Journal Ethics and Policies

Umma Journal of Contemporary Literature and Creative Arts publication ethics and policies outline the expected ethical behaviour for all parties involved in publishing scholarly journal articles, including authors, editors, peer reviewers, and publishers. This statement is an adaptation of some of the  Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/media/609/download?attachment) of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which provides resources for editors, peer reviewers, and authors. In this regard, Umma is committed to maintaining high standards of critical scholarly review and professional publishing judgement. The journal is under the editorial direction of independent editors who make decisions regarding the content and ensure accuracy, completeness, and originality. The Journal also supports editors in managing their journals ethically and transparently while adhering to established editorial principles and practices.

As a matter of principle, Umma expects its members to uphold the highest standards of personal and professional behaviour and integrity. Likewise, the Journal expects authors to adhere to the ethical professional standards. Thus, it is pertinent that all who participate in producing the journal, who conduct themselves as authors, reviewers and editors, strictly adhere to the highest level of ethical professional standards.

By submitting a manuscript to this journal, each author explicitly confirms that the manuscript meets the highest ethical standards. Towards this end, Umma upholds a zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism and the use of unauthorised materials by prospective authors. Any concerns should be directly addressed to the Umma Chief Editor.

In the interest of a fair deliberation process, Umma requires all members of its editorial board and prospective authors to report conflicts of interest.

In the event that the editors are notified of suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript or published article, the editors will follow guidelines suggested by the Committee on Publication Ethics.

 

EDITORIAL DECISIONS

The journal editor, with the help of the editorial board, decides which articles to publish. The editorial team also formulates policies and guidelines and enforces adherence to legal requirements such as plagiarism, libel, and copyright infringement. The editors may seek help from other editors or reviewers. They evaluate manuscripts for appropriateness and intellectual content, considering the author’s gender, race, ethnic origin, religious beliefs, and political philosophy. Unpublished materials from submitted manuscripts must not be used without the author's consent.

PEER REVIEWER POLICY

All research articles in this journal have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and double-blind refereeing by at least two anonymous referees that often lead to multiple rounds of revisions. The journal has a peer review process that aids the editor in determining the quality and suitability of a manuscript for publication. The editor may provide manuscript authors with each peer reviewer’s response, which can help them improve their manuscript. If a reviewer is deemed unqualified or unable to respond promptly, they should inform the editor accordingly. The reviewer must be impartial and notify the editor of any potential conflicts of interest, such as prior co-authorship, a close professional relationship, or a personal relationship. All submissions must be confidential and not shared or discussed with others. The review process must be objective, without personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should express their views clearly and provide supporting arguments. They should identify relevant published work and make the editor aware of any significant resemblance between the manuscript and any other published paper. Any ideas or information obtained through peer review are privileged and confidential. The scholarly peer review process applies only to original research articles, not other academic content.

LANGUAGE POLICY

Umma accepts submissions only in English. In research papers, all terms from other languages should be transliterated into English. In some works (including translations), authors may choose to include non-English terms in their original script(s), but any English transliterations should still follow journal guidelines.

AUTHORSHIP

Authors must only comprise those who have contributed significantly to the research or study and should be listed as co-authors. Any financial or other conflict of interest should be disclosed in the manuscript, and all sources of financial support should be appropriately acknowledged.

Moreover, authors of original research papers must provide an accurate description of the research and an objective discussion of its importance to the field. All evidence and supporting data should be represented accurately, and references should be included for reconstruction. It is unacceptable to intentionally include inaccurate statements or fabricated data in the manuscript, as doing so is unethical.

Furthermore, authors must guarantee that their submitted work contains no content that may be considered libelous or infringing on another party's copyright. If authors have used the work and/or words of others, they must appropriately cite or quote such materials by fair use practices.  Authors must acknowledge the work of others and cite all publications that have been influential in determining their scholarly understanding of the subject of their paper.

Submitting the same manuscript to multiple journals concurrently constitutes unacceptable publishing conduct. If an author decides to submit the manuscript to another journal, they must request the journal editor to withdraw their manuscript from consideration.

ERRORS IN PUBLISHED WORKS

The author must quickly tell the journal editor or publisher of any grave error or inaccuracy found in their published paper, and work with them to retract or fix the publication. The journal editor will review and decide in consultation with Umma if a significant error has been published for which a correction is required, or if there is cause for concern regarding issues like plagiarism, research fabrication, duplicate publication, or failure to disclose conflicts of interest. Thus, the publisher pledges always to uphold the integrity of the academic version of the record.

 

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

Umma is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search for and search within, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

Authors, therefore, retain their copyright and agree to license their articles with a CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en). You can read more about Creative Commons licences at creativecommons.org.

Umma is a no-fee journal. As such, authors are not charged for the publication of their articles.

 

COPYRIGHT AND AUTHOR’ RIGHTS

Authors who publish with us retain copyright over their work. Works published in Umma are licensed under a Creative Commons attribution licence. Authors are, therefore, free to put their content into an institutional repository or personal archive, share it, or repurpose it.

 

PRIVACY STATEMENT

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.