Journal Policies

Editorial Policies

Forefront in Engineering & Technology FET has established publication guidelines based on standards set by www.publicationethics.org and www.oaspa.org. 

Scientific Review

The articles pertaining to Scientific Review can be aligned on well-defined topics relevant to amplify the scientific focus of the journal. The Review Articles should be compiled concisely in accordance with the published scientific reports, provide an overview of the state of the art and clarify the scientific gaps along with an elaborate discussion on the scope of further developments in the area.

The articles must enhance the scientific understanding of the reader in a crystal clear manner. The articles need to be full proof in terms of the inclusion of data processing methods and should not point towards any of the references to any sort of unpublished data. The articles would also undergo a peer-review process and may be re-classified into a different head as per the analysis. In the case of re-classification of the article, it must fulfill all the relevant criteria subject to that particular category of articles.

Another significant note is the word limit of the articles which should not be more than 15,000 words and should be inclusive of various figures, tables, and other supplementary information. However, the main text should not contain more than 15 categories of items in the form of figures or tables neither should contain more than 5 boxes.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The Journals of Scientific Forefront are open to all affiliates of the scientific research community, whether they work individually or for an educational, government, business, or for other reasons. All authors should disclose any actual or apparent conflict(s) of interest that may perhaps have a direct bearing on the research journals. To allow our editors, critics, and readers to evaluate researcher’s proficient authorizations, as well as any probable prejudices, we ask our research journal authors to reveal all necessary info about their work associations and any financial benefits pertinent to the work that the researcher has submitted for publication in Scientific Forefront Journal Publication. Referees have to reveal similar info relevant to the works they are requested to assess.

Rights and Permissions

It is indeed our main objective to extend the widest possible broadcasting of our research journals. We provide a broad suite of licensing to meet the necessities of various educational institutes, medicinal and healthcare establishments, and publishers all across the world. Earlier any person will be able to legally sell, publish or issue somebody else's copyrighted research, but with our strong and upright policies, anyone should obtain the approval of the research owner. This law applies even if only using abstracts or samples from the journals.

Publication Policy

Every single research paper submitted for publication will be verified by our editor, for a preliminary evaluation. If the thesis complies with our publication policies and with a high standard then, the same will be approved for publication. The referees would not know the research author’s identity, as any recognizing info will be removed from the manuscript before an examination.

Copyright

The authors are the patented owner of their research papers and, they reserve complete rights to use all or part of their thesis in the future for presentations, lectures etc. Every author should lawfully state that the material being presented by them in this journal is their original work, and doesn’t comprise or take in any material from other patented sources. Anywhere such materials from our journal has been mentioned, it has to be clearly indented or marked by quotation symbols and, the proper acknowledgments should be mentioned about the source at right places.

Plagiarism

By submitting Research papers to the Scientific Forefront Research journal, the authors must agree to the following conditions. None of the portions of the document should be plagiarized from other sources. In case of any details have been used from relevant sources to support the thesis then the proper reference for the same has to be provided for all contents added from external sources. Strict action will be taken against the cases of copied contents.

Open Access

At the Scientific Forefront Research Journal, we also publish open access research journals with the consent from authors/owners. It means that such research papers are available on the internet for all the people soon after the publication of the same. Non-commercial use and circulation in any medium are allowed, only on a condition that the author/owner and the research journal are properly accredited. 

Peer Review Policies:

Peer review is one of the most critical aspect of scientific publishing which helps in maintaining the scientific integrity of published research. There are many developments in the process of peer review. With development on tools, the process has been relatively simplified. At Scientific Forefront, through technological advancements, we constantly improve the process of peer review. The editorial workflow from author submission to publication is performed using an online workflow system.  

Author Submission 

The authors submit the manuscript to journal online using “Submit Manuscript”. The manuscript submitted by the corresponding author(s) are checked by the journal’s editorial managers for adherence to format, completeness, for relevant metadata, considerations to author guidelines and plagiarism and duplication. Following this preliminary step, the manuscript is assigned to expert editor(s).  

Review 

If the manuscript is deemed relevant to the scope of the journal and is of the quality suitable for publication in the journal, then the Editor invites potential reviewers with subject expertise for reviewing the manuscript. Scientific Forefront follows double blind review policy. The reviewers then submit their review report. Based on the peer review reports, the editor makes one of the following decisions: Reject the manuscript, accept after major changes, accept after minor changes or accept as-is.  

The peer review reports are sent to the corresponding author(s) along with the editorial decision.  

Rejected Manuscripts: 

The authors will be notified of the editorial decision that the manuscript is not accepted for publication process in the journal. There are number of reasons why a manuscript is rejected. 

• The manuscript does not fit into the scope of the journal. 

In some cases, the editor may also recommend that the manuscript may be submitted to another journal of relevance. If the author accepts to transfer the manuscript, it is possible to transfer the peer review report to the journal. 

• Due to incomplete data or poor design, poor analysis, inappropriate methodologies, old techniques, lack of statistical evidence, inaccurate conclusions and assumptions. 
• lack of or enough impact for the journal 
• Non-adherence to manuscript guidelines – language, metadata, poor presentation. 
• Ethical Violation 
• Discrepancies that may arise in author contributions during the submission process. 

 It is highly uncommon that the manuscript is accepted as-is. Most of the manuscripts undergo changes. The peer review process is designed to have a positive influence on the manuscript.  

 Accept after Major Changes: 

The manuscript can also be accepted with major changes, then the manuscript needs to go through significant revisions.  This might include further experiments to support the conclusion, correcting inaccuracies in the manuscript, providing further evidence, reanalysing the data. The editor notifies the corresponding author the decision to accept with major changes along with the peer review report. The author also receives certain time within which the resubmission should take place. Normally, it should be possible to seek further extension. The manuscript received after further changes will be sent back to the reviewers along with the authors’ response to review to ensure that the authors address the concerns outlined in the initial peer review report. The final decision to accept the revised manuscript lies with the editor subject satisfactory response to the reviewers’ concerns. 

 Accept after Minor Changes: 

If the manuscript is accepted with minor changes, then the authors are expected to address the reviewer concerns in the manuscript and submit a response letter to the editors, along with the changed manuscript. In most cases these changes are assessed by the expert editors. It is up to the editor to seek further support from the reviewer for minor changes. 

Accepted without Changes: 

Though rare, a manuscript can be accepted without any change. The author(s) will be notified about the acceptance along with the peer review report. 

In case of changes, the editor might also allow for a certain duration within which the author(s) are expected to resubmit the manuscript with changes, along with response to reviewers. 

 Production 

Once the manuscript is accepted the manuscript will be sent to the production team and appropriate copyright license will be assigned to the manuscript. The authors at this step are expected to pay the publication fee. Once the license and fee are paid, the manuscript will be worked upon by our copyeditor for clarity, consistency and styling. The copyedited manuscript will be sent to the corresponding author. Substantive changes to the manuscript text or authorship, etc are not possible at this stage. This step shall be seen as an opportunity to view the final view before publication. 

Publication 

The author(s) will be notified via email about the publication of article. The manuscript will be published online and in case of print journals the manuscript will also be assigned to a print issue. 

Reviewer Guidelines:

Peer Review 

At Scientific Forefront, we value the contribution of reviewers very much. Peer Review is the basis of scientific communication and publication and as a reviewer your service to the process of academic publication is invaluable.   

Peer Review is a systematic process established by the scholarly publishing community to assess & improve the quality of the work by peers and thereby contributing to the quality of scientific knowledge available to scientific community.   

Accepting a Review 

The editors of the journal may approach a reviewer due to prior interest in reviewing manuscripts in specific areas of expertise or based on your prior research publications in the same area as the manuscript under consideration. Editors might also solicit expert reviews to assess specific areas of the manuscript based on review report submitted by other peer reviewers. We understand that the reviewers might be occupied, and it may not always be possible to accept to review. Under such circumstances, we highly appreciate if you could revert by declining to review. We are also open to suggestions for potential reviewers who might be available to review such a manuscript. 

Responsibilities of a Reviewer 

As a reviewer your recommend that you follow the peer review guidelines published by the Community on Publication Ethics (COPE).  It is essential to refer to the journal peer review model. In most cases, unless otherwise explicitly stated the process of reviewing is confidential.  

Duration 

Reviewing the manuscript will need careful consideration to the amount of time the review process will need. At Scientific Forefront we would like to receive your review report in about 14 days from the day of your acceptance to review. However, we understand you might need additional time in some rare cases. Kindly communicate such need for time to the editor, which will make us aware of your willingness to review. 

If you may not be able to review after the acceptance, we highly appreciate if you could let us know as soon as possible. 

Expertise 

It might be possible that the subject matter of the manuscript is entirely outside of the reviewer expertise. This might be due to ambiguous terms in the title of the manuscript or in list of keywords that might have appeared to be in the same area of your expertise when you accepted to review the manuscript. However, after reading the manuscript, you find that it is beyond the scope of your interest or expertise. Under such conditions we request that the reviewer writes to the editor and decline to review the manuscript. 

Confidentiality 

Manuscripts shared during the review process is confidential, that is with the understanding that the manuscript will not be shared with anyone else without prior permission. This is critical for peer review process as it protects the research findings and innovations of the author. Under all circumstances, the manuscripts shall not be shared with anyone else without the prior permission of the editor. Kindly refer to our involving junior/senior researchers or colleagues and co-reviews section for more information. 

Conflict of Interest 

Careful consideration must be given before undertaking a manuscript for peer review for conflict of interest. Manuscripts submitted by authors with whom the reviewer has previously worked, published, supervise or taught in the past should highlight such associations to the journal editor as soon possible. The journal editor may then review the case further.   

Ethical Concerns 

In the process of reviewing the manuscript, as a reviewer you may communicate your potential ethical concerns to the journal editor. Any such concerns that you may have as a reviewer should be discussed with the journal editor in confidentiality. Some of the examples of the ethical concerns are plagiarized/duplicated content, breach of best practices or ethical guidelines etc.   

Involving junior/senior researcher or colleagues 

In some cases, you might like to involve junior/senior or colleagues in the process of reviewing a manuscript. In such cases, please kindly communicate with the journal editor prior to involving others. If your request to involve others has been accepted by the editor, kindly include the names of the contributors in the “Confidential Comments to the Editor section”.  The final review report must be approved and submitted by the reviewer.    

Co-reviews 

In principle, Scientific Forefront also accepts co-reviews (review by more than one reviewer). In such cases, both the reviewers are considered to have equally contributed to the review report. The final review (a single review report) must be approved by both the reviewers. 

Review Report 

At Scientific Forefront, we encourage the authors to provide structured review. The peer review report template can be downloaded from here. The Editors may also include additional resources that are specific to each journal. The review template provides clear indications of the sections that are shared with authors and se 

Reviewer Acknowledgements 

We publish a list of reviewers who have contributed via peer review to the journals once in every 6 months in our journal acknowledgement section.  

In addition to this, we are also happy to provide credits to reviewers based on individual requests. We are currently evaluating third-party partners that consolidate reviewing contributions for reviewers.