About the Journal

ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

AIM AND SCOPE OF THE JOURNAL

ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social sciences, ISSN online 2790-5403 and print 2790-539X, is  a double-blind peer-reviewed open-access journal published by Hawassa University, College of Social Sciences and Humanities. The Journal publishes scholarly peer-reviewed works on social science, humanities, and development-related issues, policies, theories, and problems relevant to the continent of Africa with a focus on Ethiopia and the region. The disciplines for potential publication include Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Geography, Governance, Development study, Tourism, Journalism, Communication, Linguistics, Language study, Literature, etc., and blended approaches for the development or synthesis of knowledge-related (innovative) cases. Format of publication can be in the form of original research articles, reviewed articles, non-reviewed reflections, book reviews, special volume editions, and short communications. The journal is published biannually under the Creative Commons open access license (CC BY-NC-ND). The journal doesn’t charge article processing and publication fees from authors and the published articles are freely downloadable.

FREQUENCY OF PUBLICATION

Frequency and regularity are the main requirements that directly influence the credibility of the journals. In connection to this, the ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences publishes biannually. This means the journal publishes two issues annually. The publication schedule is indicated as follows:

Period for publishing 1st issue: January-June

Period for publishing 2nd issue: July-December

ORIGINALITY AND PLAGIARISM POLICY

The articles submitted to ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, as part of submission process, the authors are required to check submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to the authors if they do not adhere to these guidelines.

  1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration in any other journal.
  2. The manuscript is based upon the original research work submitted to the journal and is not plagiarized as a whole or any part of the manuscript.   
  3. The manuscript submitted holds nothing that is obscene, defamatory, abusive, fraudulent or illegal. If author(s) send same manuscript to any other journal within or outside country, they will in anticipation let us know that will be considered as voluntary withdrawal from the ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.
  4. The plagiarism policy is followed strictly in letter and spirit to ensure the quality parameters from all requisite dimensions.

PEER REVIEW POLICY

Submission of Paper

The corresponding author can submit research work for potential and prospective publication in ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences via the online journal system.

Editorial Office Assessment

ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences editorial office checks the submitted manuscripts’ format and composition in line with the author's guidelines and scope of the journal. This is the stage of scrutiny that assesses the quality of research.

The Editor-in-Chief ’s Appraisal

The chief editor apprises whether research work is original, has potential of novelty, and is appropriately aligned with the journal’s scope. If the manuscript doesn’t meet the aforementioned criteria, it is liable to rejection at this stage without being considered for any further review.

Chief Editor’s Assignment to an Associate Editor

After appraising the manuscript, the chief editor assigns the task of further appraisal to associate editors through desk review/editing. The associate editor scrutinizes the manuscript in light of the journal scope and contents requirements of ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences and recommends the potential improvements and incorporation in the manuscript.

Communicating Suggestions to Authors

The associate editor’s desk review suggestions for potential revisions and improvements of manuscript are shared with authors for incorporation. After these necessary changes are made, manuscript proceeds to the experts’ review phase.

Invitation to Reviewers

The associate editor invites potential reviewers within the specialized fields for the manuscript review. The manuscript is sent out to the reviewers in light of the responses received from them. As per the journal’s policy, manuscript is sent at least to two reviewers.

Review Conducted

The potential and expert reviewers spare ample time to read manuscript and this is reflected in the way they highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of research work. If they find major issues in manuscript, reviewers have the freedom either to completely reject it or suggest major revisions. The reviewers submit their reviews to the journal’s editorial team with the recommendations of either accepting (with/out minor or major revisions) or rejecting.

Journal Evaluates the Reviews

The journal’s editorial team considers and scrutinize all the reviewers’ comments and decisions before reaching a final decision. In case of wider differences in/ among the reviewers’ comments, editor might invite an additional reviewer (if deemed appropriate) to get further opinions before making the final decision.

Decision Communication

The editor-in-chief/ the associate editor communicates the decision with authors via email containing relevant reviewer’s comments and advises the authors to incorporate all the changes as per the reviewers’ suggestions.

 Final Decision

After receiving the revised draft from authors, editorial team ensures the incorporation of all reviewers’ suggestions and if found suitable from all respects, manuscript is sent to copyediting. After this process, manuscript is moved to the production phase as per the specified schedule for publication.

ARTICLE PROCESSING/PUBLICATION FEE

ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences is managed under the College of Social Sciences and Humanities of Hawassa University, Ethiopia. The publication costs and associated expenses of many journals are covered by the College of Social Sciences and Humanities and thus do not demand any publication charges. ETHIOINQUIRY Journal is determined to index the published articles in well-reputed indexing agencies and ensures standard parameters to bring up the journal at par with international level.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS AND PROVISIONS

 For Authors

All manuscripts, articles, original research reports, book reviews, comments, reviews, and letters that are submitted to journal must be accompanied by a conflict-of-interest disclosure statement or a declaration by the authors that they do not have any conflicts of interest. To facilitate this policy, all authors must privately disclose their potential conflicts of interest’ to editors at time of submission. These include financial and non-financial interests and relationships with other organizations. Authors should disclose any conflict of interest that may have influenced either the conduct or presentation of the research to editors, including but not limited to close relationships with those who might be helped or hurt by publication, academic interests and rivalries, and any personal, religious or political convictions relevant to topic at hand. In the article, authors must include a draft statement that discloses all relevant conflicts of interest and affiliations.

For Editors and Reviewers

Editors and reviewers must reject/decline to be involved with the submission when they have a recent/current publication or submission with author; Share or recently shared affiliations with author, collaborate, or have close relationships with the author or financial interest/gain, or feel unable to be objective. Editorial staff must not use information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain. Reviewers must declare any remaining interests in the ‘Confidential’ section of review form, which will be considered by the editor. Reviewer(s) must declare any conflict of interest which may affect their review work. In cases of conflict of interest, reviewer(s) are requested to notify the editorial team of their inability to review a particular research paper. Editors and peer reviewers should disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present or review work objectively. These might include the relevant financial interests or the personal, political, or religious interests, and detailed descriptions about tasks, responsibilities of all parties on how to avoid and manage COIs.

CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS OF RESEARCH ARTICLES

Well-defined and precise knowledge sharing is chief objective of ETIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Development. It aims to facilitates information distribution to the academic community. Furthermore, to serve the academic community, ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences has a strong faith in intelligibility through delivering correct information and maintaining all essential record. The journal explains this procedure from initial submission till the final stage, and the publications are available in diverse volumes and issues. Once a manuscript is published, editorial team display the volume and issues of the journal at the journal website, which can be easily explored, read, downloaded, and shared through an open access policy. The journal is also distributed to academic community in printed copy.  

The ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences offers prospects to authors for getting their manuscripts proofread beforehand the availability of the online version, which ensures the accuracy of contents. Further, even after a manuscript is published, partial corrections might be made at the decision of editorial team of the Journal. Therefore, to improve the quality of published research work, the editorial team might opt for the minor alterations and corrections at any stage as they are vital to ascertain the integrity of the published materials to ensure the quality and transparency of research.

The ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences takes a serious note of the issues related to copyright infringement, plagiarism, and violation of other ethical codes in publication process. In this respect, sometimes, whenever any violation of publication ethics and copyright infringement are exposed, the journal reserves the right to proceed for appropriate and necessary actions to correct the record on the priority basis no matter that the authors present either intentionally or unintentionally and communicate to journal’s editorial team. Consequently, materials that this journal has already published, it becomes the journal’s intellectual property and holds the rights of replacing the accurate materials in the best interest of the journal and the academic community.

POLICY AND PRINCIPLES ON RESEARCH DATA

The principle and policy towards the research data signifies authors’ responsibility to submit reliable and accurate research data for publication with following description:

The contents of the ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences are open as archives are freely available on its website. Thus, for copyright and licensing, the Journal follows open access and open archives policies to facilitate the users of the journal. However, the users are required to cite the work with proper reference wherever they are using contents of the ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. It is the responsibility of the journal to maintain metadata of articles processed for publications submitted to journal which can be communicated on-demand where required.

ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences is Open Access Journal that means, its contents are available free for the users. Without asking any prior permission from the publisher, the users are allowed to read, download and use its contents for lawful purposes wherein by using its contents, the users are required to quote the materials with references where it is used in citation that is prescribed under predetermined conditions specified by guidelines, and code of conduct. Thus, authors hold copyright for their work and can use it for their legal purpose without any permission from the journal.

The copyright of manuscripts published in the ETHIOINQUIRY Journal are retained by the author/authors by granting the first publication rights to the Journal. The ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Science and the editorial team will not be responsible for any successive use of the author(s) work and even if desired so, it is responsibility of author(s) to bring an encroachment action by providing the clear statement about the conflict of interest in the copyright agreement between the authors and the ETIOINQUIRY Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities to ensure the transparency of the publication ethics.

DISCLAIMER

The aim of this disclaimer is to apprise the readers and users of the contents of this journal that all the viewpoints and ideas contributed by the authors is their sole property and are exclusively related to them, and not inevitably related to author(s’) employer, committee, an organization or any other group. All such opinions expressed by the author(s) through diverse sources by exploring participants’ views from any institution or organization(s) do not essentially replicate the opinions and views of the EIJHSS. Additionally, it clarified that all standpoints, opinions, findings, and conclusions that are expressed and articulated either in both submitted and published research work or any other contents are the exclusive of the authors and do not reflect the standpoint of the EIJHSS team and publisher.

COPYRIGHT

The copyright of manuscripts published in ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences is granted to the journal, whereas the authorship rights belong to the authors. The Journal and its editorial team will not bear any responsibility for any consecutive or dual use of the author(s) research work and even if anticipated and desired so, it is the author(s) responsibility to bring an encroachment act by postulating a clear declaration about the conflict of interest duly mentioned in copyright agreement between the authors and the EIJHSS to ensure transparency of the publication ethics. Prior to submission of research work to the Journal, authors are advised and required to make sure to comply with all of the following guidelines, otherwise submissions might be returned to authors:

The submission file must be in the Microsoft Word, Open Office, or RTF document file format with no restrictions.

The work has neither previously been published nor is it for consideration to be published with any other publisher.

The text follows the formal, stylistic, and bibliographic prerequisites thoroughly outlined in the Author Guidelines.

The text is written single-spaced, 12-point font, and all figures, illustrations, and tables are placed within the text at exact points.

The manuscript includes nothing that could either be or interpreted as abusive, defamatory, fraudulent, obscene, libelous, or proscribed.

In case of sending same research work to any other publisher either within or outside the country, authors are liable to let us know in anticipation and that would be considered as their volunteer withdrawal from the ETHIOINQUIRY Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.