Journal of the Arab American University مجلة الجامعة العربية الامريكية للبحوث

Publication Ethics Statement

The Journal of Arab American University ethical policy is guided by the standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in line with the clear ethical guidelines in the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (Elsevier). Editors, authors, reviewers, and readers should follow these ethical standards when dealing with this journal. Thus, Journal of the Arab American University ethical policy is responsible for determining which of the research articles should be published in the concerned volume and issue. Journal of the Arab American University team scrutinizes the adherence to the COPE standards as much as possible.

Journal of the Arab American University follows robust steps to detect and prevent misconduct practices. Thus, all the submitted manuscripts to the editorial office are checked for plagiarism through internet resources (https://www.turnitin.com). If multiple unauthorized borrowings are detected, the editorial office follows the COPE Algorithm.

Editorial Responsibilities and Standards

The Editor-in-Chief of the Arab American University journal is the Dean of Scientific Research at Arab American University. The Editor-in-Chief and/or Editorial Secretary routinely check all submitted manuscripts for plagiarism and duplicate publications. The Editor-in-Chief rejects all the submitted manuscripts if they do not comply with the Journal formatting and ethical rules.

Authorship

Journal of Arab American University publishes information to authors and co-authors (Guidelines) on the Journal site. Authors should inform the Journal in case of posting the initial draft of the manuscript on public preprint servers such as arXiv. The list of authors included in the submitted manuscript contains all authors who have contributed significantly to the research.

The Journal handles the authorship Problems by referring to COPE advice on how to spot authorship problems.

Publication Decisions

The Editorial Board is responsible for accepting and approving the publication of the research. Submitted manuscripts are evaluated initially and actually to ensure that they meet all the criteria of the publication policies, regardless of race, gender, religion, or nationality. Only the scientific value of the submitted manuscripts is considered. The Editorial Board is committed to improving the scientific value of the journal through publishing research of high quality.

Conflict of Interests

• Researchers are entitled to announce if there are any conflicts of interest and reveal financial support or any other kind of support provided for them. Also, they are entitled to reveal any financial conflicts or other issues that might affect the findings of the research.
• Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board members are not permitted to use any information stated in the unpublished manuscripts unless they receive the written consent of the author.
• The Ideas or information obtained during the peer review process must be kept confidential.
• The reviewers cannot request the author to cite any of their own publications in the submitted manuscripts.
• Ethical complaints regarding the submitted or published manuscript must be studied, and the Editorial Board takes decisions like contacting the author/s or may be contacted by authors' institutions. If the complaint is confirmed, a correction or retraction will be performed.

Journal Policy for Plagiarism

Journal of the Arab American University has a No-tolerance policy for plagiarism. Authors guarantee that the submitted manuscript is original research that meets the formatting requirements, contains authentic results that have never been published, and is not being reviewed by other journals.

• Authors are responsible for indicating and acknowledging the sources for all ideas, text, images, or diagrams, published and unpublished material, including lectures, presentations, and Master and Ph.D. Theses.
• The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board of Journal of Arab American University have the right to check the plagiarism of all submissions through different technological tools. (The main tool is Turnitin).
• All submitted manuscripts containing suspected plagiarism or plagiarism percentage > 25%, will be rejected from the initial phase of the reviewing process. Explanations may be required in the case of significant similarities to previously published work.
• If readers discover an incidence of plagiarism involving a published manuscript in the Journal, we ask them to inform the editors. If the editors determine that significant plagiarism has occurred, we may remove the article or take any other actions deemed to be necessary.

Multiple, Redundant Publication

• Multiple: The authors should not send their research manuscript to more than one journal; it is not allowed for authors to submit a manuscript being evaluated to another journal simultaneously or years later.
• Redundant: The authors should not split the research manuscript into several parts and submit each manuscript part to two or more journals. Self-plagiarism is considered a form of redundant publication.
• The authors should frankly announce when they use previously published research.
• The translations of published research without permission or notification are considered duplications.

Peer-Review Process

Journal of the Arab American University adopts the Double-Blind Peer Review Process (identification of both the authors and reviewers is kept hidden).

• All submitted manuscripts will be initially evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief for the suitability for Journal of the Arab American University.
• The evaluation process includes technical evaluation, quality, the existence of all scientific research basics (title, abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, result, conclusion, and references based on APA style), overall readability, and language. All submitted manuscripts must have an English/Arabic title, English/Arabic abstract, and English/Arabic keywords.
• Submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism and duplicate publications using Turnitin.
• Submitted manuscripts deemed suitable (plagiarism <= 25% rate and the instructions for publication in the journal) are sent to a minimum of one internal/external initial reviewer to assess the scientific quality of the paper. This journal blinds the initial review process.
• The selection of initial reviewers is made by the article-handling editor (the Editor-in-Chief or the specialist editor).
• Based on the initial review of the submitted manuscripts by the specialists, the Editor-in-Chief takes the decision.
• The decision in this phase might be rejecting, changing, and resubmitting the manuscript, or passing the manuscript to the next phase.
• Manuscripts that pass the initial evaluations are sent to the double-blind full review process. The editorial office uses the list of all researchers and academics in the Arab world published by the United Arab University Association.
• The Editor-in-Chief chooses two reviewers based on their specialization in the core of the manuscript.
• The reviewers receive an email with the manuscript title and abstract where they can accept or reject the review.
• The referees are asked to review the manuscript for four weeks and to fill out a custom evaluation Form.
• The evaluation form asks the reviewers to evaluate the manuscript regarding; originality, research questions, objectives, literature review, methodology, statistical analysis, and references.
• Late reviewers will be reminded via E-mail, with the possibility of giving them extra time to perform the manuscript review.
• After completing all reviewers' reports, the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board make a decision (accept, major revision, minor revision or reject).
• The authors are granted one to four weeks to prepare the revision depending on the reviewers' comments. Upon their request, the authors might be given extra time.
• All the revisions should be clearly highlighted so that they are easily visible to the editors and reviewers.
• The authors should provide a response to reviewers' comments detailing any changes, for the benefit of the editors and reviewers.
• Revisions that do not meet these requirements will be sent back to the authors with requests for corrections.
• Some articles may have two or three rounds of peer review.
• The average duration of the submission of the first decision is eight weeks.
• The average duration of the submission of the final decision is 10 weeks.
• In case of the author’s incompatibility with the referees’ comments, the authors are asked to provide a scientific appeal which will be examined by the Editorial Board and the reviewers, and in some cases, the Editorial Board is helped by another external reviewer.
• The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of the articles.

Reviewer Guidelines

• Blind Review is the reviewing system followed in the Journal of the Arab American University.
• All the steps of reviewing are fully using the electronic system.
• The reviewers need to read the criteria for judging the manuscript’s suitability for publication in the Journal.
• Reviewers will have an opportunity to send comments separately to the author and editors.

Reviewers' Duties:

• Reviewers help the Editorial Board make decisions about the submitted manuscripts.
• The Editorial Board supplies the reviewers with the regulations, and standards of the Journal.
• The Editorial Board is committed to keeping the reviewer's information confidential.
• It is important that the selected reviewers send the review result to the Editorial Board during the assigned time (in some cases extra time will be given to the reviewer).
• Reviewers need to deal confidentially with the submitted manuscripts.
• Reviewers are required to follow the objective criteria in reviewing where personal judgment about authors is not allowed.
• Reviewers need to support their clear opinions and scientific arguments regarding the submitted manuscripts.
• Reviewers are required to notify the Editorial Board if the author is not compliant with the standards of publication of the journal.
• Reviewers are required to make sure whether the references are suitable, follow the correct referencing style, and match the body of the manuscript.
• Reviewers are not allowed to use information, or ideas stated in the reviewed manuscripts for personal purposes.
• Reviewers are required to disclose any conflict of interest, which may make the reviewing result biased.

Reviewers need to consider the following points:

1. Is the manuscript within the scope of the Journal of the Arab American University?
2. Is the title appropriate and concise?
3. Is the abstract (in any) representative of the content of the manuscript?
4. Are the data original and not yet published elsewhere?
5. Is the subject clearly and logically presented, and are the interpretations justified?
6. Are the discussion and conclusions supported by the results?
7. Is the literature cited appropriately and comprehensively?
8. Are the tables and figures clear, all necessary, and well labeled?
9. Does the total length of the manuscript comply with its content?

• Please make a recommendation:

  (Accept; Accept with minor revisions; Accept with major revisions; Decline)

Authors Duties

• The authors need to comply with the author's regulations (Policies) and the writing style announced by the journal.
• The authors need to present the results and discussion to fulfill the aims of the research and the methodology.
• The authors need to enhance a manuscript with modern references.
• The authors should not submit their manuscript to more than one journal.
• The authors need to supply the journal with specific names of the authors; one of the authors must be the corresponding author.
• The authors can reveal the financial support or any other kinds of support provided for them.
• The authors need to notify the Editor in Chief in case they discovered misstatements in the methods and results of their manuscripts in order to perform the corrections.

Rights for Authors

Journal of the Arab American University guarantees publishing rights for the authors. These rights are determined by a publishing agreement between the authors and the journal as follows:

• The authors need to transfer copyright-exclusive rights in their article to t Journal of the Arab American University.
• The author can expect to be notified that the manuscript has been accepted or rejected.
• The author will receive an official acceptance letter when the final decision is made.
• The accepted research articles will be published online in the next issue.
• Journal of the Arab American University is committed to protecting and defending the authors’ works.
• The decision on the author's manuscript will be made in a timely manner.
• Authors can inquire about the submitted manuscript at any time but are encouraged to wait at least eight weeks after the manuscript is submitted.
• Authors can rebut any decision to reject a manuscript, and the Editor–in–Chief decides whether to accept the additional review or reject the objection.

People seeking an exception, or who have questions about use, should contact the editors.

Copyright and Access Permissions

• Prepress Archiving: The author/s may archive preprint materials (prior to peer review) in any repository without restriction.
• Post-print Archiving: The author(s) may archive Postprint materials (after peer review) in institutional repositories affiliated with the institution of the author/s; they may archive to repositories not affiliated with the author(s) institution after a waiting period of six months