Journal Policies

Heca Journal of Applied Sciences is committed to upholding the highest standards through our editorial, publishing, and peer review policies, ensuring integrity and excellence in every aspect of our work.

Peer Review Policy

Heca Journal of Applied Sciences ensures that every manuscript submitted is evaluated with rigor, fairness, and objectivity, supporting the maintenance of high scientific integrity and ethical standards. Authors benefit from constructive feedback aimed at enhancing their work's quality and impact.

Editorial Evaluation:
Upon submission, the editorial team conducts a preliminary review to determine if the manuscript aligns with the journal's scope, holds potential interest for our readers, and fulfills the basic submission requirements.

Peer Review Process:
Manuscripts that meet editorial standards proceed to the single-blind peer review phase, wherein they are scrutinized by at least two independent reviewers who are subject matter experts. In the single-blind model, the reviewers are aware of the authors' identities, but authors are not privy to the identity of their reviewers. This ensures an unbiased evaluation from the authors’ perspective, centering the assessment on the scientific value, novelty, importance, clarity, and relevance to the journal's scope.

Reviewer Selection:
Reviewers are chosen based on their subject matter expertise, experience, and absence of any direct conflicts of interest with the work in question. Our journal is dedicated to a fair review process, albeit the reviewers' awareness of the authors’ identities, expecting that evaluations are impartial and solely based on academic merit.

Reviewer Guidelines:
The reviewers receive comprehensive guidelines highlighting the review process and the criteria for manuscript appraisal. Despite knowing the authors' identities, reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive feedback to foster the progression of scholarly work.

Reviewer Feedback:
Detailed and helpful feedback is very important in single-blind reviews. Reviewers focus on the strengths of the manuscript and suggest ways to improve it without any bias. Their comments are shared with the authors, along with a summary of the editor's decision.

Author Response:
Authors are invited to respond to reviewers' comments thoroughly and are expected to revise their manuscripts in accordance with the feedback received. Authors should address each comment in a point-by-point fashion and explain how the revisions have been implemented.

Editorial Decision:
Based on the reviewers' feedback, the authors' revisions, and the editor's own judgment, a final decision to accept, reject, or request further revisions is made. This verdict, along with additional feedback or directions, is communicated to the authors to close the review process.

Plagiarism Policy

Heca Journal of Applied Sciences is committed to upholding the integrity of scholarly publishing by ensuring that all work is original and free from plagiarism. Plagiarism, which includes using someone else's words, ideas, or materials without proper credit, is not allowed. This includes text, images, tables, figures, and other content. Authors are expected to make sure their work is original and properly cites all sources. All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using Turnitin. Those with a similarity index above 20% may be subject to rejection.

Copyright and Licensing

Articles published in Heca Journal of Applied Sciences will be Open-Access articles distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC BY-NC). This permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Open Access Policy

Heca Journal of Applied Sciences is an open-access journal, meaning that all articles published in the journal are freely available to readers worldwide. We believe in the unrestricted dissemination of scientific knowledge to promote wider access and collaboration across academic and research communities.

Self-Archiving Policy

Heca Journal of Applied Sciences is an open-access journal that supports the free dissemination of scientific knowledge. We encourage authors to make their published work widely available and to share it through institutional or personal repositories. Authors are permitted and encouraged to self-archive their manuscripts in compliance with our open-access policy. Authors may deposit the final published version (post-peer review and editing) of their article in any repository, provided proper attribution to the original publication in Heca Journal of Applied Sciences is maintained. We allow self-archiving of the manuscript in the author's institutional repository, personal website, or any other suitable platform, with the condition that it remains freely accessible to the public.

Advertising

Heca Journal of Applied Sciences does not accept any form of advertising or promotional offers within the journal.

Direct Marketing

Heca Journal of Applied Sciences is committed to maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of its users and contributors. We do not engage in direct marketing via email or share personal contact information with third parties for marketing purposes. Any communication sent to authors, reviewers, or subscribers will solely relate to journal activities, updates, or services directly associated with their involvement in the journal. We respect the rights of individuals to opt-out of receiving further communications at any time.