EditorialPolicies

Editorial and Ethical Policies

 

PUBLICATION FREQUENCY
Commencing with its inaugural volume in October 2023, The Axis Community Research Journal (ACRJ) is published on a yearly basis. This annual cycle is designed to facilitate the dissemination of substantive, high-quality interdisciplinary research that reflects deep engagement with communities and complex societal issues. The schedule ensures each issue presents a curated collection of significant scholarly work dedicated to transformative change.

Understanding: ACRJ is an annual publication, with the first issue released in October 2023.

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND POLICY GUIDELINES
The Axis Community Research Journal (ACRJ) is unequivocally committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics, guided by the principles of integrity, accountability, and transparency for all parties involved in the publishing process: authors, reviewers, and editors. Our policies are firmly aligned with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations.

  • Authorship and Contributions: In strict accordance with ICMJE guidelines, ACRJ recognizes as authors only those individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the work, as detailed in our Authorship Criteria policy. All other contributors are to be acknowledged appropriately.

  • Conflict of Interest: All authors, reviewers, and editorial team members must disclose any financial, professional, or personal relationships that could be construed as potential conflicts of interest. Such disclosures are required at submission and, where relevant, will be published with the article to ensure full transparency for our readership.

  • Human and Animal Research Ethics: For any research involving human participants or animals, ACRJ mandates formal ethical approval from an accredited institutional review board or ethics committee. This requirement aligns with the Declaration of Helsinki and other relevant international standards for the ethical conduct of research. Studies must demonstrate respect for participant welfare, autonomy, and confidentiality.

Understanding: ACRJ follows strict ethical rules from the ICMJE, requiring honesty about contributions and potential conflicts, as well as proper ethical approval for human/animal studies.

INFORMED CONSENT POLICY
For any research published in The Axis Community Research Journal (ACRJ) that involves human participants, obtaining documented informed consent is a fundamental requirement.

  • Requirement: Authors must obtain voluntary, informed consent from all participants or their legally authorized guardians. This consent must explicitly cover both participation in the research study and the publication of any identifiable personal data, descriptions, or images in an open-access format.

  • Documentation: Upon submission, authors must confirm within the manuscript and cover letter that such consent has been secured. The editorial office may request to review anonymized consent documentation as part of the verification process.

  • Privacy and Confidentiality: Beyond consent, researchers have an ongoing duty to protect participants' privacy and confidentiality, adhering to relevant data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR). Personal identifiers must be omitted or anonymized unless essential to the research and explicit consent for publication has been granted.

  • Implementation: Compliance with this policy is verified by the editorial team during manuscript screening and the peer review process. A statement confirming ethical approval and informed consent will be included in the published article.

Understanding: ACRJ requires authors to get explicit, documented consent from human participants for both the research and the publication of any identifiable information.

PLAGIARISM POLICY
The Axis Community Research Journal (ACRJ) maintains a zero-tolerance stance towards plagiarism in any form, including verbatim copying, paraphrasing without attribution, self-plagiarism (republication of one's own work without citation), and misappropriation of ideas or data. All submissions are screened using similarity detection software. Manuscripts exhibiting a significant similarity index or clear evidence of plagiarism will be rejected immediately. In cases of plagiarism discovered post-publication, ACRJ will investigate promptly and may issue corrections, retractions, or publish expressions of concern. Serious violations may result in notification of the authors' institutions and a prohibition on future submissions.

Understanding: Plagiarism is strictly forbidden. All papers are checked for copied content, and plagiarism leads to rejection or retraction and possible sanctions.

APPEALS AND COMPLAINTS PROCESSES
ACRJ is dedicated to fair and transparent editorial processes and provides formal channels for appeals and complaints.

  • Appeals: Authors may appeal an editorial decision (e.g., rejection) if they believe a significant error or misunderstanding occurred during review. Appeals must be submitted in writing to the Editor-in-Chief via the journal’s official support email (https://acrj.axisacademics.com/), detailing the grounds for the appeal. The Editor-in-Chief, potentially with an ad-hoc committee, will review the manuscript, the reviews, and the appeal before making a final, binding decision.

  • Complaints: Formal complaints regarding suspected ethical misconduct by authors, reviewers, or editorial staff, or about procedural failures, should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief. All complaints will be treated confidentially and investigated thoroughly following COPE guidelines. The complainant will receive an outcome of the investigation once completed.

Understanding: Authors can appeal editorial decisions, and anyone can submit complaints about misconduct; both are handled by the Editor-in-Chief.

AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA AND ETHICAL POLICIES
Authorship Criteria
The Axis Community Research Journal (ACRJ) adheres to the ICMJE criteria for authorship. Each listed author must meet all four of the following conditions:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

  2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

  3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
    Individuals who contributed but do not meet all criteria (e.g., technical support, writing assistance) should be listed in the Acknowledgments section with a description of their contribution. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring all co-authors meet these criteria, approve the manuscript, and manage communication with the journal.

Understanding: ACRJ uses strict ICMJE rules for authorship: authors must have contributed significantly, helped write/revise the paper, approved it, and agree to be accountable for it.

DOUBLE BLIND PEER REVIEW & EDITORIAL PROCESS
The Axis Community Research Journal (ACRJ) employs a rigorous double-blind peer review process to ensure impartial and objective evaluation. In this system, the identities of both the authors and the reviewers are concealed from each other. The process begins with an initial editorial screening for scope, quality, and compliance. Suitable manuscripts are then assigned to at least two independent expert reviewers. Based on their confidential recommendations, the editor makes a decision to accept, request revisions, or reject. Authors are typically notified of the first decision within 4-6 weeks of submission. This process guarantees that manuscripts are judged solely on their scholarly merit, methodological soundness, and relevance to the journal's interdisciplinary, community-engaged mission.

Understanding: ACRJ uses a double-blind review where authors and reviewers don't know each other's identities to ensure fair evaluation based on the work's quality alone.

WITHDRAWAL POLICY
Authors may request to withdraw a manuscript from consideration at any stage prior to its formal acceptance for publication. To maintain an efficient and ethical submission process, authors are expected to provide a reasoned justification for withdrawal, especially if the request is made after the peer review process has begun. Withdrawal of a manuscript after its final acceptance is strongly discouraged and will only be considered under exceptional circumstances, as significant editorial and preparatory resources have already been invested.

Understanding: Authors can withdraw submissions before acceptance but should give a reason. Withdrawal after acceptance is problematic and only allowed in rare cases.

DATA SHARING POLICY
To promote research transparency, reproducibility, and the advancement of community-engaged scholarship, The Axis Community Research Journal (ACRJ) encourages authors to share the data, code, and other materials underlying the results presented in their articles. Authors are expected to deposit such materials in a trusted public, subject-specific, or generalist repository (e.g., Figshare, Zenodo, or discipline-specific databases) at the time of publication, providing a persistent identifier (e.g., a DOI or handle) and a data availability statement within the manuscript. We recognize that ethical, legal, or privacy considerations related to community-based research may restrict full data sharing. In such cases, authors must clearly state the nature of these restrictions in the data availability statement and describe alternative mechanisms for accessing the data, where feasible.

Understanding: ACRJ encourages sharing research data publicly in repositories to support transparency, but respects necessary restrictions due to ethical or privacy concerns in community work.

PREPRINT POLICY
The Axis Community Research Journal (ACRJ) recognizes the value of preprints in accelerating the dissemination of interdisciplinary research and fostering early scholarly dialogue. Therefore, the prior posting of a manuscript on a non-commercial preprint server (e.g., arXiv, SSRN, OSF Preprints) is not considered prior publication and will not prejudice consideration for publication in ACRJ.

  • Authors must disclose the existence of the preprint, provide a link to it, and its DOI (if available) during the journal's submission process.

  • Upon acceptance and publication in ACRJ, authors are strongly encouraged to update the preprint record with a link to the final published version of the article, using its persistent identifier from the PKP-PN.

  • The peer review process at ACRJ will be conducted independently on the version submitted through our OJS system.

Understanding: Sharing a manuscript as a preprint before submitting to ACRJ is allowed and does not count as prior publication. Authors must declare the preprint and link it to the final article if published.