, submission systems, web forms, registration system, and any other means through which we interact with you as OJN is committed to your privacy in the best possible ways.

OJN Publication Policies

Review Process
All journal submissions are double blind, peer reviewed by members of the Editorial/Review Board. The Editors strives to maintain a high acceptance rate. The steps of the review process are as follows:

1. The journal Editor reviews papers for appropriateness, and uses a plagiarism verification tool to ensure the work has not been plagiarized.
2. The Editor sends out the manuscript to reviewers, without disclosing the identities of the authors or reviewers.
3. The review results may be sent to the Editorial Manager, who then reviews the reviewer's feedback to ensure the comments are relevant and non-discriminatory before sending the comments back to the authors.
4. The Reviewer feedback and Editor’s decision is sent to the authors without disclosing the identity of the Reviewers, and the Authors are instructed on what to do if they wish to revise and resubmit their papers.
5. Revised papers are sent back to the Editorial Manager who send the revised paper back to the original reviewers.
6. Feedback from the second round of reviews are processed the same way. In rare cases, authors are given a second chance to revise and resubmit their papers should they not be found acceptable after the first revision.
7. If accepted for journal publication, the authors are notified by the Editor and provided with instructions on how to submit their paper for publication. The authors are mandated to use a professional proofreading and copyediting service by any English editing company of their choice from ten (10) recommended certified editing service providers.

Ethics Policy
Publication Ethics Policy follows the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and PIE (Publication Integrity & Ethics) Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, reviewers and authors. Here is a breakdown of the standards: Journals remain transparent and neutral to regions, religion, and should not discriminate based on the age, gender, race, and people that are physically challenged. We strictly abide by the review for publication ethics as recommended by the COPE and remain transparent in acknowledging the source while publishing the information on a collaborative mode.

Authors:
Submitted manuscripts are the original work of the author(s), and that all contributing authors are listed and given credit. Manuscripts must not have been published nor under consideration by another journal concurrently. All sources of data used in the development of the manuscript are properly cited.

Reviewers:
Manuscripts are reviewed based on the intellectual content of the paper without regard of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenry or political values of author(s). Conflicts of interest during the review process must be communicated to the Editor. Manuscript information is kept confidential. Any concerns regarding the review of a manuscript are communicated to the Editor.

Editors:
Manuscripts are evaluated in fairness based on the intellectual content of the paper without regard of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenry or political values of authors. Conflicts of interest pertaining to submitted manuscripts must be disclosed. Manuscript information is confidential. Publication decisions of submitted manuscripts based on the reviewer’s evaluation of the manuscript, policies of the journal editorial board and legal restrain acting against plagiarism, libel and copyright infringement rest with the Editorial Board.

Additional Policies
Right of Editors and Reviewers to Publish in Journals:
Editors and reviewers are allowed to publish their original research in the journals for which they review. If an Editor wishes to have a paper considered for publication, either the Co-Editor or Associate Editor take on the responsibility of sending that paper out for review. The review process for papers by Editors and Reviewers is the same as any other paper and no preference is given. A strict blind review process is maintained in all cases.

OJN Retractions

A retraction is when a published paper in an academic journal is removed from the journal – Wikipedia 2018.

To maintain a clean list of published articles and to ensure only original articles remains in circulation, and without any form of dispute; OJN may retract an article if:

• There is major flaw in an article [RETRACTED: Error]
• Authors misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) [RETRACTED: Misconduct]
• It was previously published [RETRACTED: Pre-published]
• It contains ethical issues [RETRACTED: Ethical]
• There is conflict of interest [RETRACTED: COI]
• There is copyright infringement (e.g. plagiarism) [RETRACTED: Copyright]

OJN retraction process
To ensure best practice, OJN retractions complies with COPE guidelines:

1. The notice of the Managing Editor is brought to the potential retraction article through an Expression of Concern
2. The Managing editor consults the Chief Editor and Managing Editor of the journal involved for clarification making up an investigation committee
3. The investigation committee makes a final decision and a recommendation is made to the Publishing Editor to process
4. The article; if final decision is - retraction; receives the designation [RETRACTED: Reason] in its title and abstract pages. And its Full Text (PDF) removed from circulation. However, the Title and Abstract cannot be completely removed from all forms of circulation
5. A retraction statement is then posted published online in the next available issue of the journal. A notice may also be sent to “Retraction Watch”.
6. A written and document notice will then be issued to the author whose article was retracted.

Journal Accessibility:
All journals will be made available to the public at no extra charge through the OJN website. Journals will also be listed in a number of prominent search engines (i.e. Google Scholar, EBSCO, Proquest, etc.). The aim is to make research openly accessible to foster the spread of knowledge and ideas to all those who may be interested, and to increase the visibility of authors’ research.

Advertising:
Decisions regarding advertising in a Journal are made by the Board of Directors. Advertising that may be suitable include, but are not limited to: Higher education institutions, research organizations, publishing companies, academic organizations, writing assistance and translation services, journal indexing companies, conference organizers, event coordinators and the like. Types of advertising currently accepted include image and text ads placed on the Journal website, as well as image and text ads included in the body of the Journal itself.

Copyright:
All authors of accepted manuscripts warrant that the manuscript is original and has not been submitted for publication or published elsewhere. All of the authors further warrant that, where necessary, they have obtained necessary releases from companies or individuals involved in or with the manuscript. All authors further warrant that the undersigned are the sole authors of this work. All authors hereby authorize OJN to publish the manuscript under open access. The right to make the manuscript and the journal in which it is published available to databases, or distributors which might be involved in disseminating manuscripts or journals to various audiences.