POLICIES

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

 Conflict of interest also known as competing interest can occur where you (or your employer, sponsor, or family/friends) have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organisations, or with the people working with them which could influence the research or interpretation of the results. Competing interests can be financial or non-financial in nature. To ensure transparency, you must also declare any associations which can be perceived by others as a competing interest. 

 

Educational Innovation Practice (EIP) journal follows the comprehensive guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) which states there must be a clear statement regarding conflict of interest, including submission of papers to the journal (https://publicationethics.org/competinginterests). 

 

Every author must disclose any conflict related to the manuscript while submitting the manuscript for consideration in the EIP journal. The editorial office of the journal will take extra prudence in detecting the possible conflict of interest based on the affiliations and content of the manuscript and judge it for its suitability for publication. To prevent this, the author must declare all including both financial and personal relationship conflicts of interest which might have influenced the accuracy and interpretation of your research outcome. If the study was funded and there was no conflict of interest the authors must mention “Funding source had no role in study design, data collection, interpretation of results and manuscript writing”. If there is no conflict of interest, the authors should mention “Declare none”.

 

The conflict of interest can be declared in the “Cover Letter” of the article during the time of submission.

Reviewers and subject editors are required to disclose any conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript, authors, biases, or competing interests to prevent possible self-ownership and publication of the journal 

The EIP journal adopts the following policy regarding the submission of papers by members of the Editorial Board to any of its issues.

 

1. The Editor-in-Chief may not submit a paper for review to any issue of the journal.
2. The Editor and Associate Editors may not submit a paper for review to their own issue of the journal.
3. The Editor and Associate Editors may submit a paper for review to an issue other than their own issue, but all due care and diligence will be taken to ensure the paper is anonymized, the reviewers are not aware of the author(s)’ identity(ies), and that a statement is made in that issue regarding the process to prevent the perception of cronyism.
4. Members of the Editorial Board may choose to submit a paper for review to a special issue of the journal, but they must make this clear before submissions commence and they will then not be permitted an editorial or reviewing role for that special issue.
5. An Editor, either alone or with his/her Associate Editors, may write an editorial/introduction for their issue of the journal with a statement that this is the views of the author(s) and has not been subject to peer review.
6. The Editor-in-Chief may write a foreword for any issue of the journal with a statement that this is the views of the author(s) and has not been subject to peer review.

 

COPYRIGHT POLICY AND LICENSING TERMS

Educational Innovation (EIP) Journal is an open access scholarly journal that follows the model of giving the copyright to the rightful authors after the first serial publication by the journal. That means the authors retain the copyright of their published article after granting the journal right of first publication of the work.

All the authors must declare that this is their original work and has been written by the stated authors and verifies that the submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.  Moreover, it is the responsibility of the author to secure all necessary copyright permissions for the use of 3rd-party materials in their manuscript. 

After publication in the Journal, authors may use the material as they wish but should make appropriate reference to the prior publication in the Journal; For example: “This paper (material) first appeared in the Educational Innovation Practice Journal, vol... no... pp..., under the title ”......’’, published by the Samtse College of Education, Royal University of Bhutan.

All the necessary use of third-party material published in EIP journal must be redirected to the author in writing and get consent.

The journal is simultaneously licensed under the Creative Common License Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International which allows anyone to copy, redistribute in any medium, remix, transform and build upon the material only upon giving the proper attribution, providing a link to the license and indicating if changes were made.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

Educational Innovation and Practice Journal is a fully open access journal, which provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

The journals are online first which allows authors, within a set deadline, to revise their posted article before printing. All the articles undergo blind and editorial peer-review and quality control. 

You can share-copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The use, distribution, or reproduction is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.

No use, distribution, or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Authors are also welcome to deposit versions of their work in any institutional or another repository of their choice.

ETHICS, MALPRACTICE AND PLAGIARISM

1. Ethics Statement

Journal editors, authors, and reviewers are required to ensure that best practices and ethical standards are maintained. Editors and reviewers of EIP manuscripts are required to assess manuscripts fairly and maintain confidentiality. Research submitted to EIP journal must be the author's own original work with any cited text referenced, and must not be under consideration or accepted elsewhere.

If the manuscript contains materials that overlap with work that is being reviewed or accepted for publication in other journals, the authors must cite or reference this work.

We allow self-citation, but authors must avoid extensively referencing their own work in order to increase their own citation score. In case a new manuscript is a continuation of previously published work and self-citation is not avoidable, it should be stated in the Acknowledgements section.

The EIP Journal does not accept manuscripts that have previously been submitted and rejected due to review comments. Otherwise, the Editorial Board would need to know why the author(s) is resubmitting the same article.

1. Plagiarism Policy

The Educational Innovation Practice Journal is committed to protecting its reputation from malpractice. An article containing plagiarism may be removed and the author may be banned from publishing in the journal. Turnitin and Turnitin AI Checker is used to detect overlapping and similar text in all submitted works. If a similarity index is less than 20%, authors will be contacted for revision and if it exceeds 20%, it will result in desk rejection. In case a major plagiarism is detected, the author will be barred for one year to submit and the employer of the author (s) will be notified regarding the misconduct. 

Without proper citation, EIP Journal does not tolerate the use of another person's work. This also applies to self-plagiarism when using previously published work or parts of it. This also applies to work written in English or any foreign language.

Additionally, the submitted manuscript is checked for intellectual property protection and document-versus-document(s) analysis to ensure that it has not been plagiarized. 

Plagiarism takes place when one author deliberately uses another’s work without permission, credit, or acknowledgment. Authors must always remember that crediting the work of others (including your advisors or your own previous work) is paramount. Authors should always place their work in the context of the advancement of the field and acknowledge the findings of others on which you have built their research.

 PRIVACY STATEMENT AND CONFIDENTIALITY

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage.

This journal does not collect information from non-registered users. Registrants' data is collected within the scope of peer-reviewed journals' standard functions. It enables the editorial process to communicate; it allows for aggregating submissions and publications, as well as tracking the geopolitical and social aspects of scholarly exchange.

These data are used by the editorial team to guide the publication and improvement of this journal. Neither this journal nor PKP (Public Knowledge Project) will sell the data nor will they use it for any other purpose.

Securing your data

It is the policy of the EIP journal to take reasonable technical and organizational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse, or alteration of your personal information.

The journal may update this privacy policy by posting a new version on this website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are familiar with any changes.

CORRECTIONS, RETRACTIONS AND POST PUBLICATION DISCUSSIONS

1. Correction, Retraction, and post-publication discussion  

The articles published by the EIP journal either in print issues or online constitute the final Version of Record (VoR): the final, definitive, and citable version in the scholarly record (https://www.niso.org/sites/default/files/2017-08/RP-8-2008.pdf)

The VoR includes:

• The paper was revised and accepted following peer review in its final form, including the abstract, text, references, bibliography, and all accompanying tables, illustrations, and data.
• Any supplemental materials.

When an article is recognized as a Version of the Record, it is presumed to be accurate, complete, and citable. 

There may, however, be times when the Version of Record needs to be changed after an article has been published. EIP journal's Editorial Office will ensure that any necessary changes are made in accordance with the guidelines of the ZHIBTSHOEL: RUB Research Policies (https://www.rub.edu.bt/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/research-book.pdf).

Readers will be fully informed of any necessary changes via a post-publication notice which will be permanently linked to the original article. This can take the form of a Correction notice, an Expression of Concern, a Retraction, or, in rare circumstances, a Removal. The purpose of this mechanism of making changes that are permanent and transparent is to ensure the integrity of the scholarly record.

1. Corrections

Authors should notify us as soon as possible if they find errors in their published article, especially errors that could affect the interpretation of data or reliability of information presented. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure consensus has been reached between all listed co-authors prior to putting forward any requests for corrections or retractions to an article.

If, after reading the guidance, you believe a correction or retraction is necessary for your article, contact us via our Contact Us page in website www.eip.sce.edu.bt

1. Retractions

A Retraction notice will be issued where a major error (e.g., in the analysis or methods) invalidates the conclusions in the article, or where research misconduct or publication misconduct has taken place (e.g., research without required ethical approvals, fabricated data, manipulated images, plagiarism, duplicate publication, etc)  or due to  malfeasance or misconduct of another author’s work on which the article is based, or because of an unintentional error so severe as to invalidate the main results of the work, drastically altering the conclusions.

The decision to issue a retraction for an article will be made in accordance with ZHIBTSHOEL: RUB Research Policies and will involve an investigation by EIP journal editorial staff in collaboration with the editors. Authors and institutions may request a retraction of their articles if their reasons meet the criteria for retraction.

1. Expressions of concern

In some cases, an Expression of Concern notice may be considered where concerns of a major nature have been raised (e.g., serious research or publication misconduct), but where the outcome of the investigation is inconclusive or the findings are unreliable or that misconduct may have occurred, but there is limited cooperation from the authors’ institution(s) in investigating the concerns raised.

1. Article removal

An article removal will be issued in rare circumstances where the problems are very serious in nature and cannot be addressed by a Retraction or Correction notice. EIP journal editor will consider removal of a published article from EIP journals if the article contains content that could pose a serious risk if followed or acted upon; violates the rights to privacy of a study participant; If the article is defamatory or infringes other legal rights; If an article is subject to a court order.

1. Addenda

An addendum is a notification of the addition of information to an article. Addenda do not contradict the original publication and are not used to fix errors (for which a Correction notice will be published), but if the author needs to update or add some key information then, this can be published as an addendum. Addenda may be peer-reviewed, according to journal policy, and are normally subject to oversight by the editors of the journal. All addenda are electronically linked to the published article to which they relate.

1. Comment

Comments are short articles that outline an observation of a published article. In cases where a comment on a published article is submitted to the journal editor, it may be subject to peer review. The comment will be shared with the authors of the published article, who are invited to submit a response.

This author response again may be subject to peer review and will be shared with the commentator, who may be invited to submit a rejoinder. The rejoinder may be subject to peer review and shared with the authors of the published article. No further correspondence will be considered for publication. The editor may decide to reject correspondence at any point before the comment, response, and rejoinder are finalized. All published comments, responses, and rejoinders are linked to the published article to which they relate.

1. Erratum

Notification of an important mistake or error made by the journal that affects the publication record or the academic integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors, or of the journal.  Errata typically concern the amendment of mistakes introduced by the journal in editing or production, including errors of omission such as failure to make factual proof corrections requested by authors within the deadline provided by the journal and within journal policy.

 Errata are generally not published for simple, obvious typographical errors, but are published when an apparently simple error is significant (for example a Greek mu for an ‘m’ in a unit, or a typographical error in an author’s name).

1. Corrigendum

Notification of an important mistake error made by the author(s) that affects the publication record or the academic integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal. 

The journal follows the detailed guidelines and process of resolution of any problems arising from the above-mentioned publications as per ZHIBTSHOEL: RUB Research Policies.

ARCHIVAL POLICY

Educational Innovation and Practice Journal allow self-archiving of accepted and published papers through open access policy before and after the publication of a paper in EIP.  Authors can retain the copyright of their scholarly work and can archive pre-print and post-print or publisher’s version/PDF to personal or institutional repositories or libraries anytime without requiring permission from the journal publisher.

Authors of EIP journals are entitled to make their accepted manuscript or the version of record (published papers) publicly available immediately upon acceptance and publication, provided that the journal is attributed as the original place of publication and that correct citation details are given.

The journal will also take precautionary measures of digitally depositing and archiving in the D-space of the Royal University of Bhutan for future use and reference. The managing Editor of the journal will maintain a separate database of published articles in google drive and hard drive.

SUBMISSION FEE

EIP does not charge any fee for submission, publication, and reading articles in our journal. 

COMPLAINTS

For any concern or complaint regarding publication misconduct, please email at complain@eip.sce.bt with your name, affiliation, address with phone number. The privacy of the person will be maintained as long as legally permitted. According to the nature of the complaint, EIP committee will take appropriate action.