An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

Editorial board policy

Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor

Ensure a supply of high-quality manuscripts to ANUJR-B in quantities that can maintain the journal’s publishing schedule.

• Ensure to assess your potential conflicts. If you have recently co-authored with the author(s) of the manuscript, you could be perceived to be influenced by your relationship. If you believe a conflict exists, you should refuse to handle the manuscript, and ANUJR-B will appoint another relevant Editor to undertake the handling of the manuscript.
• Ensure to evaluate new submissions to determine whether it is within the journal’s scope and whether it appears to fulfil the interest criteria of the journal.
• Ensure that the manuscripts adhere to the journal’s editorial policies, that the article type has correct content, and the Language’s quality does not affect the ability to assess the scientific content.
• Ensure that the subject matter of the manuscripts reflects any changes of direction in the field of study to incorporate newly emerging work (this may necessitate inviting articles or special issues).
• Select expert reviewers (i.e., referees) and an area editor to evaluate the submitted manuscript.
• Ensure to conduct your activities in accordance with generally accepted industry standards for integrity and objectivity and with the policies of the journal and the publisher. We further recommend that you consult the COPE short guide to ethical editing.
• Render a final editorial decision on each manuscript based on journal priorities, other similar manuscripts in process and related considerations.
• Communicate directly with the author and the review team.
• Schedule accepted manuscripts for publication.
• Balance workloads for the area editors and reviewers.
• Resolve any conflicts.
• Ensure to select the Editorial Board in co-operation with your publishing policies.
• Engage the Editorial Board continually on the journal’s progress and update and include them on ideas for editorial development. The Editorial Board should be involved formally through a bi-monthly Editorial Board meeting or informally in ad hoc meetings and discussions.
• Provide strategic input into your journal’s development. Report on the journal’s performance and suggest possible strategies for development and growth, as well as discuss your suggestions.
• Ensure to approve special issues or special collections proposed and managed by a team of Guest Editors from outside the Editorial Board.
• Ensure to promote the journal to peers and colleagues.
• Editors-in-Chief may publish submissions (authored or co-authored) from themselves, but the number should normally not exceed two. The Editor-in-Chief must not be involved in decisions about papers in which they have written themselves. Peer review of such submission should be handled independently of the relevant Editor(s) and their research groups, and there should be a clear statement to this effect on any such paper that is published. Editors or board members will never be involved in editorial decisions about their own work.
• The editors should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
• The editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
• Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
• Involvement and cooperation in investigations: The editors should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper.

Editorial Board

• Ensure to provide scientific expertise for the journal.
• Ensure to support the sourcing and submitting of suitable articles from your network.
• Ensure to administer peer review or serve as a peer reviewer on selected articles.
• Ensure to help the journal attract high-quality manuscripts by promoting the journal at relevant conferences and workshops.
• Ensure to provide feedback and suggesting improvements for the journal.
• Ensure to attend editorial meetings and assist in strategic decision-making when requested for participation.
• Ensure to suggest topics and authors for commissioned reviews and commentaries.
• Act as a Handling Editor on relevant articles and oversee the review and editorial decision-making process.

ANUJR-B works on the basis that our editors should:

• establish and maintain a database of suitably qualified peer reviewers for their journal;
• monitor the performance of peer reviewers/editorial board members, recording the quality and timeliness of their reviews;
• ignore rude, defamatory peer reviews. Peer reviewers who repeatedly produce poor-quality, tardy, abusive or unconstructive reviews should not be used again;
• encourage peer reviewers to identify any conflict of interest with the material they are being asked to review. In this situation peer reviewers should decline invitations requesting peer review where any circumstances might prevent them from producing a fair peer review.
• request that peer reviewers who delegate peer review to members of their staff inform the editor when this occurs, as peer review is a confidential process.

Editorial independence

Editorial independence should be respected. Owners (universities) should not interfere with editorial decisions. Decisions by editors about whether to publish individual items submitted to ANUJR-B should not be influenced by pressure from the editor’s employer, the journal owner or the publisher.

Intellectual property

Authors have the right to expect that editors and other individuals will not steal or plagiarize their research ideas or work.

ANUJR-B ’s guidelines to peer reviewers are clear about their roles and responsibilities. In particular, the need to treat submitted material in confidence until it has been published. Furthermore, ANUJR-B expects peer reviewers to destroy submitted manuscripts after they have reviewed them.

Editors should expect allegations of theft or plagiarism to be substantiated, but should treat allegations of theft or plagiarism seriously.