The Journal of History and Social Sciences (JHSS), having ISSN (e) 2305-0187 and ISSN (p) 2221-6804, is a bi-annual double blind peer reviewed research journal, published by Department of History, University of Karachi. The journal has the following Polices & Guidelines:

Ethical Policy / Publication Ethics

The Journal of History and Social Sciences (JHSS) follows the guidelines and policies of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in letter and spirit and operates according to HEC guidelines and policies.

Editors and Referees

Our editors and referees are required to declare any conflicts of interest related to the manuscript they are requested to evaluate. To ensure transparent double-blind peer-review, the identities of authors are not disclosed to referees, and vice versa. Manuscripts submission by the editor/associate editor or by any member of the editorial board is not allowed as per HEC policy guidelines for the research journals. 

Authors

Authors are expected to adopt the general ethical standards in their research and writing, ensuring that:

• The submitted work or any of its essential content has not been previously published in a refereed journal and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. To ensure this, the editors screen out the submissions using the anti-plagiarism software, i.e. Turnitin.com.

• Published relevant material/work referred by the authors in their research must be properly cited as per APA formatting guidelines.
• Mentioning and acknowledging the sources of funding and significant help is the ethical obligation of the authors. It must be explicitly mentioned under the heading of ‘Compliance with the Ethical Standards’ at the end of the manuscript.
• Obtaining the consents from the parties with vested interests is the ethical responsibility of the authors.

If a published paper or its essential content is found to have been published before or if any other unethical conduct by the authors is verified, the journal will take one or more of the following actions:

• Publishing a notice
• Retracting the paper
• Preventing the corresponding author from publishing in JHSS
• Reporting the impropriety to the corresponding author’s, co-authors, employer, head of department (HOD), funding body, and HEC.

Complaints

JHSS publishes corrections only when significant errors arise from author error (Corrigenda) or editorial mistakes (Errata). If there is a serious complaint about a journal’s own procedures, the Chief Editor will confer with the corresponding author and any relevant members of the editorial board in order to resolve the problem. The advisory board of JHSS will be consulted if further guidance is required, and if the above procedures prove unacceptable, the matter will be referred for outside adjudication as per COPE guidelines.

Plagiarism Screening Policy

The Journal of History and Social Sciences (JHSS) is published by the University of Karachi (UoK) that has a membership of Turnitin, an online tool to help the editors verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. All submitted manuscripts are scanned with Turnitin to calculate the similarity index or plagiarism.

Definition?

Plagiarism is when an author attempts to pass off someone else works as his or her own. Duplicate publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her own published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals, to salami-slicing, where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous paper.

PLAGIARISM Policy of JHSS

• JHSS is committed to promote and disseminate the original research work relating to the field of economic sciences.
• Plagiarism comes in several forms for that reason, Plagiarism in any form cannot be tolerated by JHSS at any stage as it shows unethical publishing behavior.
• All selected manuscripts will be screened for plagiarism by using Turnitin software.
• The manuscript in which the plagiarism is detected is handled based on the extent of the plagiarism. A manuscript with less than a 19% similarity index can be accepted for publication.
• If the manuscript has plagiarism < 15%, the manuscript will be given an ID and the manuscript is sent to the review process.
• If the manuscript has plagiarism 15-30%, the manuscript will be given an ID and the manuscript is sent back to the author for content revision.
• If the plagiarism is detected more than 30%, it is found that the authors are very unlikely to revise the manuscript and submit the revised version. However, authors are welcome to do the required revisions and submit the manuscript as a new submission.

In the case of suspected plagiarism in a published article:

• A specific process is followed to manage a case of plagiarism. JHSS follows the guidelines contained in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).
• The person who advised us of the situation is informed about the process to be followed.
• The articles are compared to check the degree of copying.
• All Editors of the JHSS, are informed and asked for their comments.
• The corresponding author of the article in question is contacted with documentary evidence of the case of plagiarism and is asked for a response.

If the authors are found guilty of plagiarism

• The editor of the journal in which the original plagiarized article was published and the authors of the plagiarized article are informed.
• JHSS publishes an official retraction of the paper.
• The online version of the JHSS article is withdrawn from the OJS host site, and JHSS will not publish any article by any of the authors concerned for a period of 5 years.

Peer-Review Policy

All JHSS manuscripts are reviewed through 'double-blind' peer review process that means the identities of the authors are kept confidential from the reviewers, and vice versa.

To make this possible, anonymized versions of the manuscript are sent to referees. Submitted papers are first considered by the JHSS Editor after submission. Papers that do not fall within the scope of JHSS are 'desk-rejected'. In addition, papers that fail to meet a minimum threshold for quality and originality are also rejected without being sent out to the reviewers.

Papers passing through this initial editorial scrutiny are then typically sent out to four referees (2 national and two international. If one or more of these turn down the invitation to provide a review, other referees will subsequently be appointed. Normally, at least three authoritative reviews are needed before the handling Editor can make a decision as to whether to accept, reject, or ask for a 'revise and resubmit' of the submitted paper. Currently, approximately 50% of the manuscripts submitted to JHSS are desk-rejected, about 35% are rejected after peer review, and 15% are eventually accepted (most after being revised once if not twice). The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final.

JHSS provides professional English editing services exclusively for the accepted manuscripts. These manuscripts are carefully scrutinized by our professional proof-readers who help ensure the accuracy of the paper by resolving any problems with the language to conform to the international standards for journal publications.

Reviewer Guidelines

Peer review in all its form plays an important role in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. The process depends to a large extent on trust and requires that everyone involved behave responsibly and ethically. In the peer-review process, the role of peer reviewers is highly critical and inevitable; however, due to inadequate guidance, the peer reviewers are often unaware of their ethical obligations. Thus, the Journal of History and Social Sciences (JHSS) follows the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers set out the basic principles and standards to which all peer reviewers should adhere during the double blind peer-review process. It is hoped they will provide helpful guidance to researchers, be a reference for journals and editors in guiding their reviewers, or act as an educational resource for institutions in training their students and researchers.

Basic principles to which peer reviewers should adhere

Peer reviewers should:

• only agree to review manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise prerequisite to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess in a timely manner
• respect the confidentiality of peer review and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond those that are released by the journal
• not use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others
• declare all potential conflicting interests, seeking advice from the journal if they are unsure whether something constitutes a relevant interest
• not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations
• be objective and constructive in their reviews, refraining from being hostile or inflammatory and from making slanderous or derogatory personal comments
• acknowledge that peer review is largely a reciprocal endeavour and undertake to carry out their fair share of reviewing and in a timely manner
• provide journals with personal and professional information that is accurate and a true representation of their expertise
• recognize that impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered serious misconduct

HOW TO CONDUCT A REVIEW

1- Before you begin

Before you accept or decline an invitation to review, consider the following questions:

• Does the article match your area of expertise? Only accept if you feel you can provide a high-quality review.
• Do you have a potential conflict of interest? Disclose this to the editor when you respond.
• Do you have time? Reviewing can be a lot of work – before you commit, make sure you can meet the deadline.
• Find out more about the Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

Respond to the invitation as soon as you can (even if it is to decline) – a delay in your decision slows down the review process and means more waiting for the author. If you do decline the invitation, it would be helpful if you could provide suggestions for alternative reviewers.

2- Managing your review

Confidential material

If you accept, you must treat the materials you receive as confidential documents. This means you can’t share them with anyone without prior authorization from the editor. Since peer review is confidential, you also must not share information about the review with anyone without permission from the editors and authors.

How to log in and access your review

Your review will be managed via JHSS Journal Managing System. To access the paper and deliver your review, click on the link in the invitation email you received which will bring you to the submission/reviewing system.

Journal-specific instructions

When you sit down to write the review, make sure you familiarize yourself with any journal-specific guidelines (these will be noted in the journal’s guide for authors available on the journal’s homepage).

First read the article. You might consider spot-checking major issues by choosing which section to read first. Below we offer some tips about handling specific parts of the paper.

Methodology

If the manuscript you are reviewing is reporting an experiment, check the methods section first. The following cases are considered major flaws and should be flagged:

• Unsound methodology
• Discredited method
• Missing processes known to be influential on the area of reported research
• A conclusion drawn in contradiction to the statistical or qualitative evidence reported in the manuscript

For analytical papers examine the sampling report, which is mandated in time-dependent studies. For qualitative research make sure that a systematic data analysis is presented and sufficient descriptive elements with relevant quotes from interviews are listed in addition to the author’s narrative.

Research data and visualizations

Once you are satisfied that the methodology is sufficiently robust, examine any data in the form of figures, tables, or images. Authors may add research data, including data visualizations, to their submission to enable readers to interact and engage more closely with their research after publication. Please be aware that links to data might, therefore, be present in the submission files. These items should also receive your attention during the peer review process. Manuscripts may also contain database identifiers or accession numbers (e.g. genes) in relation to our database linking program.

Critical issues in research data, which are considered to be major flaws can be related to insufficient data points, statistically non-significant variations and unclear data tables.

Ethical considerations

Experiments including patient or animal data should properly be documented. Most journals require ethical approval by the author’s host organization. Please check journal-specific guidelines for such cases (available from the journal’s homepage.

Overview

If you don’t spot any major flaws, take a break from the manuscript, giving you time to think. Consider the article from your own perspective. When you sit down to write the review, again make sure you familiarize yourself with any journal-specific guidelines (these will be noted in the journal’s guide for authors).

3- Structuring your review

Your review will help the editor decide whether or not to publish the article. It will also aid the author and allow them to improve their manuscript. Giving your overall opinion and general observations of the article are essential. Your comments should be courteous and constructive, and should not include any ad hominem remarks or personal details including your name (unless the journal you are invited to review for employs open peer review).

Providing insight into any deficiencies is important. You should explain and support your judgement so that both editors and authors are able to fully understand the reasoning behind your comments. You should indicate whether your comments are your own opinion or are reflected by the data and evidence.

Your recommendation

When you make a recommendation, it is worth considering the categories the editor will likely use for classifying the article:

• Accept Submission: Reviewer recommends the editor to accept the submission without any revision
• Revision Required: Reviewer recommends the editor to accept the submission with minor revisions (figured out in Reviewing Form)
• Resubmit for Review: Reviewer recommends Major Revision and would be happy to review the revised article (when the revised manuscript is submitted by the author/s). If you are recommending a revision, you must furnish the author with a clear, sound explanation of why this is necessary.
• Resubmit Elsewhere: Reviewer recommends the author/s that this journal is not a good fit for their submission
• Decline Submission: Reviewer recommends the editor not to accept the submission

Bear in mind that there will be the opportunity to direct separate comments to both the editor and author. Once you are ready to submit your report, follow the instructions in the email or visit our support centre if you encounter any difficulties.

The final decision

The editor ultimately decides whether to accept or reject the article. Elsevier plays no part in this decision. The editor will weigh all views and may call for another opinion or ask the author for a revised paper before making a decision. The submission system provides reviewers with a notification of the final decision if the journal has opted into this function.

4- After your review

Do not forget that, even after finalizing your review, you must treat the article and any linked files or data as confidential documents. This means you must not share them or information about the review with anyone without prior authorization from the editor.

Finally, we take the opportunity to thank you sincerely on behalf of the journal, editors and author(s) for the time you have taken to give your valuable input to the article.

Publication Malpractice Statement

The Journal of History and Social Sciences (JHSS) and its publisher, the University of Karachi (UoK) 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.

Open Access Statement

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

Open Access License

The published research work by this journal is licensed under:

Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

(CC BY-SA 4.0)

Article Processing Charges

In order to meet the rising cost of the publication, JHSS has started to charge an article processing fee of PKR 20,000 from the local/national authors while an equivalent amount in US Dollars is charged from the international authors according to the international exchange rate. The processing fee is charged only to the authors whose articles after passing through the initial process get approved by the referees. No fee is charged at the time of submission of articles.

Disclaimer

The Editorial Team of the Journal of History and Social Sciences (JHSS), in order to avoid any kind of confusion, clearly declares that the previous issues of the Journal dated from 2014 to 2018 have been published retrospectively on a later date for the purpose of filling the gap that had appeared in the publication of those issues due to the financial crisis faced by the Journal during the abovementioned years. For this purpose, several calls for papers were circulated in 2018 that clearly mentioned that the forthcoming issues would be backdated and meant for shedding the backlog.