Journal Policies
Abyssinia Journal of Health Sciences (AJHS) publish articles dealing with the applications of medical, public health and health related fields. Articles to be published in AJHS should describe original research findings that add knowledge significantly to works already published, or open a new area of research in medical and health related issues. The articles should be new and of interest to the community and have sound motivation and purpose.
The originality of the article
AJHS would not accept either published papers or in press papers. Authors should authenticate in the cover letter that their manuscript or content of their manuscript has not been submitted or published elsewhere. Articles presenting ambiguous information and presenting only incremental progress of the work without producing any significant advancement in their research field will not be accepted for publication. The journals may accept a paper that has been published which is not available for a wide range of audience, such as proceedings from national and international conferences. In fact, the author(s) should mention the pertinent details in the reference section of the manuscript and must also provide the same details in the cover letter with reprint(s) attached.
All manuscripts intended for publication in the AJHS are assessed without any bias and also evaluated objectively by peer reviewers. Evaluation is based solely on its scientific and social contribution without discrimination to race, gender, religion and influence of any kind of authority. Confidentiality is maintained until submitted manuscripts are published.
For investigation on human subjects or on animals, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal approval by a proper institutional review board or ethics committee, which should be documented in the paper. For investigations carried out with human subjects, the process of obtaining written informed consent from the study participants needs to be mentioned in the declaration section. Authors are encouraged to obtain consent from human subjects in all clinical studies in case of studies involving human subjects, the author(s) should discuss the purpose(s) of investigation, and the study’s associated risks and benefits to the human subjects and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw the consent. In the case of children and mentally incapacitated (vulnerable) human subjects, consent should be obtained from the respective parent(s) or guardian(s). Conducting any clinical investigations should follow according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles and Good Clinical Practices.
Errata and corrections in published articles
Authors and readers are encouraged to inform the Editor-in-Chief if they find any kinds of errors in published content, authors’ names and affiliations or if they have any kind of concern over the legitimacy of a publication. In such cases, the journals prefer to publish an ERRATUM after consulting the Editor-in-Chief and authors of the article and the same can be reported in future volumes of the journals.
Authors should reproduce published material after getting written permission from the copyright holder and written permission should be forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief in case of acceptance of the article for publication.
Wollo University makes every sincere effort to ensure the accuracy of all the contents published in these journals. All opinions and views expressed in the research articles published in these journals are the opinions and views of authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Wollo University. Wollo University shall not be liable for any claims whatsoever or howsoever arising out of the use of the content.
AJHS is committed to prompt evaluation and publication of fully accepted papers. To advocate high-quality publication, all submissions undergo a rigorous review process through a double-blind peer-review procedure. Reviewers of these journals play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of the AJMHS and peer review procedure outlined below.
All manuscript submissions are subjected to initial review to verify the completeness and adherence to the Guidelines for Authors. After the satisfactory report of the initial review, the manuscripts are transferred to the Editor in chief for the peer-review process. Manuscript rejection at the initial evaluation stage will normally be informed to authors within 1 week of receipt.
The Editor-in chief decides whether the manuscript warrants peer-review or if it should be rejected without review. A manuscript is rejected if it is insufficiently original, has serious flaws from a conceptual and/or methodological point of view, has poor grammar or usage of the English language, or is outside the aims and scope of the journal. The corresponding author receives information normally within 2 weeks of assignment to the Editor in chief if the manuscript is rejected at this stage.
AJHS employs a double-blind peer-review, where both the reviewer and the author remain anonymous throughout the process. Reviewers are selected according to their expertise and our reviewer database is constantly being updated.
Reviewers are asked to evaluate a manuscript for:
- Originality and significance of the contribution
- Interest to investigators
- International relevance
- Coverage of appropriate existing as well as recent literature
- Adequacy of methodology, analysis and interpretation
- The clear, concise and jargon-free writing style
- Organization of the manuscript
Reviewers' comments are considered as anonymous comments to the author and also provision is made available to reviewers for providing confidential comments to the editor. Reviewers are not expected to correct or copy edit manuscripts. Language corrections (if any) are carried out by authorized language experts. Generally, the manuscript review process takes four weeks. Another four weeks are required in case of contradictory review reports.
Reviewer selection is a critical parameter to maintain the high peer review standard of any journal. Many factors are considered during peer reviewer selection like: proof of expertise in terms of published papers in the same area in reputed journals, affiliation, and reputation, specific suggestion, etc. Authors can also identify peers that they want not to review their paper. As far as possible, the editorial team respects requests by authors to exclude reviewers whom they consider to be unsuitable. We also, as much as possible, try to rule out those reviewers who may have an obvious competing interest.
The editors of specific section are authorized for the selection and assignment of reviewers. Since reviewer selection is critical to the publication process, and the editorial board should base its choice of reviewers on many factors, including expertise, reputation, specific recommendations, professional convent, willingness and their own previous experience of a reviewer’s personality and quality. For instance, editors should avoid selecting people who are slow, careless, or do not provide reasoning for their views, whether harsh or lenient. Moreover, editors should check with potential reviewers before sending them manuscripts to review.
As a matter of policy, editors should not suppress reviewers’ reports; any comments that are intended for the authors are transmitted, regardless of what the Board may think of the content. Whenever necessary, the Board may edit a report to remove offensive language or comments that reveal confidential information.
The primary purpose of the review is to provide the editors with the information needed to reach a decision. The review should also instruct the authors on how they can strengthen their manuscript to the point where it may be acceptable. As far as possible, a negative review should explain to the authors the weaknesses of their manuscript so that authors of rejected manuscripts can understand the basis for the manuscript for publication elsewhere. This is secondary to the other functions; however, referees should not feel obliged to provide detailed, constructive advice to authors of papers that do not meet the criteria for publication. If the reviewer believes that a manuscript is suitable for publication, his/her report to the (corresponding) author should be brief and consistent to enable the author to understand the reason for the decision.
Editors ask reviewers to avoid statements that may cause needless offence; conversely, reviewers are strongly encouraged to state plainly their opinion of the manuscript.
PLAGIARISM POLICY
It is a known fact that scholarly manuscripts are written based on a thorough review of previously published articles. So it is difficult to make a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, AJHS identifies the following different kinds of plagiarism:
- Without proper acknowledgment, reproduction of words, sentences, ideas or findings as one’s own
- Self-plagiarism is a kind of text recycling, whereas the author uses former publication content in prospective publication without proper citation and acknowledgment of the original source
- Poor paraphrasing is the copying of complete paragraphs and replacing the synonyms of respective words without altering the structure of the original sentences in one way and in other way altering the structure of the sentence but not the words
- Precise copying of text without any quotation marks and not acknowledging the work of the original author
- Properly mentioning original work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is reflected as unintentional plagiarism. Authors should either paraphrase properly or quote and in either or both cases, acknowledgment of the original source is a must.
Higher similarity in different content of the manuscript such as abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion and conclusion sections denotes that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text. However, authors can easily explain these parts of the manuscript on their own. However, technical terms and sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore, editors should review these sections carefully before making any decision.
ARTICLE WITHDRAWAL, RETRACTION, AND REPLACEMENT POLICY
Article withdrawal
Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s), or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors (such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like), may be “Withdrawn”.
Article retraction
Errors serious enough to invalidate a paper's results and conclusions (Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like) may require retraction.
Article replacement
Replacement (retraction with republication) can be considered in cases where honest error (e.g., a misclassification or miscalculation) leads to a major change in the direction or significance of the results, interpretations, and conclusions. If the error is judged to be unintentional, the underlying science appears valid, and the changed version of the paper survives further review and editorial scrutiny, then replacement of the changed paper, with an explanation, allows full correction of the scientific literature.
OPEN ACCESS POLICY
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International Public License, which permits others to use, distribute, and reproduce the work non-commercially, provided the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal are properly cited. Commercial reuse must be authorized by the copyright holder.
