Policies

Open Access Policy

African Journal on Conflict Resolution is a peer-reviewed, open access journal, supporting the Budapest Open Access Initiative principles: “By ‘open access’ to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, is to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.” Therefore, copyright remains with the author/s of the article/s.

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Copyright and Licensing

The African Journal on Conflict Resolution applies a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY–NC–ND 4.0) license.

All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Copyright for the journal, as well as all articles published by the journal, resides with the journal/ACCORD.

Digital Preservation Policy

African Journal on Conflict Resolution utilises both the Portico and the PKP Preservation Network (PN) systems to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. Click here to view African Journal on Conflict Resolution in the Portico Keeper's Registry.

Language Policy

Articles should be of high academic quality and should be written in English using U.K. spelling. All authors are encouraged to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission. Once manuscripts have been copy edited by the AJCR’s copy editor, authors are required to accept changes to grammatical errors or provide reasons where the language edits are not accepted. Any revisions after copy editing should only be done on the copy-edited version of the manuscript.

Authorship Policy

The confirmation of authorship and order in which author names appear should be clarified before submission. Authorship is defined as having played an active role in the conceptualisation of the study, collection and analysis of data, drafting of the manuscript for submission, revision of the manuscript and to provide final approval of the version of the manuscript for publication. In particular, the corresponding author is responsible for all communication between the editorial team of the AJCR and the co-authors. This includes ensuring that all author details forms and plagiarism declarations are submitted to the Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief upon submission of the manuscript, distributing proofs to all co-authors and returning the revised as well as the final manuscript for publication. All authors are expected to assume responsibility for the originality and integrity of the manuscript in accordance with the policies of the AJCR.

All authors are required to complete an author details form (with details of each author in the order in which their names should appear in the published paper) and an author statement page (to be completed and signed by each author individually).  Authors are encouraged to provide their ORCID (Open Researcher Contributor ID).

Author Contributions

The role and contribution of each author should be very briefly explained in a separate MSWord document. The details of the contribution can include: the role of the author in conceptualising the study, methodological design, data collection, analysis and validation, writing, revision and finalisation of the manuscript for publication. In cases where funding was obtained, roles related to funding acquisition can be included.

Peer Review Policy

All articles (excluding book reviews) are subject to two peer reviews. Upon submission of the manuscript, authors do so under the declaration that the manuscript is original, has not been submitted for consideration in another publication, is not under a review process in another publication and has not been previously published in another publication. All authors are required to sign the author statement page in which they agree to the conditions stipulated above.

After a manuscript has been submitted for consideration, it will undergo an initial screening by the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor. During this process, the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor examine the manuscript to ensure that it meets the minimum requirements of submission, complies with the policies of the journal, and does not contain plagiarism and that it falls within the thematic scope of the AJCR. The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor appoint two specialist peer-reviewers per manuscript, who are selected based on their expertise on the subject. The reviews are double-anonymous or double-blind which means that the identities of both the authors and the reviewers remain concealed. All reviewers are expected to populate, sign and return the AJCR assessment form to the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor upon completion of the review. Reviewers are strongly encouraged to complete their reviews within 21 days of receiving the manuscript. Based on the recommendations of the review, the editors will take a decision to accept the manuscript with or without minor or major revision, return it to the authors for revision and resubmission or, rejection of the manuscript. If reviewers diverge in their recommendations, the editors will send the manuscript to a third reviewer. Manuscripts that are resubmitted after revision will be processed as new submissions. In cases where the manuscript is accepted with minor or major revision, the authors have 30 days to address the comments of the reviewers and resubmit the revised manuscript. Authors must indicate how the reviewers’ comments have been incorporated into the new manuscript and on the other hand, provide reasons where comments have not been incorporated. After returning the revised manuscript, the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor will make a decision as to whether the manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Article Processing Charges (APC's)

African Journal on Conflict Resolution does not charge Article Processing Charges (APC's) or any other fees. This is a diamond open access journal, with no fees to the reader or the author.

Conflict of Interest Policy

Authors, reviewers and editors are expected to declare any conflicts of interest. During the submission, authors are required to declare conflicts of interest. Reviewers are also required to declare possible conflicts of interest when approached for peer review. In the same way, the editors are held to the same requirement. Sources of conflict of interest are related to employment, institutional membership, sources of funding and payments connected to the research which in turn compromises the integrity and validity of the research. Authors are therefore required to acknowledge all in-kind support related to the production of the paper and must be declared upon submission. This will be included in the published version of the paper. A conflict of interest can also arise out of a relationship between the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor or the peer reviewers and the authors (for example, as colleagues, students, supervisors or former co-authors). The AJCR will address all cases of conflict of interest in line with the guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In the case of a declaration of conflict of interest, it does not equate to an automatic rejection of the manuscript. Any competing interests will be displayed on the published papers.

Members of the AJCR Advisory Panel can submit their manuscripts for consideration and will be processed following the same procedure and subject to the same policies as other submissions.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors are welcome to appeal a decision on their manuscript by explaining and substantiating reasons for the appeal in a signed letter to the Editor-in-Chief within 7-10 days of the decision. The Editor-in-Chief will review the letter and any supporting documentation to make an informed decision. The decision of the Editor-in-Chief is final.

Complaints regarding the policies, procedures and management of the AJCR should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief. All complaints will be thoroughly investigated while ensuring transparency. The outcomes of the investigation will be communicated timeously.

Confidentiality

Authors, reviewers, the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor are expected to treat all submissions and related correspondence as confidential.

Author contact information is not published on the manuscript but can be made available upon request after the author has agreed to have his or her contact information shared. Upon publication of the manuscript, it will be marketed on social media platforms - X, Facebook and LinkedIn - in which case the social media handle of the author will be used, unless otherwise instructed by the author.

Ethics Policy

Authors making submissions which make reference to interviews or recorded conversations must ensure that the consent to use the interview material is confirmed. In this regard, it is the sole responsibility of the author to ensure that data collection which involves people (through interviews, focus group discussions etc.) is conducted responsibly, with consent and with consideration of the implications of the publication of interview material. Authors are permitted to anonymise such references but must ensure that it is formatted according to the AJCR Style Guide.

Plagiarism Policy

All manuscripts submitted to the AJCR must be original. By submitting the signed author statement form upon submission of the manuscript, the author confirms that the submission is entirely based on original research and that all unoriginal or paraphrased content has been clearly referenced according to the Harvard style, as explained in the AJCR’s Style Guide. Any copyright infringement or plagiarism identified in the paper constitutes a serious offence and will lead to an immediate and irreversible rejection of the submission.

If evidence of plagiarism is reported in a manuscript after it has been published, the editors will conduct an investigation which involves informing the author of possible plagiarism. If the outcome of the investigation has concluded that material has been plagiarised, the article will be retracted and the Editor-in-Chief will issue a statement.

If AI (Artificial Intelligence) or AI-assisted tools, such as ChatGPT or other Large Language Models, are used in the development of the manuscript, it needs to be disclosed by the authors in the Methods (or similar) section of the manuscript. Authors need to clearly explain which AI tools were used and how they were used. The authors take sole responsibility for all content contained within the manuscript, which includes any parts developed in conjunction with AI tools. AI tools cannot be listed as an author of the paper.

Errata (Retractions, Corrections and Appeal) Policy

A manuscript is retracted when plagiarism has been identified or when there are major errors related to the data. A notice of retraction will be published which includes all details (author, title etc.) and the justification for retraction.

Other major corrections will be published as errata or corrigenda, at the discretion of the editors. It will link to the original article online. The publication of the article which contains the correction will be marked as ‘with corrigendum’.

Decisions on minor corrections such as typographical errors will be taken by the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor.

Disclaimer

Views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of ACCORD. While every attempt is made to ensure that the information published here is accurate, no responsibility is accepted for any loss or damage that may arise out of the reliance of any person upon any of the information this journal contains.