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Policies

Authorship

Authorship must be based on the following criteria: (1) substantial contribution to the conception and design of the study, data acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically; and (3) final approval of the version of the manuscript to be published. Contributors who do not meet all 3 of these criteria should be listed in the acknowledgements section of the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for taking all necessary coordinating actions for revising the manuscript, such as receiving authorization from other authors.

Conflicts of Interest Disclosure

JAMS mandates that all authors disclose any potential conflicts of interest that could influence or be perceived to influence their work. This encompasses:

  1. Financial Interests: Any significant financial support, such as grants, sponsorships, or investments, related to the subject matter of the manuscript.
  2. Affiliations: Current affiliations or involvements with organizations or entities that have a direct interest in the research outcomes.
  3. Personal Relationships: Authors must disclose any personal relationships or associations with individuals or entities that could affect their objectivity in conducting or reporting the research.
  4. Intellectual Property: Authors should disclose any intellectual property rights or patents related to the research findings that could create a conflict of interest.
  5. Other Interests: Authors should disclose any other interests or circumstances that could present a potential conflict of interest, even if they are not directly financial or organizational in nature.

Full transparency in declaring these interests is crucial for maintaining the integrity of the scientific record and ensuring the objectivity of the published research. Authors must explicitly state if there are no conflicts of interest.

Copyright

Authors will assign copyright to Sultan Qaboos University beside publishing and distribution rights. However, authors could use their published papers in their own works without permission.

Data Availability Statement

In line with the principle of transparency in research, JAMS requires authors to provide a clear statement on the availability of the data supporting their study’s findings. It could be mentioned that data are available on request, if not presented all data. Authors should specify the location of their data as follows:

  1. Publicly Archived Datasets: If the data are available in a recognized public repository, authors must include the relevant hyperlinks or digital object identifiers (DOIs).
  2. Institutional Repositories: For data housed in institutional databases, authors should provide the name of the repository and any access conditions.
  3. Upon Request: If the data are not publicly available but can be accessed upon request, authors must outline the process for requesting access. This should include contact information and any specific requirements for access.

Authors are expected to provide a valid explanation if their data cannot be made available. This may include reasons such as legal or ethical restrictions, or considerations related to commercial confidentiality. This policy ensures that the research published in JAMS is supported by accessible data, promoting reproducibility and transparency in scientific inquiry.

Ethical Guidelines

In any study on human or animal subjects, the following ethical guidelines must be observed. For any experiments on humans, all work must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). Manuscripts describing experimental work which carries a risk of harm to human subjects must include a statement that the experiment was conducted with the human subjects’ understanding and consent, as well as a statement that the responsible Ethical Committee has approved the experiments. In the case of any animal experiments, the authors must provide a full description of any anesthetic or surgical procedure used, as well as evidence that all possible steps were taken to avoid animal suffering at each stage of the experiment.

Complying with Ethics of Experimentation

Please ensure that all research reported in submitted papers has been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner, and is in full compliance with all relevant codes of experimentation and legislation. All original research papers involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, protected or non-public datasets, collections or sites, must include a written statement under an Ethics Approval section including the following:

  1. The name of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s) involved.
  2. The number or ID of the ethics approval(s).
  3. A statement that human participants have provided informed consent before taking part in the research.
  4. Research involving animals must adhere to ethical standards concerning animal welfare. All original research papers involving animals must:
    • Follow international, national, and institutional guidelines for the humane treatment of animals.
    • Receive approval by the ethics review committee at the institution or practice at which the research was conducted and provide details on the approval process, names of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s) involved, and the number or ID of the ethics approval(s) in the Ethics Approval section.
    • Provide justification for use of animals and the species selected.
    • Provide information about housing, feeding, and environmental enrichment, and steps taken to minimize suffering.
    • Provide mode of anesthesia and euthanasia.

Studies in humans and animals

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age, and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines,EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

Open Access Policy

The content of the journal is licensed under the Creative Common (CC BY ND) licensing schemes the details of which can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/legalcode.

Review Policy

The Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences uses a blind review process in which the peer reviewers’ names are not disclosed to the authors, although the reviewer can make himself known should he choose to do so. Before submitting the papers for review the editors will evaluate the manuscript suitability for the journal (language, readership, format), and ensure the completeness of the submission and make an initial “plagiarism” assessment of the manuscript.

If suitable for the journal, the editors will choose 2-3 reviewers from researchers working in a similar field and listed in the journal database. The selection of reviewers is based on several factors: expertise, reputation, specific recommendations of the author or of a reviewer, and our own previous experience of a reviewer’s characteristics. The editors will request a minimum of two independent reviews but can, if necessary, request additional evaluations, particularly if two reviewers have severely contradictory opinions on a particular submission.

Following the reviews, the editor will place the manuscript among 4 categories:

  1. Accepted with minor modifications; the paper requires mostly editorial and format).
  2. Minor Revision of the paper following the recommendations and specific comments or concerns of the reviewers (e.g. reviewers found incomplete or unclear statements that needs to be revised; some of the results may need to be reinterpreted or some figures redrawn; part of the discussion may need some additional work).
  3. Major Revision of the paper following the recommendations and specific comments or concerns of the reviewers (e.g. major revision of its structure or significant changes in its presentation, and presentation of tables and graphs, inadequate interpretation and discussion).
  4. Reject and Re-submit of the paper following the recommendations and specific comments or concerns of the reviewers (e.g. there are major flaws in the experimental design, sampling protocol or analytical protocol that preclude a sound analysis or if the reviewers found significant overlap with published results).
  5. Reject of the paper following the recommendations and specific comments or concerns of the reviewers (e.g. poor scientific merits, structure and presentation).

The editor will then inform the corresponding author of his editorial decision and convey the comments and suggestions of the reviewers to which the author must respond normally within 2-4 weeks. Authors may contact the editor through the journal email system if they require an extension.

After reception of a revised manuscript, it may be subjected to an additional round of review, particularly if the manuscript was originally placed in the “acceptable” category. The final decision of acceptance or rejection lies with the Editor-in-Chief in coordination with the editor.

All communications between authors, editors and reviewers are made using the Editorial Management System at:https://www.editorialmanager.com/squ-jams

Scientific Misconduct

Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences takes all forms of misconduct very seriously. It follows the Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE) recommendations and define misconduct as:

  1. Data Corruption: manipulating data (e.g. falsifying data, ignoring part of the data purposefully, or any form of omission, suppression or distortion of data).
  2. Plagiarism: using published or unpublished texts, ideas or thoughts of another writer without acknowledgements and presenting them as one’s own. Plagiarism includes duplicate publications or submissions in the same or in another language. The journal will follow COPE guidelines to identify and manage cases of plagiarism or text recycling.
  3. Authorship misconduct: Exclusion of involved researchers, or inclusion of researchers who have not contributed significantly to the work (see section on authors), or publication without the consent of all authors.
  4. Ethical Misconduct: Failure to follow legal requirements in acquiring the necessary permission to sample, collect, export or import specimens, collect data, use chemicals or obtain ethical permits in the country of the author’s institution.

Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences takes all forms of misconduct very seriously. It follows the Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE) recommendations and guidelines (publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines). Editor-in-Chief could form a committee to assess the misconduct, and final decisions are taken by the Editor-in-Chief.

Article Publishing Charge

There are no Article Processing Charges (APC) for publication of the journal on all submissions.