Journal Policies

1.    REVIEWING PROCEDURE

Peer Review Process

All research articles published in KIJ undergo a rigorous peer review. The first review is based on an initial editor screening, which is followed by a more detailed review by at least two anonymous reviewers.

Each submitted manuscript is evaluated on the following basis:

• the originality of its contribution to the field of scholarly publishing;
• the soundness of its theory and methodology given the topic;
• the coherence of its analysis;
• its ability to communicate to readers (grammar and style).

Peer review

The submitted papers are subject to a peer review process. The purpose of peer review is to assists the Еditor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author it may also assist the author in improving the paper.

A manuscript goes through the peer review process - Double-blind peer-review. Double-blind peer review mean that reviewers are unaware of the identity of the authors, and authors are also unaware of the identity of reviewers. There have to be at least two reviewers. The typical period of time allowed for reviews: 3 weeks. Note: Can be modified during the editorial process.

The choice of reviewers is at the editors' discretion. The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript; they must not be from the authors' own institution and they should not have recent joint publications with any of the authors.

Reviewers must not have conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding sources for the research. If such conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor without delay.

Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents.

Authors submit manuscripts to Editorial office via the online system or via info@ikm.mk. The acknowledgment letter should be sent to the author to confirm the receipt of the manuscript. The Chief Editor first reviews manuscripts. Chief Editor is assisted by Section Editors (could also be Co- or Associated Editors). The Editor assigns a Section Editor to see the manuscript through the complete review process and return it with a recommendation or decision. The manuscript is checked to see if it meets the scope of the Journal and its formal requirements. If it is incorrect or unsuitable, the author should be informed and the manuscript filed (or returned if requested) – direct rejection. Manuscripts that are not suitable for publication in the Journal are rejected. A Rejection letter is sent to the author stating the reason for rejection. If the manuscript conforms to the aims and scope of the Journal and formally abides by the Instructions to Authors it is sent out for review. Depending on the type of paper, it could be accepted immediately for publication (invited Editorial, Book review etc) by the Chief Editor.

Check that the manuscript has been written and styled in accordance with the Journal style; that it carries an abstract (if applicable), keywords, correct reference system etc. and check that the correct blinding system has been used. If anything is missing ask the author to complete it before the manuscript is sent out for review.

The manuscript is sent out for review. The reviewer reads and evaluates the manuscript and eventually sends a review report to the Chief Editor. The time for review can be set to 2-4 weeks depending on the discipline. Make sure to provide the reviewer with clear instructions for the work, e.g. outlined in the form of a Review report or a number of questions to be considered.
Based on the reviewers’ comments the Chief Editor makes a decision to:

• Accept the manuscript without further revision
• Accept after revision
• Ask authors to resubmit
• Reject

An acceptance letter is sent to the author and the final manuscript is forwarded to production. Sometimes, the authors are requested to revise in accordance with reviewers’ comments and submit the updated version or their manuscript to the Chief Editor. The time for review can be set to 2-6 weeks depending on the discipline and type of additional data, information or argument required. The authors are requested to make substantial revisions to their manuscripts and resubmit for a new evaluation. A rejection letter is sent to the author and the manuscript is archived. Reviewers might be informed about the decision.

After review, a manuscript goes to the Copy Editor who will correct the manuscript concerning the correct referencing system, confirmation with the journal style and layout. When Copy Editor finishes his/her work they send manuscripts to the Layout editor.

Layout Editor is responsible for structuring the original manuscript, including figures and tables, into an article, activating necessary links and preparing the manuscript in the various formats, in our case PDF and HTML format. When Layout Editor finishes his/her job they send manuscripts to Proof Editor.

Proof Editor confirms that the manuscript has gone through all the stages and can be published.

All of the reviewers of a paper act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor may assign additional reviewers.

The Editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.

Basic principles for reviewers

Peer reviewers should:

• only agree to review manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise required 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 libellous 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

 Irene Hames on behalf of COPE CouncilMarch 2013, v.1

 

Guidelines for Reviewers

Before start with reviewing if there is any conflict of interest, please notify the Editor in Chief.

Each received article is forwarded to two independent reviewers – double blind review (reviewers do not know who is the author of the work, the author does not know who are the reviewers of his work). We insist on anonymity because we believe that this procedure will contribute to more independent, more critical and better examination papers.

Each reviewer has a period of 2-6 weeks to review the article. If you are unable to comply with deadlines, please inform without delay notify the Editor in Chief. The reviewer does not have the rights to the content of the paper, the other, or that data from work that benefits are reviewed for any purpose.

Reviewers have an obligation to care about ethical issues. If the paper is plagiarized or if the same title published in another journal or proceedings, please inform without delay notify the Editor in Chief.

At the beginning of the reviewer form, the reviewer states his name, title, and full name of the institution where he or she works, place and date of peer review. These data are confidential, remain with editorial boards and is not sent to the author of the work, in addition to the required corrections, suggestions and complaints if any.

Investigate the journal’s content

First thing you need is to watch the originality, relevance, presentation and the importance of the manuscript. Visit the journal homepage and look at the Instructions for Authors to see if the paper meets the submission criteria of the journal. This will help you in deciding whether the paper being reviewed is suitable or not.

In the review form that you get, write your opinion - report on the quantitative work.

How to write your report:

Complete the all review questions in the report form. Write your report on the quantities work. Your report does not have to agree with the author. If you think make suggestions as to how the author can improve clarity, succinctness, and the overall quality of presentation.

Try to see first does the article fit the scope of the journal, does the article is original, does the research help to expand of further research in this subject area, would the paper be of interest to the readership of the journal. If on some of these question you find answer No, reconsider to recommend that author submit the paper in some related journal. Also, look does the article is in Standard English language, does the original research has IMRAD methodology, is there an abstract or brief summary of the work undertaken as well as a concluding section.

Make a recommendation

After you finished reading the paper and have assessed its quality, you need to make a recommendation to the editor regarding publication. You have to make next decision:

Accept the manuscript without further revision – if the manuscript is suitable for publication in its current form.

Accept after revision – if the manuscript will be ready for publication after light revisions.

Ask authors to resubmit – the article needs a lot of changes and need to submit the manuscript again.

Reject – if the paper is not manuscript for publication with this journal or if the revisions that would need to be undertaken.

Revised papers

When authors make revisions to their article in response to reviewer comments, they are asked to submit a list of changes and any comments for transmission to the reviewers.

If possible, the revised version is usually returned to the original reviewer who is then asked to affirm whether the revisions have been carried out satisfactorily.

What if you cannot make review?

If you cannot make review you should immediately notify the editorial office that you cannot do this job. If you are unable to complete your report on a paper in the agreed time-frame inform the editorial office as soon as possible so that the refereeing procedure is not delayed.

More about Review Guidelines you can find on the link http://publicationethics.org/files/Peer%20review%20guidelines_0.pdf

 

Resolving inconsistences

In the case that the authors have serious and reasonable objections to the reviews, the Editorial Board makes an assessment of whether a review is objective and whether it meets academic standards. If there is a doubt about the objectivity or quality of review, the Editor-in-Chief will assign additional reviewer(s).

Additional reviewers may also be assigned when reviewers’ decisions (accept or reject) are contrary to each other or otherwise substantially incompatible.

The final decision on the acceptance of the manuscript for publication rests solely with the Editor-in-Chief.

 

2.    RESPONSIBILITIES

Author’s responsibilities

Authors warrant that their manuscript is their original work, that it has not been published before and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Parallel submission of the same paper to another journal constitutes a misconduct and eliminates the manuscript from consideration by Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ)

The Authors also warrant that the manuscript is not and will not be published elsewhere (after the publication in Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) in any language without the consent of the Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ).

In case a submitted manuscript is a result of a research project, or its previous version has been presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or similar title), detailed information about the project, the conference, etc. shall be provided in the footnote at the very beginning of the text.  A paper that has already been published in another journal cannot be reprinted in Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ)

It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that papers submitted to Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) are written with ethical standards in mind. Authors affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Reporting standards

A submitted manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented in it. The deliberate presentation of false claims is a violation of ethical standards.

Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must make sure that they have permission from all involved parties to make the data public. The authors may be required to send a signed statement when sending a manuscript that they have obtained such consent.

Authors wishing to include figures, tables or other materials that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s). Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors. 

Authorship

Authors must make sure that all only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors and, conversely, that all contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in a footnote or the Acknowledgments section.

Acknowledgment of Sources

Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and their manuscript. Information received in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties, in reviewing project applications, manuscripts and similar materials, must not be used without the express written consent of the information source.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, where someone assumes another's ideas, words, or other creative expression as one's own, is a clear violation of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action.

Plagiarism includes the following:

• Word for word, or almost word for word copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another author's work without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation marks);
• Copying equations, figures or tables from someone else's paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.

Please note that all submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism.

Any paper which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected and will be permanently or temporarily forbidden to publish in the journal.

In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under Retraction policy, and authors will be permanently or temporarily forbidden to publish in the journal.

Conflict of interest

Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal Editor or publisher and cooperate with the Editor to retract or correct the paper.

By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree to abide by the Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) Editorial Policies.

 

Editorial responsibilities

 

The editor is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) will be published. The editor is guided by the policies of the journal's Editorial Board and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Editors must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. If an Editor feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, the selection of reviewers and all decisions on the paper shall be made by the Editorial Board. Editors have a responsibility to protect the anonymity of reviewers and/or authors as per the highest academic standards.

Editors shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias.

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.

Reviewers’ responsibilities

Reviewers are required to provide the qualified and timely assessment of the scholarly merits of the manuscript. The reviewer takes special care of the real contribution and originality of the manuscript. The review must be fully objective. The judgment of the reviewers must be clear and substantiated by arguments.

The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus. The review has a standard format.

The reviewer must not be in a conflict of interest with the authors or funders of research. If such a conflict exists, the reviewer is obliged to promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief. The reviewer shall not accept for reviewing papers beyond the field of his/her full competence.

Reviewers should alert the Editor-in-Chief to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors.

Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been considered in the manuscript. They may recommend specific references for citation, but shall not require to cite papers published in KIJ, or their own papers, unless it is justified.

The reviewers are expected to improve the quality of the manuscript through their suggestions. If they recommend correction of the manuscript prior to publication, they are obliged to specify the manner in which this can be achieved.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors.

 

3.       ETHICAL PUBLISHING

Publication ethics

Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) is dedicated to following best practices on ethical matters, errors and retractions. The prevention of publication malpractice is one of the important responsibilities of the editorial board. Any kind of unethical behavior is not acceptable, and the Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) does not tolerate plagiarism in any form. Authors submitting articles to the Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) affirm that manuscript contents are original. Furthermore, they warrant that their article has neither been published elsewhere in any language fully or partly, nor is it under review for publication anywhere.

The following duties outlined for editors, authors, and reviewers are based on the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors.

Publication decisions

The editor of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play

An editor will at any time evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor 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.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

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.

 Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgment of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention

Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgment of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Authors of work

Author of the paper should be the person who made the greatest contribution to the creation of the work. All those who contributed to the making of the work should be listed in the paper and as co-authors. If there are other contributors who took part in the preparation of making the same work should be listed or admitted as associates.

Before accepting a final version of the paper for publication is necessary that the author and all co-authors approved the final version.

Changes in authorship

Privacy change in authorship relates to the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in accepted version of the paper. An amendment to the data on the authors or co-authors is not possible after acceptance and publication in the online version.

If there is a need to amend the information on the authors, it is necessary to state the following:

1. The reason for the addition or deletion of author,
2. A written confirmation (send it scanned by e-mail) where all the authors agree that the notified operation is a named person is added or removed from the list of authors.
3. The editor will notify the author that needs to be added or removed from the list and will ask for his consent.

Requirements that are not sent by the respective author (corresponding author) will not be considered.

Originality and plagiarism

Authors are required to submit original written article. If other work necessary to work properly quote according to the instructions on the citation of work. If you use ideas of other authors require their written consent and using the same.

Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical behavior and will be severely punished, and as such is unacceptable. The author or authors are required before reporting to work in the journal checking their work through some of the programs for testing against plagiarism. The Editorial Board reserves the right to verify each work through the test of plagiarism and if the same occurs notify the author.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Disclosure and conflicts of interest can be multiple. If the author or institution where the author has a financial assistance in project design or research is needed to adequately cover letter to inform the editorial and the public. Publication in journal person or institution that is financially supported by the making of the work or project is the best way to protect against conflicts of interest.

At the end of the text, under a subheading '' Conflicts of interest '', all authors must disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial (direct of indirect), personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years from the commencement of any work.

Fundamental errors in published works

If the author detects an error in the published paper is obliged to instantly inform journal editors or publishers and that as soon as possible the same document. The author shall, in the event of an error, to cooperate with the editorial board to remove the same.

Copyright

The Author(s) warrant that their manuscript is their original work that has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; and that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities at the institution where the work was carried out. The Author(s) affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of others. If copyrighted works are included, the Author(s) bear responsibility to obtain written permission from the copyright owners. The Corresponding author, as the signing author, warrants that he/she has full power to make this grant on behalf of the Author(s).

By signing this agreement, the Corresponding author grants to the Publisher the following rights to the Manuscript, including any supplemental material, and any parts, extracts or elements thereof:

• the right to reproduce and distribute the Manuscript in printed form, including print-on-demand;
• the right to produce prepublications, reprints, and special editions of the Manuscript;
• the right to translate the Manuscript into other languages;
• the right to reproduce the Manuscript using photomechanical or similar means including, but not limited to photocopy, and the right to distribute these reproductions;
• the right to reproduce and distribute the Manuscript electronically or optically on any and all data carriers or storage media – especially in machine readable/digitalized form on data carriers such as hard drive, CD-Rom, DVD, Blu-ray Disc (BD), Mini-Disk, data tape – and the right to reproduce and distribute the Article via these data carriers;
• the right to store the Manuscript in databases, including online databases, and the right of transmission of the Manuscript in all technical systems and modes;
• the right to make the Manuscript available to the public or to closed user groups on individual demand, for use on monitors or other readers (including e-books), and in printable form for the user, either via the internet, other online services, or via internal or external networks.

Articles published in the Journal are Open-Access articles distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 4.0.

The Journal allows Author(s) to deposit Author's Post-print (accepted version) and Publisher's version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories, such as PubMed Central, Europe PMC, arXiv and other repositories, or to publish it on Author's personal website and departmental website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.), at any time after publication. Publisher copyright and source must be acknowledged and a link must be made to the article's DOI.

Upon receiving the proofs, the Author(s) agree to promptly check the proofs carefully, correct any typographical errors, and authorize the publication of the corrected proofs.

The Corresponding author agrees to inform his/her co-authors, of any of the above terms. 

 

Corrections and Retraction Policy

 

Article Withdrawal

Articles can be withdrawn by either by the authors or the publishers. The article can be withdrawn anytime until receiving the Official confirmation of accepted paper. If the authors request withdrawal of an article, a signed statement from the authors will be required to be submitted to the Editorial Office before an article can be withdrawn. If an article is found to violate the ethical publishing guidelines of the journal such as duplicate publication, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, multiple submission or bogus claims of authorship, the article will be withdrawn by the publisher. In such case the article content will be removed from the HTML and PDF version of the Early View article and replaced by a note that the article has been withdrawn.

Article Corrections

If any error is discovered in a paper after publication, corrections (Erratum, Corrigendum, Addendum) will be published in the next issue or as soon as the publisher and author, both agree to the proposed changes. The corrections will be published only if a significant error is found in the paper like factually inaccurate published information. Minor corrections which do not significantly affect the content and understanding of the paper like spelling mistakes and grammatical errors will not be published.

When a correction is published it will be linked to the article being corrected and a link to the corrections page will also be placed on the article published earlier. The correction will also be added to the PDF version of the article. No changes or modification will be made to the original content of the article PDF. This will enable the readers to download the article and the amendment together. The original published version of the article, in HTML and PDF, format will be preserved in journal archives to maintain the integrity of the published record.

Errata is published when mistakes are introduced or not recognized in the article during editing or production, like significant typographical errors, errors in figure or table numbers or their legends, proof corrections submitted but not included in the article during editing, wrong details in the address or email of the author.

Corrigenda is published when errors are detected by the authors after publication of the paper which compromises the validity of the scientific content, its accuracy and reproducibility. If the readers detect an error in any paper, they are requested to submit their comments as 'Letter to the Editor' following the prescribed article format. These articles submitted as 'Letter to the editor' will be peer reviewed and will also be sent to original authors for their comments. On acceptance for publication, the 'Letter to the editor' and comments of the original authors will be published in the same issue.

Addenda are published if the authors inadvertently omitted any significant information at the time of submitting the manuscript and want to add this content to the article after it has been published. All information submitted as addendum will be peer reviewed before editorial acceptance. Addenda will be published only in rare circumstances when it is decided by the editors that the information in the addendum is essential to understand a significant part of the published article.

Article Retractions 

Retractions are published in circumstances like, if the conclusions of a paper is found to be based on faulty logic or computation by new information made available after the paper has been published; if the paper is based on falsified or fabricated data, if plagiarized data has been published or if duplicate publications exist. The retractions are decided on a case by case basis by the editor in consultation with the authors and the reviewers of the article. A signed statement from the authors will be required to be submitted to the Editorial Office before an article can be retracted. Agreement of all authors of a paper is required before a retraction can be published. If some co-authors do not agree to the retraction of the article, the retraction will be published as decided by the editor, clearly identifying the dissenting co-authors. When a retraction is published it will be linked to the article being corrected and a link to the retractions page will also be placed on the article published earlier. On the webpages of the retracted article the bibliographic information will be retained on all the pages, however, the article text will be replaced by a note stating that the article has been retracted from the journal. The PDF version of the article will be retained to preserve the integrity of record, but will be marked to show that the article has been retracted. In cases of partial retractions, the retraction notice will be labeled as 'Partial Retraction' or 'Retraction in Part'.

Article Removal

In exceptional circumstances an article may be removed from the journal. This may happen if any legal issues arise or are expected to arise in context of the article, the distribution of the article is stopped by an court order, the contents of the article may pose a serious health risk if acted upon by others, the article violates copyright of others, or if the article is found to be defamatory or infringing on other's legal rights. When an article is removed from the journal the bibliographic information will be retained on all the pages and the PDF file, however, the article text will be replaced by a note stating that the article has been removed from the journal and the reason for removal.

Article Replacement

If an article is found to contain false or inaccurate data which may pose a serious health risk if acted upon by others, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the article and replace it with a corrected version. In this case, the article will be retracted, following the procedure of retraction of an article, with the difference that a link to the corrected re-published article will be placed on the HTML and PDF versions of the paper and on the page with the retraction notice.

 

Policy of screening for plagiarism

Papers submitted to Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) will be screened for plagiarism using by iThenticate and AntiplagiatRU plagiarism detection Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) will immediately reject papers leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism.

Before submitting articles to reviewers, those are first checked for similarity/plagiarism tool, by a member of the editorial team. The papers submitted Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ) must have similarity level less than 10 %. Similarity per each detected references also must be maximum 1 %.

Note: All authors are suggested to use plagiarism detection software to do the similarity checking before submitting their manuscript to the journal. 

 Plagiarism

Adapted from Bella H. Plagiarism. Saudi J Med Med Sci 2014;2:127

Available from: http://www.sjmms.net/text.asp?2014/2/2/127/137015

"Plagiarism is the use of others' published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the plagiarizer. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, Institutional Review Board applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format. Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and should be addressed as such.

Self-plagiarism refers to the practice of an author using portions of their previous writings on the same topic in another of their publications, without specifically citing it formally in quotes. This practice is widespread and sometimes unintentional, as there are only so many ways to say the same thing on many occasions, particularly when writing the methods section of an article. Although this usually violates the copyright that has been assigned to the publisher, there is no consensus as to whether this is a form of scientific misconduct, or how many of one's own words one can sue before it is truly "plagiarism." Probably for this reason self-plagiarism is not regarded in the same light as plagiarism of ideas and words of other individuals. If journals have developed a policy on this matter, it should be clearly stated for authors."

Direct plagiarism is the plagiarism of the text. Mosaic plagiarism is the borrowing of ideas and opinions from an original source and a few verbatim words or phrases without crediting the author. 

Authors can adhere to the following steps to report plagiarism: 

1. Inform the editor of the journal where a plagiarized article is published.
2. Send original and plagiarized articles with plagiarized part highlighted.
3. If evidence of plagiarism is convincing, editor should arrange for a disciplinary meeting.
4. Editor of the journal where the plagiarized article should communicate with the editor of the journal containing the original article to rectify the matter.
5. The plagiarist should be asked to provide an explanation.
6. In case of nonresponse in the stipulated time or an unsatisfactory explanation, the article should be permanently retracted.
7. Author should be blacklisted and debarred for submitted an article to a particular journal for at least 5 years.
8. The concerned head of the institution has to be notified.

The author bears the responsibility for checking whether material submitted is subject to copyright or ownership rights, e.g. figures, tables, photographs, illustrations, trade literature and data. The author will need to obtain permission to reproduce any such items and include these permissions with their final submission. Where use is so restricted, the editorial office and Publisher must be informed with the final submission of the material. Please add any necessary acknowledgments to the typescript, preferably in the form of an Acknowledgments section at the end of the paper. Credit the source and copyright of photographs, figures, illustrations etc. in the supplementary captions.

 

4.       OPEN ACCESS

Open Access Policy

Knowledge – International journal (KIJ) is an Open Access Journal. All articles can be downloaded free of charge. Articles published in the Journal are Open-Access articles distributed under a Creative Commons Attibution – NonCommercial – NoDerrivatives 4.0 .

Knowledge – International journal (KIJ)supports Blue OA. Blue OA means that authors cannot archive pre-print (ie pre-refereeing) but authors can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing) and  making it freely accessible for everyone.

Benefits of open access for authors, include:

• OA articles are freely and permanently available online immediately upon publication, enabling broader distribution and increased visibility
• Authors can easily comply with the OA mandates of their institution or funding body as OA articles are usually published under a Creative Commons license
• The final version can be re-used and immediately deposited in any repository
• In most cases authors retain the copyright to their work
• Articles are citation tracked and included in all major bibliographic databases
• There are no space constraints, i.e. unlimited space for supplementary material including figures, extensive data and video footage

The journal allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of its articles and allow readers to use them for any other lawful purpose.

 

Archiving digital version

KIJl strives for the constant availability of published articles and online accessibility. The archive is available online and ready for download with all metadata. If KIJl was unable to provide temporarily access (in an emergency or permanently) the archive could provide by few digital archives.

For this reason, KIJ Journal uses the following digital archives:

The digital repository of the National and University Library of North Macedonia 

In accordance with the agreement with the Ministry of Education, in N. Macedonia, it is necessary that the editorial boards of the journal have a paper and electronic version of all published volumes in the Repository of the National and University Library of N. Macedonia. The purpose of laying down volumes is the permanent storage and use within the Ministry's program on monitoring, evaluation and promotion of domestic scientific journals.

 

5.       COPYRIGHT & LICENSING

 

Copyright

 

Copyright Transfer Agreement
Knowledge – International journal (KIJ)

 ISSN: 1857-923X (Printed)   ISSN: 2545-4439 (Online)
The copyright to (Manuscript title): ...............................................

…........................................……

(hence forward referred to as the Manuscript)

By the author(s):

...............................................

…........................................……

(hence forward referred to as the Author(s))

is hereby transferred to the publisher of the journal Knowledge – International journal (KIJ)   (henceforward referred to as the Publisher and the Journal, respectively). The transfer becomes effective once the article is accepted for publication. If the submitted manuscript is not accepted for publication by the Journal, all rights shall be retained by the Author(s).
The Author(s) warrant that their manuscript is their original work that has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; and that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities at the institution where the work was carried out. The Author(s) affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of others. If copyrighted works are included, the Author(s) bear responsibility to obtain written permission from the copyright owners. The Corresponding author, as the signing author, warrants that he/she has full power to make this grant on behalf of the Author(s).

By signing this agreement, the Corresponding author grants to the Publisher the following rights to the Manuscript, including any supplemental material, and any parts, extracts or elements thereof:
• the right to reproduce and distribute the Manuscript in printed form, including print-on-demand;
• the right to produce prepublications, reprints, and special editions of the Manuscript;
• the right to translate the Manuscript into other languages;
• the right to reproduce the Manuscript using photomechanical or similar means including, but not limited to photocopy, and the right to distribute these reproductions;
• the right to reproduce and distribute the Manuscript electronically or optically on any and all data carriers or storage media – especially in machine readable/digitalized form on data carriers such as hard drive, CD-Rom, DVD, Blu-ray Disc (BD), Mini-Disk, data tape – and the right to reproduce and distribute the Article via these data carriers; 
• the right to store the Manuscript in databases, including online databases, and the right of transmission of the Manuscript in all technical systems and modes; 
• the right to make the Manuscript available to the public or to closed user groups on individual demand, for use on monitors or other readers (including e-books), and in printable form for the user, either via the internet, other online services, or via internal or external networks.

Articles published in the Journal are Open-Access articles distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 4.0.

The Journal allows Author(s) to deposit Author's Post-print (accepted version) and Publisher's version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories, such as PubMed Central, Europe PMC, arXiv and other repositories, or to publish it on Author's personal website and departmental website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.), at any time after publication and/or departmental website, at any time after publication on the website of the author’s institution in compliance with the Creative Commons Attibution – NonCommercial – NoDerrivatives 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), at any time after the publication in the journal. Publisher copyright and source must be acknowledged and a link must be made to the article's DOI.

Upon receiving the proofs, the Author(s) agree to promptly check the proofs carefully, correct any typographical errors, and authorize the publication of the corrected proofs.

The Corresponding author agrees to inform his/her co-authors, of any of the above terms.

Signature Date

Name

Institution

 

Licensing

 

The published articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attibution – NonCommercial – NoDerrivatives 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). It is allowed to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and remix, transform, and build upon it for any purpose, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given to the original author(s), a link to the license is provided, it is indicated if changes were made and the new work is distributed under the same license as the original.

Users are required to provide full bibliographic description of the original publication (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages), as well as its DOI code. In electronic publishing, users are also required to link the content with both the original article published in KNOWLEDGE - International Journal and the licence used.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

 

Self-archiving Policy

Knowledge – International Journal (KIJ)  allows authors to deposit Author's Post-print (accepted version) and Publisher's version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories, such as PubMed Central, Europe PMC, arXiv and other repositories or to publish it on Author's personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.) and/or departmental website, at any time after publication on the website of the author’s institution in compliance with the Creative Commons Attibution – NonCommercial – NoDerrivatives 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), at any time after the publication in the journal. Publisher copyright and source must be acknowledged and a link must be made to the article's DOI.

Disclaimer

 

The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editors and the Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. Publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

6.    ADVERTISING POLICY

Advertising Policy

KIJ has the right to refuse any advertisement that, in its sole discretion, is incompatible with its mission or inconsistent with the values of members, the publication/web site or the organization as a whole, and to stop accepting any advertisement previously accepted. Ads are subject to review by the editor and others at the KIJ. In no case shall separate agreements with Publisher or its subsidiaries supersede this policy.

Advertising for the following categories is prohibited:

• Alcohol
• Tobacco
• Weapons, firearms, ammunition
• Fireworks
• Gambling and lottery
• Pornography or related themes
• Political and religious advertisements
• Advertisements that claim to have a “miracle” cure or method
• Advertisements that make unsubstantiated health claims for the products advertised
• Advertisements directed at children

Advertisements new to KIJ may require pre-approval before they can appear. Refer to the individual publication ad policies or call your advertising representative for more information.

While KIJ welcomes and encourages information-rich advertising, advertisements, advertising icons and advertiser logos must be clearly distinguishable from editorial content and may require special labeling to distinguish them as such.

In KIJ, the intentional placement of advertising adjacent to articles discussing the company or product that is the subject of the ad is prohibited.

Advertisements may not imply endorsement by the KIJ or its publications/web site except as may be provided for under a separate agreement—in which case advertising must be pre-approved to ensure adherence to the letter and spirit of that separate agreement.

The full rules for any market research or promotion associated with an advertisement must be displayed in the ad or available via a prominent link.

The following online advertising formats are prohibited:

• Pop-ups and floating ads.
• Advertisements that collect personally identifiable information from visitors without their knowledge or permission.
• Ads that extend across or down the page without the visitor having clicked or rolled-over the ad.
• Ads that send visitors to another site without the visitor having clicked the ad.

KIJ’s published advertising policies are not exhaustive and are subject to change at any time without notice.