MPRI uses double-blind review system for all papers. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two reviewers. The reviewers act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identity. The reviewers are selected solely according to whether they have the relevant expertise for evaluating a manuscript. The reviewers must not be from the same institution as the author(s) of the manuscript, nor be their co-authors in the recent past. No suggestions of individual reviewers by the author(s) of the manuscript will be accepted.
The purpose of peer review is to assist the Editorial Board in making decision of whether to accept or reject a paper. The purpose is also to assist the author in improving papers.
Peer Review Process
Manuscripts are sent for review only if they pass the initial evaluation regarding their form and thematic scope. A special care is taken that the initial evaluation does not last more than necessary. Under normal circumstances, the review process takes up to 4 weeks, and only exceptionally up to two months. The total period from the submission of a manuscript until its publication takes an average of 45 days.
During the review process the Editor-in-Chief may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for any other purposes.
Resolving Inconsistencies
In the case that the authors have serious and reasonable objections to the reviews, the Editorial Board makes an assessment of whether a review is objective and whether it meets academic standards. If there is a doubt about the objectivity or quality of review, the Editor-in-Chief will assign additional reviewer(s). Additional reviewers may also be assigned when reviewers’ decisions (accept or reject) are contrary to each other or otherwise substantially incompatible.
However, the final decision on the acceptance of the manuscript for publication rests solely with the Editor-in-Chief.
Responsibilities
Authors’ Responsibilities
Authors guarantee that their articles are their original research, that they have not been published elsewhere, and are not under review for publication elsewhere. Parallel submission of the same paper to another journal constitutes misconduct and eliminates the article from further review. The paper that has already been published elsewhere cannot be republished in the MPRI journal titles.
Authors are entirely responsible for the contents of their manuscripts. Authors affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties.
Authors must ensure that their co-authors include all and only those authors who have substantially contributed to the submitted article. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the paper, their contribution should be acknowledged in a footnote or the acknowledgments section.
It is the duty of the authors to indicate the title of the research project within which the manuscript was written from, as well as the full title of the funding agency. In case a submitted article has been presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or related title), comprehensive information about the conference should be made available in the same place.
Authors are urged to properly cite sources that have considerably contributed to the study. Sections of the article, including text, equations, pictures and tables that are copied from other published articles must be clearly marked, e.g. by quotation marks accompanied by their location in the original paper (page number), or, if more extensive, given in a separate paragraph.
Detailed references of each quotation (in-text citation) must be listed in the separate section (Literature or References) in a uniform manner, according to the citation style used by the journal. The references section should list only cited and not all sources used for the preparation of an article.
When authors find a substantial mistake in their own published paper, it is their duty to quickly inform the Editor-in-Chief and cooperate with him/her to withdraw or amend the manuscript.
Authors should reveal in their paper any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.
By submitting an article the authors agree to abide by the Editorial Policies of Maryland Publishing and Research Institute Inc journal titles.
Editorial Responsibilities
The Editor-in-Chief is saddled with the task of deciding which manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published. Such judgments are made depending mainly on the merit of the paper. They must be free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias. When making such judgments the Editor-in-Chief is also guided by the editorial policy and legal provisions relating to defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
Members of the Editorial Board including the Editor-in-Chief must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. Members who feel they might be perceived as being involved in such a conflict do not participate in the decision process for a particular manuscript.
The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential. Information and ideas contained in unpublished materials must not be used for personal gain without the written consent of the authors.
Editors and the editorial staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the authors/reviewers remain anonymous during and after the evaluation process in accordance with the type of reviewing in use.
The Editorial Board is obliged to assist reviewers with additional information on the manuscript, including the results of checking manuscript for plagiarism.
Reviewers’ Responsibilities
Reviewers are required to provide qualified and timely assessment of scholarly merits of the manuscript. The reviewer takes special care of the real contribution and originality of the manuscript. The review must be fully objective. The judgment of the reviewers must be clear and substantiated by arguments.
The reviewers evaluate articles for the observance with the profile of the journal, the significance of the studied topic and methods applied, the scientific usefulness of data presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.
The reviewer must not be in a conflict of interest with the authors or financiers of the research project. Should such a conflict occur, the reviewer is mandated to quickly inform the Editor-in-Chief. The reviewer shall not accept for reviewing articles that are not in his/her areas of competence.
Reviewers should alert the Editor-in-Chief to any well-founded allegations or the knowledge of possible violations of conducts by the authors. Reviewers shall identify relevant published articles that have not been considered in the manuscript. They could suggest particular references for citation but shall not be mandated to cite papers published in MPRI journals titles, unless it is warranted.
The reviewers are expected to improve the quality of the articles through their suggestions. Should corrections be suggested of the article prior to publication, reviewers are mandated to indicate the manner in which this can be carried out.
Any manuscript submitted for evaluation must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use unpublished manuscripts disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors.
Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
The publication of an article in the peer-reviewed MPRI journal titles is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the research of the authors and the institutions that they represent. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific approach. It is therefore essential to agree upon standards of anticipated ethical conduct for all parties connected with the act of publishing such are: the authors, the journal editors, the peer reviewers, the publisher, and the society.
Handling Unethical Issues
Anyone may inform the Editor-in-Chief / Editorial Board at any time of assumed unethical conducts by providing the substantial evidence to start an inquiry.
The Editor-in-Chief shall make the decision relating to the initiation of an inquiry. During such inquiry, any evidence shall be handled confidentially and only provided to those strictly connected to the process.
The accused shall be given the opportunity to respond to any allegation made against them. If it is determined at the end of the inquiry that misconduct has taken place, then it will be deemed as either a minor or a serious misconduct. Hence, in such circumstances, appropriate sanctions or advise shall be communicated to those accused by the Editor in Chief.
Zero Tolerance for Plagiarism
This journal has a policy of “Zero Tolerance on Plagiarism”. We check the plagiarism issue through two methods: reviewer check and plagiarism prevention tool. All submissions will be checked by plagiarism prevention software before being sent to reviewers.
Frequency of Publication
Maryland Publishing and Research Institute Inc (MPRI) shall strive to publish every of our journal titles 6 times in one year period; this translates to 2 months interval.
Indexing Policy
MPRI journals are currently indexed in Google Scholar, CrossRef, and assigned Digital Object Identification (DOI) numbers. However, the publishers are enthusiastic that in the soonest months ahead our journals titles should be indexed by different indexing databases, and the indexing would be updated frequently to appear in as many indexing databases as possible to give our contents wider visibility and accessibility.
Manuscript Withdrawal and Refund Policy
Maryland Publishing and Research Institute Inc., affirm that authors can withdraw their manuscript at any of the following stages; submission, peer reviewing and copy editing procedures. Although, withdrawals of manuscript after the copy editing stage are not subject to a refund of the Article Processing Charge (APC).
Privacy Policy
The email contacts and names provided on this publishing and research organization website shall only be used mainly for the stated purposes in the organization and shall not be made available for any other purpose or to any other persons or organization. Maryland Publishing and Research Institute Inc., is committed to adopting best practices on errors, ethical issues, and retractions. In addition, the prevention of publication malpractice stands as among the essential responsibilities of the board of editors. The publishing and research institute would not accept any form of unethical behavior, and MPRI would not accept plagiarism in any form. The authors submitting articles to MPRI assert that the contents of their manuscript are original. Consequently, they guarantee that their article has neither been published in other journal outlets nor has it been submitted for review for publication in any other journal outlet.
Open Access Policy
MPRI journal titles shall provide immediate open access to its contents on the basis that making research freely available after publication on the MPRI website to the public encourages a universal exchange of knowledge.
All MPRI journal titles shall be published under Open Access license. All contents shall be available without charges. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search the full text of published articles, as well as to create HTML links to them, without having to ask for consent of the author or publisher.
The permission to use content without permission does not release the users from the responsibility to give the credit to the journal and its content in an approach explained under Licensing.
Article Processing Charge
The Journals does not have article submission charges. The Journals apply a fee of $50 (USD) for each accepted paper for publication after the positive peer-review process. This fee includes the online and printed journal. For each paper published the corresponding author will receive one hard copy included in the fee. However, authors shall request for waivers (discounts or fee waiver) in areas of Article Publishing Charges should they not be able to pay the publication fees. Although they shall be required to provide written justification to the effect that they are not in good financial standing to pay the charges.
Authors who are employees of faculties, who are engaged with the publisher of the journal, pay a reduced amount. Members of editorial boards and reviewers of MPRI journals may be granted substantial reduction in publication fees or in some cases outright waiver. Payments shall be deposited directly in the bank account of MPRI. The costs of money transfer shall be borne by the author.
Referral Discount
With the discretion of the Board of Editors, they have also suggested a referral bonus to any of our authors who refer another author to publish under any of our journal titles. Such authors who refer another author shall be allowed to publish one article for free.
Copyright Policy
The author(s) shall have the consent(s) to all proprietary rights such as patent rights and the right to use all or sections of the published paper in future studies of their own such as lectures, press releases, and textbook reviews. However, if the author is interested in the republication of the whole, section, or sections thereof, in periodicals or reprint publications by a third party, written authorization must be requested for from the Editor in Chief.
Self-archiving Policy
Authors are allowed to deposit publisher’s version in PDF file of their articles in an institutional repository, subject-based repository, author’s personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, and so on), on the website of the institution in which they are employed, at any time after manuscripts are published.
Detailed bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original article shall be made available and links must be provided to the article’s DOI and the license.
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in the published articles do not convey the mindset of the Editors and the Editorial Team. Authors shall be responsible for any legal and moral outcomes for the ideas put across in the articles. MPRI shall have no liability in the case of issuance of any claims for damages. MPRI will not be held legally accountable should there be any claims for damages.
