Rules, Guidelines, and Policies

Rules on Plagiarism

   According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to “plagiarize” means to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own, to use (another’s production) without crediting the source, to commit literary theft, and to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

The Center for Journal Publication (CJP) will strictly follow and accept a rule of text similarity, which is less than 25%, and will run using the existing plagiarism software. However, higher than 25% is considered a high percentage of plagiarism.

The CJP does not accept plagiarized articles; hence, the CJP does not condone any act that involves plagiarism. If discovered during the peer review process, the manuscript is automatically rejected. If plagiarism is spotted after publication, the JP can publish a correction, or the author must justify the plagiarism or have the publication retracted.

Original Manuscript

The CJP considers all original research manuscripts across a range of academic disciplines if it contains scientifically sound experiments and a substantial amount of new information. Data must be original and not inappropriately selected, manipulated, enhanced, or fabricated.

 Authorship

The CJP will strictly follow the relative contribution to determine the author order. With this, the author who most substantially worked on the draft article and the underlying research becomes the first author. The co-authors are ranked in descending order of contribution. Thus, the last author is the principal investigator or the supervisor who supervised the entire study.

When research is conducted by a research team or a group of people, the research output’s authorship must be appropriately and correspondingly distributed among the research team members. The authorship of a scholarly or creative work is, at the same time, a recognition of the substantial intellectual contribution of individuals involved in the project and an acknowledgment of these individuals’ responsibility to the aspects of the work to which their contributions are attributed. Therefore, all qualified persons must be included in considerations, statements, and acknowledgments of authorship. Conversely, all identified authors must have expressed their consent to be included as authors.

The widely adapted simple set of rules for determining authorship is the Vancouver Protocol* which states that to be credited as an author, every author on a publication needs to have been involved in the (a) conception and design, or analysis and Interpretation of Data; (b) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and (c) final approval of the version to be published.

In the policies on Intellectual Property, an author is defined as “the natural person who originates, gives existence to or expresses an idea and transforms it into more tangible form under copyright law.”

The Philippines Intellectual Property Code on Copyright affirms an author’s moral rights related to an author’s copyright. Moral rights, distinct from economic rights, must be recognized and upheld. Researchers must comply with copyright law, and potential authors should likewise be cognizant of other authors’ moral rights.

Authorship of research output is not limited to the persons who did the actual writing of the output. Still, it includes all those who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the research work.

Selection of Research Manuscripts for Publication in the Institutional Journals

The Guimaras State University Graduate School Journal

The Dean of the Graduate School will submit the research articles to be included in a specific volume and number of the journal.

The submitted research articles are representing the respective curricular programs offered by the Graduate School.

The number 1 issue of the journal is published in June and the number 2 is in December of the current year.

The Himal-us Multidisciplinary Research Journal and Higher Education Research Review

The CJP will call for publication every March for Himal-us and September for Higher Education Research Review of every year. The research articles in very issue (volume and number) of Himal-us and HERR are composed of 40% from GSU personnel and 60% from the external researchers.

The submitted research manuscripts in AIMRAD (Abstract, Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion) format will be collected and then be forwarded to the editorial board for selection.

The researchers of the selected manuscripts will be then receive a Notice of Acceptance and their respective manuscripts with corrections and suggestions within 30-45 days upon receipt of the manuscripts. However, a Notice of Rejection will be given to the researcher with manuscript which are not in compliance to the standards and criteria set by the center and approved by the editorial board.

The researchers are required to incorporate the corrections and suggestions and send back their updated manuscript to jp@gsu.edu.ph or to the website: cjp.gsc.edu.ph 14 days after the receipt for final screening.

The screening committee will give decision whether to accept or reject the corrected manuscript

Peer Review System

  • Selected manuscripts accepted from the initial screening will proceed to the next step. The board will identify an independent (external) content expert who will appraise the manuscripts according to (a) significance of contribution to knowledge and/or practice, (b) substance of the content, and (c) clarity of exposition.
  • Reviewers will enumerate explicit suggestions. The suggestions will be consolidated by the editorial staff. The consolidated report will be communicated to the authors.
  • Double blinded peer review process in which authors/s and reviewers’ names are withheld to each other will be employed.
  • The external peer reviewers will be invited according to their numerous articles in their area of specialization published in credible journals. Reviewers must have at least 5 researches for the last consecutive 5 years published in refereed journals. Selection of reviewers is the responsibility of the editorial board.
  • CJP has a pool of invited reviewers. If there is no identified/qualified expert from the pool to review the submitted paper, the editorial board, with the assistance of the publication officer, will facilitate identification and invitation. If the board cannot identify one, especially when academic topics are highly-specialized, authors inputs may be solicited in enumerating a list of experts in the specific specialized field.
  • Scoring System. The research manuscripts will be rated according to the evaluation criteria of HERR and Himal-Us (See Appendix B).
    • The mean will be determined by summating all scores and dividing it by the number of referees.
    • If one referee rejects the paper without the option to resubmit, automatically, the article is rejected. A notification will be sent to the author/s for their information.
    • If the article obtained an average score of 2.00, automatically, the article is rejected. A notification will be sent to the author/s for their information.
    • If the article obtained an average score of 2.01 and above, the Editorial Board will send a letter to the author/s concerning on either (a) for minor revision, (b) for major revision, or (c) advice the author for resubmission.
    • Even if the article obtained an average score of 5.00, the author/s still needs to integrate all suggestions.
    • Rejected articles are advice to submit their manuscripts to another journal publication.

 Styles and Formatting

Full-length research papers that present the findings of a research that has been conducted for the past three (3) years is required.

The paper should have the Abstract (not more than 200 words), the Introduction (includes the background, theoretical support and related studies which are topically presented, the problem or research topic, including its relevance), Literature Review, Methodology, Results and Discussion (which are thematically presented, including their subsections) and Conclusion (which may be part of the Results and Discussion section).

The parts from Introduction to References must be in 2 columns with margins (inside: 2.54; outside: 1.27).

The entire paper should not exceed 20 pages (5,000 words), inclusive of the references, graphs, tables and figures.

References must be included at the end of the document. The manuscript must follow the APA format.

All page’s size should be 8.5 x 10 inches. The top, bottom, right and left margins should be 1 inch. All the text must be in one column and rich text format font, including figures and tables, with single interline spacing (12-point, normal, justified alignment).

Authors should strictly follow the parts of the papers for submission (See Appendix A).

Tables, graphs and figures should be centered, numbered and accompanied by a legend. Table headings should appear after they are cited in the text. The abbreviation “Fig. 1” should be used even at the beginning of a sentence.

All submissions must be either in Standard English or Filipino and must include information about the author (not more than 150 words).

Submitted papers will undergo a double-blind refereeing by experts to ensure their publication quality.

Copyright Policy

         Manuscript submitted to any institutional is made possible by limited license grant from the author(s). The authors shall retain all copyrights of their contribution. All other elements of the journal including its name, structure and organization are also protected by copyright and are the property of the Guimaras State University Research and Development Center.

Declaration of Previous Publication. The author/s must declare any form of print and online publication before the actual release of the journal. Consideration for full or partial reprint, including abstracts, of the article needs approval from the HERR. This includes publication of reference proceedings. If HERR allows the print, Permission letter to reprint from the editor-in-chief of the previous prints must be sought.

Policy for Handling Complaints. If HERR receives a complaint that any contribution to the Journal infringes copyright or other intellectual property rights or contains material inaccuracies, libelous materials or otherwise unlawful materials, HERR will investigate the complaint. Investigation may include a request that the parties involved substantiate their claims. The Journal will make a good faith determination whether to remove the allegedly erroneous material. A decision not to remove material should represent the journals belief that the complaint is without sufficient foundation, or if well-founded , that a legal defense or exemption may apply, such as fair use in the case of copyright infringement or truthfulness of a statement in the case of libel. HERR should document its investigation and decision.

Disclosure of the Conflict of Interest. All sponsors supporting the work including all the institution involved must be acknowledged in text. All sponsors and institution involved must be notified for the submission of the article for publication. This includes declaration of no commercial association that my pose conflict of interest. It is the researches sole responsibility to any issues pertaining to this matter.

Copyright Registration of Individual Research Publication. Once a research is published in any institutional research journal, the CJP will recommend it to the Intellectual Property Management Office for the processing of the copyright registration.