About the Journal

Ianna journal of interdisciplinary studies (IJIS) is an open-access publication from the Department of Mass Communication, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. It publishes peer-reviewed, original research, and it reviews articles in an interactive, open-access format. The journal is published annually at no cost to authors. Contributors also access published articles free of charge. 

Aims and Scope

IJIS is a Nigerian journal for the Nigerian people. IJIS aims to publish well-researched manuscripts from Nigerian authors across communication, information sciences, education and psychology. The journal welcomes submissions that are related to communication and psychology.

 Publication Ethics  and Malpractice Statement

Introduction

At Ianna Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, our commitment to the integrity of our academic content and publishing process is an assurance. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to carry out their research work in line with appropriate practices and a good code of conduct of professional relevance or internationally regulated bodies.      

Research integrity

We uphold a high standard at Ianna Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. As such, our esteemed contributors from different disciplines/institutions are encouraged to considerably abide by the following principles:   

  1. Mental honesty in all aspects of research;
  2. Thoroughgoing review, accuracy, and excellence in research practice;
  • Research report communication with heightened transparency and integrity;
  1. Respect, care, and protection of all participants in the subject(s) of research.

Editorial process

At IJIS, we are pledged with guaranteeing an elevated standard in the process through which contents are created and made independent from simple data or information. Our editorial process is interactively synergistic and subjectively high. Our all-inclusive editorial policies are articulated thus:

  1. We start a preliminary check process after submission and the submission can be accepted for peer evaluation only when:
  • The manuscript falls within the scope of the journal requirement(s);
  • Authorship information is well-grounded;
  • The presentation meets our standard of selection;
  • The needful information regarding our research ethics is included in the manuscript;
  • The manuscript is free from plagiarism.
  1. When a submission is made to the journal, qualified and worthy reviewers will be contacted to critically assess it.
  2. After critical assessment and evaluation of comments by reviewers, editors will then make a decision on whether to accept or reject the submitted manuscript and or require authors to go through their manuscript.
  3. Subsequent to an author’s revision, reviewers are contacted again for a rerun of the review of the manuscript. Adopting this procedure, editors will decide whether to accept or reject the revised manuscript.
  4. Nevertheless, if a manuscript is accepted in due course, attention will be paid to layout editing, author proofreading, format conversion, and language structure editing before publication.

Peer review

We use double-blind peer review to assess submitted manuscripts.  At IJIS, we acknowledge the indispensable role of critical assessment in the integrity of the scholarly record. Our ethical publication policies for peer reviewers set out the fundamental principles and standards to which all prominent peer reviewers should adhere during the critical assessment process. Therefore, we have delineated the fundamental principles to which our peer reviewers should adhere as follows:

  1. Reviewers should only agree to assess manuscripts that they have the subject expertise which is required to carry out a proper review and which they can assess in a timely manner.
  2. Reviewers should ensure the confidentiality of peer review and not disclose any detail of a manuscript or its review during or after the peer-review process except for those that are released by the journal.
  3. Reviewers should neither use the details/information obtained during the critical assessment process to the disadvantage of others nor for their own, other persons, or an organization’s advantage.
  4. Reviewers should state all prospective conflicting interests and solicit advice from the journal if they are not sure whether something adds up to a relevant interest or not.
  5. Reviewers should not let their reviews to be influenced by the origin of a manuscript, its nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender, commercial deliberations, or other characteristics of the authors.
  6. Reviewers should be unprejudiced and positive in their reviews, abstaining from being antagonistic or provocative, and from making defamatory personal comments.
  7. Reviewers should admit that peer review is mainly a reciprocal effort and hence, should endeavour to accomplish their fair share of reviews in a prompt manner.  
  8. Reviewers should supply the journal with personal and profession-wise information that is precise and truly represents their proficiency.
  9. Reviewers should acknowledge that the impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered serious wrongdoing.

Authorship

Any form of a scholarly contribution to the development and conclusion of research work has significant academic implications. This suggests that for published works, authorship comes with liability and accountability. Subsequently, in enlisting authors for research work, potential authors must be acquainted with the following:      

  1. All submitted papers must contain contributors’ statements. This must be carried out to keep away from fraudulent authorship attribution.
  2. Individuals with considerable contributions to the conception, design of the work, the acquisition, analysis, interpretation of data, and drafting of the work or its revision must be listed as authors.
  3. The position of a corresponding author is not superior to that of other authors or collaborators; rather, the corresponding author assumes primary responsibility for communicating with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process.
  4. For those individuals whose contributions did not justify authorship (e.g., data collectors, data managers, professional writing assistants, etc.), a short acknowledgement section should be made to highlight their contribution(s) during the research process.

Paper preparation template/Instructions to authors                                                                

At IJIS, structured abstract of not more than 300 words is employed and the following template shall guide prospective contributors:

Title: The title of a manuscript should not be longer than 50 words. The title should be in lower case, except in cases where the upper case is best suited like for proper nouns. The title of a manuscript should bear the state where the research was carried out and titles should be as clear and precise as possible. 

Background of the study/ Introduction: In the background, contributors are discouraged from citations. The background should simply set the stage for the study. Conceivably, it should give an insight into the work, why the topic is important, and why the study is worth conducting.

The objective of the study: The objective of the study should clearly state the problem to be solved.

Methodology: This should indicate how the research was carried out as well as the designs that were adopted to achieve the study objectives. The sample size, sampling procedure for selection of respondents, and instruments for data collection for the study should be clearly stated as well. The method(s) of data analysis utilized and mode of data presentation should be indicated. Issues like validity and reliability should be addressed.

Results: Results should be presented in clear and simple language.

Unique Contribution: The researcher should state the distinctive contribution of his/her manuscript to past or existing knowledge by highlighting its practical, theoretical, or scholarly contributions.

Conclusion: The conclusion should be handled with seriousness. The contributors should concisely sum up the study.

Key Recommendation: Here, recommendations for further studies on the research topic should be stated.

Keywords: The keywords which serve as the yardstick to make reference to, and or identify the paper should be clearly indicated with a semicolon (;) separations.

References: At IJIS, the referencing style we adopt is APA 7th edition. Contributors are also encouraged to cite reputable impact factor journals.

Plagiarism

We made use of  Turnitin to screen all manuscripts submitted to IJIS. The use of another author’s language, ideas, expressions, and or thoughts as one’s own original work is highly unacceptable. By percentage, at IJIS, the maximum range of acceptability for the originality of a manuscript is  20% and below. Self-plagiarism is also considered an offence. It occurs when an author uses a considerable part of his/her work that has been previously published without referencing or citing properly. It can range from making modifications to a previously published manuscript to publishing the same manuscript in more than one journal. To solve this problem, authors are advised to do the following:

  1. Avoid exact repetition of another person’s work if proper acknowledgement of the author or source cannot be done;
  2. Avoid rearranging, rewording, or rephrasing another person’s ideas or work if proper citation of the source cannot be done;
  3. Avoid using works or ideas of people from the Internet to make an imitation of online sources;
  4. Using the work of other authors as part of one’s own when proper acknowledgement of the author cannot be made should be avoided.

The average number of weeks between article submission & publication

It takes between  16 weeks from submission to publication

Research with animals or humans     

Research involving animals or humans must be well evaluated and approved by a research ethics committee (IRB) before starting the study. The rights of study subjects and participants to privacy must be respected. In addition, the informed consent of subjects who have consented to participate in research must be obtained. Authors should be reminded that informed consent is not just a form that is signed, but a process in which the subjects or participants are made to understand their roles, the objectives, and the risks that the research poses.    

Conflicts of Interest (COI) and funding

At IJIS, one of our esteemed aims is to ensure that our issues are free from immoderate influence. As such, we expect that our authors must make the following declarations:   

  1. All financial COI with no time limits.
  2. Relevant non-financial potential COIs.

Libel, defamation, and freedom of expression

No matter how, we discourage any form of false publication or statements that poses threat to the reputation of individuals, groups, and organizations. If any such situation comes up, our legal team will act appropriately.   

Retractions, corrections, and expressions of concern

At IJIS, We encourage retraction, correction, and expression of concern for papers that are published in our journal. A retraction may be initiated by our editors, the author(s) of the papers, or their institution. In rare cases, retraction is accompanied by apologies for the previous error and/or expressions of gratitude to persons who disclosed the error to the author. Expression of concern is also recommended in the same manner as is the case with retraction or correction.   

Falsification, fabrication, and image manipulation

We concede that the results of data collected or presented as images may be confusing if they are not appropriately modified. In consideration of this, we advise that authors should be more evaluative in making decisions to modify data elicited in this form. We have grounds to believe that a painstaking consideration of modifying such images is crucial to preventing falsification, fabrication, or misrepresentation of their results.     

Fraudulent research and research misconduct

In a case where we discover fraudulent research and or research misconduct by our author, our feedback will be to collaborate with the relevant editor(s), and other appropriate institutions or organizations for investigation. Any publication that we find to include fraudulent contents will be retracted, or an appropriate correction or expression of concern will be issued.

Data and supporting evidence

Authors are encouraged to be transparent with regards to data coding and report of materials that were used during the research process. Therefore, authors are expected to provide and store accurate data and supporting evidence related to their research in a repository or storage location. The reason for doing this is to enable us to create access for others to make verifications understand and probably replicate new findings with ease from the data the authors provided.

Copyright and License

By submitting manuscripts to IJIS, contributors are agreeing to the following agreement:

  • Copyright on articles published by IJIS  is retained by the author(s).
  • By submitting manuscripts to the journal,  authors grant IJIS a license to publish the articles and identify itself as the original publisher.
  • Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely provided that its integrity is sustained and its original authors, citation details, and publisher are clearly identified.
  • Where an author is not allowed to hold the copyright, minor adjustments may be needed to accommodate the peculiarities.  It is mandatory for authors who require such variations to inform the IJIS editorial team after their manuscripts have been accepted.

License agreement

In submitting an article to IJIS,  I certify that;

  1. I am authorized by my co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
  2. I warrant, on behalf of myself and my co-authors, that:
    • ​​the article is original, has not been formally published in any other peer-reviewed journal, is not under consideration by any other journal, and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights; 
    • I am/we are the sole author(s) of the article and have full authority to enter into this agreement and in granting rights to IJIS are not in breach of any other obligation;
    • the article contains nothing that is unlawful, libellous, or which would, if published, constitute a breach of contract or of confidence or of commitment given to secrecy;
    • I/we have taken due care to ensure the integrity of the article. To my/our - and currently accepted scientific - knowledge of all statements contained in it purporting to be facts are true and any formula or instruction contained in the article will not if followed accurately, cause any injury, illness, or damage to the user.
  3. I, and all co-authors, agree that the article if accepted for publication, shall be licensed in line with IJIS policies.  

IMPORTANT

Irrespective if the authors fill a form or not, the license agreement is applicable to all articles published by the journal. Therefore, it is important for authors to read the license agreement before submitting their manuscripts.

 

Licensing

All articles published by IJIS are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.  Therefore, through the noncommercial use of works published by IJIS, readers are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of our published articles and to use them for any other lawful purposes. Readers must acknowledge sources accordingly. 

Self-Archiving policies

As an open-access journal, IJIS allows authors to archive the published versions of their articles in databases that are freely available to the general public.  There are no limitations as to the number of databases where authors can archive their works.