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 of less than 25%, as determined by plagiarism detection software. However, a similarity rate higher than 25% is considered a high percentage of plagiarism.

The CJP does not accept plagiarized articles and does not condone any act involving plagiarism. If discovered during the peer review process, the manuscript is automatically rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, the CJP may publish a correction, require the author to justify the plagiarism, or retract the publication.

Original Manuscript

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

Authorship

The CJP will strictly follow the relative contribution of authors to determine the author order. The author who contributed the most to the draft article and the underlying research shall be listed as the first author. Co-authors are ranked in descending order of contribution, while the last author is typically the principal investigator or supervisor who oversaw the entire study.

When research is conducted by a team or group of individuals, authorship must be appropriately and correspondingly distributed among the members. Authorship of a scholarly or creative work recognizes substantial intellectual contributions and acknowledges responsibility for specific aspects of the work. Therefore, all qualified persons must be included in authorship considerations, statements, and acknowledgments. Conversely, all identified authors must have expressed consent to be listed as authors.

The widely adopted set of rules for determining authorship is the Vancouver Protocol, which states that to be credited as an author, each person must have been involved in:
(a) the 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.

Under 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 a tangible form under copyright law.”

The Philippine Intellectual Property Code on Copyright affirms an author’s moral rights, which are distinct from economic rights and must be recognized and upheld. Researchers must comply with copyright law and be aware of other authors’ moral rights.

Authorship of research output is not limited to those who wrote the paper but also includes individuals who 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 shall submit the research articles to be included in a specific volume and issue of the journal.

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

Issue No. 1 of the journal is published in June, and Issue No. 2 is published in December of the current year.

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

The CJP will call for publications every March for Himal-us and every September for Higher Education Research Review (HERR). Each issue (volume and number) of Himal-us and HERR shall consist of 40% articles from GSU personnel and 60% from external researchers.

Submitted research manuscripts in AIMRaD format (Abstract, Introduction, Methodology, Results, and Discussion) will be collected and forwarded to the Editorial Board for selection.

Researchers of selected manuscripts will receive a Notice of Acceptance along with their manuscripts containing corrections and suggestions within 30–45 days upon receipt. A Notice of Rejection will be sent to researchers whose manuscripts do not meet the standards and criteria set by the Center and approved by the Editorial Board.

Researchers are required to incorporate the corrections and suggestions and return the updated manuscript to jp@gsu.edu.ph or through the website journals.gsu.edu within 14 days after receipt for final screening.

The screening committee will then decide whether to accept or reject the corrected manuscript.

Peer Review System

Selected manuscripts that pass the initial screening will proceed to the next stage. The board will identify an independent (external) content expert who will appraise the manuscript according to:
(a) the significance of its contribution to knowledge and/or practice;
(b) the substance of the content; and
(c) the clarity of exposition.

Reviewers will provide explicit suggestions, which will be consolidated by the editorial staff and communicated to the authors.

A double-blind peer review process will be employed, in which the identities of both authors and reviewers are concealed from each other.

External peer reviewers will be invited based on their publication record in credible journals. Reviewers must have published at least five research papers in refereed journals over the past five consecutive years. Selection of reviewers is the responsibility of the Editorial Board.

CJP maintains a pool of invited reviewers. If no qualified expert is available within the pool, the Editorial Board, with the assistance of the Publication Officer, will identify and invite external reviewers. If necessary, especially for highly specialized topics, authors may be asked to suggest potential reviewers in their field.

Scoring System:
Research manuscripts will be rated based on the evaluation criteria of HERR and Himal-us (see Appendix B).
The mean score is computed by summing all scores and dividing by the number of referees.

  • If one referee rejects the paper without an option to resubmit, the article is automatically rejected.

  • If the article obtains an average score of 2.00, it is automatically rejected.

  • If the article obtains an average score of 2.01 or higher, the Editorial Board will notify the author(s) to:
    (a) make minor revisions,
    (b) make major revisions, or
    (c) resubmit the article.

Even if the article obtains an average score of 5.00, authors must still integrate all suggestions.

Rejected articles are advised to be submitted to another journal publication.

Styles and Formatting

Full-length research papers presenting findings of research conducted within the past three (3) years are required.

The paper should include:

  • Abstract (not more than 200 words)

  • Introduction (includes background, theoretical support, related studies, and statement of the problem or research topic, including its relevance)

  • Literature Review

  • Methodology

  • Results and Discussion (thematically presented, with subsections)

  • Conclusion (may be part of the Results and Discussion section)

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

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

References must appear at the end of the document following the APA format.

Page size should be 8.5 x 10 inches, with 1-inch margins on all sides.
Text must be in 12-point, single-spaced, justified alignment using a standard font.

Authors must strictly follow the required parts of the paper 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 written in Standard English or Filipino and must include author information (not more than 150 words).

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

Copyright Policy

Ownership and Licensing

Manuscripts submitted to any journal under the Center for Journal Publication (CJP) are made possible through a limited license granted by the author(s). The authors retain full copyright ownership of their work.

All other components of the journals—such as the journal title, logo, design, structure, and organization—are protected by copyright and are the property of the Guimaras State University Research and Development Center.

Declaration of Previous Publication

Authors must declare any form of prior publication—whether in print or online—before the official release of the journal.

Requests for full or partial reprint, including abstracts or proceedings derived from previously published materials, require written approval from the Center for Journal Publication. When reprinting is permitted, the author(s) must obtain a permission letter from the editor-in-chief of the journal where the work originally appeared.

Policy for Handling Complaints

If the Center for Journal Publication receives a complaint alleging that a published article infringes copyright or other intellectual property rights, contains factual inaccuracies, or includes libelous or otherwise unlawful content, the Center will initiate an investigation.

The process may include requiring the parties involved to substantiate their claims. The Center will make a good-faith determination on whether to remove, amend, or retain the material.

A decision not to remove the content should represent the Center’s belief that the complaint lacks sufficient basis, or that a valid legal defense or exemption applies (e.g., fair use in the case of copyright, or truthfulness in the case of libel). All investigations and outcomes shall be properly documented.

Disclosure of Conflict of Interest

All funding sources, sponsoring organizations, and collaborating institutions that supported the research must be clearly acknowledged in the manuscript.

Authors must also declare the absence or presence of any commercial, institutional, or personal relationships that could be perceived as potential conflicts of interest. It is the sole responsibility of the researchers to ensure transparency and full disclosure in this matter.

Copyright Registration of Published Works

Once a research article is published in any journal under the Center for Journal Publication, the Center will endorse the work to the Intellectual Property Management Office (IPMO) of Guimaras State University for copyright registration and appropriate documentation.