Journal Policies

Open access policy

Al-Mukhtar Journal of Sciences is an open-access journal, which provides immediate, worldwide, barrier-free access to the full text of all published articles without charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of all articles in the MJSc under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Editorial Process

The submitted manuscript will be checked by an editor for its suitability with MJSc’s focus and scope and for major methodological flaws within two weeks.

Staff will work with the author to fulfil all the requirements within this period. Every submitted manuscript which passes this step will then be checked for plagiarism. The manuscript needs to be re-worked if indicated for minor plagiarism and will be rejected if indicated for major plagiarism. Then, an editor-in-charge and an editorial assistant will be assigned for the manuscript. In this stage, the manuscript will be assessed based on novelty and adherence to reporting guidelines. Subsequently, the manuscript will go through a peer-review process. The revisions may be required and will be re-evaluated by the editor-in-charge after the authors providing sufficient responses.

The manuscript will be passed to the editor-in-chief for any further revision and ultimately will take an editorial decision. The accepted manuscript will be sent to copyediting stage for correction of grammar and spelling errors, standardizing the journal in-house style, improving table, figure, and writing quality. The incomplete revision of this stage will result in pending scheduled publication. Then, the manuscript will enter the production stage for typesetting.

A pdf file is sent to the author for review and there should be no more scientific revision. A failure to comply will result in a delay of the publication since it needs editor confirmation for the changes. The final approval is needed from the corresponding author before it is published. The manuscript submitted by one of the editorial teams of the MJSc will be processed by other editorial board members who do not have any conflict of interest with the manuscript and follow the same editorial process.

Peer Review Policy

Paper review and evaluation through peer-reviewers

  1. All manuscripts submitted to MJSc for publication are subjected to qualified reviewers' detailed and strict peer-review process. All manuscripts are subject to double-blind reviews.
  2. Manuscripts accepted for full review will be reviewed by at least two external reviewers, who are experts in the same field.
  3. Reviewers assess the manuscript submitted to them based on academic standards in addition to MJSc predetermined requirements to ascertain the manuscript’s quality and precision, thus providing the editor with the required comments and recommendations based on the prepared form regarding the acceptance, rejection, or request changes to the manuscript, within three weeks. In some cases, acquiring the appropriate reviewers may require an extension of the review process.
  4. The decision letter requesting an adequate revision is sent to the Corresponding Author (If necessary, the peer-review process is repeated).
  5. After fulfilling the peer-review process requirements, the editor-in-chief issues a decision regarding the manuscript's acceptance or rejection.

Join MJSc’s Peer-Review Program

MJSc is an Open Access publication, Manuscripts submitted to our journals are peer-reviewed. Reviewers are involved in all manuscripts submitted to our journal. Based on the reviewer’s comments, a Handling Editor (usually the Editor-in-Chief) is subsequently making a final decision about the way a manuscript needs to be improved. 

MJSc sincerely invites you to join our peer-review program. By participating, you will provide help to authors from all over the world and will supply them with your ideas and suggestions based on your valuable expertise.

Interested in joining a peer-reviewer in this journal? We recommend that you review the About the Journal page, as well as the Peer Review Process.

If you are ready to be a volunteer, please register with the journal prior to joining the peer-review program or, if already registered, can simply log in.

For further information please contact us.

MJSc Publication Ethics Statement 

MJSc is committed to maintaining high standards through a rigorous peer-review together with strict ethical policies. The editors should take any infringements of professional ethical codes, such as plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, bogus claims of authorship, very seriously with zero tolerance.

Our Journal follows the Code of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and follows the COPE Flowcharts for Resolving Cases of Suspected Misconduct. MJSc especially observes COPE’s Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers. Editors at MJSc follow COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

 

Authorship and contributorship

MJSc has set out authorship criteria recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE):

The author list should satisfy all of the following conditions to legitimately claim authorship:

- Contributed significantly to the concept or design of the article, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the article.

- Drafted the article or critically revised it for important intellectual content.

- Approved the version to be published.

- Agreed 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.

Otherwise, contributors should be listed in an “Acknowledgements” section for those who do not meet the above authorship criteria.

Policy on intellectual property

Authors certify intellectual property ownership of their submitted manuscript (and any supporting items) and that the copyright has not been transferred to others.
Authors certify that for any copyrighted tables, figures, data, text, etc. permission has been obtained from the copyright holders to reproduce.

Conflicts of interest

Authors should be aware of a possible Conflict of Interest. In such a case authors can still take responsibility for the accuracy of their paper but must inform the reader with an appropriate statement in the Acknowledgements.

Reviewer kindly contact Editorial if you have any conflicts of interest in reviewing this manuscript. We will ask you to delete and destroy the manuscript, and the editorial will assign another reviewer. Conflicts of interest may include:

  • A personal relationship with the author or institution that could interfere with you providing an unbiased review.
  • Financial conflict, or holding a financial interest in a product, company, or organization discussed in the manuscript
  • Intellectual conflict or holding a strong interest in seeing the manuscript published or not published.

We encourage you to review the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) document on Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. If you are new to reviewing, check COPE's resource, What to Consider When Asked to Peer Review a Manuscript.

Policy on ethical oversight

At MJSc, we focus on the СОРE definition, of Ethical oversight, namely “Ethical oversight should include but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices”. Based on this definition, the journal’s editorial staff works within the framework of observing the ethical principles and will be obligated to consider the appeals from the Ethics and Oversight Committee for professional and scientific activity concerning the non-observance of the ethical principles by our authors. Also, we are prepared to consider other appeals in case they are not anonymous and substantiated.

Any suspected violations of the ethical oversight policy should be made to the editor-in-chief via the Ethics Complaints and Appeals process.

MJSc Correction and Retraction Policy

MJSc recognizes the importance of the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record. The historic record of published research articles shall remain available and unaltered as far as possible. However, circumstances may arise where a paper got published based on misconduct or honest error.

Editors certainly guide the review process with much care, but it remains notoriously difficult to detect all occurrences of misconduct or error. For this reason, it may become necessary to correct the scholarly record. The decision to alter the record should not be taken lightly. Action taken depends on the individual case and can take the form of
• Expression of Concern
• Correction (Erratum or Corrigendum)
• Retraction
• Removal
The purpose of the action is to correct the literature and to alert readers. It is not intended to punish the author(s).

The responsibility of guiding an investigation of misconduct or honest error is with the editor of MJSc. Authors and reviewers will take part in the investigation. The editor will decide on the form to best correct the scholarly record. Guiding principles are COPE’s Retraction Guidelines and other accepted scholarly principles.

Minor errors that do not affect the integrity of the metadata or a reader’s ability to understand an article and that do not involve a scientific error or omission are corrected such that the original article is replaced with the corrected version.

CrossMark Policy

MJSc is adapting the CrossMark Policy  which commiting to maintaining the content of our publishing and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur accourding to MJSc Correction and Retraction Policy. For more information please vist  Author Guidelines, Correction and Retraction Policy and CrossMark.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54172/mjsc-Crossmark

License and Copyright 

Copyright of the articles Published by Almukhtar Journal of Science (MJSc) is retained by the author(s), who grant MJSc a license to publish the article. Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors and cite MJSc as original publisher. Also they accept the article remains published by MJSc website (except in occasion of a retraction of the article). All MJSc Published articles under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

 Archiving policy

MJSc’s digital archiving policy has ensured that despite any accidental loss of data in MJSc's archival records, the published scholarly content remains available to the academic community through the PKP Preservation Network (PN). The PKP PN provides free preservation services for a journal managed by Open Journal Systems (OJS) via the PKP PN plugin. Therefore, for MJSc to fulfil this essential criterion, this plugin has been activated.

Plagiarism Policy

Al-Mukhtar Journal of Sciences considers plagiarism to be unethical. The journal strictly refuses copying or plagiarism in any form. Plagiarism occurs when a fundamental part of a manuscript has been copied from a previously published work. All manuscripts submitted to the journal for publication are checked for plagiarism using iThenticate software. If there is plagiarism early in the initial review, it will be rejected and thus not considered for publication in MJSc. However, if the manuscript is found to have been plagiarized after publication, additional investigation is conducted with the help of an appropriate committee established for this purpose. The journal will contact the author's institute if the manuscript is determined to have been plagiarized beyond the permitted limits. Due to the issuing of a plagiarism decision, the journal creates a statement linked online with the original paper to identify the plagiarism and provide a reference to the stolen material.

 

Complaints Policy

 

Policy and Process

The procedure applies to appeals to editorial decisions, complaints about the failure of processes or actions of the MJSc, such as long delays in handling papers, and complaints about publication ethics. The complaint will be handled in the first instance by the Editor-in-Chief(s) responsible for the journal and/or the Editor who handled the paper. We welcome complaints as they provide an opportunity and a spur for improvement, and we aim to respond quickly, courteously, and constructively.  

 

Complaint concerning rejection appeal

The Chief Editor or Handling Editor weighs the authors' case, reviews the reviewer's findings, and determines whether to:

  • Maintain the rejection decision
  • Request a second, independent opinion
  • Take into account the appeal.

The decision is sent to the complainant along with, if necessary, an explanation. New submissions are given precedence over appeals, and decisions on appeals are final.

 

Process complaint

  • The matter will be investigated by the Editors and the Editor-in-Chief.
  • A suitable response will be offered to the complainant.
  • To enhance processes and procedures, feedback is sent to the appropriate parties.

For complaints regarding publication ethics, such as the behaviour of the researcher, the author, or the reviewer, the Chief Editor and Editors adhere to the standards set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics.

 

Making a complaint

Please send your query in a detailed manner to omu.j.sci@omu.edu.ly

Our definition of a complaint is as follows:

  • The complainant defines his or her expression of unhappiness as a complaint.
  • We infer that the complainant is not simply disagreeing with a decision we have made or something we have published (which happens every day) but thinks that there has been a failure of process, for example, a long delay or a rude response, or a severe misjudgment.
  • The complaint must be about something that is within the responsibility of the "Almukhtar Journal of Sciences" content or process.

Almukhtar Journal of Sciences is aware of the complaints stated below:

  1. Authorship complaints
  2. Plagiarism complaints
  3. Multiple, duplicate, concurrent publication/simultaneous submission.
  4. Reviewer bias or competitive harmful acts by reviewers.
  5. Research results misappropriation
  6. Allegations of research errors and fraud
  7. Research standards violations
  8. Undisclosed conflicts of interest

Complaints Handling Procedures

Our general approach to complaints is that they are a rare but inevitable part of a process that involves putting together complex material at great speed.

The Journal will investigate any claims that a submission to the Journal violates intellectual property rights, contains material inaccuracies, defamatory information, or otherwise contains illegal content.

A request that the parties concerned substantiate their assertions may be made as part of the investigation.

The Journal will decide, in good faith, whether to take down the purportedly incorrect material.

The Journal's decision not to remove information should reflect its opinion that the complaint lacks sufficient support or, if it is supported, that there may be a legal defence or exemption, such as the truthfulness of a statement in the case of libel.

Almukhtar Journal of Sciences is of the highest quality, and errors are strictly forbidden. We do, however, acknowledge that errors can occasionally occur, and all the investigations and decisions are to be documented by the Journal

 

Editorial Complaints Policy

Editors and staff of Almukhtar Journal of Sciences will make every effort to put matters right as soon as possible in the most appropriate way, offering the right to reply where necessary. As far as possible, we will investigate complaints in a blame-free manner, looking to see how systems can be improved to prevent mistakes from occurring.