Journal Policies

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51611/iars.irj.constitution

Version History

Version	Release Date	Author/Modifier	Description/Remarks
0.1	08 FEB 2011	Prof. (Dr.) Tony Brown Prof. (Dr.) D. Jain	Draft prepared
1.0	08 FEB 2011	Governing Board of Journal	Baselined
1.1	29-AUG-2021	Dr. Shivani Raheja	Updated Publisher Name CEO defined as independent role reporting to EC and ED. Structure of Editorial Board updated. Responsibility of administration of ResEarth is formally assigned
1.2	01-SEP-2021	Dr. Shivani Raheja	Consolidated with all standalone policy documents.
1.3	11-NOV-2021	Dr. Shivani Raheja	Policy about Post Publication Peer Review added Self-Archiving Policy updated to Green Open Access Publication Principal
1.4	01-DEC-2021	Dr. Shivani Raheja	Crossmark Policy added. Policy for Conflict of Interest updated as per COPE Guidelines. Data and Reproducibility Policy updated as per COPE Guidelines
1.5	07-JAN-2022	Dr. Shivani Raheja	DORA Declarations/Recommendations for Publishers Implemented Procedure of Impact Factor Reporting is removed.

Preamble

IARS' International Research Journal (IIRJ) is half yearly published peer reviewed (refereed), open access, multidisciplinary, scholarly journal available in print and electronic format with unique ISSN issued by Australian ISSN Agency. The Journal is published by “IARS’ Press Australia” (an extended unit of International Association of Research Scholars) and funded by its sponsors. The Journal is FREE of Cost for publishing and distribution in electronic form at the official website ResEarth: IARS’ Journal Management System (www.researth.iars.info). All board structures, chairs, and respective roles & responsibilities are honorary and voluntary in nature and not entitled to any remunerations for them. Reimbursements of any expenses towards rendering of services may be honoured with prior written approval from editorial Chairperson only. All stakeholders are expected to abide by Code-of-Conduct of the Journal.

Scope

This text documents the constitution of the IARS’ International Research Journal (IIRJ) in whole and creates a framework about different policies, procedures, guidelines, templates, standards, code-of-conduct, and other rules/regulations/terms/conditions of all functions of the journal.

Limitation/Disclaimer

This text documents offers merely as an indicative guide for constitutional ways of working of the IARS’ International Research Journal (IIRJ), but in no ways provides exhaustive description/understanding of its policies/procedures/other documents. The constitution is supported by different associative documents as mentioned either on its annexure or on the official website of the journal or on its Journal Management System or the websites of sponsors/associates/distributors/partners/others. This document should be followed with common ethics and cooperative senses of responsibilities to meet the goals of the organization. The Office of Chairperson of the organization and the Editorial Chairperson of the Journal reserve complete rights of making any changes in this/associated document without prior notices/information. The current version of the information available on the official website should be referred for any purposes. Write to contact@iars.info for any queries/notifications.

Reviewed By

Prof. (Dr.) Maya Khemlani David (Editor in Chief – IARS’ International Research Journal)

Approved By

Prof. D. Jain (Editorial Chairperson – IARS’ International Research Journal)

The Journal

The IARS' International Research Journal (IIRJ) is half yearly published Peer Reviewed (refereed), Open Access, Multidisciplinary, Scholarly Journal available in print and electronic format with unique ISSN issued by Australian ISSN Agency.

Print-ISSN: 2202-2821
Electronic ISSN: 1839-6518
Abbreviation: IIRJ
Other representations: IARS Int Res J

Inception History

The IARS' International Research Journal (IIRJ) was first published in February 2011.

The journal defined its Sequential and/or chronological designations as ‘Vol. 1 No. 1 2011’ that is followed in subsequent future without change.

Initially the Journal was published on a generic CMS in PDF formats, that was later shifted to more professional Journal Management System (https://researth.iars.info) in 2016 and all previously published issues were migrated to the new system.

Aim and Scope

As stated on https://researth.iars.info/index.php/curie/aim-n-scope

About The Publisher

The primary Publisher and Owner of IARS’ International Research Journal (IIRJ) is “IARS’ Press Australia” (an extended unit of International Association of Research Scholars) that can further collaborate with other professionals/publishers for ensuring the success of the journal. The publisher is responsible for arranging the funds for journal finance for meeting all expenses.

Publisher’s Website: www.press.iars.info
Parent Organization Website: www.iars.info

Journal Management System

IARS’ International Research Journal (IIRJ), in electronic format, is regularly published on its official Journal Management System named as ResEarth: IARS’ Journal Management System available at https://researth.iars.info.

ResEarth JMS is originally developed over the Open Journal Management System and has been improvised with multiple additional plug-ins and add-on scripts.

To be Noted that this JMS sends appropriate communications about processing of their submissions through the publishing workflow of the Journal to respective submitter/corresponding author of the submission. The acknowledgement of a successful submission is received within few minutes that should be considered as the first official answer from IARS' International Research Journal about the submission.

Roles & Responsibilities

Contributors Criteria

Work Submitter

IARS’ International Research Journal (IIRJ) identified the ‘work submitter’ as the individual submitting the content to the journal and requesting to consider it for publishing. The submitter, on behalf of other relevant stakeholders, accepts all terms and conditions for submission of the content to the journal and represents the entire team of stakeholders who are responsible and creditable for the content submitted for publishing. This is the responsibility of the submitter to take appropriate authorities for submission of the content and giving all declarations on behalf of all creators and owners of the content. The submitter should add all authors and translators appropriately with all required information as asked in the Journal Management System. The submitter should provide the information about affiliations of all authors, Funding Agency, Subjects of Study, appropriate keywords, references with appropriate DOI/Links, Abstract, Title and Subtitle, and all other details of the work as asked in the Journal Management System while submitting the content for publishing. The content should be submitted in appropriate template.

Author(s)

IARS’ International Research Journal (IIRJ) confers the authorship based on original creation and/or substantial contribution to the content of the article, and/or work design, and/or assigned accountability of the results of the work. Co-authorship is conferred based on substantial guidance to the work and/or arranging of the required approvals and agreements for publishing the content.

The teams of the co-authors should be able to mutually identify the individual responsible and accountable for a given part of the published work.

Non-Author Contributors

Contributors who do not meet the criteria of being ‘Author(s)’ as defined above are considered as non-author contributors They may include but are not limited to Funders, Translators, Editors, and others who have supported the authors in creation of the work article and its formatted manuscript that is being submitted to the Journal for publishing.

Appropriate acknowledgements should be given to non-author contributors. The acknowledgement can be given wither in a section of manuscript itself or else, the Journal Management System allows the ‘Translators’ to be added as a contributor in the article for its direct credits.

Boards of the Journal

Editorial Chairperson (EC)

Editorial Chairperson is the primary and the most influential contact for any affair related to the IARS’ International Research Journal (IIRJ). It is responsible for overall success of the journal. The long-term strategic policies and decisions come from this chair. Editorial Chairperson is responsible for appointing/replacing the governing board members, making them aware of their roles & responsibilities and right & duties, and actively coordinate with them along with the publisher in their activities by sending updates on key performance indicators, journal statistics, arranging teleconferences and physical meetings where possible, analysing competitive situation, developing content ideas. Editorial Chairperson is also responsible for planning of special issues, publishing ethics, and delegation/resolution of complaints reported under code of publishing ethics. Editorial Chairperson heads the Governing Board of the Journal. The Editorial Chairperson is also responsible for suspension/dismiss of any board member based on any proven misconduct or appropriate reasons based on inadequate performance, delays in responses/actions, disagreements of directions, inappropriate behaviour, or other.

Editorial Directors (ED)

Editorial Directors are parts of the Governing Board of the Journal and together constitute the Board of Directors of the Journal. The Editorial Directors are responsible for active directions to all board members for publicity & marketing, and distribution of the journal across globe. It works right-handed with Editorial Chairperson by sharing responsibility towards the success of the journal. Editorial Director empowers the overall profile of the journal using websites, social media, RSS feeds, search engine optimization and email communications. Editorial Director is expected to coordinate with research scholars, mentors, institutions, and organizations for calling contribution to the journal and its distribution.

Chief Editorial Officers (CEO)

Chief Editorial Officers (CEO) are the supporting parts of the Governing Board of the Journal along with Editorial Directors (ED). The Chief Editorial Officers along with the Editorial Directors help the Editorial Chairperson for appointing/replacing the editorial/advisory/reviewer board members and actively coordinate with them along with the publisher. They are responsible for defining/updating the structure, roles, and responsibilities of the Editorial Board (EB) with the approvals of Editorial Chairperson. One of the CEOs, as nominated by EC, is responsible for administrating the ResEarth: IARS’ Journal Management System.

Editorial Board (EB)

Governed by the Office of CEO, the Editorial Board or Board of Editors (EB) consists of Editor-in-Chief, Chief-managing-Editor, Managing Editors, and Editorial Annexure. The Editorial Annexure is composed of Sr. Associate Editors and Associate Editors.

Editor in Chief

Editor in Chief is overall responsible for timely publishing of a volume/issue of the journal with optimum quality. The Editor in Chief heads the Editorial Board and coordinates with other team members to get the volume published. Editor in Chief gives its final consent about acceptance/rejection of a manuscript in a volume/issue.

Chief Managing Editor

Chief managing Editor is the first-hand support to the Editor in Chief and shares parallel responsibilities with it. Chief Managing Editor leads the Editorial Board and coordinates with Managing Editors for successful and timely completion of different sections of a volume/issue of the journal. In consultation with Editor-in-Chief, the Chief Managing Editor advises the Editorial Chairperson for addition/deletion/modification of sections/columns in a volume/issue of the journal and hereby defining overall structure/schema of any volume/issue of the journal.

Board of Managing Editors

The Board of Managing Editors is headed by Chief Managing Editor. The Managing Editors are responsible for planning about the schema of a volume/issue of the journal, provide their comments to the Editor-in-Chief about a given manuscript for which they receive the review inputs through Associate Editors. The managing editors usually head a specific area/column/section in the journal under the directions of Editor in Chief and subject matter experts of the specific topic.

The Managing Editors get assigned to manuscripts in ResEarth: IARS’ Journal Management System by the system administrator. Respective Managing Editor of the manuscript is responsible for selecting and assigning reviewers, getting and consolidating review comments, taking appropriate decision about selection of manuscript, and assigning it to appropriate volume/issue of the journal, through ResEarth JMS.

Editorial Annexure (EA)

The Editorial Annexure (EA), also known as Board of Associate Editors at IIRJ, includes Sr. Associate Editors and Associate Editors. The board is responsible for providing required assistance to the Board of Managing Editors in preparation of publishable volume/issue of the journal as and when required. The members of Editorial Annexure can be called upon by the Managing Editors for special advice and support based on their areas of expertise.

Advisory Board

The Advisory Board of IIRJ is expected to provide the Governing Board and Editorial Board with the honest and transparent advises to ensure the success of the journal in meeting its objectives and achieving its mission. The board includes a team of Chief Advisor, Senior Advisors, and Advisors. The Chief Advisor heads the Advisory Board and takes the support of other board members to advise the Journal Directors, CEO(s), and Editors for their operations.

Reviewer Board

The Reviewer Board is responsible for expert reviews of assigned manuscripts and providing their comments for the manuscript to the editorial board in a set template of IIRJ. The reviewers should submit their comments on the manuscript and its contents and NOT on the knowledge of proficiency of the author(s). At the same time, the reviewer should also extend their vision towards the contribution (positive as well as negative) of the content towards the society and the objectives of the journal and provide the comments accordingly.

The Editor-in-Chief would consider the reviewer’s comments as one of the bases of its decision about inclusion or rejection of the manuscript in any volume of the journal though, there can be many other factors contributing to this decision e.g., criticality of the topic, suitability to current stream of journal etc. that may have not been commented upon by the reviewers. Based on all factors, the Editor-in-Chief would take the decision about inclusion of manuscript in the journal and this decision should be finally acceptable to all parties.

Appointment and Dismissal Procedure of Board Members

Appointments and dismissals of the board members at IARS’ International research Journal is based on evaluations by a panel of independent experts. The Board-Selection-Panel (BSP) is constituted and headed by the Editorial Chairperson triennially (once in three years) or as per the requirements submitted by other bord members.

The Editorial Chairperson periodically calls nominations for re-constituting the boards of the journal through appropriately defined channels including official emails, postal mails, social media groups, etc.
A multi-parameter quantitative and qualitative comparative matrix is prepared for ranking of the nominated intellects. Parameters may include (but not limited to) research/academic experience, h-index, availability of verifiable research profile (ORCID/SCOPUS/Google Scholars/others), etc.
- No biasing for Region, Religion, Gender, Colour, or other Physical parameters are NOT considered base of any decisions about selections of board members.
Conflict of Interests and other risks are evaluated under BSP discussion.
Respective scores are given against each parameter and board structure is drafted based on respective ranking.
Draft structure of board(s) is presented to Editorial Chairperson for review and approval.
The final structure of the board is announced, and respective communications are sent to selected members along with descriptions of their roles & responsibilities and rights & duties.

CODE OF ETHICS

IARS’ International Research Journal (IIRJ) abides itself in ethical responsibility towards the confidentiality, coherency, and respect to the manuscripts submitted to it for consideration for publishing in its volume/s. The manuscripts are essential parts of this knowledge platform and are in fact the means of its existence. IARS’ International Research Journal accepts that manuscripts are knowledge assets of the authors and are the direct reflection of their research works and achievements. We accept that the manuscripts are outcome of joint efforts and inputs from authors, co-authors, translators, funders, and many other associated individuals/teams/institutions. Looking into the sensitivity of the research content, IARS accepts the need of ethical behaviour for all stakeholders (authors, reviewers, editors, coordinators, archivers, distributors, and others) involved in the process of publishing, indexing, archiving, and distribution of research manuscripts and their embedded knowledge.

Code of Ethics for Authors

The Author(s) of the manuscripts should take ethical responsibilities about the originality of content, correctness of results, and authenticity of the resources.
The Author(s) should not copy the contents, produce redundant information, and exploit the ambiguity in content.
The Author(s) should ethically respect the copyrights, patents, acknowledgements, references, disclosures, and conflicts of interests as and wherever applicable in whatsoever manners.
The author(s) should claim the credit only for work that they have produced originally by them.
The author(s) should properly cite and acknowledge the work of others as well as their own related work that they have got already published and used as reference in the currently submitted manuscript It is the responsibility of the authors, not the editors or reviewers or any other team member of the journal, to ensure that relevant prior research outcomes and discoveries are appropriately acknowledged with the original citations in manuscripts submitted for publication.
The author(s) should submit only original and unpublished works to the journals, no part of which has been previously published in print or online as, or is under consideration as, a peer-reviewed article in another journal, as a non-peer-reviewed article (such as a review) in another journal, or as a book chapter.
Authors should not submit the same manuscript, in the same or different languages, to more than one journal at same or different times.
Author(s) should determine whether the disclosure of content requires the prior consent of other parties and, if so, obtain that consent prior to submission. Taking permission to include any such content in the manuscript is the sole responsibility of the author. The editorial authorities of the journal would consider that all such permissions have already been taken by the author before submission of the manuscript. The editorial authorities of the journal would neither ask nor remind nor seek evidence for any such permission from the author(s).
They author(s) should maintain access to original research results; primary data should remain in the laboratory and should be preserved for a minimum of five years or for as long as there may be reasonable need to refer to them.
Author(s) should be careful enough to maintain the confidentiality and privacy of participants of any research/survey/studies appropriately as required by law/regulations/standards/terms agreed with them for the study.
If any study involves participation of human subjects, vulnerable populations (like children/minors/girls etc.), and/or animals, the Author should submit the statement of consent and approval of study (or grant of exemption) by concerned institutional review board or research ethics committee and declares that the submitted study has been carried out under applicable national/international ethical standards. Authors involved in such studies should confirm that the study has been carried out in accordance with the ethical standards as mentioned in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The Author should submit the approval of study from an approved institutional review board or research ethics committee or ethical review board or an independent ethics committee. Authors should submit such declaration and approvals for Clinical Studies and Clinical Trials too.
Any nonessential details should be removed from the manuscript before submitting.
All authors of articles submitted for publication should assume full responsibility, within the limits of their professional competence, for the accuracy and completeness of the facts, procedures, results, and other content contained in their manuscripts.
All author(s)/submitter of the article must follow the Version Deposit Policy for Authors of IARS’ International Research Journal

Code of Ethics for Publisher(s), Editor(s), Reviewer(s), Coordinators(s), and other Board Member(s)

Publisher(s), Editor(s), Reviewer(s), Coordinators(s), and every other Board Member(s) of IARS' International Research Journal shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. This includes but not limited to plagiarism, citation, manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication. In no case shall the IARS' International Research Journal (IIRJ) or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that the publisher or editors of IARS' International Research Journal are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal, the board shall follow ICMJE/COPE’s (or equivalent) guidelines as applicable.
All parties must refrain them from any type of misconduct of the journal policies, international standards, and legal obligations.
All parties must respect the confidentiality of the content submitted by the authors and authors must not submit the content at more than one place for publishing or consideration for publishing.
The decisions of acceptance or rejections of manuscripts in a volume would be in direct interest of objectives of the journal and would be independent of race, sex, religion, region, qualification, position, and other individuality of the author(s).
Confidentiality of the content of all submitted manuscripts should be respected and maintained on priority.
No party/individual should make or retain copies of the content and all content must be returned to Editor-in-Chief after taking required actions on it.
No party should use the content, or any of its part, or the information contained in it before its official publishing and release.
The reviewers should submit their comments on the manuscript and its contents and NOT on the knowledge of proficiency of the author(s). At the same time, the reviewer should also extend their vision towards the contribution (positive as well as negative) of the content towards the society and the objectives of the journal and provide the comments accordingly.
The Editor-in-Chief would consider the reviewer’s comments as one of the bases of its decision about inclusion or rejection of the manuscript in any volume of the journal though, there can be many other factors contributing to this decision e.g., criticality of the topic, suitability to current stream of journal etc. that may have not been commented upon by the reviewers. Based on all factors, the Editor-in-Chief would take the decision about inclusion of manuscript in the journal and this decision should be finally acceptable to all parties.
Blind review means confidentiality of reviewers' identities from authors and authors identities from reviewers. Editors, reviewers, coordinators, and all involved parties should maintain this two-way confidentiality of the Blind Review Process.
The reviewer(s) should bring in the knowledge of Editor-in-Chief if they find themselves connected with the manuscript or the authors in any ways e.g., they may have got a manuscript guided by them only, because in blind review process, this is a possible scenario. Such a case should be reported immediately to the Editor-in-Chief and taking corrective actions.
The editors and coordinators should make proper checks to avoid conflict of interests between authors and reviewers.
Different acting boards should NOT act to influence the decisions and actions of each other. They should work independently and contribute collectively towards the objectives of the journal.
The Editor-in-Chief may skip or add some step(s) in the processing of the manuscript if found utmost needed in order to avoid any conflicts or forecasted crisis e.g. sometimes review of some content may be skipped due to maintain required secrecy before publishing or to avoid conflict of interest with the reviewers. Editor-in-chief, however, would be the final decision-making authority for such steps and would not be answerable to anyone for such decisions.
No party should forge, misarticulate, alter, or spoil the content of the submitted manuscripts.

Disclaimer

Disclaimer from IARS' International Research Journal (IIRJ) and International Association of Research Scholars (IARS) and their representatives:
IARS, IARS' International Research Journal, and their representatives do NOT take any responsibilities of violation of copyright, patent, or any other laws or rules by authors in their content or due to any ignorance in review process.
We disclaim the responsibility of correctness or completeness of the content in any respect and author(s) is (are) considered to take complete responsibility of the submitted content.
All materials on this web site are the copyright of IARS' International Research Journal or are reproduced with permission from other copyright owners or are submitted by respective authors who either are the owners of the content or take responsibility of reserving permissions of the use and submission of the content in their names. All rights are reserved. The materials on this web site may be retrieved and downloaded solely for personal use. No materials may otherwise be copied, modified, published, broadcast, or otherwise distributed without the prior permission from IARS' International Research Journal.
IARS' International Research Journal makes no warranties or representations of any kind concerning the accuracy or suitability of the information contained on this web site for any purpose. All such information is provided with specific disclaimer of any warranties of merchantability fitness for purpose, title and/or non-infringement.
IARS' International Research Journals makes no warranties or representations of any kind that the services provided by this web site will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that the web site or the server that hosts the web site are free from viruses or other forms of harmful computer code. In no event shall IARS' International Research Journal, its employees, or agents, or representatives be liable for any direct, indirect, or consequential damages resulting from the use of this web site or its contents. This exclusion and limitation only apply to the extent permitted by law and is without prejudice to any express provisions to the contrary in any written license or subscription agreement from IARS' International Research Journal in respect of the use of any online service provided via this web site.
Portions of this site is prepared from the content submitted by other people (users/members/authors/others) which do not necessarily reflect the view of IARS' International Research Journal. IARS' International Research Journal reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to review, edit or delete any material posted by these other people. By posting materials on this site, these other people represent that they have all necessary rights in and to such materials and that such materials will not infringe any personal or proprietary rights of any third parties, nor will such materials be defamatory, unlawful, threatening, obscene or otherwise objectionable.

Publication Policies and Procedures

Policy on Editorial Freedom

The policy of Editorial Freedom of the IARS’ International Research Journal confirms that the PUBLISHER has no interference in the decisions about quality of the journal or selection of its boards/teams. This is confirmed that the duo of Editorial Chairperson and Editor-in-Chief has full joint-authority on Planning of any issue of the Journal that includes Structuring and Scheduling of the Journal. They commonly decide about the research content, general content, sponsored content, supplementary content, respective policies, procedures, guidelines, and template etc. for the Journal.

The Editor-in-Chief, through system administrator, assigns an editor for every submitted article. The respective editor assigns the reviewer(s) to the article and takes final decision for selection/rejection of the article based on advisory of the reviewers. Finally accepted and copyedited articles are provided to Editor-in-Chief, who finally decides the structure of the volume and publishes it in the system.

Publication Schedule Policy

IARS' International Research Journal is scheduled to be published twice a year.

The first issue of the year is expected to be published in the month of February/March and is sequenced as (Vol. XX No. 1 YYYY).

The second issue of the year is expected to be published in the month of August/September and is sequenced as (Vol. XX No. 2 YYYY).

Other than the two regular issues, the journal may consider publishing of special issues for addressing specific research areas and global challenges within the scope of a journal.

Open Access Policy Statement

IARS' International Research Journal is an open access journal which means that all research articles published here are freely available (online) to the user. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the research articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, permitted under the Copyright Policy and Law, provided that appropriate citation is given for the journal and proper credits are given to author(s). This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access. Open Access Policies of the Journal has been aggregated and analysed by SHERPA-RoMEO

Policy on Copyright, License, and Publishing Rights

IARS' Press Australia (International Association of Research Scholars) respects the rights of the authors of research content published with IARS' International Research Journal. The “First Publication Rights” (FPR) to the original work accepted for publication at IARS’ International Research Journal is granted to the Publisher of the Journal but copyright for all work published in the journal is retained by the author(s).

Works published in the Journal will be distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). (This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.)

As per DORA Guidelines (Declaration), The reference list published with the articles shall be available under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0), Public Domain Dedication.

After publishing the content with IARS' International Research Journal, the author holds complete right on the content for its amendments and reuse in any form. IARS' International Research Journal confirms that authors would hold the copyright of the content.

Author(s) grant(s) permission for their work to be indexed in part/full form in commercial and non-commercial indexes. Author(s) grant(s) permission for their work to be harvested in part/full form in commercial and non-commercial archives and distributed through them. Author(s) grant(s) permission for their work to be translated in part/full form in any language and republished and redistributed.

Author(s) may enter into separate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work, with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this Journal. It will be the responsibility of the author(s) to secure all necessary copyright and/or permissions for the use of third-party content in their manuscript(s). Author(s) will be required to declare the same at the time of submission of manuscript and 'may also be required' to provide written evidence of this permission anytime in case required for any purposes.

Due to some technical limitations or other reasons beyond the control of the publisher, the Copyright Statements in some standalone files including PDF copies of articles, or some archived pages/articles may be showing copyright to the Journal/Publisher/Other. Finding this beyond practical feasibilities to change the statements at all places. THIS IS HEREBY DECLARED THAT THIS POLICY PREVAILS ALL COPYRIGHT STATEMENTS declared anywhere else w.r.t. IARS' International Research Journal and this hereby confirms 'OPEN ACCESS' (under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License) to all contents published with IARS' International Research Journal.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism in any form for text, images, records, or any content is unacceptable at IARS' International Research Journal. We consider than plagiarism is not only illegal but is also morally corrosive. Editorial Board would check for presence of plagiarism in all submitted articles and the content found guilty are rejected without peer review. Contents taken from historic works that are appropriately cited and proper credits are given to owners are not considered guilty of plagiarism.

Plagiarism shall be checked with standard tools and respective reports shall be added in PDF versions of the published articles with date-of-test and respective extent of Plagiarism.

Acceptable maximum limits of duplicated content (with appropriate citations) are as follows:

10% for General Research Articles
20% for Research Review articles
30% for Literature Review articles

Editor-in-Chief has been authorized to provide up-to 5% concessions on above marks with appropriate remarks displayed on the PDF version of published article.

Author/Submitter Declaration Requirement: This should be noted that IARS' International Research Journal does NOT take any separate certificate/signed-paper from author/submitter about plagiarism-free content of any submission, rather, author/submitter declares the responsibility in submission-checklist before submitting the article in Journal Management System, and the Editorial Board checks the plagiarism of the content as per the policy of the Journal through its own tools and only this report is acceptable to the journal for making a decision about acceptance of the article.

NO Simultaneous Submission Requirement: To avoid any discrepancy in plagiarism reports, the author/submitter must NOT submit the same article/content at multiple places for consideration. Any such article, if found during the review/editorial process shall be rejected by the editorial board of the Journal without further consideration.

Peer Review Policy

IARS' International Research Journal follows a Double-Blind Review Process for all submissions in regular or special editions or conference proceedings.

MUST BE NOTED that IARS' International research Journal does NOT guarantee any manuscript acceptance or any short/speedy peer review times. Any such claims on behalf of the IARS' International Research Journal must be considered fake.

Pre-Publication Peer Review Process

Irrespective of category, all submissions to the journal are initially reviewed by the Editor(s) and/or Associate Editor(s). At this stage manuscripts may be rejected without peer review if it is felt that they are not of high enough priority or not relevant to the journal or the standards of submission of IARS' International Research Journal are not followed appropriately.
All manuscripts passing the initial review are subjected to be reviewed by independent reviewers assigned by respective editor of the article. Multiple reviewers may be assigned to an article based on its subjects of interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary research.
To be noted that IARS' International Research Journal, being a not-for-profit initiative, does not recruit full-time-reviewers and hereby the reviewers/assessors involved in the peer-review process are principally external and independent, although may hold a membership to the parent/partner organizations of the Journal/its publishing organization.
Identities of Authors, their affiliations, and any other individual information are hidden from reviewers and Identities of Reviewers, their affiliations, and any other individual information are kept hidden from authors to ensure a double-blind review.
Based on the feedback from assigned reviewer(s) and the Editors’ judgment, a decision is given on the manuscript.
Manuscripts may also be sent out for statistical, legal, and/or other reviews if required.
Review feedbacks are received over e-mails or other reliable systems and are only for advisory purposes. Decision of Editorial board about inclusion or rejection of a manuscript in a volume would be considered final.

Possible Results of Pre-Publication Peer Review

Accept Submission: Research article has been recommended by reviewer for acceptance for inclusion and publishing in an appropriate volume/issue of IARS' International Research Journal.
Revisions Required: Research article has been recommended by reviewer for some revisions in terms of data/grammar/formatting/other for getting accepted for inclusion and publishing in an appropriate volume/issue of IARS' International Research Journal. This outcome is usually accompanied with suitable comments of shortcomings.
Resubmit for Review: Due to some reasons/errors, the article file may be required to be resubmitted for review.
Resubmit Elsewhere: Although the research article is found to have potential research outcome, but due to some policies/scope of the IARS' International Research Journal, the same may not be included in any volume/issue planned in near future. Hereby the reviewer may recommend the article to be resubmitted elsewhere, may be in some other journal of IARS' Press. Usually, the reviewer can recommend a more suitable title of the journal if an article is assigned to this option.
Decline Submission: The article has been declined for inclusion in any volume/issue of IARS' International Research Journal. The reviewer is NOT bound to give an explanation/reason for the same.
See Comments: In case, the reviewer finds none of the above outcome suitable, this option can be selected with some suitable comments for appropriate further action.

Matter of Pre-Publication Review Controversy

In case of a conflict between multiple reviewers (if assigned by editor), or a conflict between decision of reviewer and decision of editor, or that with the author, normally the editor decision prevails, although, if required in the favour of visions/quality of the IARS' International Research Journal, the other party can escalate the matter as per Misconducts Handling Procedure of the Journal

Post Publication Peer Review

The Peer Review does not end with publication of a manuscript, rather it continues even after its publication and making available to public for their reading and review about its quality, applicability, acceptability, and other parameters. This peer review after publishing of the manuscript is considered as Post Publication Peer Review.

IARS' International Research Journal encourages Post Publications Peer Reviews by the readers of published research articles. IARS' International Research Journal recommends Post Publication Peer Review comments to be submitted on Research Gate, although the readers can also submit their review comments over the other platforms like PubPeer.

Data and Reproducibility

The reviewer is expected to be the first whistle-blower about any suspicious data presented in a submission. The reviewer can raise its doubts in its comments and put the submission on hold until the doubts are cleared.

The Author/contributor are expected to take sole responsibility of any research outcomes or content presented in their submission and IARS’ International Research Journal has been completely indemnified for any gain/loss/correctness/incorrectness of the content, but IARS’ International Research Journal editorial/reviewer board can ask the contributor to prove the genuinely and/or correctness of the data with reproducibility of the research outcomes as presented in the submission.

IARS’ international Research Journal recommends to follow the COPE suggested workflow for Data and Reproducibility to ensure the trueness and reliability of research data and its outcome.
(COPE Council. COPE Flowcharts and infographics — Fabricated data in a submitted manuscript — English. https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.2.3 ©2021 Committee on Publication Ethics)

Policy about Conflict of Interest and Resolution

The workflow of publication process involves delivery of assigned responsibilities including reviews, recommendations, copy editing, scheduling, and publishing. These responsibilities are delivered by multiple people (human) assigned to appropriate roles as per the need of workflow. Involvement of human in a process can bring 'Conflict of Interest', and this hereby becomes a prime responsibility of the Journal to ensure truthful and honest delivery of assigned responsibility.

For this purpose, IARS’ International Research Journal adopts following policies to curb the impacts of Conflicts of Interest on the Quality of outcomes of the Journal.

Conflict of Interest by Internal Sources

The editors and/or reviewers of the IARS’ International Research Journal must be ensured NOT to be assigned to the workflow of any submission having the editor/reviewer itself as a contributor in the submission in any known direct/indirect manner. Independent editorial and review workflow is ensured to curb any conflict of interest and ensure the quality of outcome of the research publication at the IARS' International Research Journal.

The editors/reviewers are expected to report back (self-declare) any Conflict of Interest to the Editor-in-Chief if this is noticed after assigning of the editor/reviewer.

Conflict of Interest by External Sources

The editors and/or reviewers of the IARS’ International Research Journal may be receiving invitations from other editorials in similar or linked roles, or they may be already holding similar or linked roles in other editorials having same/similar objectives and scopes, and hereby may have some conflict of interest, for example, sharing the information about Authors or Research Data, or policies/procedures or conflict of business interest etc.

IARS’ International Research Journal has minimized the conflict of business interest by setting itself as a Not-For-Profit initiative and hereby having no business interest other than supporting the global research communities by sharing of knowledge about latest scholarly researches.

All potential editors and reviewers must self-declare their Conflict of Interest by External Sources to the Editor-in-Chief at the time of appointment and also at anytime they get engaged in any such conflict of interest. All team members of IARS’ International Research Journal are bound to Code of Ethics of the Journal and respective bylaws.

Reporting and Resolving the Conflict of Interest noticed externally

As pe Code of Ethics of the IARS’ International Research Journal, the Conflict of Interest, at the first step, is expected to be self-declared by the respective responsibility holder (editor/reviewer/other).

Conflict of Interest, if noticed externally by anybody and any stage, pre or post publication, can be reported to Editor-in-Chief anytime and appropriate actions for effective curbing of Conflict of Interest by either replacement of respective editor/reviewer OR by adding additional editor/reviewer in the process by the Editor-in-Chief.

Conflict of Interest related to Editor-in-Chief must be reported to Editorial Chairman.

Indexing and Archiving Policy

Indexing and Archiving are the two essential quality parameters of any Research Journal and IARS' International Research Journal (I'IRJ) puts continuous efforts to ensure best possible Indexing and Archiving to meet its objective to cater to the facts and information needs of researchers by providing them a platform where they can find the published content of their interest and subject.

The Editorial Board of IARS' International Research Journal identifies and gives appropriate value to INDEXING and ARCHIVING requirements as this is believed that Indexing helps research publications to achieve its prime objective of expanding its reach to a wide audience and Archiving preserves the access to the journal content even if the journal is no longer published or available on its official website. The Editorial Board of IARS' International Research Journal identifies different open/free/paid/subscription-based indexing and archiving databased and ensures timely submission of data to them through automated scripts and/or manual submissions.

information and respective links (wherever available) database

Details about all major indexing and archiving these archives and respective links (wherever available) shall be made available on the official website of IARS’ international Research Journal (https://researth.iars.info/index.php/curie/iirj-indexing).

Self-Archiving Policy

In accordance with the principals of GREEN OPEN ACCESS PUBLICATION, IARS' International Research Journals permits its Authors to self-archive the submitted version of the article, the accepted (peer-reviewed) version of the article, and Copyedited Galley (Published) version of article at any time after its release.

Journal Archiving Procedure

IARS' International Research Journal would self-archive its volume in ‘as-is’ form every 10-years on a separate online server/URL through standard server backup tools. Nirmal Integrated Consultancy (Team-NIC) is the third-party partner selected for this service who will be archiving the volumes on a web-based server accessible globally. Archived volumes would be accessible online or on demand. Print versions of any volume shall be available on demand after payment of appropriate fees and charges.

In parallel to self-archiving, IARS' International Research Journal submits its content in appropriate formats/protocols to different independent third-party archivers including PKP Private LOCKSS Network (PKP-PN), OCLC WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway, Internet Archive, and others. Preservation of access to the journal content has been ensured even if the journal is no longer published or available on its official website.

Accessibility to the third-party archives is governed by their own respective policies and procedures. Details about these archives and respective links (wherever available) shall be made available on the official website of IARS’ international Research Journal (https://researth.iars.info/index.php/curie/iirj-indexing).

Version Deposit Policy for Authors

Authors may wish to deposit a copy of their research article in an institutional or other repository of their choice. IARS' International Research Journal (IIRJ) freely allows all versions (Submitted/Accepted/Published) to be deposited in an institutional or other repository of the author’s choice without embargo. Wherever possible, the author(s) should give the refence of the IARS’ international Research Journal as the original publishing site of the article.

Persistent Identifier Policy

IARS’ International Research Journal assigns unique and persistent identifiers to each of its issue and article published electronically by use of Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or Archival Resource Key (ARK) Name Assigning Authority Numbers (NAANs) or other equivalent services.

The assigned and registered persistent identifiers shall be displayed on respective published pages on the official website of ResEarth: IARS’ Journal Management System.

Crossmark Policy

Crossmark is a multi-publisher initiative of CorssRef that provides a standard way to confirm about the latest updated version of a published articles to the readers of a journal. The prerequisite is to have a DOI along with a Crossmark Policy of the journal.

Applying Crossmark to every article and submitting its respective metadata to Crossref is a policy of IARS’ International Research Journal and through this, the journal is committed to provide the latest versions of published articles to its readers along with the authentic information about version history and changes (if any) in any article published in any issue of the journal.

The changes in any article(s) are implemented through ‘Correction and Version Control Procedure’ of the Journal.

Policy about Misconduct, Appeal, Corrections, Retractions, Republications and Version Control

In case, any minor/pervasive errors or essential corrections/modifications (not impacting the research results/conclusions/overall structure of the published article) are reported to or self-detected by IARS’ International Research Journal (IIRJ), the ‘Correction and Version Control Procedure’ shall be followed for making required corrections and maintaining required versions.

Major errors/corrections/modifications in any published articles may need retraction or replacement of the article. REPLACEMENT IS NOT PERMITTED in IARS’ International Research Journal without through review of the case with a panel constituted and headed by Editorial Chairperson/Editor-in-Chief only for cases on honest errors like misclassification or miscalculation or other Human errors only. Any such approved article will be republished as per ‘Correction and Version Control Procedure’. Complete review report with unambiguous decision of editor-in-chief must be published as a supplement of the article accessible to authors and readers.

Publisher(s), Editor(s), Reviewer(s), Coordinators(s), and every other Board Member(s) of IARS' International Research Journal shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. This includes but not limited to fabrication of data, falsification of information, manipulations of details, intentional hiding of relationships, not assigning appropriate credits to relevant stakeholders, plagiarism or other malpractices.

In no case shall the IARS' International Research Journal (IIRJ) or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that the publisher or editors of IARS' International Research Journal are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in any issue of the journal, the board shall follow ICMJE/COPE’s (or equivalent) guidelines as applicable.

The validity of previous work as submitted by the author of a fraudulent paper and published by the journal cannot be credited. Editors may also ask the author(s) to assure the Board of Journal about the validity of other work(s) published in the journals published by or in association with IARS’ Press Australia or its parent/associate organizations, or they may retract all works if the board is not made satisfied about their respective validity. Alternatively, the Editorial Board may choose to publish an announcement expressing concern about uncertainty of the validity of previously published work(s) of the selective author(s).

Misconducts/Appeal/Complaint Handling Procedure

Publisher(s), Editor(s), Reviewer(s), Coordinators(s), and every other Board Member(s) of IARS' International Research Journal shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. This includes but not limited to plagiarism, citation, manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication. In no case shall the IARS' International Research Journal or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that the publisher or editors of IARS' International Research Journal are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal, the board shall follow COPE’s guidelines (or equivalent).
Editor in Chief and all team members of the journal take utmost care to avoid any misconduct of ethical behaviour, yet the things are natural to go wrong due to natural human behaviour.
All authors, reviewers, readers, visitors, and other stakeholders are encouraged to notify the Editor-in-Chief about any suspected misconduct in any publication related to IARS’ International Research Journal.
Appeals/Claims of misconduct in ethical behaviour of author(s) made in written form (print/e-mail) to Editor-in-Chief on the official address/ID shall only be considered for investigation and support. The misconduct can be reported in an email directly to editor@irj.iars.info.
Any appeal/misconduct against the Editor-in-Chief can be reported to Governing Board of International Association of Research Scholars (IARS) at contact@iars.info
Confidentiality about the reporting individual/group is a Policy of the Journal and followed strictly as per desired protocols.
All appeals/claims of misconduct shall be inquired by a team delegated and lead by Editor-in-Chief. All appeals/claims of misconduct against the Editor-in-Chief shall be inquired by a team constituted by Governing Board of IARS. Investigations would be done based on the expected ethical behaviour of all the parties and boards involved in the journal.
The investigation team shall submit the report to Editor-in-Chief who will then determine the course of action as required which can maximum be extended to the removal of the disputed content from its volume(s), and temporary or permanent prohibition of author/involved individuals from the journal, in case the dispute claim is found true.
Journal is not liable to any loss (monetary or emotional or physical or any other kind) due to any unethical behaviour of the authors.
In any case, the journal, or its management, would not be liable to pay any refund or monetary penalties to anyone because of unethical behaviour of its people or authors.
The decision of Editor-in-Chief in any case should be ethically acceptable to all parties and considered final.
All positions in the teams and boards of journal are honorary and people volunteer to serve to the noble cause of supporting global research through the journal. The people in the defined positions are NOT heired or employed, rather they are selected from those who nominated them as volunteer their services in the noble cause of the journal. Hence the owner/publishers/other team-members of the journal do NOT take any responsibility of people in the teams but mutually encourage them to follow ethics of work.

Correction and Version Control Procedure

A ‘correction notice’ is published on https://researth.iars.info/index.php/curie/versions
Old manuscript of the published article is self-archived for future reference. The archived version is made accessible on request.
The new copyedit of the article is created with ‘correction notice’ and version details.
Required changes are done in details provided on the JMS/official website of the journal.
The previous versions of the article are notified about availability of new version through systems like CROSSMARK/Equivalent or through a respective note/link on the website. An auto-redirection of link or other equivalent methods may also be used to serve the latest copy of publication to its readers.
Citations are updated in the systems according to the changes.

Retraction and Version Control Procedure

The procedure of reporting of concern/misconduct, respective reviews/evaluations, and decision and retraction shall be conducted as per ICMJE/COPE’s (or equivalent) guidelines.

In case, such guidelines make the IIRJ to reach to a decision of retraction of the article, all retractions shall be reported on https://researth.iars.info/index.php/curie/versions with appropriate comments/reasons.

Concerns of the validity of other works of the author(s) of retracted articles shall be ascertained through separate communications and review/evaluation by a panel constituted by Editorial Chairperson/Editor-in-Chief. As per the satisfaction of the panel, the other work(s) shall be retained or retracted as per this procedure or respective concerns may be announced in the Journal or its associated public domain.

Finance Policy of Journal

Source of Income

IARS’ International Research Journal is a completely volunteer drive for support of Global Research Publishing and DO NOT charge from Authors for publishing their research. The major sources of income for the Journal include sponsorships and donations only. It has no source of income from publisher (IARS’ Press Australia) or its parent (International Association of Research Scholars) being themselves not-For-Profit projects.

Third-Party Advertisements on ResEarth Website (the official journal management system website electronic version of IARS’ International Research Journal) are prohibited.

Any financial supports on the conditions of influence on publishing standards, procedure, decisions of reviewers/editors, or any quality parameter of the journal are considered as misconduct and handled as per "Misconducts Handling Procedure" of the Journal.

Sever actions and penalties can be imposed on the culprit including but not limited to debarring it from publishing with the journal or holding its membership or any position in any board of the journal.

Processing Charges Policy

IARS' International Research Journal has a clear aim of providing a Quality Platform to researchers to share their research and also take advantage of knowledge of research of other researchers Absolutely Free of Cost. Hereby the Journal follows a ZERO COST POLICY for Authors and Subscribers.

IARS' International Research Journal DOES NOT CHARGE ANY FEE for article submission/processing/reviewing/editing/publishing. The access to all research articles published in electronic form is also FREE of COST at its ResEarth Website and completely Open Access.

IARS' International Research Journal charges ZERO Electronic-Subscription Fee, although Print copies of Journal are to be sold at price set by Governing and Editorial Board of the Journal. A nominal margin can be kept in selling price of Print Copies of the Journal to meet the survival expenses of the journal.

Compensation Policy

IARS’ International Research Journal is a completely volunteer drive for support of Global research Publishing and hereby works with “zero paid members in staff”. The Journal is run on completely voluntary efforts by the experts of interdisciplinary subjects from different renowned universities, research organizations, industry experts, and mentors. As per compensation policy of the journal, NO SALARY is paid to the members of editorial board, advisory board, reviewer board, or administration team of the journal. “Out of Pocket” expenses incurred while rendering the services to the Journal can be requested for reimbursement based on preapproval taken from Editorial Chairperson of the Journal.

Direct Marketing Policy

For its publicity and marketing, IARS’ International Research Journal mainly depends on references by virtue of quality of its published research content. IARS’ International Research Journal does not engage in any direct advertisements in Print/Eletronic Media.

Other Common Procedures

Implementation of The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) Recommendations for Publishers

As per DORA Recommendations, highlighting of 'Journal Impact Factor' as a promotional tool for journal is NOT used for IARS' International Research Journal.
All articles published with IARS' International Research Journal are provided with appropriate tools to compute and display 'Article Level Metrics' like article-citations, download, current readers/users, etc. These metrics are displayed on the individual web-pages of the article and are available to public.
Responsible Authorships is encouraged through Code of Conduct and Guidelines for Authors.
IARS' International Research Journal follows the principles of 100% Green Open Access. The reference list published with the articles is available under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0), Public Domain Dedication. Copyrights shall be governed by Copyright & License Policy of the Journal.
IARS' International Research Journal does NOT impose any constraints on the number of references in research articles
IARS' International Research Journal recommends the authors to give the citation of primary literature in favor of reviews in order to give credit to the group(s) who first reported a finding.