SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 

Papers submitted to the journal must not be previously published or submitted to another journal and awaiting decision. Please read all the guidelines below before submitting your paper to QScience Connect Journal.

Article Processing Charges:  US$ 595

ORCID:  Authors are encouraged to get an ORCID ID before submission. It is freely available at https://orcid.org. 

Manuscripts Submission:  Email the files to [email protected]

Manuscript Preparation:  The submission files to be divided into the following files (in Word): 

1) Cover-page file containing the below points: 

• Title of the study: The title should reflect the content of the article. Be specific, not general. If relevant, mention the study duration and location, the international scientific name of the studied organism or the experimental design (e.g. case study or randomized controlled trial). 
• Authors details: Authors’ names, affiliations of all authors, short bio of each, and email address of the corresponding author. 
• Abstract: 200-300 words briefly explaining a) background (why you made the study); b) objectives (what questions you aimed to answer); c) methods (how the study was conducted); d) results (what you found out: major data, relationships); and e) conclusion (your interpretation and main consequence of your findings). Do not refer in the abstract to tables or figures, as abstracts are also published separately. References to literature are not allowed unless they are absolutely necessary.
• Keywords: 5-6 words to help on the discoverability of your paper online. 

2) Main file: This contains the whole article without the authors’ identities. It should not exceed 8000 words. This is the copy that goes to reviewers and the author’s identity should not be revealed. Headings and subheadings should be numbered. The reference style is Vancouver Style: references are numbered as superscript in the body of the paper and arranged as a numbered list at the end of the paper according to their numbers appearing in the article text. We do not require journal titles to be abbreviated in the references section. This file can include tables and figures. All illustrations should be numbered and have clear relevant captions.   

3) Appendix files (optional): Tables, images, graphs files should be clearly labeled. The location of tables and figures should be indicated in the body of the article. Tables are needed in a text mode, not as images (create tables using the Word processing software).  

PUBLISHING POLICY 

Open Access:  Articles are published as fully open access. They are published under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. As per this license, all articles are free to access, read, download, copy, distribute, and adapt as long as the original work is attributed to their original creators (https://www.qscience.com/open_access).  

Copyright:  The copyright of articles is retained by authors. Authors grant HBKU Press a license to publish the articles and identify itself as the original publisher. The authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors, citation details, and publisher are identified. Formal terms and conditions can be read at the Creative Commons website for Attribution License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode  

Privacy Statement:  The personal information used on this website is to be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the journal. It will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Archiving: The journal articles are archived, for long-term preservation, on multiple servers around the world by our archiving and preservation partner CLOCKSS (https://clockss.org/). 

PEER REVIEW POLICY 

HBKU Press takes the peer review process seriously and papers go through a rigorous peer review process. The submitted paper is sent to at least 2 external or internal qualified experts in the topic of the paper. The journal uses a double-blind peer review process, meaning that the identities of reviewers and authors are not revealed to one another. Reviewers are given a structured review report to fill in to assist them to communicate structured and constructive feedback to authors. Usually, reviewers submit reports with comments or corrections suggestions for authors to address. When authors receive these reports, they need to revise their original submission and resubmit the paper with a letter highlighting the changes they have made considering the reviewers' comments. Based on the reviewers' reports and authors revision, the editor reaches a publication decision (reject/accept after revision/accept). For more information about our main peer-reviewed policy https://www.qscience.com/reviewer_guidelines  

EDITORIAL POLICY 

On submission, if passing initial screening (following journal’s scope and guidelines) the manuscript is assigned to an editorial member for an initial assessment of the paper and whether to be considered for external peer reviewing or return to authors. Please refer to the Ethical Policy and Publication Ethics section below. The next step, the editor sends it to at least 2 external experts in the field of the paper for peer review; the editor manages the review process between the authors and reviewers and ensures that authors have addressed all points of reviewers in their revision. When all revisions have been completed and accepted by reviewers and editor, the editor will notify the Editor in Chief and a notification of acceptance, via the online submission system, is sent to authors. Once accepted the paper will be handled by HBKU Press for preparation for publication. 

ETHICAL POLICY AND PUBLICATION ETHICS 

COPE Compliance: 

HBKU Press is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org/about/our-organisation  and adheres to its Code of Conduct and its Best Practice Guidelines https://publicationethics.org/core-practices . We also adhere to the international standards in research and publications ethics, and we will not tolerate cases of suspected research and publication misconduct. Authors should comply to these publication ethics and follow the rules related to their field of study (e.g. human participants, animals). More details related to ethical guidelines for experimental research on humans, medical or pharmaceutically related are on https://www.qscience.com/editorial_policy . Authors who are concerned about the editorial process may refer their concerns to COPE. 

Please be aware of the below malpractice points before submitting manuscripts:

Submissions : Papers submitted should not have been published elsewhere (unless published as an abstract or thesis), Papers should not be under consideration by another publication. We check if the paper has been published before.

Plagiarism:  Manuscripts upon receipt are checked for plagiarism using a specialized software and will be rejected in case of plagiarism. Plagiarism means using another person’s ideas, data, images, tables, research processes, results, or words without attributing them to the original author/source and claiming them to be your own materials. So please ensure that all others' work is cited properly even if citing your own previously-published work (Self Citation). If citing your previously published work, there is a limit to the number of sources used. The same applies to re-using tables or images (please cite the source).

Authorship:  should be limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the manuscript (conception, design of the study, data collection, analysis, and drafting the manuscript or revised it critically for content).  The corresponding author should confirm that all co-authors have approved the final version submitted to the journal. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or supervision of the research group are not enough to justify authorship alone; such contributions should be listed in the acknowledgment section.

Competing Interests:  All authors are asked to disclose competing interests at the submission stage. All potential conflicts of interest must be listed in the manuscript. Any personal or financial relationship with an individual or an organization that may influence your interpretation of the results should be disclosed.

Research on Humans and Animals:  authors need to comply with the related ethical rules in research. For further details, please refer to the Ethical guidelines section on https://www.qscience.com/editorial_policy  

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI):  Usage of AI chatbots in the production of the paper must be stated in the cover letter and how it was used. 

Research Misconduct and Journal Actions:  Research misconduct includes plagiarism, republishing/duplication of study in another journal, fraud of data, falsifying research records or results or patients approval. Any allegations of misconduct should be reported to the Editor in Chief. The allegations will be investigated following COPE guidelines for misconduct (https://publicationethics.org/misconduct ). Actions will be as follows depending when the misconduct is reported and verified: 

• Pre-publishing − the manuscript will be rejected. 
• Post-publishing − the paper will be retracted from the journal website as per our reattraction policy section below.

RETRACTION POLICY  

The journal follows COPE Retraction Guidelines (https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4 ), an article can be retracted for any misconduct instances explained above. When retracted, the article webpage will display the article metadata with a note that it has been retracted and why. The PDF version of article will be marked “retracted” on each page. 

CORRECTIONS POLICY 

If an unintended error occurred in a published article, depending on the type of errors and how much the content is affected, the editor after discussion with authors can decide for an article to be corrected. There are two types of corrections: 1) errata for errors made by the journal or publisher and do not affect the scientific content of the article (e.g., typographic errors, header wrong number). In such cases, and depending on the error severity, the original PDF will be replaced with an updated version along with a correction notice on the webpage of the paper, stating the errors in the old version and the changes inserted in the new version. The original PDF will be marked with a correction note and an indication to the corrected version of the erratum article. 2) corrigenda, if unintentional errors made by the authors and affecting the scientific integrity of the paper or changes in authorship. Corrigenda are published as a separate publication and assigned their own DOI. 

The decision for issuing errata or corrigenda is with the editors after discussion with the authors.

AUTHORS RESPONSIBILITIES 

• The paper is original and is their own work. The data presented is real and the research is conducted and written properly.
• The paper has not been previously published or submitted to another journal at the same time.
• All authors mentioned have significantly contributed to the work.
• Identify and cite any materials taken from other sources including tables, images, or author’s own previously published work.
• Follow any rights regulations: copyright, privacy rights, intellectual rights and obtain permission to re-use images, data, tables (when required).
• Adhere to all research ethics and guidelines of their disciplines and identify that in the manuscript. If the study involves humans participating, their consent must be obtained. 
• Acknowledge, in the paper, any conflict of interest (employment, personal financial interest or others) together with any funding sources for the research.
• Participate in the peer review process and respond to all reviewers’ comments and revise the manuscript on time.
• Report any errors or inaccuracies they discover pre or post publication to the editors to provide corrections or retract the paper. Please refer to the retraction and correction policies above. 
• Agree that the paper will be published as open access under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) license.(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

REVIEWERS RESPONSIBILITIES 

• Report to editors any conflict of interest before accepting review.
• Report any suspected misconduct related to the paper they review.
• Be objective in their assessment and provide good quality and constructive feedback for authors to improve the manuscript.
• Identify any part in the paper that has been plagiarized or not cited.
• Maintain the confidentiality of the review process.Should not use, share or disclose unpublished information in a manuscript.
• Refrain from contacting the authors directly (anyway, it is blind peer review and the journal will not reveal the identity of authors to reviewers).
• Reply promptly upon receiving a review invitation (whether accept or decline) to editors.

COPE Guidelines for Reviewers (https://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_guidelines_for_peer_reviewers_0.pdf)

EDITORS RESPONSIBILITIES 

• Accept/reject papers based only on the content of manuscripts, regardless of authors race, gender, or nationality.
• Maintain confidentiality about the paper and authors. Not using any part of the content in their own research without authors’ written consent.
• Declare any conflict of interest and handle the manuscript to another editor.
• Ensure that each manuscript is reviewed by at least 2 experts in the discipline of the paper. 
• In case of any misconduct reported, editors will investigate and follow COPE guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts ). Allegations of misconduct by COPE: https://publicationethics.org/misconduct