Journal Policies

EDITORIAL POLICY

Contents of the article

Abyssinia Journal of Science and Technology (AJST) publishes articles dealing with the applications of science and technology principles. Articles to be published in AJST should describe original research findings that add knowledge significantly to works already published, or open a new area of research in Science and Technology. The articles should be new and of interest to the community and have sound motivation and purpose.

The originality of the article

AJST 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.

Confidentiality

All manuscripts intended for publication in the AJST 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.

Authors and coauthors

Researchers who have made significant contributions to the research work may be listed as authors and co-authors. In case the manuscript has multiple authors, one of the authors should act as the corresponding author to communicate with the editors. The corresponding author needs to be decided before submission of the manuscript and should remain as the corresponding author throughout the review and publication process. The corresponding author is responsible to represent all coauthors involved in the work. In addition to this, financial contributions to the work should be acknowledged clearly by the authors and should state any potential conflict of interest.

Authors will transfer the copyright of their work to Wollo University. Submission of a manuscript to this journal indicates that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the copyright letter.

In submitting a manuscript to these journals the corresponding author agrees to the following:

  • The content of the article is the original work of the listed authors.
  • All significant investigators should find a place as authors and all should agree to submit the manuscript to this journal
  • The submitted manuscript has not been published or submitted to other journals for publication.
  • The authors accept the manuscript review procedures established by the AJST.

Ethical Approvals

For investigation on human subjects (for both journals) or on animals (for AJST), 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 Methods 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, 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 minor 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.

Permission for reproduction

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.

Disclaimer

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.

PEER-REVIEW POLICY

Abyssinia Journal of Science and Technology (AJST) 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 AJST and peer review procedure outlined below.

Initial review

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.

Editor-in-chief evaluation

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.

Peer-review process

The Abyssinia Journal of Science and Technology 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. 

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, Abyssinia Journal of Science and Technology 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.