CODE OF PRACTICE

INTRODUCTION

Gnosi: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis is the flagship journal of the Gnosi Research Group of the Department of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Nigeria. The journal aims to promote theoretical, methodological, and firmly theoretically based empirical papers that contribute to a cross-disciplinary debate within the Humanities and Social Sciences in the English and French languages.

The journal has an Editorial Team composed of the Editor-in-Chief, the Associate Editors, and the Editorial Board, and an Advisory Committee composed of professors within the domain of humanities and social science study from different universities around the world.

The journal is published under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Creative Commons license.

To promote the diffusion of knowledge, the journal joins the Open Access journal movement and delivers all its content to several different repositories under this protocol. Therefore, submitting a manuscript to the journal also entails explicit acceptance by its author/s of this distribution method.

The journal is published biannually (January–June; July–December on a continuous publication model). An additional special issue may also be published at anytime within the year.

AIM OF THE JOURNAL

The journal publishes theoretical and methodological, as well as empirically based papers that contribute to a cross-disciplinary debate that is fully within the scope of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Both quantitative and qualitative texts are accepted for publication based on either positivist or humanist methodology if they meet high standards of scholarly peer-review.

While the journal is international in scope, papers accurately promoting African concepts, theories, and points of view, less known in the world literature, are especially welcome. This also applies to manuscripts authored by scholars from outside the core of the world socio-economic system, which gives chances for direct discussion with no mediation from the core. Papers must be submitted in English or French Languages.

ELECTION OF THE JOURNAL'S CHIEF EDITOR

The Chief Editor of Gnosi: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis is elected by the General Assembly of the Gnosi Research Group for five years. The Board of Directors of Gnosi: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, when appropriate, will make an open call to the Gnosi Research Group members to present candidatures. The Editorial Board will be asked to propose one candidate. This proposal will be made taking into account the research excellence of the candidates and their capacity for editorial management. The General Assembly will either approve or reject the candidate proposed by the Editorial Board of Gnosi Research Group. The Editor-in-Chief may be re-elected for a second term of five more years.

RESPONSABILITIES OF THE EDITORIAL TEAM

The Editorial Team comprises the Editor-in-Chief, the Associate Editors, and the Editorial Board. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for publishing clear and up-to-date guidelines for authors and referees.

The Editorial Team is responsible for the journal's content and for ensuring the integrity of all work published in it. It should take reasonable care to ensure that: a) every contribution published in the journal has followed the evaluation process; b) it respects freedom of expression; no work is published that contains any defamatory material; violates the right of privacy; infringes any other right of any other person; or violates any other legal requirement. For any matters not covered in this document, the Editorial Team will follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance.

The Editorial Team ensures that there is an appropriate balance of articles published in every issue, taking into account factors including, but not limited to, multiple submissions from individuals or teams and the focus of papers.

The Editorial Team ensures that experts have evaluated every manuscript submitted for peer-review on the paper's topic.

The Editorial Team ensures that the evaluation of scientific papers is undertaken according to the following standards: a maximum term of 3 months for the evaluation by the Editorial Team and a maximum term of 3 months for the first peer-review.

The Editor-in-Chief will certify the participation of a reviewer without identifying the paper reviewed.

AUTHORS' RESPONSIBILITIES

Suppose the research on which the scientific paper is based involves human participants. In that case, the authors are required to show that their research conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines, particularly regarding informed consent and the protection of private data. In the event of experimental research, authors must provide evidence of relevant ethical research approval from the institution to which researchers are affiliated.

Any paper submitted to Gnosi: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis should not be currently under consideration for publication in another journal.

When submitting a manuscript, the authors must ensure that (i) no part of their work is copied from any other work, nor is it authored by themselves; (ii) the work is original and has not previously been published in whole or substantial part. The above rule does not apply to thesis and other research work that has only been published in institutional repositories. In the event of doubt about duplicate publication, the authors are required to contact the Editor-in Chief of the Journal; (iii) the work does not contain any defamatory or libellous statements or infringe on any other person’s copyright, right of privacy, or other rights; (iv) all necessary permission required for both print and electronic use of any material used from other copyrighted publications has been obtained; and (v) author attributions—and the order of authorship – accurately reflect all contributions to the paper.

Upon acceptance, authors will be required to disclose all funding sources relating to their paper. Authors must also disclose all relevant conflicts of interest. This statement will be published with the paper.

REVIEW OF MANUSCRIPTS

Scientific papers are submitted to a double evaluation process.

(i) Evaluation by the Editorial Team

The Editor-in-Chief will consider every paper submitted to assess whether it is in accordance with the formal requirements and the journal's editorial policy. Once the Editor-in-Chief assesses the paper to conform to the journal's editorial policy, the paper will be sent for peer review. If the Editor-in-Chief considers that the paper is not in accordance with the journal's editorial policy, he or she will proceed with its initial rejection. This rejection decision must be justified.

(ii) Peer-review

Blind peer review: every paper will be forwarded to two external referees with expertise in the article's subject area. Referees should provide a reasoned evaluation and advise "accept without modifications," "accept with changes," "revise and resubmit," or "reject." Resubmitting a paper requires a fresh review. The Editor-in-Chief may seek a third assessment if referees disagree. The Editorial Board will help the Editor-in-Chief with evaluations. The Editor-in-Chief may request Advisory Committee advice on referees.

Referees must provide fair assessments. Personal attacks, slander, and other infringing expressions must be avoided.

The Editorial Team will not consider referees who offer insufficient evaluations or miss deadlines.

BOOK REVIEWS, RESEARCH REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS

The Editor-in-Chief will decide for publication after prior consultation with the Associate Editors. In the event of acceptance, the editorial team may ask for revisions from the author or make minor modifications.

CONFIDENTIALITY OF MATERIAL SUBMITTED TO THE JOURNAL

The journal ensures the respect of the copyright rights of any material submitted to the journal and the confidentiality of the identity of authors and referees.

RESEARCH DATA POLICY

The journal recommends that authors deposit data obtained from the research for their articles in repositories of recognised prestige, specific to the discipline or generalist nature. It must be a FAIR repository (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) and preferably open-access.

Authors who deposit their research datasets in a repository should mention this in the article, providing a brief description of the type of data deposited, the name and URL of the repository, the identification code, and the licence data for use and distribution. This information must be included at the end of the article, immediately before the bibliographic listing, under "Data availability".

APPEALS AGAINST EDITORIAL DECISIONS

In the event that a paper is rejected, the authors have the right to set out grounds to challenge the decision. The Editor-in-Chief and two members of the Editorial Board will be commissioned to promptly reconsider the paper and either start a new evaluation process or confirm the rejection decision. The decision of the editorial team is final, and there is no provision for further appeal.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The Editor-in-Chief may not submit a manuscript to the journal during his or her period of office (such restrictions do not apply to the Associate Editors or Guest Editors of Special Issues).

A Scientific Paper submitted by an author who is employed at the same institution as the Editor-in-Chief will be handled by one of the Associate Editors. The Editor-in-Chief will not be involved in selecting referees or making any decisions on the paper.

Where a manuscript is submitted by a family member of the Editor-in-Chief or by an author whose relationship with the Editor-in-Chief might create the perception of bias (e.g., close friendship or conflict/rivalry), the Editor-in-Chief will declare a conflict of interest and the paper will be handled by an Associate Editor. The Editor-in-Chief will not choose referees or make paper judgments. The Editor-in-Chief will not be involved in selecting referees or making any decisions on the paper.

Where a book review or research work is submitted, the Editor-in-Chief will declare a conflict of interest in the following cases:

When the Editor-in-Chief has participated in the book or in the research,
When the book or the research has been undertaken by a person that works in the same institution as the Editor-in-Chief
When the book review or research review is submitted by a family member of the Editor-in-Chief or by an author whose relationship with the Editor-in-Chief might create the perception of bias (for example, in terms of close friendship or conflict/rivalry).

In such cases, the book review or the research review will be handled by one of the Associate Editors.

Referees of manuscripts are required to declare any potential conflict of interest that may arise because they know or think they know the author's identity (e.g. in terms of close friendship or conflict/rivalry) or any other reason. Once a conflict of interest has been declared, the Editor-in-Chief has the discretion to allow a referee to undertake the review.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Reviews of manuscripts will be sent to authors and referees. Evaluators will be informed of the final decisions of the Editor-in-Chief.

On an annual basis, the Editor-in-Chief will provide information on the number of manuscripts submitted to the journal and the percentage accepted for publication.

The Editor-in-Chief will publish, from time to time, the names of the referees. The consent of referees to publish their names will be required.

The Editor-in-Chief should submit a report on the activities of the Editorial Team to the annual meeting of the Spanish Society of Criminological Research.

COMMENTS AND REPLIES

The journal is willing to publish comments on published articles with a maximum length of 60,000 characters without spaces. Comments are submitted to the same peer-review process as the manuscript. Authors will be allowed to reply to comments.

COMPLAINTS

In the first instance, any complaint regarding the journal should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief. The editorial team is responsible for the timely and thorough investigation of all complaints and for reporting the outcome of their investigation to the complainant.

In the event that the complainant is not satisfied with the editorial team's response, or where the complaint is made against the editorial team, the complainant can pursue his/her concerns to the Head of the Department of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Nigeria.

ERROR CORRECTION AND RETRACTION OF ARTICLES

When a significant error is detected in an article, the journal will issue a correction notice. This notice should provide clear details of the error and the changes that have been made to the version of record.

The journal will retract an article in the following situations:

When it is shown that the research data has been falsified or fabricated.
When it is detected that the findings have been published previously elsewhere without cross-referencing, permission, or adequate justification.
When plagiarism is detected.
When there is evidence of fraudulent authorship.

The Journal's Editorial Team will publish a note explaining the decision in such cases.