Journal Editorial Policy

The objective of the Editorial Policy is to provide clear explanations, best practices, and guidelines for the editorial management of IGI Global journals. All Editor(s)-in-Chief and members of the review board are expected to familiarize themselves and respectfully follow the policies and expectations established for IGI Global journals. The following policies and guidelines are to ensure the highest level of quality, integrity, accuracy, and impact for IGI Global journals. IGI Global is currently accepted as a FULL member of the international Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) due to its strict adherence to ethical publishing.

• Research articles
• Conceptual models
• Theory building
• Innovative methodologies and policies
• Research focusing on policy implications
• Case studies examining current, past, or future problems
• Book reviews on selected books, textbooks, or specific topics
• Position Papers

The role of the Editor(s)-in-Chief of a journal entails being able to successfully carry out various central responsibilities. The following is a general list of what is expected of an Editor-in-Chief:

Manuscript/Special Issue Recruitment Duties

• Promoting the journal within their professional network, on social media, on call for papers sites, at conferences, etc.
• Acquiring quality research articles to sustain the publication frequency of the journal.
• Recruiting qualified individuals to guest edit special issues for the journal.
• Monitoring submitted special issue proposals within the eEditorial Discovery System.
• Communicating with any co-editors, managing editors and review board members to encourage them to promote the journal in their professional networks, on social media, on call for papers sites, at conferences etc.

Submitted Manuscript Duties

• Assessing submitted articles to ensure they fit the scope and topic coverage of the journal before assigning reviewers.
• Sending articles for double-anonymized peer review.
• Securing at least 3 peer reviews on each paper. A review from the editor cannot replace a review in the double-anonymized peer review process.
• Coordinating the article revision process with contributing authors.
• Ensuring that authors submit revised materials that properly adhere to submission guidelines and include references and in-text citations that are correct and strictly adhere to APA format.
• IGI Global recommends eContent Pro to authors who may wish to utilize supplemental editorial services to further polish their work. IGI global authors and editors receive exclusive discounts on these services, which include figure, table, chart, and equation conversions.
• Running plagiarism checks on research papers to ensure that the papers have not been plagiarized.
• Ensuring that authors do not self-plagiarize or self-citate in their own papers and that authors do not cite references in such a way that tells the reviewers who they are.
• Being sure that the articles that are being considered for publication have never been published before elsewhere.
• Ensuring that all contributing authors strictly follow IGI Global’s formatting and submission guidelines.
• Ensuring each accepted article is in its final revised form before it is moved into our pre-production and production stages.
• Sending each completed and accepted article to the Journal Development Department of IGI Global by no later than the contracted deadlines.
• Monitoring active special issues in the submission system for quality of the review process and diversity of accepted articles for publication.

Review Board Management

• Recruiting qualified individuals to join the review board of the journal.
• Organizing and maintaining an editorial review board through the submission system.
• Maintaining contact with the review board to ensure timely and quality reviews are completed.
• Ensuring review evaluations are made available to the authors of the submitted articles.
• Ensuring that each individual on the review board has been requested to review manuscripts for the journal.
• Rating completed evaluations by reviewers to give them an incentive to do better or continue the hard work.
• Monitoring the board continually to maintain ethicality and retain only active members.

Citation Impact/Indexing of the Journal

• Ensuring the journal adheres as closely as possible to the criteria put in place by the flagship indices.
• Ensuring accepted and published content is making a significant contribution to the academic community.
• Ensuring the data in accepted article manuscripts is represented accurately and clearly.
• Acquiring diverse content from all around the world.
• Recruiting diverse individuals to support the journal as reviewers and as the editorial leadership.
• Ensuring the peer review process is being completed with the highest quality and ethical practices.
• Ensuring that there is a level of selectivity with regard to the articles that are being considered for publication.
• Ensuring that all articles accepted into the journal adhere to the mission and scope of the journal.
• Encouraging contributing authors and reviewers to recommend the journal to their professional networks and to their institutions’ libraries.
• Posting the table of contents and article abstracts of all accepted articles on various listservs.
• Keeping IGI Global abreast of any indices or international libraries that may be of interest to the betterment of the journal.
• Ensuring that the topics, mission and objective of the journal is continuously updated to remain relevant to the research community.

IGI Global Contact

• Staying in regular contact with the development editor with whom you have been assigned to collaborate.

All article manuscript submission status updates, acceptance, and rejection notifications must be handled by the journal’s Editor(s)-in-Chief. Should an author come to the development editor with a request for a status update, they will forward the author on to the Editor(s)-in-Chief to respond. It is important that the Editor(s)-in-Chief create a strong rapport with the authors. This will ensure that they will be interested in publishing with the journal again in the future. It is important that editors do not feel pressure from the authors to bypass or hurry any level of the peer review process. The Editor(s)-in-Chief should not be accepting any form of remuneration or bribes for pushing the work through the process.

Regarding submissions that have not been completed, it is the responsibility of the Editor(s)-in-Chief to contact the authors and see if they are still interested in publishing within the journal. Letting them know the phases that they are still missing (e.g. documents, figures, etc.) allows for a more responsive author.

Should there be old submission listings from previous years, it is the responsibility of the Editor(s)-in-Chief to reach out to the authors to see if they are still interested in publishing within the journal. Should the Editor(s)-in-Chief not receive a response from the authors in two (2) weeks, they may exercise their right as the Editor(s)-in-Chief to remove the listing from the system.

*Note: Managing Editors should get a confirmation from the Editor(s)-in-Chief before making important decisions on manuscripts.

IGI Global recommends that all members of the journal's editorial board have their IGI Global profiles and their ORCiD iDs linked to ensure that all activities done within IGI Global are recorded for their academic and professional careers. Learn More

Editors and Co-Editors:

Many IGI Global journal publications have more than one editor on them. We recommend that if the work load for a journal is too much for one person to handle that up to two (2) additional co-editors could be recruited to help. IGI Global has set a maximum of no more than three (3) editors on one journal publication at a time. In the case of multiple editors, IGI Global does request that clarity is provided in terms of each editor's role in the leadership of the journal and processing of manuscripts.

If there are disputes between the Editor(s)-in-Chief of a journal, IGI Global as the publisher, will not get involved. It is the responsibility of the Editor(s)-in-Chief to resolve all disagreements between each other in a professional manner.

Managing Editors:

Editor(s)-in-Chief are welcome to invite and appoint Managing Editors to support with the oversight of the journal. There should be no more than two (2) Managing Editors appointed to a journal. Having too many managing editors on the journal could lead to disorganization and the potential to duplicate items that have already been completed. Having fewer managing editors is also easier for the Editor(s)-in-Chief to manage on a daily basis.

The role of the Managing Editor is to aid the Editor(s)-in-Chief with the workload of the journal at the discretion of the editor. Often, the Editor(s)-in-Chief may request the Managing Editor to perform the following functions:

• Expand the reach of the journal
• Help with increasing the discoverability of the journal to recruit more submissions, reviewers or subscriptions.
• Move manuscripts in the system to different phases
• Assign reviewers to submitted manuscripts
• Assign manuscripts to a volume within the system
• Send manuscripts through initial assessment
• Help organize and maintain the review board
• Send articles out for revisions

Contract Amendments for Editors:

If a sole Editor-in-Chief decides to step down, the Development Editor should be immediately notified. It will then be at the discretion of IGI Global who will be appointed to takeover the vacant Editor-in-Chief position.

If an Editor-in-Chief decides to step down and they have co-editors, all the other editors will need to confirm that they are aware of the departure. A contract addendum will need to be signed outlining the removal of the editor from the contract agreement and confirming the current editorship.

Should any adjustments to the leadership of the journal be required, a formal contract addendum will need to be issued out by the Intellectual Property & Contracts Department and all parties will need to sign the agreement.

International Ambassadors, International Advisory Board Members, and Associate Editors all assist the Editor(s)-in-Chief in some capacity with the overall promotion, networking, and governance of the journal.

International Ambassadors:

• Aid in the promotion of the journal.
• Support with the ongoing recruitment of submissions.
• Identify different discoverability/visibility channels for the journal.
• Help to expand the overall network for the journal

International Advisory Board:

• Provide ongoing recommendations regarding the scope of the journal.
• Advise/support the editorial leadership team with some of the editorial decision-making for the journal as needed.
• Support the integrity and credibility of the journal.
• Help to expand the overall network of the journal.

Associate Editors, Editorial Review Board Members, and Ad-Hoc Reviewers all perform peer review evaluations of submitted manuscripts.

Types of Reviewers:

Associate Editor

Associate Editors support the Editors-in-Chief with the governance of the journal, ensuring that decisions on the manuscripts are being made with the greatest level of integrity and care. These individuals are held to a higher standard not only in their evaluations of manuscripts but in their support for the journal as well. Associate Editors have access to all of the peer reviews on the manuscript they are given to evaluate, as well as all of the revised versions of the manuscript so that they can formulate a comprehensive assessment of the work and provide advisement to the Editor-in-Chief.

Example of a Quality Associate Editor Evaluation

Editorial Review Board Member

Editorial Review Board Members are individuals who are full members of the review board. These members are expected to complete roughly 3-5 timely and quality reviews per year (at times it may be necessary to complete a higher volume based on need). Editors can evaluate the work of the Editorial Review Board Members to potentially promote them to be an Associate Editor for the journal. These individuals are part of the pool of reviewers for the first layer of the double-anonymized peer review process (prior to the Associate Editors providing their assessment and advisement).

Example of a Quality Editorial Review Board Evaluation

Ad-Hoc

Ad-Hoc Reviewers are individuals who have shown interest in supporting the journal but need to serve in a "trial" period before becoming a full member of the review board. Upon the completion of roughly 2-3 timely and quality reviews for the journal, the editors can then evaluate their work and potentially promote Ad-Hocs to Editorial Review Board status. Ad-Hoc reviews are part of the pool of reviewers for the first layer of the double-anonymized peer review process. Ad-Hoc and ERB Reviewers have the same form for evaluation.

Example of a Quality Ad-Hoc Evaluation

*Note: It is at the Editor(s)' discretion on how they would like to manage their review board.

As a full member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), IGI Global and its editors have been found to be following sound ethical standards as well as having the highest quality of publication process. As such the double-anonymized peer review process must be conducted ethically and responsibly as the credibility of the journal could be at stake if an author, reviewer or reader were to know that the double-anonymized peer review process was compromised. Should they open a case with COPE to investigate, IGI Global is expected to provide any information to COPE that we have record of.

For more information regarding an ethical peer review process, please see this guideline document that COPE has put together for editors, authors and publishers to reference.

Articles that the Editor(s)-in-Chief of the journal deem in scope and suitable then enter the double-anonymized peer review process. This process is designed to ensure that there is no bias for or against any articles that are being considered for future publication. If any reviewer has a concern that they have a conflict of interest they should immediately bring that up to the editor of the journal. The editor will then assign a new reviewer to the article.

The Editor(s)-in-Chief may not serve on the review board of the journal(s) that they oversee. They also may not assign themselves as reviewers or complete reviews that take part in the double-anonymized peer review evaluations for articles that are submitted to the journals that they oversee. Editors have the ability to view the names, affiliations and contact information of the authors which directly compromises their ability to act as a reviewer in a double-anonymized peer review process. Providing feedback to authors is welcomed and encouraged; however, an editor's comments/review cannot take the place of a reviewer evaluation for the double-anonymized peer review process.

The Editor(s)-in-Chief should also not be adjusting the decision a reviewer makes in their evaluation for an article to fuel an editorial decision on the article. Adjusting the formal decision from a reviewer is compromising the peer review process as the decision is being adjusted to what the editor wants, which could show a bias or favoritism to indices or other authors. It is at the Editor's discretion on whether or not they would like to continue with a manuscript, but the authors are entitled to view the true evaluations that were done by the reviewers.

Should the major indices be aware that the double-anonymized peer review process for any journal is not being conducted ethically, the credibility of the journal and the editors could be damaged. Journals that are indexed could be dropped, those that are under consideration to be indexed could be rejected, any authors seeking to submit could turn away, reviewers could leave the board or choose not to submit their applications and readers or libraries could stop working with the published content of the journal.

IGI Global has decided to switch from our more traditional publication structure (i.e. Semi-Annual, Quarterly, Bi-Monthly) to a Continuous Volume Frequency for Hybrid Open Access Journals. As articles are accepted, the journal department will be proceeding with those articles through to our pre-production and production workflows to be published ongoingly throughout the year. Articles can appear published online in as little as 1-2 weeks, however, please note that the queue for accepted articles will be growing throughout the year as well. Additional time for publication may be needed for articles added to the queue later in the year. The final cutoff of the volume year will be November 30th of each calendar year. At the end of each year, IGI Global will offer a full printed publication of all the content published throughout the respective volume year to anyone who is interested in purchasing a physical copy of the journal.

For those journals moving away from a set publication schedule and no longer carrying set issue restrictions, the Editor(s)-in-Chief is/are asked to ensure that a consistent or an increased number of article manuscripts are published within each volume year (calendar year) of the journal publication. For a healthy journal, we like to see an increase in submissions as well as an increase in published content.

Please note that the indices do not like to see a dip in the published content of a journal as it shows a lack of interest.

There is no longer a maximum number of articles that can be published per volume year. As standard articles (not special issue articles) are accepted, please continue to number them sequentially in the first "issue" of the current volume year. Please note that this labelling system is purely for organization and the issue level numbering will not be available on the webpage for the published content any longer. Your development editor will work to gradually move the accepted content into the pre-production and production stages. Editor(s)-in-Chief are free to continue to add more accepted articles into the first "issue" despite some articles having already been finalized and locked.

Editors should always strive to increase the total number of accepted and published articles by 15% each volume year.

An example of a 15% increase of published content from one volume year to the next.

Journals moving to a Continuous Volume Publication Frequency should aim to publish no less than the total number of articles published the year prior but should be aiming to steadily work toward publishing a higher number each year. Publishing a higher number of articles than the previous volume year shows interest in the journal and can help get the journal indexed or stay indexed.

It is recommended that for standard article manuscripts (not special issue article manuscripts), when they are accepted following the double-anonymized peer review process, they be assigned to the first "issue" of the volume year – example: Volume 1, Issue 1 – with all standard article manuscripts numbered sequentially across that volume and issue and published as part of that “issue” up through to the end of the volume year (calendar year). Only the volume number and year will be reflected on the webpage of the journal and in the database. Internally, within the eEditorial Discovery system there will be formal volume, issue and article numbering assigned to the article manuscripts.

Please note that this formal numbering inside the system is to help manage and organize the accepted papers and will not be displayed on the website.

Only original, previously unpublished manuscripts should be considered for publication. Any manuscript that has a pre-publication posting online by another publisher or has already been formally published, cannot be considered. Also, materials posted openly online in databases such as ResearchGate, SSRN, arXiv, etc. should not be considered until they have been pulled from those respective sites. If an Editor-in-Chief has reason to believe that a work has been submitted that may contain plagiarized or copyrighted material, they are advised to run the manuscript through plagiarism software. If the results yield further concern, they are to bring it to the attention of the development editor who will then forward the discrepancy to IGI Global’s Intellectual Property & Contracts Department for further investigation. If warranted, the Intellectual Property & Contracts Department will contact the authors regarding potential plagiarism concerns and/or copyright infringement issues.

IGI Global abides by international copyright law, and as such all contributors are asked to sign an IGI Global Author’s Warranty and Transfer of Copyright Agreement prior to publication. The warranty portion ensures that materials submitted to IGI Global for consideration are original and have not been published elsewhere previously.

IGI Global exercises First Publication Rights to open access work, meaning that the verbatim article has not appeared elsewhere, which includes open access publication online or in print, prior to being released by IGI Global. After publication with IGI Global, the open access content may be republished in other outlets.

IGI Global defines plagiarism as the intentional or unintentional use of another individuals, or collection of individuals’, ideas, theories, models, equations, conclusions, research (intellectual property), and/or verbatim or paraphrased words without proper attribution to the original source.

Competing interests occur when any financial or other personal considerations from authors or reviewers have the potential to compromise or bias professional judgment and objectivity. It is important that authors and reviewers declare all competing interests relevant to the work under consideration. These competing interests may include any relationships or roles, both financial and personal, that might interfere with the interpretation of the work to avoid the potential for bias. Competing interests include, but are not limited to: funding sources, financial interests, employment status, as well as those that go beyond financial interests (non-financial interests). The disclosure of such interests helps to provide a transparent process that allows readers to form their own judgments of potential bias.

If at any time an editor or author suspects a competing interest they should bring the matter to the publisher’s attention immediately (e.g. an author of submitted work is based at their same institution and on a competitive project). Should a reviewer experience a competing interest (e.g. they are aware of the article manuscript author’s identity and/or are based at the same institution), they should bring the matter to the editor’s attention immediately. If an author perceives that there may be a competing interest for their submitted work, they should include a declaration of any competing interest along with the article manuscript upon submission.

Competing interest statements/declarations are now mandatory for all chapters to have before publication of an accepted chapter manuscript. This declaration should be placed after an acknowledgement and before the funding agency information. Competing interest statements should state whether all, some, or none of the authors have conflicting ideas, research, beliefs, etc.

If all or some of the authors have a competing interest, each author should provide their statement in this section.

If none of the authors have any competing interests, the statement can simply say, “The authors of this publication declare there are no competing interests.”

The Editor(s)-in-Chief and the Managing Editors cannot submit their own manuscript(s) for consideration in standard volume(s) of the journal(s) that they oversee. The Editor(s)-in-Chief and Managing Editors have the ability to view the names, contact information and affiliations of the reviewers which directly compromises the double-anonymized peer review process.

Editor(s)-in-Chief and Managing Editors can, however, submit their articles to a special issue that is in process for the journal that they oversee, so long as the Editor(s) or Managing Editors are not serving as a Guest Editor for the Special Issue. Every effort must be made to minimize any bias (recognizing that it would be impossible to remove bias completely) in the review process by having someone else independent of the Editor(s) or Managing Editors handle the double-anonymized peer review process. The editorial decision on the article shall also be handled independent of the editor. Please note that under no circumstance should an Editor-in-Chief or Managing Editor be managing the review or decision processes for their own work.

If an exception is granted to the editor to publish their work in their own journal as part of the standard volume or if the editor's manuscript is selected for publication in the special issue in their own journal, the editor should provide a conflict of interest statement that states that the review process was handled independent of the journal leadership and that the double-anonymized peer review process was not compromised in any way.

Should a manuscript authored by an Editor-in-Chief or a Managing Editor of a journal be selected for the standard volume of the journal without receiving that exception from the publisher, the development editor will correspond with the Editor(s)-in-Chief to recommend an alternate related journal that the manuscript authored by the Editor(s) can be submitted to for consideration.

For more information on an editor as an author in their own journal, please see a previous case that was investigated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Journal Associate Editors, Editorial Review Board members, and Ad-Hoc reviewers may submit a manuscript to the journal they serve as a reviewer on. However, the Editor(s)-in-Chief must ensure that the manuscript is submitted for evaluation to a reviewer who does not have a conflict of interest in reviewing the manuscript. It is advised to pay close attention to the author and reviewer affiliations. The author should never be assigned as a reviewer of their own work and the author should be held to the same revision standards as other authors.

Editorial Board Members are welcome to submit papers to the journal. These submissions are not given any priority over other manuscripts, and Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration. Editor(s)-in-Chief should be aware that the ratio of articles published by members on the Editorial Review Board should not exceed the amount of articles published by those who are not affiliated directly with the journal.

Withdrawing articles from consideration in a journal during or after the peer review or after acceptance is not a common practice amongst academic researchers. Requesting to withdraw an article from consideration should only be done should the circumstance absolutely require that action. After an article is moved into the peer review process and the time and effort of the reviewers have been utilized, an article can no longer be withdrawn from consideration.

IGI Global's reviewers support our journals on a purely voluntary basis. Withdrawing a manuscript during or after the peer review process wastes the time of these experts and the time of the editor(s) of the journal as well, which could discourage hard work from these individuals in the future.

Simultaneous submission is defined as a work submitted to IGI Global for publication that is under review, has been previously published, or has been accepted for publication elsewhere in whole or in part. IGI Global only accepts original, previously unpublished content to every one of its publications. Even if prior permission is received, IGI Global will not publish already published work. Book and journal proposals, book chapters, and journal articles may only be actively considered with one source at a time (i.e., journal articles may only be under review by one (1) journal at a time). This includes submissions within IGI Global publications and across other publisher publications (i.e., a journal article submitted to an IGI Global journal cannot be submitted to another IGI Global journal or book while under review; a journal article submitted to an IGI Global journal cannot be submitted to another publisher’s journal or book while still under review).

IGI Global has recently encountered occurrences where authors will take a manuscript or a certain “edited” version with an “edited title” and submit it across multiple IGI Global books and journals at the same time for simultaneous processing. This can result in the same chapter/article being published in two different publications. Please note and please tell your contributors that this action is ethically wrong and IGI Global does not tolerate this behavior. When IGI Global encounters this behavior, we will outright reject all the manuscripts submitted by the individual.

If a manuscript is rejected following the peer review, an author can make the appropriate revisions and either submit it for new consideration to the same journal or consider submitting it to another related journal.

Upon completion of a thorough investigation, those found guilty of simultaneously submitting their work will face appropriate consequences that typically includes the removal of the author’s manuscripts from the submission process and a suspension of the author from publishing with IGI Global.

Salami slicing, or data fragmentation, is defined as the practice of splitting up the findings of one large study into multiple papers. Oftentimes, these fragmented papers are reporting on the same research population, methods, and research question with different findings in each piece. While salami slicing increases the amount of literature, the amount of knowledge remains the same. This overcrowds publications with the same information, potentially making it more difficult to find different, emerging information and wasting the time of editors and peer reviewers who could have instead reviewed one comprehensive and valuable paper.

Upon completion of a thorough investigation, those found guilty of salami slicing will face appropriate consequences that may include the removal of the author’s manuscripts from the submission process and a suspension of the author from publishing with IGI Global.

IGI Global allows limited use of AI tools to support authors writing processes. However, as AI can produce incorrect, repetitive, or biased output, authors must provide a level of oversight and control in its usage and must carefully review and edit the content generated. Authors are ultimately accountable for the contents of the work. Authors may use AI tools to:

• Support the analysis of data during the research process.
• Improve the readability of the paper.

Authors choosing to use AI tools in the research and writing process must also disclose the tool and its usage by providing a written statement in the manuscript.

No AI tool will be credited with authorship and authors should not list or cite any AI as an author. This is because only humans have the ability to accept the responsibilities and accountability for the work, such as confirming its accuracy and integrity, of which AI cannot take responsibility.

It is important that research being submitted to IGI Global journals fit within the scope of the publication. Submitting work that does not fit the scope of the publication will result in the desk rejection of the article before it even goes to the peer review process.

IGI Global follows the guidance of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which acknowledges that patients and study participants have a right to privacy that should not be breached without informed consent.

Consent to Participate

Informed written consent must be voluntarily provided from any participants involved in a study, prior to the start of the study. Should the participant be a minor or is considered vulnerable and unable to provide informed consent, a legal guardian will need to provide consent. Should the participant be deceased, a next of kin may provide consent. Participants must have full knowledge of the study they are participating in, including the risks involved. Authors must include a statement confirming the participants consent within the manuscript.

Should verbal consent be obtained instead of written consent, authors must explain why written consent was not obtained, the approval process for the verbal consent, and its documentation methods.

Consent to Publish

Individuals who agree to participate in a study, may not agree to have their identifiable data published. Identifiable data includes but is not limited to descriptions, photographs, images, videos, names, dates of birth, and biometrical characteristics. Identifiable data should generally be excluded from the manuscript as much as possible. Manuscripts that do include potentially identifiable data should obtain written informed consent that the data and any additional images may be published. Consent must be received from the participant (or a legal guardian for minors or next of kin for the deceased) prior to submission. When in doubt, it is best to obtain written informed consent.

Manuscripts that include identifiable images or data of participants must include a statement confirming that permission was obtained to publish the images or data. If the data is anonymized, authors must state that no consent to publish was required. Alterations to images and/or data to anonymize them should not distort scientific meaning.

Ethics Approval

All studies on humans (individuals, human data, or material) must be conducted in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki. Authors must receive ethical approval for all protocols from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) or other appropriate ethics committee to ensure compliance with national and international guidelines. Authors must include details of this approval upon submission of the manuscript and should provide the name of the ethics committee and permit numbers where available.

Manuscripts granted an exemption by an ethics committee should state so with a full explanation and the name of the granting committee within the manuscript. Ethical approval should always be sought prior to the start of the research/study. Retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained. Authors should also check their national ethical guidelines.

Non-stigmatizing and non-discriminatory language should be used when categorizing groups by race/ethnicity, age, disease, disability, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. A justification of the choice of definitions and categories should be explained including whether a relevant funding agency required the categorization.

Clinical Trials

Clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible registry prior to the trials initiation. Suitable registries can be found at the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). The trial registration number and registration date should be included in the article and/or article’s abstract.

Should a trial have not been registered prior to participant recruitment, a retrospective trial registration should be sought. Authors retrospectively registering trials should provide an explanation for the retrospective registration as well as the trial registration number and date.

Human Embryos and Stem Cells

Submissions that include studies involving vertebrates or regulated invertebrates must offer detailed information on the ethical treatment of the animals including their appropriate care and handling. Manuscripts should include the name of the ethics committee(s) which approved the study and study procedures must be carried out in accordance with applicable national or international guidelines. If the study did not require ethics approval or was granted an exemption, this should be stated in the manuscript.

Studies involving client-owned animals should have documented informed consent from the client or owner. Such studies should still showcase an adherence to the best practices of veterinary care.

Authors should consult with the “Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments’ (ARRIVE) guidelines developed by the NC3Rs when submitting manuscripts describing animal research. Every effort should be taken to reduce suffering and euthanasia or anesthesia methods must be described in detail. Researchers are advised to consult the NC3Rs guide on Humane Endpoints and the American Veterinary Medical Association Guidelines for the Humane Slaughter of Animals, as well as follow applicable veterinary guidelines such as the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Authors should also consult the ethical principles in the Basel Declaration and the guidelines by the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) and the Association for the study of Animal Behaviour.

When describing research on threatened/endangered species, studies should comply with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction, the IUCN red list index of threatened species and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Research involving cultivated or wild plants and plant material should follow guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Manuscripts describing such research should include a statement of permissions granted and/or licenses.

Voucher specimens much be deposited in a public herbarium or other public collection that provides access to deposited material. The manuscript must include information on the voucher specimen and who identified it, including Genus name, species name, and year of publication.

Authors should comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Manuscripts that include paleontological and geological material should provide detailed information that shows a clear provenance (or attempt to determine provenance in older museum collections), numbers and repository information, museum name (if applicable), and geographic location. Studies must be conducted in accordance with national or international regulations and the author should obtain any permits that may be required for the research and publication of the manuscript from the relevant authority. Manuscripts must include a statement confirming that the necessary permits were acquired and should name the authority that provided those permits. All samples must be collected and exported responsibly and in accordance with national and local law.

Archaeological work that involves human remains requires that all necessary permits relevant for access to the site and the handling of the remains is obtained prior to data collection. Authors should comply with the Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains (Chartered Institute for Archaeologists).

Authors should also consult the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) normative instruments for the protection of cultural heritage, and Resolutions, Motions, guidance and other statements of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Manuscripts that include studies from protected heritage sites must be conducted in accordance with any necessary guidelines and authors should obtain any permits that may be required for the research and publication of the manuscript from the relevant authority prior to data collection. Manuscripts must include a statement confirming that the necessary permits were acquired and should name the authority that provided those permits.

Authors should also consult the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) normative instruments for the protection of cultural heritage.

Authors may be asked to provide the underlying source data used to support their manuscript in order to comply with open data requirements of the publication, especially in the case of Open Access publications. In such cases, authors should be prepared to provide public access to such data or present an explanation for why such data cannot be openly displayed (i.e., ethical or security considerations). In cases where the data is restricted for such reasons, authors should provide a description for its restrictions and the necessary information required for a reader to apply to access the data.

Standards of reporting guidelines should be utilized to ensure transparency and reproducibility of research. A comprehensive list of reporting guidelines for medical research can be viewed via the EQUATOR network website.

After a manuscript is published, it may be found that major corrections must be made, or the manuscript needs to be retracted due to ethical concerns including plagiarism. IGI Global will conduct a thorough investigation of these corrections and retractions and take the appropriate steps, as outlined below.

In the cases of plagiarized content

The manuscript in question is fully and thoroughly investigated before further action is taken. Once confirmed to be plagiarized, as of 2020, IGI Global now keeps the full plagiarized content (body text) within the publication; however, each page is noted with a watermark that the content is considered retracted from the publication. This is so that the various retraction monitoring databases can adjust their data appropriately and it offers even fuller transparency. The adjusted publication is resent to the printers and IGI Global’s full network of distributors are notified and provided updated metadata feeds and the electronic content.

Regarding major corrections

If an author, editor, or reviewer brings forth a major correction request to IGI Global, the request will be carefully reviewed and the decision to honor the change request will be made at the publisher’s discretion. Major correction requests include: changes to titles, name changes, affiliation changes, and content changes. If a change is made, the file in question will be updated appropriately and distributed out in the form of updated files and/or metadata to all impacted parties, and IGI Global will communicate with the contributors impacted.

As a U.S.-based company, IGI Global must comply with federal, state, and local statutes and mandates administered by the Federal Government of the U.S. and related regulatory agencies. Sanctions imposed by the U.S. upon other countries will be discussed with IGI Global’s legal counsel. Any necessary actions that IGI Global may need to take due to U.S. sanctions will be made transparent and communicated to those affected.

We as a publisher do strive to remain neutral to geopolitical issues. As we understand there are many conflicts taking place all over the world and do exercise sensitivity and heartfelt concern, we are continually striving to make our publishing opportunities as inclusive as possible, ensuring that researchers around the world – regardless of race, gender, religion, or nationality – are able to collaborate on research projects and contribute to research progressions that benefit so many people. This follows the advice from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

IGI Global will continue to monitor geopolitical issues and consult with our legal counsel as necessary.

For every journal, IGI Global likes to see no less than 30 active manuscript submissions under consideration at one time. It is important to be recruiting authors who have research expertise that fits within the scope of the journal. See the “Calls for Papers” section below to get ideas on how to recruit authors. Also, we strongly encourage that you access the “Advice for Editors” section in the eEditorial Discovery® manuscript submission system.

It is the responsibility of the Editor(s)-in-Chief to regularly revisit the Call for Papers for the journal and make the necessary revisions to ensure its effectiveness.

Should the Editor(s)-in-Chief feel that the title of the journal would benefit from a change, they must go through the publisher. IGI Global reserves the right to change the title of a journal at any time.

Calls for papers should be handled by the Editor(s)-in-Chief to ensure that the manuscript submissions adhere to the scope of the journal.

Editor(s)-in-Chief should:

• Continually share previously published open access work from the journal to pique interest of individuals who may have not published with the journal yet.
• Continually assess the call for papers to ensure the topics, mission and scope of the journal continues to grow with the research field.
• Distribute the call for papers and send personalized invitations to their colleagues and network.
• Utilize listservs to post their call for papers.
• Post the call for papers to relevant research community websites and/or their own personal webpages.
• Reach out to their review board to see if they would be willing to extend a call for papers to their own communities and colleagues and, as such, recruit authors for the journal.
• Recommend the journal to your institution’s library as the more visible the journal becomes, the better the likelihood of faculty and researchers submitting manuscripts to the journal.
• Attend conferences within the scope of the journal to reach a wider network.

Should there be an issue with submissions, the development editor for the journal can conduct calls for papers and calls to past contributors of the journal to try and aid with submission numbers.

Should you need help increasing submissions and visibility for your journal, you can find several helpful resources here.

Editor(s) are free to invite papers from prominent researchers in the field or in their networks to publish in the journal. SInce these articles are coming from individuals that the editor knows and they are confident in their writing abilities, these articles do not have to go through the full peer review process. Instead, these articles can be reviewed by the Editor(s) of the journals personally.

With that, in hybrid open access journals, IGI Global only allows five (5) invited papers to be accepted to publish per volume year.

IGI Global has implemented a new submission process for special issue proposals. Rather than receiving special issue proposals through email communications any longer, guest editors are now strongly encouraged to submit their proposals through the special issue proposal form functionality in the submission system. This functionality was built to streamline the special issue proposal consideration process for editors and also streamline communications from the editors to the guest editors.

IGI Global has implemented a formal revision request functionality in the proposal interface as well if editors need to request revisions from the guest editors.

Submitted special issue proposals should not sit for longer than two(2)-weeks in the proposal interface without formal editorial decision.

Editors can access the submitted proposals through their personal journal dashboard in our new interface or by clicking here.

If the journal is lacking in reviewers or the diversity needs to be increased, it is the Editor(s)-in-Chief’s responsibility to conduct a call for reviewers. Each prospective reviewer will need to apply utilizing a reviewer application. The Editor(s)-in-Chief can then approve the application in the eEditorial Discovery® system. It’s very important that every reviewer appointed to serve as a full member of the review board or as an Ad-Hoc reviewer, that their consent is given through this application process.

If the title of the journal has changed, it is the Editor(s)-in-Chief’s responsibility to contact the reviewers who served as reviewers on the former title and inquire if they would be willing to transition to the new title under its new scope. If they are, the Editor(s)-in-Chief can request that said person serve on the review board in the same standing they had under the former title. Editor(s)-in-Chief can manage this on their journal’s reviewer page.

Review boards must carry no less than eight (8) and no more than ten (10) Associate Editors (AEs) and no less than fifty (50) and no more than sixty (60) Editorial Review Board (ERB) members. The number of Ad-Hoc reviewers associated with the journal shall not exceed one hundred (100).

If the journal has several Ad-Hoc reviewers (upwards of 50-100), it is advised that the Editor(s)-in-Chief carefully evaluate the present review board and determine if there are any full Editorial Review Board (ERB) members who have not been completing reviews in a quality and timely manner and consider replacing them by promoting active Ad-Hoc reviewers to a full Editorial Review Board (ERB) member capacity. The same goes for Editorial Review Board (ERB) member promotions to Associate Editor (AE) status. It is advised that reviewers be promoted only after they have completed at least two reviews in a quality and timely manner. Manuscript review windows should not exceed one (1) month from the time that the manuscript was assigned to the reviewer. Should a review board member not respond to the review request, you may reassign more reviewers to the manuscripts that need them. If the reviewer is continually not responding to review requests, they should be promptly removed from the board.

If reviewers are not performing adequately, the Editor(s)-in-Chief has the right to remove the reviewers from the board. The reviewer dashboards within the eEditorial Discovery^® system can be a very helpful tool to monitor the progress of each reviewer. To access them, please visit the reviewer page, then under each reviewer there is a menu:

Actions:

Also, each individual review can be ranked in the system to get a sense of the quality and detail provided within each evaluation. Reviews are scored on both timeliness and quality. High quality and timely reviews are essential to a journal’s goal of publishing high quality work in a timely manner. Reviewers who complete high quality reviews in a timely manner are providing an essential service to the authors, the research field and to the journal.

It’s also important to ensure diversity across the review board and ensure that there is not an uneven ratio of reviewers located at the same universities, countries, etc. If a reviewer feels at any point that they are familiar with the identity of the author of the submitted work, they should notify the Editor(s)-in-Chief as soon as possible to make sure that the integrity of the double-anonymized review process is not compromised.

Periodically, it will be necessary for Editor(s)-in-Chief to update their review board for several reasons. Here are just a few:

1) Some reviewers will consistently not return reviews in a timely manner.

2) Some reviewers may resign due to workload or personal reasons.

3) Some reviewers over time may, unfortunately, not respond to requests for review.

4) If the review board has started to lack diversity.

It is recommended that Editor(s)-in-Chief conduct a full audit of their review board’s performance and diversity every few months.

Each editorial board member should be evaluated every six months. The timeliness, rigorousness, and quality of each review performed during that period should be considered. Exceptional performance should allow the reviewer to move up in the ranks of the review board. This means that when there is a vacancy, Editorial Review Board (ERB) members may be promoted to an Associate Editor (AE) role. Associate Editors (AEs) (or a highly qualified, tenured Editorial Review Board (ERB) member) may even have the potential to be appointed as Editor-in-Chief when there is a vacancy. Poor performance will lead to demotion and eventual removal from the board if the performance continues to decline.

Each of the criteria is scored on a scale from 1 to 5, and is as follows:
1 = Unacceptable, 2 = Below Average, 3 = Average, 4 = Above Average, 5 = Excellent

• Timeliness of Reviews (1 to 5)
• Responsiveness (1 to 5)
• Length of Reviews (1 to 5)
• Quality of Reviews (1 to 5)
• Overall Rating:
• 18 to 20 Points = High
• 12 to 17 Points = Average
• 4 to 11 Points = Low

The editorial board members who are formally listed on the journal’s webpage and any printed material for the journal are as follows:

• Editor(s)-in-Chief
• Managing Editors
• International Ambassadors
• International Advisory Board Members
• Associate Editors
• Editorial Review Board Members

Ad-Hoc reviewers are not considered to be official members of the review board as they are serving the journal under a trial basis until they complete a few reviews and are evaluated by the Editor(s) to be promoted. Should an Ad-Hoc reviewer not complete reviews reviews in a quality and timely fashion, they are promptly removed.

IGI Global encourages that editors have quarterly meetings with the established review board of the journal to go over the journal, the actions reviewers are taking to promote the journal and what could be improved with the editor's current process.

IGI Global will provide support to the auditing process of journal editorial review boards on a quarterly basis. This process will cover the following:

• Verifying reviewer's current affiliations
• Verifying the reviewer's current degree
• Verifying that the reviewer's research aligns with the scope of the journal
• Assessing the current diversity of the review board

IGI Global encourages the Editor(s)-in-Chief to audit the editorial board on a monthly basis. There should be a level of vigilance in the vetting process before any reviewer is formally added onto the editorial board. Editors are also strongly recommended to evaluate the review board member's previous completed evaluations for quality and consistency. The following criteria should be monitored by the editor:

• Ensuring reviewers have their complete affiliation information provided
• Ensuring reviewers are providing ethical, timely and quality evaluations
• Removing reviewers who are not supporting the journal
• Ensuring reviewers applying to the journal fit the scope of the journal's published research
• Ensuring that reviewers on the board are prominent in their field and/or have experience in the field to evaluate manuscripts accurately

IGI Global’s chosen manuscript submission system is the eEditorial Discovery^®. The system supports with the editorial management of projects and streamlines the following areas:

• Launching a call for papers
• Submission of manuscripts
• Submission and project tracking (with dashboards that showcase the overall status of the journal)
• Storage of critical documents and information
• Communications (ability to send reminders to authors
  and reviewers)
• Quality assurance
• Assigning manuscripts for peer review (throughout all stages of the peer review process)
• Review board management (with dashboards that showcase the overall performance of the reviewers)
• Revision processing
• Author proofing
• Promotional material and content access

Every journal MUST be actively utilizing the eEditorial Discovery® system to manage submissions and perform peer reviews, with a zero-tolerance policy on publishing work that has not been fully vetted through the eEditorial Discovery® system. This means that every Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, Special Issue Guest Editor, Reviewer, and Author will need to be fully logged in and active in the system. Hybrid use (working in and out of the system) will no longer be allowed. Should you have any questions regarding the system, please do not hesitate to contact the development editor of the journal.

Authors have the ability to track the movement of their article in the submission system as well. Working outside the system with the article not moving through the phases in the system creates a false pretense that the article is not actively being considered for the journal. This could lead to the author seeking an alternative publication under the impression that their article is not being considered and could ultimately lead to a higher percentage of withdrawn papers. There could be bad press following the journal as well after that which could deter authors from submitting, if that negative notion is present.

IGI Global has now implemented a range of weeks from submission to acceptance on our journal webpages to show authors how long they could potentially wait for a final decision. If the movement of the articles is done through submission system, the ranges from submission to acceptance will not be accurate or may not be able to be calculated at all. This not only could deter authors but could also mislead the indices, leading to a potential drop from their database or to their ultimate decision to not index the journal.

If an author is having trouble submitting their paper, please be sure that their document is in .docx format. Any other form of a document for their article cannot be uploaded into the system. Should they continue to have issues uploading their article in the system, please forward them to the development editor, and they should be able to help. It’s very important that authors submit their manuscripts through the system to ensure that the appropriate final versions are being used for publication, and so that they will have access to their proofs and complimentary content later.

Moving manuscripts in the system is important to ensure accuracy, quality, and timely processing. We will not accept any article manuscripts or finalized materials submitted to us by e-mail. Should you have any questions regarding the system, please ask your development editor and they will be able to help you navigate the system.

IGI Global authors are required to sign an author's warranty and transfer of copyright when submitting their articles to a hybrid open access journal. The copyright portion ensures that authors understand that the contents of the article cannot be posted or distributed on any website or other forms of content distribution. This also ensures that the authors have secured the necessary permissions for materials that may be copyrighted (figures, photographs, etc). The author's warranty portion ensures that materials submitted to IGI Global for consideration are original and have not been published elsewhere previously. Should the warranty and copyright not be signed and the article is accepted to publish in the future for a journal, unfortunately IGI Global will not be able to publish the article until it is signed.

All authors submitting their work for consideration should be submitting their manuscript as a Microsoft Word document in APA format. All submission guidelines, templates, and resources can be found here:

Individuals added as authors to manuscripts should be aware of and consent to their role as author. There are two types of authors whose name should appear as an author of the manuscript. Acknowledged Authors are not listed as true authors on the manuscript and instead are noted at the end of the manuscript, typically being thanked for their support of the project, but not necessarily providing to the written research:

• Corresponding Author: In cases where more than one author writes a manuscript, one author will be designated as the corresponding author. This author handles communication with the Editor(s)-in-Chief, signs the publishing agreements on behalf of all the authors, proofs the final manuscript upon acceptance into the journal, and ensures that all author information, including affiliations and order, appear correctly.
• Co-Authors: An individual who has made a significant contribution to the manuscript in regards to the actual research (analysis and acquisition of data, study design, etc.) and writing (drafts, revisions, etc.) that were conducted. Co-authors should assist with and agree to revisions that take place during the double-anonymized peer review process as well as the final publishable manuscript.
• Acknowledged Authors: These individuals are not listed as part of the authors of the manuscript but are formally recognized in an Acknowledgment section of the manuscript. Such individuals may have provided technical assistance, translation assistance, general mentoring of the research, contributed general scholarly discussion on the topic, performed formatting-related writing assistance or copyediting services, etc. Corresponding and co-authors are responsible for notifying and securing permission from these individuals for their inclusion in the Acknowledgment section.

Authors submitting chapters that will be published behind a paywall (subscription-based) must sign an Author’s Warranty and Transfer of Copyright. The copyright portion ensures that authors understand that the contents of the chapter cannot be posted or distributed on any website or other forms of content distribution. This also ensures that the authors have secured the necessary permissions for materials that may be copyrighted (figures, photographs, etc.). The author's warranty portion ensures that materials submitted to IGI Global for consideration are original and have not been published elsewhere previously. IGI Global cannot publish the chapter until the warranty and copyright are signed. Should this fail to occur and the chapter becomes a liability to the timeliness of the book’s release, it may have to be removed from the book.

Authors should solidify the corresponding author, order of authors, and which authors should be included on a manuscript PRIOR to submitting the manuscript to a journal.

In cases where there needs to be a change in authorship DURING the manuscript’s publishing process, an email notification must be sent to the Editor(s)-in-Chief and shared with the publisher. All authors listed on the manuscript must agree to the change and must be included on the email for the changes to be made. Such changes can include switching corresponding authors, adding or removing authors, and reordering the authors.

Changes to authorship AFTER the manuscript has been accepted and/or published will be reviewed carefully on a case-by-case basis and are not guaranteed to be made, especially if there is no significant just cause for the change and/or not all authors are in agreement. Please note that if the content has already been released digitally and while IGI Global will resend corrected metadata to all partners, IGI Global cannot guarantee that all digital records will reflect the changes that were made and has no power over how quickly a third-party platform will make that change.

Affiliations should be formatted as:

Institution, Country

No departments or cities will be included in the affiliation unless included in the institution’s name.

Authors’ affiliations are the affiliations where the research was conducted. No changes to affiliations can be made after the paper is accepted. It is the responsibility of the author to ensure that their affiliation is entered correctly upon the manuscript’s submission and that should any change occur during the development of the manuscript, that it is communicated immediately to the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the publication’s development editor.

• After the manuscript is arrived by the development editor, alterations beyond minor corrections (especially grammatical and punctuational changes) are not permitted.
• Changes that involve only matters of style will not be carried out by the typesetter, as we have introduced IGI Global’s house style.
• Substantial changes in content (new results, corrected values, and changes of title and authorship) are not allowed without the approval of the project’s editor.
• Revised proofs will not be sent to the author.

IGI Global has seen an increase of submitted article manuscripts with low quality figures. Figures in an article are meant to enhance certain research to improve the readability and comprehension of the article. If the figures are unreadable, it decreases the effect of the research that the author originally intended. IGI Global often catches these problems and reaches out to the authors personally to get better quality figures, however, as our publications continue to grow, IGI Global is now asking the Editor(s)-in-Chief of our timely publications to ensure that there are high quality figures uploaded before the publication of accepted articles.

Please see IGI Global's Image Guide for more information.

IGI Global has been keeping close watch on the advancement of the Manuscript Exchange Common Approach (MECA). IGI Global wants to ensure that authors who have had their article manuscripts reviewed previously, whether in another IGI Global Journal or from a different publisher, can cut time during the peer review by allowing editors to accept to consider the manuscript and previously received peer review evaluations and having access to all of the materials within the eEditorial Discovery Submission System.

Please note: This decision to accept to consider previously rejected papers in the same family or different publisher's publications is at the discretion of the editor-in-chief of the inquired journal. IGI Global requests that all editors who choose to assess and consider previously rejected articles and the previous peer review evaluations do ensure that the articles and evaluations are of the highest quality.

Editors are encouraged to review the recommended practice as provided by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO).

The Editor(s)-in-Chief is/are not permitted to request and/or pressure any author to incorporate citations from work published by the Editor(s)-in-Chief or any other leadership member of the journal. Should we learn of this happening, IGI Global will have cause to take action against the Editor(s)-in-Chief in terms of a contract termination.

All new journal article submissions are submitted through the eEditorial Discovery® manuscript submission system and screened by the Editor(s)-in-Chief for suitability. Those that pass are then assigned to the double-anonymized peer review process. Authors of manuscripts that are rejected during the initial assessment (desk review) stage will be promptly notified.

During this phase, the Editor(s)-in-Chief are asked to assess the following:

• Anonymization of the manuscript.
• Suitability of the research to the journal.
• Country of origin of the authors (please see the United States Sanctions Section regarding authorship by those affiliated in Iran).
• Proper or legible formatting for the review process.
• Any additional criteria the editor would like to assess before the review phases.

In a double-anonymized peer review, both the reviewer and the author identities remain anonymous throughout the entire peer review process.

Step 1: Once an article manuscript is deemed suitable by the Editor(s)-in-Chief to enter the double-anonymized peer review process, it will be anonymized (if not already) and assigned to at least three (3) to five (5) Editorial Review Board (ERB) members (and if needed Ad-Hoc reviewers) via the eEditorial Discovery® manuscript submission system for the first layer of review. The assignment of reviewers is based on the reviewers' areas of expertise. The reviewers’ expertise must align with the topics that the manuscript was submitted under. The present workload of the reviewer is also considered (please refer to the “Reviewer Selection” section for full information).

Step 2: Once all Editorial Review Board (ERB) and Ad-Hoc reviewer evaluations have been received, the Editor(s)-in-Chief will send the reviews to an Associate Editor (AE) for their evaluation of the manuscript for the second layer of review. Once the Associate Editor’s (AE’s) evaluation is received, the Editor(s)-in-Chief will determine whether the manuscript is accepted, requires revision, or is rejected.

Step 3: The Editor(s)-in-Chief will make the reviews and comments available to the author(s) of the manuscript following their editorial decision on the manuscript. If the manuscript is rejected, the process ends and the Editor(s)-in-Chief may recommend another outlet if appropriate. If the manuscript is accepted without any revisions required, then the author will be provided with the formatting guidelines for final submission. If the manuscript requires substantial revisions, then the author will be expected to follow the reviewer’s commentary and also the formatting guidelines to complete the revision of their article.

Step 4: Once the revised manuscript is received (if applicable) it should be sent back to the original Associate Editor (AE) for evaluation, and then the Associate Editor’s (AE’s) new decision will be sent to the Editor(s)-in-Chief. This process may repeat itself several times before a final decision is reached. If the manuscript is rejected, then the process ends and the Editor(s)-in-Chief may recommend another outlet if appropriate.

Note: The return of a manuscript to the author(s) for revision does not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript for publication.

View the IGI Global’s full peer review process webpage and flow chart here.

Reviewers are given evaluation criteria and asked to provide anonymous comments to the author and may also provide confidential feedback to the Editor(s)-in-Chief.

Reviewers are asked to evaluate a manuscript for:

• Originality and significance of contribution. Is the manuscript in congruence with the mission of the journal?
• Interest to research community and/or practitioners. How useful is the material to the field?
• International relevance.
• Coverage of existing literature. Does the literature review contain relevant information in support of the article?
• Satisfactoriness of methodology, analysis, and comprehension. Does the article contain a detailed explanation of research methods and procedures?
• Clear, concise, and jargon-free writing. Does the article clearly state the issues being addressed?
• Organizational structure. Is the article clearly organized in a logical fashion? Are the author’s conclusions supported by the research?

Research article manuscripts that are under consideration for IGI Global journals shall not be formally accepted to publish in a journal without receiving a minimum of 2 non-conflicting reviews from the peer review process.

Certain submissions that IGI Global publishes in our journals that are not research articles are exempt from this minimum review requirement:

• Invited Papers
• Position Papers
• Book Reviews
• Case Studies
• Research Notes

When requesting a revision from the authors, the due dates should not exceed one (1) month from the time that the revision request was sent. Should the author not get the revision in on time, it is important that the Editor(s)-in-Chief reach out to them to ensure that they get their revisions in or to at least confirm whether or not they are still interested in having their work considered for publication. Some authors will require an extension to get their revisions in. It is at the Editor(s)-in-Chief’s discretion whether or not the Editor(s)-in-Chief want to give them an extended deadline. Revisions should always be supplemented with revision notes that address the reviewers’ commentary.

The Editor(s)-in-Chief are requested to complete their editorial decisions in no more than two (2) weeks. The authors submitting manuscripts to the journal deserve to have their work move through the system in a timely manner. This will also allow the journal to be in good standing with the authors and ensure that they will consider publishing with the journal again.

Please remember that having good diversity for the published works and review board for your journal is one of the many criteria that indices look for. It is very important that the journal does not appear biased toward any specific demographic, country, university, etc.

• Editors are expected to be mindful of the university affiliations and country/regional representations that are appearing across the volume year and ensure that there is not an unbalanced ratio.
• Editors are expected to ensure that the same authors do not have multiple manuscripts published across the volume year back-to-back, and they also need to be mindful of the number of manuscripts coming from the same individuals across many back-to-back volume years.
• Editors are expected to ensure that manuscript submissions from the journal’s reviewers are not prioritized over other submissions and that there are not multiple papers in one single volume authored by reviewers.

Indices support a journal when specific criteria is met. One of the criteria is selecting authors from diverse backgrounds, both culturally and by university. If the selection committee at a prestigious indexing organization believes there to be any bias in the selection of papers for each volume, the journal could be at risk of not being accepted into the index, or if already indexed, it could be pulled.

Also, we – IGI Global – collaborate with people from various disciplines from all over the world and from all different universities. These journals reach the far corners of the world and if the readers/subscribers see that some journals show favoritism to one or a few cultural backgrounds/universities over the rest, then the submissions and interest in the journal could greatly decrease.

The peer review process is at the core of reputable scholarly publishing and is the driving force behind all IGI Global books and journals. IGI Global reviewers maintain the highest ethical standards of scientific research and all manuscripts follow a double-anonymized peer review process that is fully conducted within the IGI Global eEditorial Discovery® manuscript submission system.

The reviews are then easily accessible to the IGI Global editorial staff which ensures that should accusations of questionable peer review arise, IGI Global will be able to support its published authors and editors in dismissing these claims and ensuring the continued success of the corresponding publications. View IGI Global’s full Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

As a publisher of scholarly articles and chapters, IGI Global realizes that fraud erodes the public trust and deeply affects the outcomes of all research results and findings reported within scholarly journals and academic reference books. As such, IGI Global mandates that a double-anonymized peer review process must be undertaken on each of its publications, including each chapter submission.

IGI Global follows a double-anonymized peer review process, which means that the authors of the chapter and the reviewers of the chapter remain anonymous to each other. It is at the discretion of the reviewer if they wish to reveal themselves to the authors after any and all revisions are made and a formal decision has been determined for the chapter by the editor.

The peer review process is at the core of reputable scholarly publishing and is the driving force behind all IGI Global books and journals. IGI Global reviewers maintain the highest ethical standards of scientific research and all manuscripts follow a double-anonymized peer review process that is fully conducted within the IGI Global eEditorial Discovery^® manuscript submission system.

The reviews are then easily accessible to the IGI Global editorial staff which ensures that should accusations of questionable peer review arise, IGI Global will be able to support its published authors and editors in dismissing these claims and ensuring the continued success of the corresponding publications. View IGI Global’s full Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

IGI Global Recommends that Editor(s)-in-Chief ensure that their reviewers are displaying their ORCiD iDs through their profile on the journal webpage. Having their IGI Global profile and ORCiD iD linked not only allows for those not affiliated with the journal to see at a glance the prestigious people who are serving on the board, but it also allows for reviewers to get instant credit for the evaluations that they are completing.

Learn more on how to link your IGI Global account with your ORCiD iD.

As a publisher of scholarly articles and chapters, IGI Global realizes that fraud erodes the public trust and deeply affects the outcomes of all research results and findings reported within scholarly journals and academic reference books. As such, IGI Global has taken on several measures to avoid such indiscretions:

• The Editor(s)-in-Chief of a journal is/are the only person responsible for the initial review of a submission to verify that it meets the coverage of the journal and also to ensure that authors’ names and affiliations are removed from the paper prior to assigning it for review.
• All Editor(s)-in-Chief of journals must utilize the eEditorial Discovery® manuscript submission system to assign reviewers to manuscripts. Likewise, all reviews must be submitted by the reviewers through the system. This allows a paper trail in the event a question arises surrounding the review process.
• Those Editor(s)-in-Chief of journals still in a transition stage of moving all submitted papers to the eEditorial Discovery® manuscript submission system who may be assigning some reviews outside of the system, are asked to submit the reviewer’s evaluation form when providing an accepted paper to IGI Global for publication.

For journals, a double-anonymized peer review process must be conducted on any manuscript that is not desk rejected. No less than three (3) quality peer reviews should be obtained for each manuscript. An ideal peer review secures (3) ERB reviews and one (1) AE review. We understand that some review boards may become unreliable at times and as such, two (2) non-conflicting ERB reviews and one (1) AE review may also be considered.

Editor(s)-in-Chief should be utilizing all reviewers, even those who are in Ad-Hoc standing and as such, we ask that Editor(s)-in-Chief please attempt to assign manuscripts to Ad-Hocs as well as ERB members during the first layer of review. This ensures that the full review board is being utilized and will also allow Editor(s)-in-Chief to measure who is reliable.

When assigning reviewers for the first layer of review, the editor should assign a blend of Editorial Review Board Members and Ad-Hoc Reviewers. There should be enough reviewers assigned to secure at least three (3) reviews on each manuscript, two (2) of which need to be non-conflicting in order to move the manuscript to the next phase. Should the Editor(s)-in-Chief only get two (2) ERB reviews and they are conflicting, the Editor(s)-in-Chief will need to reassign more reviewers to the manuscript.

Once the manuscript moves into the second layer of review, IGI Global only requires one (1) Associate Editor assigned to complete the evaluation before the paper can be rejected or revisions can be requested. It is advised that if revisions are requested, that the manuscript once revised, be sent back to the Associate Editor with revision notes for review.

The entire review process can typically take anywhere from twelve (12) to sixteen (16) weeks. Should the reviewers' comments contradict each other or a report is delayed, an additional expert review will be sought. If necessary, revised manuscripts may be returned to the initial reviewers for re-evaluation. The Editor(s)-in-Chief may require more than one revision of a manuscript, and additional reviewers may also be invited to review the manuscript at any time.

It is very important that the evaluators that hold positions on the review board have research fields that are directly related to the research of the journal. Having individuals on the board who are not experts in the field is not going to be helpful to the authors who receive an evaluation from them. Reviewers are expected to provide not only qualitative reviews in the form of grammar and formatting, but they are also expected to review the research as it is presented and provide feedback to the authors on how that research can be improved.

This is where having the research areas included in the reviewer profile is helpful to the editor. Reviewers can update their areas of interest at any time. Having relevant and up-to-date research areas included in the reviewer profile will help the editor pair the reviewer with articles that match the reviewer's expertise.

If reviewers do not have research areas that relate to the journal they are serving on or the do not have any research areas uploaded at all, the editors will not know what specific fields you are most knowledgeable in.

You can find the steps to update your profile here. Under the "FAQ for General Journal Questions" section, please select the question "How Do I Update My IGI Global Profile?"

The assignment of reviewers is based on the reviewers' areas of expertise that are included as part of the reviewer's profile for IGI Global. It is important to ensure that each reviewer has their information fully filled out to accurately pair them with submitted articles that are within their area of expertise. IGI Global does request that reviewers kindly keep in mind that from time-to-time they will likely be assigned manuscripts that do not 100% align with their current research interests, but as an appointed reviewer we expect and appreciate their willingness to evaluate the manuscript based on its adherence to the overall mission, scope, and coverage of the journal.

Ad-Hoc Reviewers and Editorial Review Board Members are part of the first layer of review, providing comments to the authors based on the current research, structure of the paper, English Language proficiency, credibility of the references, impact of the article, etc.

Associate Editors are the second layer of review, having the capacity to evaluate not only the article but the completed evaluations during the first layer of review. Associate Editor's evaluations are expected to be completed to a higher level, speaking on behalf of the first layer of reviewers as well as the quality of the article.

At the end of each reviewer form, there will be a suggested decision that each reviewer can provide. This is for the editor's review to aid with making a decision on the article. This decision made by the reviewers shall not be edited by the leadership of the journal as it directly contrasts the ethical guidelines put in place by COPE regarding editing a review evaluation.

Individuals appointed as reviewers are performing an important and valuable job, assuring that a manuscript is being published with integrity and accuracy. Serving as a reviewer is a key step and significant contributing factor in an individual’s academic career progression. This responsibility increases visibility, as well as an individual’s knowledge of current and novel research in the field. Reviewers are conducting a professional service for their colleagues to improve the quality of their work and the availability of advanced research in the field at large. Reviewers are also encouraged to act as ambassadors for IGI Global, sourcing potential authors and subscribers in their region.

Those currently serving on the review board are expected to review roughly 3-5 manuscripts per year. Occasionally, reviewers may be requested to complete evaluations for additional manuscripts in the event that the number of submissions suddenly increases or that the Editor(s)-in-Chief is/are in the midst of reforming the journal’s review board. All reviews must be conducted through the eEditorial Discovery® manuscript submission system and returned to the Editor(s)-in-Chief electronically by the assigned due date from the time the manuscript is received. Deadlines will be clearly stated in the review request.

Upon receipt of a manuscript for evaluation, reviewers are requested to carefully read each manuscript, supporting their evaluation with relevant citations with the goal of helping the author(s) construct a more rigorous research work by providing constructive feedback, as well as an honest assessment of the value of the manuscript. Reviewers are requested to provide their overall assessment of the work, followed by a specific list of comments. While grammatical corrections are valuable, the review must stretch beyond the use of punctuation, spelling, and language usage. Reviewers are not expected to copyedit, proofread, or translate the manuscript, as the author is expected to have their work professionally copyedited prior to submission.

An appropriate evaluation for all reviewer roles includes:

• An analysis of the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses
• Suggestions on how to make it more complete, relevant, and readable
• Provide questions for authors to address
• Provide advice that leads to action/revision

Vague statements and no points of action do not provide goals for the authors and will hinder any subsequent revisions.

Reviewers are requested to avoid making derogatory and unprofessional comments. If a reviewer does not find the manuscript to be publishable, they should still provide extensive comments regarding why the paper is not acceptable and constructive directions for future submissions. A decision to “reject” the manuscript, with no feedback to the author(s), does not help them advance their skills. Reviewers are also requested to provide specific page numbers and explicitly state the areas of the manuscript to which they are referring, providing relevant citations to the authors to improve the work, and assessing the tables, figures, and diagrams and providing further recommendations as needed.

Reviewers have the opportunity to provide direct comments to the author on their manuscript by downloading the article and uploading the marked up version on the reviewer form before submitting their evaluation.

Individuals who hold a position on the review board for any IGI Global Journal can either be promoted or demoted depending on how they are supporting the journal at the time of evaluation by the editor.

Promotions

Promotions can occur when a reviewer has completed a minimum amount of evaluations for the journal they are serving on. These evaluations are required to be submitted in a timely manner and provide the author with quality feedback that helps them revise their work. The promotions can be awarded as follows:

If an Ad-Hoc reviewer has completed 2-3 timely and quality reviews, the editor can assess the work the reviewer has completed and potentially promote that individual to be an Editorial Review Board Member.

*Note: Ad-Hoc reviewers are not listed on the journal webpage. They are the lowest tier of reviewer, typically temporary reviewers for the journal. Once an Ad-Hoc is promoted to the Editorial Review Board, their name and affiliation will appear on the journal's website.

If an Editorial Review Board Member has completed 3-5 timely and quality reviews, the editor can assess the work the reviewer has completed and potentially promote that individual to be an Associate Editor.

There is no way to formally promote Associate Editors to a higher role, but, with the consent of the Editor and the Associate Editor, IGI Global can manually promote them to be on the International Advisory Board or International Ambassador Board for the journal. These boards do not directly aid with the double-anonymized peer review process and instead aid with the distribution and relevancy of the research for the journal.

Editorial Review Board Members, Associate Editors, International Advisory Board Members and International Ambassadors are the only roles for the review board that appear on the journal webpage.

Demotions or Removals

Demotions can occur when a reviewer is not supporting the journal. The most common reason for an individual to be demoted or removed from the review board is inactivity or non-completion of the review requests that are sent to them from the editor of the journal. Demotions can happen as follows:

If an Associate Editor is continually not returning evaluations or is continually not providing quality feedback in their evaluations, the editor(s) of the journal can demote the individual to an Editorial Review Board Member. If the individual continues not to adjust how they complete reviews or if they continue not to return evaluations, they can be demoted again to Ad-Hoc.

The same process can be used for Editorial Review Board Evaluators, except they only have one chance to be demoted if they are not completing evaluations or not providing quality feedback.

Removals can happen at any time. If you know that an individual has changed their email or if the individual has asked to be removed from the review board, editors can remove that individual outright from the review board with the "remove reviewer" option on the manage reviewers page.

*Note: Upon removal from the review board, or demotion to an Ad-Hoc reviewer, the name and affiliation of that reviewer will be automatically removed from the review board. It is at the Editor(s)' discretion on how they would like to manage their review board.

Sample ERB Review

Sample AE Review

Because IGI Global is an accepted full member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and takes pride in a rigorous double-anonymized peer review process, it is very important that each and every journal is managed within the eEditorial Discovery® system and maintains the highest level of accuracy and integrity. Every journal must have full review documentation for every published article. Should the journal ever be called into question for its peer review practices, it’s very important that the editorial team at IGI Global have access to all articles submitted for consideration to the journal and supporting peer reviews. Proof of peer review is extraordinarily important especially as predatory publishers and vanity presses are conducting questionable peer review practices. If a manuscript is authored by a prestigious individual that was carefully invited and vetted by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and deemed an “invited paper”, the Editor-in-Chief is encouraged to notify IGI Global immediately as the peer review process on these entries will differ.

For more information, please view our Ethics and Malpractice Page.

COPE has put together a document that outlines the best practices and ethical guidelines for the peer review process. Learn more.

Special Issues - Role of the Journal’s Editor(s)-in-Chief:

The role of the journal’s Editor(s)-in-Chief is different for special issues than standard article manuscripts. It is important to allow the special issue Guest Editor(s) to handle the manuscripts within the system that have a subtitle that says, “Special Issue Submission.” Guest Editors cannot formally accept manuscripts to publish in the journal and rather will recommend articles to the Editor(s) of the journal to accept for the special issue. If the Guest Editor(s) is/are not performing their duties responsibly or in a timely manner, the Editor(s)-in-Chief is/are permitted to begin to perform decisions on the manuscripts and can cancel the special issue.

Cancellation of a special issue can also occur at any time for any reason at the editor's discretion. If a special issue is canceled, the Editor(s)-in-Chief may contact the authors of the few manuscripts that were recruited for the special issue and provide them with the opportunity to have their work considered for a standard publication. The cancellation of a special issue must be communicated to the guest editors before processing the special issue article manuscripts.

Only Editor(s)-in-Chief can make the final decision on the article manuscripts that have been chosen by the guest editors for the special issue. Editors are encouraged to check for the following before accepting articles into the special issue:

• If the articles chosen by guest editors are quality
• If the articles chosen by guest editors are in scope of the special issue and the journal
• The diversity of the entire special issue
• Ensuring that the articles chosen by guest editors have conflict of interest statements and funding information

If the Editor(s)-in-Chief approve(s) of the issue materials, the manuscripts can be formally assigned to the current volume separated out into their own issue containers within the volume year – Example: Volume 1, Issue 2, then the next one would be Volume 1, Issue 3, and so on and so forth, with sequential numbering of the article manuscripts within each of those special issues. Any questions on this structure can be directed to openaccessadmin@igi-global.com.

Special Issues - Role of the Guest Editor(s):

The Special Issue Guest Editor(s) are responsible for recruiting authors to submit to the special issue and also perform(s) all of the editorship responsibilities for the papers submitted to the special issue. It is important for the Guest Editor(s) to provide the Editor(s)-in-Chief regular progress reports as per the Editor(s)-in-Chief’s discretion. Manuscripts in any phase should not be sitting longer than two (2) weeks. This allows a steady flow of manuscripts to be moving through the system. This is especially important for articles that require editorial decision or attention.

Guest Editor(s) is/are required to send all submitted article manuscripts through the review processes within our eEditorial Discovery^® Submission System. IGI Global will not accept any submitted special issue article that does not go through the review process within the submission system. Guest Editors are required to follow the same double-anonymized peer review process that standard articles follow. All article manuscripts should receive at least two (2) non-conflicting peer reviews before acceptance.

Guest Editors should not formally accept articles to publish in the journal through the submission system. Guest Editors should recommend the articles they would like to accept to the Editor(s)-in-Chief of the journal, in which the editor(s) will accept or reject articles at their discretion. Final decisions are done by the Editor(s) of the journal at their discretion.

Please Note: Guest Editors cannot appear as a reviewer for any of the articles submitted to their special issue. Additionally, Guest Editors must utilize a diverse pool of reviewers and any articles found that have been requesting reviews from the same person or people will have to go through another layer of review.

Guest editors should ensure that the contributions within the special issue exemplify diversity, with contributing authors hailing from a variety of countries and institutions. Guest Editors of special issues in process for a hybrid open access journal cannot contribute articles authored by them (either as a corresponding author or co-author).

IGI Global requires a Guest Editorial Preface to be completed with the special issue after the approval of the Editor(s)-in-Chief.

Editor(s)-in-Chief reserve the right to cancel or revise any special issue or their accepted manuscripts should they not meet the Editor's or the journal's standards.

IGI Global recommends that active calls for papers for special issues do not have a submission deadline of over one (1) year.

If a special issue is set up and no papers are accepted or published within a 1-year timespan then IGI Global will assume that the special issue is not carrying forward and the authors with work under consideration for this special issue will have the opportunity to publish as a standard article. Authors and editors may work at their discretion for the submitted content.

The minimum number of article manuscripts published in each special issue of is five (5) with no maximum cap any longer. The collection of articles should reflect the highest level of selectivity and diversity. All special issue manuscripts should also follow the traditional double-anonymized peer review process.

There is no limit to the number of special issues that may be published in a journal per volume year (calendar year), however, IGI Global does request that Editor(s)-in-Chief be cognizant of the ratio of special issue article manuscripts recruited as compared to standard article manuscripts and ensure that the highest level of selectivity and diversity is represented among the accepted and published content.

It’s important to ensure a healthy balance of both standard article manuscript submissions and special issue article manuscript submissions moving through the process. Should there be more special issue content in a volume year than standard submissions, not only does it give off the perception that there is favoritism toward special issues, but it also could put the standard article manuscript submissions on a publication delay and may deter authors from submitting article manuscripts for consideration in the future or may result in them withdrawing their current submission(s) from consideration.

Special issues should be separated out into their own issue containers within the volume year – Example: Volume 1, Issue 2, then the next finalized special issue would be Volume 1, Issue 3, and so on and so forth, with sequential numbering of the article manuscripts within each of those special issues. Any questions on this structure can be directed to your development editor for more information.

Those who are interested in proposing a special issue for a journal are now asked to utilize our new Special Issue Proposal Submission Form. Guest editors are now asked to fill out this online form with all necessary information related to the proposed special issue. The guest editorial agreement is also held within this form and proposals will not be formally submitted until the agreement is signed. After submission, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal will assess it and provide their decision. Upon acceptance, the call for papers page will be set up and a member from Journal Development will be in contact with the Guest Editors.

Guest Editors are advised not to submit and manage multiple special issues under the same title across publishers or across IGI Global Titles. The Special Issue Titles are expected to differ to ensure there is no confusion for potential authors and future readership. Topic areas of the special issues can be similar, as long as there is a distinction between the Special Issues in the form of differing titles. The differences must be substantial.

IGI Global has a dedicated abstracting/indexing team that when a journal is eligible and meets all of the selection criteria requirements (established for at least two years, on time, has diversity across its submissions and review board, etc.), they will submit an application to the appropriate database. At no time should the Editor(s)-in-Chief submit the application because this could cause the journal to be suspended.

IGI Global submits journals for consideration to the following abstracting and indexing databases:

• Web of Science™ - Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)
• Web of Science™ - Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
• Web of Science™ - Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)
• Scopus^®
• Ei Compendex
• PsycINFO^®
• ProQuest ABI/Inform
• ACM Digital Library
• ProQuest Aluminium Industry Abstracts
• Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)
• Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC)
• Australian Education Index
• Australian Government’s Department of Education, Science & Training – Refereed Journal
• Burrelle’s Media Directory
• Business Periodicals Index/Wilson Business Abstracts
• Cabell’s Directories
• ProQuest Ceramic Abstracts
• Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS)
• ProQuest Computer & Information System Abstracts
• ProQuest Corrosion Abstracts
• CSA Civil Engineering Abstracts
• CSA Illumina
• CSA Mechanical & Transportation Engineering Abstracts
• Current Contents^®/Engineering Computing, & Technology
• Current Contents^®/Social & Behavioral Sciences
• DBLP
• DEST Register of Refereed Journals
• EBSCOhost’s Academic Search
• EBSCOhost’s Academic Source
• EBSCOhost’s Business Source
• EBSCOhost’s Computer & Applied Sciences Complete
• EBSCOhost’s Computer Science Index
• EBSCOhost’s Computer Source
• EBSCOhost’s Current Abstracts
• EBSCOhost’s Executive Daily Brief
• EBSCOhost’s Library/Information Science & Technology Abstracts with FullTEXT
• EBSCOhost’s Science & Technology Collection
• EBSCOhost’s STM Abstracts
• EconLit
• Electronics & Communications Abstracts
• Emerald Abstracts
• Engineered Materials Abstracts
• ERIC – Education Resources Information Center
• European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIH)
• Gale Directory of Publications & Broadcast Media
• Genamics
• GetCited
• Google Scholar
• HCIBIB
• IAOR Online
• IndexCopernicus
• Information Science Abstracts
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
• Internet & Personal Computing Abstracts
• ISBIB
• JournalTOCs
• KnowledgeBoard
• LearnTechLib
• Library & Information Science Abstracts (LISA)
• Library Literature & Information Sciences
• ProQuest Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
• Materials Business File – Steels Alerts
• MediaFinder
• Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD)
• ProQuest Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Journals
• ProQuest Biological Science Journals
• ProQuest Computer Science Journals
• ProQuest Education Journals
• ProQuest Engineering Journals
• ProQuest Illustrata: Natural Science
• ProQuest Illustrata: Technology
• ProQuest Materials Science Journals
• ProQuest Military Collection
• ProQuest Natural Sciences Journal
• ProQuest SciTech Journals
• ProQuest Technology Journals
• ProQuest - ABI/Inform
• ProQuest Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS International)
• PubList.com
• RePEc
• Research Library
• SCIRUS
• Solid State & Superconductivity Abstracts
• The Index of Information Systems Journals
• The Informed Librarian Online
• The Standard Periodical Directory
• Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory
• VINITI-Russian Academy of Science
• Worldwide Political Abstracts (WPSA)

Should you want to have your journal submitted for consideration to an abstracting or indexing database that is not listed, please contact the journal’s development editor.

View more information on abstracting and indexing here.

We have recently seen increasing claims from different entities that books and/or journals will be guaranteed to be indexed in specific indices upon publication. Upon discussion with our contacts at various indexes, we can confirm that every book and journal must go through an evaluation process by the index upon the publication and that there is never a guarantee that a book or journal will be indexed. Individuals or entities claiming that a book or journal is guaranteed to be indexed should be treated with suspicion and their adherence to ethical publishing called into question.

Any IGI Global editor or author claiming that their book or journal is guaranteed to be indexed in a specific index, especially in order to garner more submissions, will face a thorough investigation from IGI Global and potentially be removed from their leadership position.

IGI Global is happy to help coach editors and authors with ways in which to maximize the indexing potential of their books or journal to increase their chances of being indexed in the future.

All the points above are meant to provide important guidelines and best practices to ensure that each and every journal published by IGI Global receives the highest level of recognition and meets all ethical standards.

It’s important to note that in order to ensure the greatest success for a journal, Editor(s)-in-Chief should maintain a healthy dialogue with their journal’s development editor on the status of the journal and submissions within the system. Telling the development editor their intentions, the tentative dates of the next accepted articles, or even something as simple as telling them that they have assigned a few manuscripts out for review will greatly help. This lets the development staff know that the Editor(s)-in-Chief is/are actively attempting to keep the journal in a healthy state.

Should you have any additional questions that were not laid out in this document, please feel free to contact the development editor for your journal and they will gladly answer any questions you have.

Frequenty Asked Questions