ERRCD Forum

You are welcome to ERRCDF Journals. Adhering to our guidelines will enhance a smooth peer-review and editorial process for your article. Therefore, please take note of all the instructions and follow them closely. You may also open your preferred journal for more information:

• Interdisciplinary Journal of Education Research
• Interdisciplinary Journal of Rural and Community Studies
• Interdisciplinary Journal of Sociality Studies
• Interdisciplinary Journal of Management Sciences
• Open Books and Proceedings

Originality, Trustworthiness and Misconduct
Submissions must be original and fall within the scope of the selected journal. It must include an assurance that the manuscript has not been published, submitted, or sent for consideration elsewhere. If required, proof of language editing done by native/L1 language speakers or experts in English Language should be submitted alongside the article as a supplementary file. Please be aware that only articles within ten per cent (10%) similarity index will be processed. Prior to proceeding, it is imperative to note that all submissions will undergo a screening process utilising the Turnitin plagiarism checker. However, the editor is rightfully obliged to suggest modifications and refuse any manuscripts with stated reasons without recourse to whether the manuscript is by invitation or a voluntary submission before publication.

ERRCDF condone zero tolerance for research misconduct such as plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication. Practices such as fabrication and manipulation of data, images, visual objects, and other research resources are prohibited and considered forbidden. Authors are expected to present an accurate account of data collection and their respective analyses. The true reflection of the work done should be presented. Anything other than that is considered unethical and would be rejected. Authors will receive an acknowledgement receipt of their submission immediately, and manuscripts outside the scope of the selected journal will be returned.

In the case of allegations regarding research misconduct, the publisher, alongside the journal editor, shall follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)'s core practice in dealing with such a situation.

Ethical Considerations
The issue of research ethics is essential and must be keenly followed to protect the researcher, co-researchers, participants, respondents and every object and subject element involved in the study. In education research, like other fields of study, adhering to ethical rules involving human beings, vulnerable populations, confidentiality, and anonymity, among others, should not be compromised. ERRCDF adheres to Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research published by the British Educational Research Association (BERA), which may be perused and applied accordingly.

Formatting of Manuscripts
The integrity of our review process is sacrosanct. Therefore, authors should make concerted efforts to remove all indications of identity from their manuscripts to ensure a blind relationship between the author(s) and the reviewer(s). These steps will be hundred per cent (100%) considered before initiating the review process:

• Author(s) should prepare two different documents; the first document named "main manuscript" must only contain the manuscript's title, the abstract and the entire article. The second document, which must be named and uploaded as a "supplementary file" must contain the title, author(s) information, and the email address of all the authors.
• In the case of the author(s) citing their previous works, the name(s) must be replaced with "author and year of publication" in the text and also replicated in the reference session instead of the authors' name, and article title, among others.
• When naming their documents, author(s) identification should also be removed from the properties of the files; instead, they should name the main article with "main manuscript" and the information file as "supplementary file".

Manuscripts must be prepared in Microsoft Word, using 1.15 spacing and 12-point size in Book Antiqua font. Authors are advised to employ italics rather than underlining, noting that figures, tables, and other graphics must be placed at the appropriate place within the text according to the author(s) interest. The recommended length for manuscripts is between 4000 and 7000 words, including references, an abstract of 250 words or less, and any appendixes. Kindly be advised that the prescribed word limit is not applicable to submissions categorised as "Short Communications" and "Commentaries".  Each heading must be numbered, for example, 1., 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, among others. In the case of multiple authors, the manuscript must indicate one author as the corresponding author. Before submission, you may check our published articles to ensure that your article is correctly formatted. Articles not formatted according to our format will be rejected.

Citation, Referencing and ORCID iD Requirement

All sources used must be acknowledged. Authors must ensure that all in-text citations are done appropriately and with no omission in the reference section. All citations in the manuscript must be referenced, while all references must have been cited. IJER adopted the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th edition publication guidelines, which should be strictly adhered to.

Starting in 2022, IJER mandates authors to have an ORCID iD. All authors must provide an ORCID iD for all articles published. The Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) is a free, 16-digit linkable identifier (iD) that allows researchers to be identified and distinguish identical authors from one another. For additional information, click here.

Data Availability
It is highly recommended that authors ensure the accessibility of their research data by either depositing it in a publicly accessible repository or providing it as supplementary material during the submission process. Authors are expected to disclose in their supplementary file if they have deposited their datasets into a public repository. And if otherwise, authors should clearly outline the reason(s) why data cannot be released. However, as a precautionary measure, authors are advised to remove any information that might reveal their identity from the anonymised file when making a data availability statement.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
It is the author's responsibility to disclose any conflicting, competing and financial interest that may influence the result production and construe or result in liability. All official sources of financial support should be disclosed. The author must, therefore, notify the Editor-in-Chief should there be any conflicts of interest.

Permission and Acknowledgement
The author's responsibility is to obtain written permission for published tables, figures, text passages, and illustrations. The author should create a separate section before references to acknowledge people, funding organisations, grants, and others. This section should be titled "acknowledgments", just like other sub-headings. However, the author(s) must obtain permission from the acknowledged person(s), organisations, and others.

Publication Process
Authors are requested to register and submit their manuscripts using the submission link of the selected journal. The submission and the review gateway are designed to guide authors and reviewers step by step throughout the process. If you are unable to provide an electronic version, please contact the Editor-in-Chief. The following is the publication process:

Step 1: The author registers and submits the complete manuscript in Word document following a double-blind peer-review policy and formatting prescription of the journal.
Step 2: The editor-in-chief checks the submitted manuscripts (subject to rejection if not within the journal's scope and unable to fulfil the standard research criteria).
Step 3: The articles are subjected to a plagiarism test (above ten per cent similarity result will be rejected and sent back to the author(s) for possible correction).
Step 4: The article will be assigned to a suitable editorial team member (content verification will be ascertained and may be rejected if found unsuitable).
Step 5: Two expert double-blind peer reviewers are selected from different institutions to review the manuscript. After that, the section editor evaluates the review results to decide based on the reviewer's recommendations. The likely recommendations are:

1. Accept in its condition,
2. Minor revision is required,
3. Major revision required,
4. Resubmit for another review process,
5. Reject and resubmit elsewhere.

Step 6: In the case of 1, manuscripts are processed for publication. In the cases of 2 and 3, the author(s) have to submit the revised manuscript through the revision menu, where manuscripts are checked by the editor-in-chief, section editor, and reviewers (may be rejected if it does not satisfy the reviewers' queries). In the case of 4, a new review process is initiated.
Step 7: The accepted manuscripts will be formatted and sent back to the author(s) for approval.
Step 8: A copy-edited version of the manuscript is uploaded and shared with the author(s) for final approval before final publication.

Peer Review Process
ERRCDF follows a double-blind peer review policy. This means that the identity of both the author and reviewer remain anonymous to each other. Articles are subjected to a rigorous peer-review process after the appropriate editorial members have decided on the quality and the relevance of the article to the journal. At this stage, the editor may reject or accept the article. If accepted by the editor, the article will be sent to two carefully selected peer reviewers with expertise in the article's subject area. The two reviewers are expected to give reports on the article upon which the assigned editor will decide based on the reviewers' recommendations.

If revisions are required, authors will be notified and informed accordingly. Authors will be requested to resubmit the revised version of the article within a certain period. If the revision is minor, the editor will make the final decision, and in the case of major revision, the article will be reevaluated by the same reviewers, and their recommendations will inform the final decision. Finally, an accepted article will be sent for copy-editing. The copy-edited version will be shared with the corresponding author using the journal's online system for possible proofreading, corrections of technical issues, and returning the copy to the editor.

Turn-Around Time
Depending on the reviewers' availability and promptness, our review process takes approximately 2 to 3 months. Authors may not need to follow up if the submission is less than 2 months.

Review Guidelines
Our journals value the role of reviewers in the double-blind peer review process towards publishing quality works; therefore, the reviewers are expected to accept for review only articles in which they have sufficient expertise. All the reviewers are requested to ensure the following:

1. The manuscript is within their area of expertise.
2. They can dedicate the appropriate time to conduct a critical review of the manuscript.
3. If any, they declare their conflict of interest and can decline the review if a conflict exists.
4. IJER follows the blind review process, so the manuscript and the review process should remain confidential during and after the review process.
5. The review of a manuscript should be fair, just, critical, honest and should not be influenced by the origin or geographical location of the manuscript, the religious, political or cultural viewpoint, gender, race, ethnicity or citizenship of the author.
6. Reviewers should only accept manuscript(s) that they are confident of and willing to dedicate appropriate time to review. However, prompt submission of review is our wish. 

Article Processing Charges (APC)
To finance and maintain our high-quality open access Journals, ERRCDF requires the author(s) of accepted articles to pay a one-time Article Processing Charge (APC). There are no charges for submission, rejected articles, figures, colour and length of articles. Also, there are no hidden and/or surcharges whatsoever. APC is payable when the article has been accepted for publication and when an invoice has been delivered. APC is used to cover all costs related to publishing, online hosting, and the archiving of each article. The current rate is 460 USD (R8,500) per article, and this is subject to review from time to time. The corresponding author will be required to make the payment and provide proof of payment within the stipulated period stated in the invoice. The article will only be published once full payment has been received.

Discount and Waiver
Students, unemployed researchers, early-career academics, scholars from marginalised communities, and authors from low-income countries are eligible to apply for a discounted rate or a complete waiver of the Article Processing Charge (APC). To initiate this process, please refer to the discount and waiver policy for comprehensive information and application details.

Publication Frequency

Prior to 2022, IJRCS published two issues on a continuous publishing model per year. From 2022, IJRCS publishes one issue per year, and a continuous publishing model applies. Therefore, articles ready for publication at any time of the year are immediately made available online on an article-by-article basis.

Starting in 2024, the Journal welcomes applications for special issues and encourages prospective special guest editors to submit their proposals. Interested individuals can find detailed guidelines and submission procedures in the Special Issue Policy.

Copyright and Licensing
All our Journals are open access and provide immediate open access to the published contents. Authors retain the copyrights of articles. Articles published are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence which permits non-commercial re-use (download, read, print, search, copy, distribute the link, etc.) of open access articles, as long as the original author and source are properly attributed, and provided the articles are not modified or altered. The authors grant the publisher permission and license to apply a DOI to their articles and archive them in databases and indexes such as DOAJ, SABINET, J-Gate, Scopus, EBSCO, ERIC, among others. The authors also grant the journal/publisher permission to publish the articles and be recognised as the original and the first publisher. Authors also grant other third-party users the right to non-commercially use the article freely as long as its original authors and citation details are acknowledged without prior permission from the publisher or the author.

Open Access Policy
Our Journals provide immediate open access to readers and other users. This means that the readers and other users pay nothing to download, copy, read, print, distribute, link to the texts or use them for other lawful purposes. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. However, an Article Processing Charge (APC) is required by the authors for the life maintenance of their articles.

Self-archiving Policy
ERRCDF Journals permit and encourage authors to post items submitted to our journals on personal websites, institutional repositories, social-networking sites, ResearchGate, and academia.edu, among others, both prior to and after publication while providing bibliographic details that credit, if applicable, its publication in these journals.