Asian People Multidisciplinary Social Sciences Journal is an academic, interdisciplinary, and refereed journal published biannually by Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Malaysia. The aim of the journal is to provide a venue for researchers and practitioners to share theories, views, and research results related to learning and social interaction, which includes, but not limited to continent of Asian territories e.g. Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Western New Guinea. Even though we encourage submissions with the focus on Asian people, we also accept papers located in the broader context of Asia extricably linked with issues from the other parts of Asia. Articles are published in Bahasa Melayu and English only.
Open Access Policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Language Policy
APJ accepts manuscripts written in Bahasa Melayu and English only. For manuscripts in Bahasa Melayu must also have tittle, abstract and keywords in English.
Publication Ethics
This is the statement of ethics for APJ published by Penerbit Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin Malaysia (UniSZA Press). This statement was adapted from the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and covers the code of ethics for Editor-in-Chief, editorial board members, reviewers and authors.
DUTIES OF AUTHORS
- Have the responsibility of ensuring only original work is submitted.
- Must not reproduce work that has been previously published in other journals.
- Must not submit any articles that are being reviewed or considered by the journal to other journals simultaneously.
- Are only allowed to publish their work elsewhere after receiving a formal rejection from the journal or if their request to withdraw their work is officially accepted by the journal.
- Must inform the Editor-in-Chief or the publisher of any inaccuracy of data in their published work so that correction or retraction of article can be done.
- Should make significant contributions and be held accountable for any shortcoming in their work.
DUTIES OF REVIEWERS
- Must disclose any competing interest before agreeing to review a submission.
- Can refuse to review any submission due to a conflict of interest or inadequate knowledge.
- Review all submissions objectively, fairly and professionally.
- Reveal any ethical misconduct encountered while reviewing to the Editor-in-Chief for further action.
- Should ensure the originality of a submission and be alert to any plagiarism and redundant publication.
- Must not discuss the content of the submission without permission.
- Adhere to the time allocated for the review process. Requests for extension to review the submission are at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
DUTIES OF EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
- Actively contribute to the development and the greater good of the journal.
- Act as ambassadors for the journal.
- Continuously support and promote the journal.
- Review any work assigned to them.
DUTIES OF EDITOR-in-CHIEF
- Evaluate manuscripts fairly and solely on their intellectual merit.
- Ensure confidentiality of manuscripts and not disclose any information regarding manuscripts to anyone other than the people involved in the publishing process.
- Has the responsibility to decide when and which articles are to be published.
- Actively seek the views of board members, reviewers and authors on how to improve/ increase the image and visibility of the journal.
- Give clear instructions to potential contributors on the submission process and what is expected of the authors.
- Ensure appropriate reviewers are selected/ identified for the reviewing process.
PLAGIARISM
Authors should submit only original work that is not plagiarized and has not been published or being considered elsewhere. Appropriate software may be used by the editorial office to check for similarities of submitted manuscripts with existing literature. Inclusion of fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements is unacceptable. Work and/or words from other publications must be appropriately cited or quoted.
REPORTING
Authors should state their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. The methods used in the work should be clearly and unambiguously described so that the findings can be repeated and confirmed by other researchers.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
A statement on conflict of interest must be included in the manuscript if authors receive any support that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
AUTHORSHIP AND COLLABORATION
Name of authors listed in a paper should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the report. Only those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the work must be acknowledged or listed as contributors. It is the duty of the corresponding author to ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper. All co-authors must approve the final version of the paper and agree to the version of the paper before submission.
MULTIPLE OR REDUNDANT
Authors should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research output in more than one journal or primary publication. A similar manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal concurrently as this constitutes as unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
Review of Manuscript
APJ journals use single-blind review, which means that the reviewer knows the author’s name, but the authors do not know the reviewers’ identities unless reviewers choose to include their names in the review. Every submitted paper will go through a review process that involves a minimum of one reviewer to a maximum of three reviewers. The number of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. The review will take around 6 weeks.
