Editorial Policy

OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development
Open access peer-reviewed journal 

About the Journal

OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication. It welcomes original research and review articles in any sustainable and human development discipline. It provides:
• Open-access—accessible online for free
• Authors’ ability to retain copyright
• Peer review by experts & practicing researchers
• Post-publication tools to indicate quality and impact
• Community-based dialogue on articles
• International media coverage

Creative Commons license
OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development support creative common license  CC BY.

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

Journal ISSN 1923 – 6654 (Print), 1923 – 6662 (Online) published by Ontario International Development Agency, Canada.

Peer-Review
OIDA IJSD Journal uses a double-blind review process. All full paper submissions will be peer reviewed and evaluated based on originality, technical and/or research content/depth, correctness, relevance to Journal’s subject matters. The full paper submissions will be chosen based on technical merit, interest, applicability.

A journal’s decision not to publish a paper is usually the result of a managing editor’s opinion. That opinion is based on judgements of whether or not an article will have a significant impact in the given field. These judgments are therefore biased and tend to setback the publication of work. Oftentimes this work turns out to be completely relevant and of considerable importance.

OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development will use judgment to publish all technically sound papers. The judgment concerning the importance of any given paper, however, will be then made post-publication by the readership as they are the most qualified in determining the relevance and significance to their subjects of interest.

Open Access
Authors maintain ownership of the copyright of their article, however, they must allow the downloading, reusing, modifying, copying and distributing the articles in the journal by others. This is, of course, conditional to the citing of the original authors and sources but no permission has to be given from either the authors or publishers for the use of content.

Publication Fees
When publishing journals, there are costs involved in peer-review management, online hosting and archiving, and in journal production. To, therefore, provide Open Access, the journal utilizes a business model that aids in counteracting these expenditures. This is done in the form of a publication fee to the funders, authors, or institutions for the articles published.

OIDA funded projects (usually 85% papers on the journal from OIDA funded projects) – Free
Letter to the Editor and invited articles – Free
OIDA Conference paper (cost covered by Conference fee) – Free
Regular papers, short papers and short research commentaries US$ 500.00
Order a print issue – Canada and USA (includes shipping) US$ 50.00
Order a print issue – International (includes shipping) US$ 70.00
Order an electronic copy of the issue in pdf format – Free

For payment procedure please refer 
Website page Publication

Editorial and Peer-Review Process
All submissions are subjected to strict quality control as well as through the peer-review evaluation process before a decision is made.
The Journal criteria for publication are as follows:
• The results outlined in the study are the product of primary research• Results reported must be original and are being published for the first time
• All analyses including statistics and experiments are both executed in a high technical standard as well as outlined in plentiful detail
• Conclusions must clearly and properly relate to the data
• The article must be written in standard English using a comprehensive and cohesively organized style
• The research has been conducted in an ethical manner maintaining research integrity
• The article abides by the appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability

Prior to being sent off to our Editorial Board or Peer reviewers, all submissions must pass through quality control. This deals with elements such as full compliance with data deposition standards, and competing interests amongst others. Submissions will only be sent off if they have successfully met the requirements, and will otherwise be sent back to authors for additional review. There is no appeal process for articles that have been rejected.

Indexing and Archiving
The Journal is indexed in DOAJ, SSRN, EBSCO, AMICUS, Canada’s library and archives database for current and future generations.

About the publisher Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA)
OIDA was founded in 2001 and is a not-for-profit organization registered in Ontario, Canada. Its main task is funding applied research by researchers from South Asian and West African countries. The research funded is that based on the problems these researchers highlight as primarily necessary to their communities. Furthermore, any OIDA-associated; Canadian University, college, institution, or non-governmental organization researchers in need of technical support, will be assisted by OIDA. In addition to that, this organization also focuses on understanding the obstacles that inhibit communities in developing countries from realizing their developmental goals, and as such proceeds to enhance the abilities that will allow them to achieve measurable and sustainable results. This is done by undertaking projects and creating innovations particularly in South Asian and West African countries, as it is OIDA’s belief that these countries must take the lead in the production and application of knowledge that will realize and materialize these developmental goals for their own communities. Lastly, OIDA cultivates relationships and collaboration between Countries focusing on developmental projects, through the support of these projects as well as the encouragement of knowledge sharing amongst scientific, academic, and development communities in Canada and developing countries.

OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development is a not in an ISI Journal collection by Thomson Reuters.

Journal Impact factor

Most of the individuals treating the Impact factor as a main quality parameter for ranking the journals. But we should be noted that the Impact factor of a journal is no way related to the main quality parameters like quality of peer review and quality of content of the journal

Journal Impact Factor will be a quotient factor only and will not be a quality factor.
Journal Impact Factor will not be related to the quality of content and quality of peer review, it is only a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year or period.

Please visit our journal. URL:
http://www.ssrn.com/link/OIDA-Intl-Journal-Sustainable-Dev.html

It has all the statistics. You may visit each paper and calculate the impact factor on your own.  I have given information below how to calculate Journal Impact factor.

Journal Impact Factors* (*Source: Thomson Reuters, Science gateway)
Journal Impact Factor is from Journal Citation Report (JCR), a product of Thomson ISI (Institute for Scientific Information). JCR provides quantitative tools for evaluating journals. The impact factor is one of these; it is a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a given period of time.
The impact factor for a journal is calculated based on a three-year period and can be considered to be the average number of times published papers are cited up to two years after publication.

For example, the impact factor 2010 for a journal would be calculated as follows:

A = the number of times articles published in 2008-9 were cited in indexed journals during 2010
B = the number of articles, reviews, proceedings or notes published in 2008-2009
Impact factor 2010 = A/B

(Note that the impact factor 2009 will be actually published in 2010 because it could not be calculated until all of the 2009 publications had been received. Impact factor 2010 will be published in 2011)

Please note the following key points related to Journal Impact factor:
(1) Journal Impact Factor cannot be calculated for new journals. It means “the impact factor of a
journal is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years”, hence impact factor can be calculated after completing the minimum of 3 years of publication.
(2)  Journal Impact Factor will be a quotient factor only and will not be a quality factor.
(3) Journal Impact Factor will not be related to the quality of content and quality of peer review, it is only a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year or period.
(4) Journal which publishes more review articles will get the highest impact factors.

If you need further assistance please feel free to contact our office anytime.

Peer Review Procedures
Overview
All submissions to Journal are subject to a review process as follows:
Initial review
Once manuscripts are submitted, they are initially screened to affirm that all policies have been respected. Submissions are then subjected to a double-blind process.
Content Review
All of Journal submissions are evaluated by two reviewers. Whether or not additional reviewers and experts are needed to assist the review process, is up to the Managing Editor’s discretion.

Following evaluation, the managing editor may take any of the decisions below:
• Approve
• Minor Revision
• Major Revision
• Reject

In the case of a major or minor revision, authours have 30 days to resubmit their revised copy. Once resubmitted, the Managing Editor chooses whether to send the manuscript back to external reviewers or to produce a decision based on personal expertise.

There is no appeal process to accommodate rejected submissions.

Publication Ethics
OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development (Journal) strictly adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We give serious respect to its Code of Conduct and also strictly adhere to its Best Practice Guidelines.
Any offence committed regarding publications is taken seriously and all complaints received are investigated. Publications will either be removed or corrected upon the discovery of conclusive evidence of an offence.
Much in this same manner, it is expected that authors adhere to publication ethics as well, particularly in respect to relevant matters such as authorship, dual submission and plagiarism.

Plagiarism
There is a zero tolerance for plagiarism in Journal submissions.
Plagiarism may include, but is not limited to:
• Copying ideas, images, or data from other sources
• Directly copying text from other sources
• Reusing text from your own previous publications
• Using an idea from another source with slightly modified language

Anything from design to text must be appropriately cited or sourced to its original roots. This also means placing un-original text as quotes under quotations.
Stringent precautions will take place to catch plagiarism before publishing, however, on the rare occasion that it is detected post-publishing, action will be taken accordingly and will consist of either the removal or correction of the journal or any other measure that is seen fit. We do not take any responsibility for the misconduct of an author, or the repercussions caused by its report to the truant author’s institutions, should we so choose to report it. This holds true whether it plagiarism is detected prior to or post-publication.

Please note our integrity policies are adapted from:
The Research Development and Creativity Office at Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada.

Copyright and Open Access Agreement
In order to have Open Access, all authors must consent to publish their work on the Journal. Authors maintain ownership of the copyright of their articles. Having the articles published on Open Access, however, implies consent of the authors for others to use their work without asking anyone for permission and in any way, including but not limited to printing, copying, distributing, extracting, reusing, archiving, and downloading. Users have the right to use the articles in such ways provided that they properly source and give credit to the authors and the work’s sources. This allows the article the ability to circulate more broadly and as a result, may be included in any scientific archive.

Authorship Criteria
The following criteria outline what is necessary for authorship qualification:
• Conception and design of the work, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data
• Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
• Final approval of the version to be published.
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work

In order to be listed as an author, one must be qualified for authorship. Each qualified author must have had acceptable participation in the work as per defined above. Any other contributors should be listed in the acknowledgements section only.
When the work has been carried out by a group or center, the author list must include those who possess the same requirements of authorship already mentioned in the authorship guidelines.
Prior to submitting an article/paper, all authors must agree on the final manuscript. To ensure this has been done, each author will be contacted via email, to be informed of the manuscript’s submission.

Changes in Authorship
Changes to the list of authorship are permissible only under certain circumstances. The request must be made prior to publication and the corresponding author must contact the journal themselves. They must give a reasonable explanation for this change, and must submit a Change of Authorship form. In order to grant this change, the reasons must adhere to the guidelines highlighted above, and the corresponding author must provide confirmation, via writing, that all other listed authors consent. Anyone that is added or removed from this list will be notified individually.

Images and Figures
Any Images included in the submitted manuscripts must be original. The use of an image that has previously been copyrighted or published or that contains proprietary image data can cause copyright infringement. Using such images require the explicit written permission from the original copyright holder.
Furthermore, special attention should be taken to exclude any personally identifying information whether in the form of images or other.

Publication Fees
When publishing journals, there are costs involved in peer-review management, online hosting and archiving, and in journal production. To, therefore, provide Open Access, Journal utilizes a business model that aids in counteracting these expenditures. This is done in the form of a publication fee to the funders, authors, or institutions for the articles published.
Publication fees are payable for articles upon acceptance.

Publication Fee Assistance
The limited availability of grants is reserved for authors who demonstrate financial need. The grant is intended for use on publication fees. For consideration, authors must contact the managing editor directly.

You may contact the Managing Editor of the journal by
email at: oida@ontariointernational.org or
by phone at: + 1 613 612 7615

You may contact the journal by
email at: oida@ontariointernational.org or
by phone at: + 1 613 612 7615

Agency headquarters:
Ontario International Development Agency
2581 River Mist Road
Ottawa,
Ontario, K2J 6G1
Canada.