Policy Documents

INTRODUCTION THE JOURNAL:
Al-Īmān Research Journal (IRJ) ISSN: 3006-1261[Print] 3006-127X [Online] is an open access double blind peer reviewed, biannual and trilingual (Urdu, Arabic & English) Research Journal related to the field of Social Science published by Hira Institute of Social Sciences Research & Development, Punjab, Pakistan.
The editorial team of the Journal is following the rules defined by HEC (Higher Education Commission). The journal is constantly struggling to achieve distinction by promoting the quality of research. The team at the Journal is also committed to accelerating professional ethics to set standards of quality and academic integrity.
Al-Īmān Research Journal (IRJ) stands at the forefront of academic inquiry, dedicated to fostering rigorous scholarship and vibrant intellectual exchange in the social sciences. As an open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed multidisciplinary journal, IRJ provides a dynamic platform for researchers, faculty members, and scholars worldwide to disseminate innovative research, insightful analyses, and groundbreaking theories. Our commitment to open access ensures that knowledge is freely available, promoting global dialogue and the democratization of information.

AIMS & SCOPE
Al-Īmān Research Journal (IRJ) aims to contribute significantly to the advancement of social sciences by publishing high-quality, original research articles, reviews, case studies, and theoretical papers. IRJ considers all manuscripts and review articles related to Islamic Studies & Arabic Linguistics, Literature and Social Sciences that seek to publish arbitrated articles dealing with various aspects of life. including but not limited Contemporary Social Challenges, Education, Law, Media and Communication Studies, Arts, Culture & History.

Our scope encompasses:

  • Empirical research that offers new insights into social phenomena, behaviors, and institutions.
  • Theoretical explorations that challenge existing paradigms and propose novel frameworks.
  • Methodological advancements that enhance research techniques and analytical tools.
  • Interdisciplinary studies that integrate perspectives from various social science fields to address complex societal issues.
  • Policy analyses that provide evidence-based recommendations for public and private sector decision-making.

We encourage submissions that address contemporary social challenges, engage with marginalized and underrepresented communities, and contribute to sustainable development goals. By fostering a diverse and inclusive academic environment, Al-Īmān Research Journal (IRJ) aspires to broaden the horizons of social science research and its impact on society.

VISION
Our vision is to be a leading journal in the social sciences, recognized for its academic excellence, inclusivity, and global impact. We envision a world where scholarly research transcends boundaries and barriers, informing policies, enriching cultures, and enhancing the human condition. Al-Īmān Research Journal (IRJ) is committed to:

  • Promoting high standards of academic integrity and scholarly rigor.
  • Facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.
  • Ensuring inclusivity and representation in research contributions.
  • Bridging the gap between research and practice, making scholarly insights accessible to a broader audience.
  • Nurturing a global community of researchers dedicated to addressing the most pressing social issues of our time.

By upholding these values, IRJ seeks to inspire transformative research that not only advances academic knowledge but also fosters a more just, equitable, and informed society.

OBJECTIVE
The objective of Al-Īmān Research Journal is standardization of quality research articles and making them available to researchers worldwide.  The journal facilitates publication of the researchers and scholars in universities of Pakistan and abroad, their research projects under the defined procedures and guidelines. The journal publishes research articles as well as review articles.
Academia & Intelligentsia of the universities & other spheres are always invited & welcome to contribute their unique research findings & writings.
IRJ strictly follows the rules and regulations set by HEC for research journals.

POLICY STATEMENT
Al-Īmān Research Journal follows the guidelines and policies of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and HEC guidelines and policies.

Review & Publication Policy

Open Access Policy

Plagiarism and Copyrights Policy

Copyrights/License Policy

Privacy Policy

Peer Review Policy

Complaint and Appeal Policy

Standard Operating Procedures Policy

Article Processing / Subscription (Charges)

Publication Charge Policy

Accessibility Policy

Publication Malpractice Statement

Digital Archiving Policy

Confidentiality Policy

Conflict of Interests Policy

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Review & Publication Policy

The practice of peer review is applied to ensure that excellent research is published. Our referees therefore play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of the Journal of Writing Research and all manuscripts are peer reviewed following the procedure outlined below.

The journal follows a systematic review and publication policy.

  • Acknowledgement

The submitted manuscript is acknowledged within 02 working days upon receipt.

  • Initial manuscript evaluation

The Editors first evaluate all manuscripts. Those rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar, or are outside the aims and scope of the journal. Those that meet the minimum criteria are passed on to at least two experts for review.

  • Type of Peer Review

This journal employs a double-blind review process, where the referee remains anonymous throughout the process. The manuscript/paper is sent to two reviewers (paper without the name and affiliations of the author(s). The review process takes maximum one months.

  • Final report

A final decision to accept or reject the manuscript will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees.

  • Editor's decision

Referees advise the editors, who are responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the article.

Open Access Policy
Al-Īmān Research Journal is published through an open access journal system which allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of its articles and to use them for any other legal purpose.
All current/previous issues and complete articles can be viewed or downloaded from Al-Īmān’s Website.

Plagiarism and Copyrights Policy
Al-Īmān Research Journal strictly follows Plagiarism Policy as per guidelines of HEC (Pakistan). The Similarity Report on Turnitin should be below 19 percent.

Copyrights/License Policy
The Al-Īmān fully compliance with the open-access publishing policy and all the published articles are freely available on the website. The journal follows the licensing terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) license and and Copyrights Ordinance of Pakistan 1962. Therefore, it ensures that the submitted work is author’s original, unpublished work (not under consideration nor published in some other journal). Submission of the manuscript considered as a mutual decision on behalf of co-authors, and he will be considered responsible for the correspondence.
Author must provide a conflict of interest statement at the end of the article. In case the statement is missing, then publisher has a right to add a default conflict of interest statement: "The authors declare no conflict of interest." Authors are requested to provide the proof of sponsorship or funding received for the research project. Editor has a right to determine what information should be made publicly available.
Authors are prohibited to share their submitted work on any electronic platforms, or any other place by any means until the decision on the paper has been announced. In case the manuscript is approved for publication, author is not allowed to share the work in its entirety on any platforms till the paper is formerly published by Al-Īmān.
Author may post the Abstract of the paper along with author’s name and affiliations by giving a statement “The manuscript has been accepted for publication in the Al-Īmān. Author may post the full article after its publication with full journal citations

Privacy Policy
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Peer Review Policy
Al-Īmān Research Journal follows Double-Blind Peer Review: Reviewers do not know the identity of the author(s), & the author(s) do not know the identity of the reviewer. The papers review process is a double-blind one, the review being done simultaneously by a minimum of two members of the review committee. Articles in this journal have undergone a rigorous blind peer review system, based on initial editor screening and involving international refereeing, ensures that articles meet the highest standards of quality. The review criteria considered are the novelty and originality of the paper, the quality of research methodology, the organization and clarity, the reference to prior work, and the quality of results. The result of the review process can be accepted, accept with revision, or reject. Authors will be informed of the outcome of the review process. Only articles accepted by the review committee will be published.

Al-Īmān Research Journal publication Ethics is based, in large part, on the guidelines and standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas.

Complaint and Appeal Policy
Appeals
In all cases, authors have the right to request a review of editorial decisions if they believe there are unfair components to them. To process this, a letter of appeal must be provided with a thorough justification of the concerns, the type of appeal being made, and the reasons why the editorial decision is deemed unfair.
An appeal of this nature will be made to the editor-in-chief, who will consider it jointly with the Associate editors and the relevant reviewers. The work may be re-reviewed by fresh reviewers, and the editor-in-chief will ultimately decide.

Complaints
If you have any issues with the journal's policies, practices, publication process, editorial staff behavior, or anything else, please send a thorough email to the editor. Your query will be resolved in the timely manner. The resolution will then be communicated to the complainants via email.
For complaint, kindly email to the Editor

Dr. Khalida Siddique
journal.aliman@gmail.com
Call: +92 313 6555044

Standard Operating Procedures Policy

  • Author(s) submit the research paper(s) through the on-line system of the journal (OJS). Before submission of paper the author(s) require(s) to follow the approved instructions for authors and must sign a declaration that the material presented is original, not submitted or under consideration elsewhere and not plagiarized.
  • It is responsibility of each author, including the co-authors, to ensure that the paper submitted for publication should attain the all ethical standards as outlined by HEC available online at HEC Website.
  • The Publication coordinator will make necessary arrangements to scan it for finding authenticity of the research paper through HEC approved software for plagiarism. The outcome of this step will be a scanning report containing similarity index available to the Publication Coordinator and Associate Editor.
  • As per scanning report, if the similarity index of plagiarized text of the research paper is found beyond the acceptable limits (Acceptable Similarity Index for Turnitin Software is less than or equal to 15% subject to no any link contains similarity greater than 5%), the Publication Coordinator will return the same to the corresponding author for modification/refinement. It should be noted that the database of the software as well as internet material updates time to time, therefore similarity index may fluctuate with number of times the document is scanned.
  • After re-submission, the same process will be followed as per above steps till the paper is found free of plagiarism. (i.e. within permissible range of similarity index).
  • Chief Editor / Editor will send the authentic paper to the two experts for their technical comments and evaluation. This Journal follows Blind Peer Review Process.
  • The outcome of this round of review may be “Accept”, “Minor Revision”, “Major Revision” or “Rejection”. Two positive reviews are required to finally accept the paper. However, the final decision regarding the manuscript acceptance or rejection lies with the Chief Editor/Editor of the Journal. The Editor will notify author(s) of the outcome of the peer-review process through e-mail. The Editor will also notify the author(s) of the date for the submission of revised copy of a manuscript.
  • The revised copy submitted by the author(s) is again sent to the same experts for final comments.
  • In the light of final review comments, the Editor makes a final decision of “accept” or “decline. This final decision will depend on how well the reviewer’s comments were addressed. The manuscript is returned to the author for further revisions if the Editor thinks that the author(s) did not provide enough revisions to satisfy the Editor/reviewers.
  • Publication Coordinator/ Associate Editor issues Acceptance or rejection letter.

Publication Charge Policy

Al-Īmān Research Journal is committed to the principle of open access and believes that knowledge should be freely accessible to everyone, regardless of financial constraints. As part of our dedication to fostering an inclusive and equitable academic environment, we proudly operate on a zero publication charges policy. This means that there are no fees for submitting, processing, or publishing articles in our journal.

  1. No Submission Fees:

   Authors can submit their manuscripts without any submission fees. We aim to remove financial barriers to ensure that all researchers, regardless of their economic background or institutional affiliation, can contribute to and benefit from the dissemination of knowledge.

  1. No Article Processing Charges (APCs):

   Once a manuscript is accepted for publication after a rigorous double-blind peer review process, there are no article processing charges. This ensures that the quality and merit of the research are the sole determinants for publication, not the financial capacity of the authors.

Accessibility Policy:

We are committed to continuously enhance the accessibility of our published database to maximize readability without any interruption. We process all our articles through the Open Journal System (OJS) that automatically generates the files in ‘HTML’ and converts those that are not in the desired format, making our files easily accessible on the web to all kinds of users.

Publication Malpractice Statement:
Al-Īmān Research Journal follows the ethical guidelines for publication outlined by the COPE (Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers) as well as Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. In view of that, the authors, the reviewers, and the editors are expected to follow the best-practice guidelines:

HEC Guidelines

COPE ethical guideline for peer-reviewers

Declaration of Conflicting Interests Policy

Digital Archiving Policy:
The journal is fully committed to storing the published material on digital archives to ensure that the articles will always be available to readers, even in the event of a publication being lost or discontinued. The best way to ensure that journal articles will always be accessible to readers is to deposit all published articles into a long-term digital preservation service or archive. The journal is hence regularly uploaded on archive.org.
Moreover, the journal management system automatically self-archives the data on “Hira Institute of Social Sciences Research & Development” servers regularly.

Confidentiality Policy:
The editors and the publication handling/managing staff keep all information about a submitted manuscript confidential and share it only with those involved in the evaluation, review, and publication processes as per the journal’s publication policy. The journal is operating through an automated journal management system to ensure a transparent double-blind peer review process as well as the confidentiality of the information.
The Editors should consider adding a confidentiality notice to all correspondence, including reviewer forms, to serve as a reminder to authors, editors, and reviewers.

Conflict of Interests Policy:
A Declaration of Conflicting Interests policy refers to a formal policy a journal may have to require a conflict of interest statement or conflict of interest disclosure from a submitting or publishing author.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) states in its Guidelines on Good Publication Practice (2003) that: “Conflicts of interest arise when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgments on what is published. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived.”
Many scholars, researchers, and professionals may have potential conflicts of interest that could affect their research. As a result, the journal requires a formal declaration of conflicting interests enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated published article. A potential conflict of interest may arise from relationships, allegiances, or hostilities to particular groups, organizations or interests, which may influence one’s judgments or actions excessively. The issue is particularly sensitive when such interests are private and/or may result in personal gain. All manuscripts submitted to the journal are evaluated fairly and are not necessarily rejected when any competing interests are declared. Examples of conflicts of interest might include the following, although it is not an exhaustive list:

  • Having received research funding.
  • Having been employed by a related company.
  • Holding stocks or shares in a company that might be affected by the publication of your paper.
  • Having received funds reimbursing you for attending related symposia, or talk.

If there are other interests that the reasonable reader might feel has affected your research you may also wish to declare them. (Please note that it is not expected that details of financial arrangements be disclosed when a competing interest is declared.)

Conflict of interests
Upon identification of any conflict of interest, the editors may require more information from the author that may include the following:

  1. Acknowledgement of financial support/sponsorship in their contribution.
  2. Any commercial or financial involvements that might present an appearance of a conflict of interest related to the contribution are disclosed in a covering letter accompanying the contribution and all such potential conflicts of interest will be discussed with the editor as to whether disclosure of this information with the published contribution is to be made in the journal.
  3. If they have signed an agreement with any sponsor of the research reported in the contribution that prevents you from publishing both positive and negative results or that forbids you from publishing this research without prior approval of the sponsor.

If they have checked the manuscript submission guidelines to ensure whether the journal requires a Declaration of Conflicting Interests and have complied with the requirements specified where such a policy exists. The Authors are required to fill and sign the Copyright and Author Consent Form upon submitting the manuscript.

Declaration:

These research policies have been adopted from the guidelines and policies of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Higher Education Commission (HEC).