Journal Policy

Scientia Accounting and Finance Journal (SAFIJ) is committed to maintaining high standards of academic quality, integrity, transparency, and ethical conduct throughout the publication process. The following policies apply to authors, reviewers, editors, and all parties involved in the submission, review, editorial decision-making, and publication of articles in SAFIJ.

Peer-Review Policy

  • All submitted manuscripts are initially assessed by the editorial staff.
  • Manuscripts that are not suitable for the journal's scope or basic requirements may be rejected without external review.
  • Manuscripts considered suitable for further evaluation are sent to a minimum of two qualified reviewers using a double-blind peer-review process.
  • Reviewers evaluate the scientific soundness, originality, methodology, clarity, relevance, and academic contribution of the manuscript.
  • Editors make decisions based on the reviewers' comments and recommendations.
  • Possible decisions are Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Reject.
  • The Editor-in-Chief has the final authority to determine whether a manuscript will be published.

Plagiarism Policy

  • Plagiarism and self-plagiarism are not permitted in SAFIJ.
  • All submitted manuscripts are screened using Turnitin to detect plagiarism and textual similarity.
  • Authors must ensure proper citation and acknowledgment of all sources, ideas, data, and quotations.
  • Similarity results are assessed by the editorial team according to the nature and context of the identified overlap.
  • Manuscripts indicating a similarity level of more than 20% may be rejected by the editorial board.
  • Authors must submit an Originality Statement confirming that the manuscript is original and is not simultaneously submitted or under consideration for publication in another journal.
  • Authors must also attach a plagiarism-check report when submitting the manuscript to SAFIJ.

Retraction Policy

Published articles normally remain part of the permanent scholarly record. However, under exceptional circumstances, an article may be withdrawn, retracted, removed, or replaced when serious errors, ethical violations, legal concerns, or other significant issues are identified.

Article Withdrawal

Article withdrawal may occur when the initial version of an article contains an error or has been accidentally submitted twice to SAFIJ and/or another publisher. Withdrawal may also occur when there is an infringement of the scientific code of ethics, including double submission, false claims of authorship, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or other ethical violations.

Authors who become aware of such circumstances may request withdrawal of their article by submitting a formal withdrawal statement addressed to the editorial board of SAFIJ.

Article Retraction

A retraction may be carried out when an article is found to involve serious infringements of scientific or publication ethics, including double submission, false authorship claims, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, fabricated authorship, or similar violations. Retraction may also be used to correct significant errors in submission or publication.

Retraction may be initiated by the author or editor following consideration by the editorial board. The following procedures may apply:

  1. If an ethical violation is identified before publication, the editor may return the manuscript to the author and terminate the publication process.
  2. If an ethical violation is identified after publication, the following mechanisms may be applied:
    1. A retraction notice titled "Retraction: [Article Title]" may be published in a subsequent issue and listed in the journal's contents.
    2. The online article may be preceded by a clear retraction notice informing readers of the article's status.
    3. The original article may be retained with a watermark on each PDF page indicating that it is "Retracted."
    4. The HTML version of the article may be removed where necessary.

Article Removal: Legal Limitations

In an extremely limited number of cases, an article may need to be removed from the online database of SAFIJ. This may occur where the article is clearly defamatory, constitutes a hoax, infringes the legal rights of another party, is subject to a court order, or presents a serious threat to state security.

In such circumstances, the bibliographic metadata, including the title and authors, will normally be retained, while the article content will be replaced by a notice indicating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.

Article Replacement

In cases where a published article contains a serious error that may create a significant risk or materially affect the reliability of its findings, the authors may request that the flawed original be retracted and replaced with a corrected version.

The applicable retraction procedures will be followed, with the retraction notice providing a link to the corrected and republished article and maintaining a clear history of the document.