Journal Policies

Publication under the Open Access Policy - Gold Road
This is an open-access journal. Therefore, the articles are available for free download on the website.

Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of the articles published in this journal without asking the publisher or author for authorization, provided proper attribution is given.

 

Copyright

The journal reserves the only right of first publication, allowing authors to maintain copyright.  

The articles published in this journal are treated in compliance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. 

Therefore, you are free to: 

  • Share - reproduce, distribute, communicate to the public, display in public, represent, perform and act this material in any medium and format; 
  • Modify - remix, transform, and rely on the material for your works. The licensor cannot revoke these rights as long as you comply with the terms of the license. 

Under the following conditions: 

  • Attribution - You must acknowledge appropriate authorship, and provide a link to the license and indicate if any changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in a way that may suggest the licensor endorses you or your use. 
  • Prohibition of Additional Restrictions - You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that impose legal constraints on others as to what the license allows them to do. 

 

Repository Policy

Phenomena Journal is a Gold Open Access journal that promotes the widest dissemination of scientific research. Authors are free to deposit the accepted version of their article in institutional, disciplinary, or general repositories immediately after publication without restrictions.

To ensure proper citation and traceability, it is recommended to include the official DOI and a link to the published version on the journal’s website.

This policy is registered on Sherpa/RoMEO. Authors can use platforms such as Zenodo for greater visibility.

Archiving Policy

Phenomena Journal is archived on CLOCKSS to ensure long-term preservation and accessibility of published content. This guarantees that all articles remain available even in the event of unforeseen circumstances affecting the journal's website.

 

Description of Peer Review

Phenomena Journal follows a double-blind peer review process, where both authors and reviewers remain anonymous to each other to ensure unbiased feedback and evaluation. All submissions undergo an initial assessment, during which an editorial director evaluates the manuscript's quality, novelty and relevance to the journal to decide whether to accept or reject it. If the manuscript successfully completes this first evaluation, 2/3 external reviewers are selected, taking into account the following criteria:

1. reviewers' expertise in the manuscript's subject area;

2. availability to review the article in a reasonable timeframe;

3. absence of conflicts of interest.

 

The editorial board members reserve the right to refrain from sending the article for peer review if it is considered irrelevant, lacking rigor, or not meeting appropriate scientific standards. The referees' judgments will be sent to the author even if they receive a negative response.

 

Reviewers’ Guidelines

Potential reviewers are contacted by e-mail, which contains the manuscript title, abstract, and assignment deadline. The selected reviewer accepts or declines the assignment within 7 days. It is acceptable to propose an extended deadline when the given deadline (usually 4 weeks from the task acceptance date) cannot be met. Reviewers must not accept an assignment if they are aware of any potential conflicts of interest.

Reviewers must produce a careful and objective review, providing useful feedback to help authors improve the article without being overly critical. They must analyze the paper and provide opinions about general concerns such as clarity and quality of writing, validity of the scientific approach, and whether the article provides new information.

When evaluating a manuscript, reviewers must provide:

• A general overview of the paper

• An organized evaluation

• Assessment of strengths and weaknesses (e.g., literature review is up to date; methods align with study purpose or research questions; methods described in sufficient and appropriate detail; research design or study approach is adequate; approach to data analysis is appropriate; thoughtful consideration given to the study limitations; manuscript provides new information that is likely to be of interest to our readers).

• Possible improvements

• Commonly overlooked areas: title, abstract, tables and figures, references.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts should be reviewed, maintaining the confidentiality of the authors. When authors submit manuscripts for review, they entrust editors with the results of their scientific and creative work, upon which their reputation and career may be based. Disclosure of confidential details during the review of an author's manuscript may violate their rights. Reviewers are entitled to confidentiality, which the publisher must respect. Confidentiality may need to be breached if dishonesty or fraud is suspected, but otherwise, it must be maintained. Editors must not disclose information about manuscripts to anyone other than the authors and reviewers (including their receipt, content, status in the review process, reviewers' criticisms, or final decision).

 

Editor’s Final Decision

After the peer-review process has ended and an adequate number of reviews has been received, the editorial director makes the final decision about the manuscript (accept, invite a revision, or reject) based on all the reviewers’ comments, general assessment, and other external factors (e.g., the article relevance to the journal aims and scope, similar articles recently published, number of accepted articles awaiting publication, potential impact of the article, etc.). Editorial board members may be consulted to make a final decision. A decision summarizing the opinions of editors and reviewers will be sent to the corresponding author.

 

Ethics

Phenomena Journal adheres to the principles outlined in the guidelines on Good Publication Practice established by COPE and ICMJE, which are designed to promote responsible and ethical publishing practices.

Furthermore, in alignment with the ICMJE’s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, we expect authors, reviewers, and editors to uphold best practices and ethical standards in all aspects of their work.

Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Academic Publishing

The Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Academic Publishing should apply to all published content, including special issues and conference proceedings. These principles also recognize that editors and publishers are responsible for promoting accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusivity in all aspects of publishing.

Editorial decisions should be based on academic merit. They should not be influenced by the origin of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. The journal maintains an impartial stance on territorial descriptions, maps, and author affiliations published. All territorial claims are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the affiliated organizations, the publisher, the editors, or the reviewers.

Complaints and Reactions to Allegations of Ethical Violations

Phenomena Journal promotes and strongly supports ethics in academic publishing and is committed to responding promptly and transparently to any complaints regarding alleged ethical violations.

If an authority or individual has grounds to believe that an article published by Phenomena Journal contains errors, omits relevant data, or involves ethical issues, they are invited to submit a report to the Editorial Board. All reports must be submitted by email to [email protected].

When a complaint is received, the Editorial Board of the journal takes the following steps:

  • A confirmation of receipt of the complaint is sent within five working days.
  • The Editorial Board reviews the complaint and determines whether an internal inquiry is required.
  • If an internal inquiry is required, the Editorial Board will appoint a group of experts (who may be members of the Editorial Board or internal reviewers) to investigate the matter. The Editorial Board may also consult external experts to obtain independent opinions.
  • The Editorial Board will conduct a thorough and impartial assessment of the complaint.
  • The Editorial Board will provide a full and reasoned response to the complaint within 60 working days.
  • The Editorial Board may take a range of corrective measures following the inquiry, if necessary, including publishing a correction, a retraction or an expression of concern.
  • If an internal inquiry is not required, the Editorial Board will provide a full and reasoned response within 60 working days.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to report any unresolved allegations to COPE for further review.

Plagiarism

Phenomena Journal does not accept submissions that have been previously published in other journals. Our journal conducts plagiarism checks on all submitted articles using certified software (Grammarly®). Articles suspected of plagiarism are thoroughly reviewed for accuracy. If unethical practices are identified, this may result in immediate rejection. All authors submitting articles to our journal are required to adopt these policies.

The following sources are provided to assist in identifying potential instances of plagiarism and unethical behavior.

  1. Roig, M. Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing. St Johns University.
  2. Long TC, Errami M, George AC, et al. Responding to Possible Plagiarism. Science 2009; 323:1293-1294.
  3. Lewis J, Ossowski S, Hicks J, Errami M, and Garner HR. Text similarity: an alternative way to search MEDLINE. Bioinformatics 2006; 22:2298-2304.

 Duplicate Publication

Duplicate publication refers to a work that substantially overlaps with a previous publication, sharing the same hypothesis, data, discussion, and conclusions without clear and explicit acknowledgment of the original study. The journal considers such practices unethical.

 

Ethics Approval for Human and Animal Studies

Phenomena Journal strictly follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) policy on Protection of Research Participants.

The journal requires that all research involving human participants adhere to the highest ethical standards. Authors must confirm that their studies have been reviewed and approved by an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board (IRB) before commencing the study. The manuscript must include a statement specifying the name of the approving body, the approval reference number, and the date.

Researchers should also ensure that the study complies with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki, as revised in 2013. Participants or their legal guardians or an authorized legal representative must provide written informed consent, and their confidentiality and welfare must be safeguarded at all times.

If any doubt exists as to whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and then demonstrate that the institutional ethical committee explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors must indicate that the institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

Editors may ask authors to provide a copy of official documents, such as an approval or exemption letter, prior to making an editorial decision. Manuscripts lacking clear ethical approval documentation or justification for the absence of such approval will not be considered for publication.

Requirement to Register Clinical Trials

All clinical trials submitted for consideration must be prospectively registered following the ICMJE recommendations. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison or control groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Medical interventions include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, changes in the care process, etc. As a condition for publication consideration, the journal requires that trials be registered in an official, publicly accessible registry before the enrollment of the first patient in compliance with ICMJE requirements.

 

Informed Consent

When authors wish to include details about cases, other personal information, or images of patients, appropriate written consents, permissions, and authorizations must be obtained. Patients have the right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent.

The author is responsible for ensuring the following:

  • Each individual, or their legal guardian or an authorized legal representative is informed in advance about:
    • The fact that video, recording, photograph, image, illustration, case report, or any other identifiable form is being created.
    • The purposes for which such media and materials are being produced.
    • The possibility that individual images or elements of these works may be identifiable through search engines.
  • The individual, their legal guardian, or an authorized representative must provide explicit, fully informed written consent.

Written consent must be retained by the author, and copies of the consent or proof of such consent must be provided to the Editorial Board upon request.

Particular care must be taken to obtain fully informed consent without coercion when children are involved, when an individual has cognitive or intellectual disabilities, when an individual's head or face appears, when an individual's name or other personal details are mentioned, or when other vulnerable groups or individuals are mentioned.

If a child’s parents or guardians do not provide consent for the use of the child's images, such consent must be considered denied, and the images should not be used. To minimize the risk of misuse, only images of children who are appropriately clothed should be utilized.

Even if consent has been obtained, care must be taken to ensure that the depiction and title of the person in question are respectful and do not appear denigrating.

Special precautions should also be taken when a specific case report is likely to be extensively covered by the media so that the individual is fully informed of the potential extent of publicity and can make an informed decision about participation.

Non-identifiable Images

Formal consents are not required for the use of completely anonymous images from which the individual cannot be identified, such as X-rays, ultrasound images, histological preparations, provided they do not contain identifying marks and are not accompanied by text that could identify the individual in question. Although no formal consent is required, the author should inform the patient that their images will be used in a scientific publication as a matter of good practice and courtesy.

Even if details that could identify a patient or allow a patient to identify themselves must be removed from case reports, complete anonymity cannot always be guaranteed, so informed consent must be obtained for all case reports. If consent has not been obtained, simply using bars over the eyes or blurring the face of the individual to anonymize a photograph is insufficient.

Special Considerations

Names, initials, hospital or social security numbers, dates of birth, or other personal or identifying information of patients and research subjects should not be used.

Images of patients or research subjects should not be used unless necessary for scientific purposes and explicit permission has been granted as part of the consent process. Even if consent has been granted, identifying information should be omitted if not necessary.

If identifying characteristics are modified to protect anonymity, authors must ensure that the modifications do not alter the scientific meaning.

 

Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author's institution), a reviewer, or an editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence their actions (such relationships are also known as dual loyalties, competing interests, or conflicting loyalties). These relationships range from negligible to a high potential to influence judgment. Not all relationships represent a true conflict of interest. On the other hand, the potential for a conflict of interest may exist regardless of whether an individual believes that the relationship influences their scientific judgment. Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancy, stock ownership, fees, paid expert testimony, and patent applications and registrations) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to compromise the credibility of the journal, authors, and science itself. However, conflicts can arise for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion.

All participants in the peer review and publication process must disclose any relationships that could be considered potential conflicts of interest. Disclosure of such relationships is also important in relation to editorials and review articles, as bias in these types of publications may be more difficult to detect than in original research reports. Editors may use the information disclosed in conflict of interest and financial interest statements as the basis for editorial decisions.

COI for Authors

When authors submit a manuscript, whether it be an article or a letter, they are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that could influence their work. To avoid ambiguity, authors should explicitly state whether there are any potential conflicts in a dedicated statement at the end of the manuscript. Additional details, if necessary, must be provided in a cover letter accompanying the manuscript.

Scientists have an ethical obligation to present research results credibly for publication. Additionally, as individuals directly responsible for their work, researchers should not accept agreements that interfere with their access to data and their ability to analyze it independently and to prepare and publish manuscripts. Authors should describe the role of the study sponsor, if any, in study design, in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the report for publication. If the supporting source did not have such involvement, this should be clearly stated. The potential for bias introduced when sponsors are directly involved in research is analogous to methodological biases.

Editors may require authors of a study funded by an agency with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome to sign a statement, such as "I had full access to all the data in this study and assume full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis." Editors retain the right to review copies of the protocol and/or contracts associated with specific project studies before accepting such studies for publication. 

COI for Editors and Reviewers

Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that may affect their opinions of the manuscript and must abstain from reviewing specific manuscripts if there is the potential for bias. Moreover, they must not use knowledge of the work prior to its publication to further their own interests.

Editors making final decisions about articles must have no personal, professional, or financial involvement in any of the manuscripts they evaluate. Other editorial staff, if involved in editorial decisions, should provide editors with an up-to-date description of their financial interests (as they may pertain to editorial judgments) and abstain from any decision where a conflict of interest exists.

 

Role of Funding Source

Authors are asked to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design, in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding sources had no such involvement, this should be clearly stated.

 

Authorship

Submission to Phenomena Journal signifies that all listed authors have agreed upon the manuscript's contents, including the authorship list and contribution statements. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring this consensus and confirming that all authors have approved the submission. Additionally, the corresponding author manages all communication between the journal and co-authors throughout the submission process and after publication.

The author list must include all eligible contributors and exclude non-contributors. In accordance with the ICMJE recommendations, authorship is based on the following four criteria:

  1. Significant contributions to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.
  2. Drafting the work or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
  3. Final approval of the version to be published.
  4. Agreement to take responsibility for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions related to accuracy or integrity are properly addressed.

Corresponding Authors’ Responsibilities

The corresponding author is solely responsible for managing all communication with the journal and coordinating communication among co-authors. Prior to submission, the corresponding author must ensure that all authors are included in the author list, that everyone has agreed upon the order of authorship, and that all authors are aware of the submission.

Following acceptance, the corresponding author receives the proof, shares it with all co-authors, and communicates with the journal on their behalf. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to verify the accuracy of all proof contents, including ensuring that co-authors’ names are present and correctly spelled and that affiliations are accurate.

If the corresponding author fails to fulfill these responsibilities – such as neglecting to respond to critical emails or not assisting co-authors with journal-related matters – the journal reserves the right to contact all authors directly to address and resolve any issues or disputes.

 

Transparency in Aggregate Data Use

In some research fields, the analysis of large datasets can lead to results subject to a range of interpretations, where the analyst's subjectivity can influence the outcome. Therefore, transparency about the use of aggregate data and analysis methods is necessary. Authors must provide a detailed description of the statistical and analytical methods used, including criteria for inclusion/exclusion of data and procedures for handling missing data. Where appropriate, information should be provided on data sources and data collection methodologies.

 

Contact details