Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

"Journal of ICSAR" aims to provide a forum for international researchers on education in the field of special education in published articles.

The scope of the "Journal of ICSAR" is the field of special education, especially for children experiencing barriers to physical, intellectual, and social communication.

Section Policies

Articles

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Editorial

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Editorial Report

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Publication Frequency

Journal of ICSAR is published twice a year in the months of January and July

Open Access Policy

This journal is open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, print, search, or link to full text articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or author. This is in accordance with Budapest Open Access Initiative

Budapest Open Access Initiative

An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet. The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds. Removing access barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge.

For various reasons, this kind of free and unrestricted online availability, which we will call open access, has so far been limited to small portions of the journal literature. But even in these limited collections, many different initiatives have shown that open access is economically feasible, that it gives readers extraordinary power to find and make use of relevant literature, and that it gives authors and their works vast and measurable new visibility, readership, and impact. To secure these benefits for all, we call on all interested institutions and individuals to help open up access to the rest of this literature and remove the barriers, especially the price barriers, that stand in the way. The more who join the effort to advance this cause, the sooner we will all enjoy the benefits of open access.

The literature that should be freely accessible online is that which scholars give to the world without expectation of payment. Primarily, this category encompasses their peer-reviewed journal articles, but it also includes any unreviewed preprints that they might wish to put online for comment or to alert colleagues to important research findings. There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to this literature. 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, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

While the peer-reviewed journal literature should be accessible online without cost to readers, it is not costless to produce. However, experiments show that the overall costs of providing open access to this literature are far lower than the costs of traditional forms of dissemination. With such an opportunity to save money and expand the scope of dissemination at the same time, there is today a strong incentive for professional associations, universities, libraries, foundations, and others to embrace open access as a means of advancing their missions. Achieving open access will require new cost recovery models and financing mechanisms, but the significantly lower overall cost of dissemination is a reason to be confident that the goal is attainable and not merely preferable or utopian.

To achieve open access to scholarly journal literature, we recommend two complementary strategies.

I. Self-Archiving: First, scholars need the tools and assistance to deposit their refereed journal articles in open electronic archives, a practice commonly called, self-archiving. When these archives conform to standards created by the Open Archives Initiative, then search engines and other tools can treat the separate archives as one. Users then need not know which archives exist or where they are located in order to find and make use of their contents.
II. Open-access Journals: Second, scholars need the means to launch a new generation of journals committed to open access, and to help existing journals that elect to make the transition to open access. Because journal articles should be disseminated as widely as possible, these new journals will no longer invoke copyright to restrict access to and use of the material they publish. Instead they will use copyright and other tools to ensure permanent open access to all the articles they publish. Because price is a barrier to access, these new journals will not charge subscription or access fees, and will turn to other methods for covering their expenses. There are many alternative sources of funds for this purpose, including the foundations and governments that fund research, the universities and laboratories that employ researchers, endowments set up by discipline or institution, friends of the cause of open access, profits from the sale of add-ons to the basic texts, funds freed up by the demise or cancellation of journals charging traditional subscription or access fees, or even contributions from the researchers themselves. There is no need to favor one of these solutions over the others for all disciplines or nations, and no need to stop looking for other, creative alternatives.

Open access to peer-reviewed journal literature is the goal. Self-archiving (I.) and a new generation of open-access journals (II.) are the ways to attain this goal. They are not only direct and effective means to this end, they are within the reach of scholars themselves, immediately, and need not wait on changes brought about by markets or legislation. While we endorse the two strategies just outlined, we also encourage experimentation with further ways to make the transition from the present methods of dissemination to open access. Flexibility, experimentation, and adaptation to local circumstances are the best ways to assure that progress in diverse settings will be rapid, secure, and long-lived.

The Open Society Institute, the foundation network founded by philanthropist George Soros, is committed to providing initial help and funding to realize this goal. It will use its resources and influence to extend and promote institutional self-archiving, to launch new open-access journals, and to help an open-access journal system become economically self-sustaining. While the Open Society Institute's commitment and resources are substantial, this initiative is very much in need of other organizations to lend their effort and resources.

We invite governments, universities, libraries, journal editors, publishers, foundations, learned societies, professional associations, and individual scholars who share our vision to join us in the task of removing the barriers to open access and building a future in which research and education in every part of the world are that much more free to flourish.

February 14, 2002
Budapest, Hungary

Leslie Chan: Bioline International
Darius Cuplinskas: Director, Information Program, Open Society Institute
Michael Eisen: Public Library of Science
Fred Friend: Director Scholarly Communication, University College London
Yana Genova: Next Page Foundation
Jean-Claude Guédon: University of Montreal
Melissa Hagemann: Program Officer, Information Program, Open Society Institute
Stevan Harnad: Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton, Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Rick Johnson: Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
Rima Kupryte: Open Society Institute
Manfredi La Manna: Electronic Society for Social Scientists
István Rév: Open Society Institute, Open Society Archives
Monika Segbert: eIFL Project consultant
Sidnei de Souza: Informatics Director at CRIA, Bioline International
Peter Suber: Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College & The Free Online Scholarship Newsletter
Jan Velterop: Publisher, BioMed Central

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

Peer Review Process

The submitted article will be reviewed initially by the reviewer. The reviewing process will be conducted minimally by 2 reviewers through a double-blind peer-reviewed process. The acceptance of the submitted article considers the reviewer's suggestion and recommendation. The article will be published after the concluding meeting of the Editorial Board.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Ethical Guideline for Journal Publication

The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed "Journal of ICSAR" is an essential building block in developing a coherent and respected knowledge network. It directly reflects the quality of the authors' work and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in publishing: the authors, the journal editors, the peer reviewers, the publisher, and the society. Universitas Negeri Malang and the Department of Special Education, as publishers of this Journal, take its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously, and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities. We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint, or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, the Universitas Negeri Malang, the Department of Special Education, and the Editorial Board will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful and necessary.

Publication decisions
The editors of the "Journal of ICSAR" are responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers when making this decision.

Fair play
An editor at any time evaluates manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality
The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the author's express written consent.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgment of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts with conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention
Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication
An author should not generally publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to multiple journals concurrently constitutes unacceptable publishing behavior.

Acknowledgment of Sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have influenced the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed significantly to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where others have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects
If the work involves humans, animals, procedures, or equipment with any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must identify these in the manuscript.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her published work, the author must promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism Includes But is Not Limited to:

Refer and/or quote terms, words and/or sentences, data and/or information from a source without citing sources in the record citation and/or without stating the source adequately;
Refer and/or quote random terms, words and/or sentences, data and/or information from a source without citing a source in the record citation and/or without stating the source adequately;
Using a source of ideas, opinions, views, or theory without stating the source adequately;
Formulate the words and/or sentences themselves from the source of words and/or phrases, ideas, opinions, views, or theory without stating the source adequately;
Submit a scientific paper produced and/or published by others as a source of scientific work without being expressed adequately.

Prevention

To prevent plagiarism, every article submitted to the Journal of ICSAR will be checked for its originality using Plagiarism Checker X