Ethical Guidelines

Ethical Guidelines for Editors:
The Editor’s Responsibilities:
• Maintaining the Quality of the Journal by publishing quality papers.
• Promotion of freedom of expression within the constitutional/legal framework
Good Practices:
• Encouraging new ideas and suggestions for improving the quality of the Maarif-e Auliya Research Journal.
• The process of blind peer review in its true letter and spirit.
• Promoting & implementing anti-plagiarism & journal policy without institutional pressure.
• Editorial Board Members are prohibited from publishing their papers in the Maarif-e Auliya Research Journal.
Fair play and neutrality:
• Will ensure impartial evaluation of research papers.
• Disregard all discriminating factors during the selection of articles, e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, etc. of the author(s)
Secrecy:
• Confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the peer-review process will be ensured
• The secrecy of the participants of the research should also be ensured.
• Before publication, the content of the manuscript would be kept confidential

Dealing with Misconduct:
• Will encourage reviewers to comment on ethical issues and possible misconduct.
• Confirmation of plagiarism through Turnitin and/or searching for similar titles etc.
• Will publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a plagiarized article.
Transparency:
• Only one paper as a PI (principal investigator) should be published in the same issue.
• Editorial Board Members are prohibited from publishing their papers in Maarif-e Auliya Research Journal.
• Self-Institutional publication is not allowed as well, to ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest.
• After the adoption of HEC's new policy for research journals for July 2019 onwards, the Maarif-e Auliya Research Journal does not allow Editorial Board and Self-institutional publications, to ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest (if any).
• Authorship and co-authorship Policies will be strictly adopted.
Conflict of Interest:
• The Editor and reviewers will not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against which he/she has any conflicts of interest.
Disclosure:
• will not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s).
Publication Decisions:
• Only shortlisted research papers relevant to the scope of the journal will be published after completion of the review process.
• Acceptance or rejection of a paper will be based on academic standards.
• The Editor will justify the reason(s) for rejecting a research paper and will timely communicate the editorial decision to the author(s).
Procedure for Appeal:
The Chief Editor is responsible for establishing a proper mechanism for appeals launched against:
• The rejection of a research paper.
• Objections to publications causing harm to any party.
Infringement of Ethical boundaries in any manner Self-Institutional publication is not allowed as well, to ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest.