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Publication Policy

The Smṛti editors are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor 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 practice of peer review is to ensure that good social science is published. It is a process at the heart of good scholarly publishing and is carried out on all reputable journals. The referees play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of Smṛti and manuscripts are peer reviewed following the procedure outlined below.

Initial manuscript evaluation

All new submissions are screened for completeness and adherence to the Guide for Authors. Those that pass are then assigned to a Senior Editor for consideration for sending for peer review. Authors of manuscripts rejected at the initial evaluation stage will normally be informed within 1 week of receipt.

Editorial Board evaluation

When assigned a new submission, the Editor(s) will decide if it warrants peer review or if it should be rejected without review. Manuscripts rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, have serious conceptual and/or methodological flaws, have poor grammar or English language, or are outside the aims and scope of the journal.

Authors of manuscripts rejected at this stage will normally be informed within 10 days of assignment to the senior editor.

Feedback is provided by the Editor(s) for all manuscripts rejected without review and, where possible, suggestions are made on other suitable publication outlets.

Those manuscripts deemed suitable for peer review are passed to at least 2 expert referees for review.

Type of peer review

Smṛti employs double-blind review, where both the referee and the author remain anonymous throughout the process.

How the reviewers are selected

Reviewers are matched to the paper according to their expertise, and our referee database is constantly being updated. We welcome suggestions for reviewers from authors, though these recommendations may or may not be used.

Reviewer reports

Reviewers are asked to evaluate a manuscript for:

  1. originality and significance of contribution
  2. International relevance
  3. coverage of appropriate existing literature
  4. adequacy of methodology, analysis and interpretation
  5. clear, concise and jargon-free writing style
  6. organisation

Reviewers are asked to provide anonymous comments to the author and are also given the option of providing confidential comments to the editor. The comments to the author are also made available to other reviewers of the manuscript.

Reviewers are not expected to correct or copy edit manuscripts. Language correction is not part of the peer review process.

How long does the review process take?

Typically the manuscript will be reviewed within 90 days. If the reviewers' reports contradict one another or a report is unduly delayed, a further expert opinion will be sought. If necessary, revised manuscripts may be returned to the initial reviewers, usually within 1 month. Reviewers and Senior Editors may request more than one revision of a manuscript, and alternative reviewers may also be invited to review the manuscript at any time.

The final decision and time to publication

The Editorial Board is responsible for the decision to reject or recommend the manuscript for publication. This decision will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees.

Please note we may forward accepted papers for legal review if appropriate.

After acceptance, it currently takes 1 week to get a citable, uncorrected draft of the article online, another 4-5 weeks to get the final corrected article online, and a few weeks later this is compiled into an online volume and issue. The print copy follows 2-3 weeks later.

Privacy Policy

The journal is committed to maintaining the author’s confidence and trust with respect to the privacy of the personal information collected.  The privacy policy may be subjected to change from time to time.  Any changes will be updated on the website along with the revision date.

The types of personal information that the Journal collects directly from the author may include:

  1. Contact details, such as name, email address, postal address and telephone number;
  2. Educational and professional background information;
  3. Comments, feedback, posts and other content submitted to the Journal; and
  4. Uploaded/Submitted Files 

The Journal may share the personal information with:

  1. Relevant agents, representatives, joint ventures, and entities for which we are acting as an agent, licensee or publisher, such as societies and sponsors;
  2. Applicable suppliers and service providers, including editors, reviewers, email service providers and IT service providers. 

The journal takes precautions to safeguard the collected personal information against loss, theft and misuse and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction through the use of appropriate administrative, physical and technical security measures.

Publication Ethics

Hereunder are the ethical behaviours that are expected from the Author(s), Chief Editor, Editorial Board Members and Peer-Reviewers to the journals. 

Author(s) Responsibilities 

  1. The Author(s) must guarantee that the manuscript submitted to us has not been previously published or submitted elsewhere for publication. However, the author could submit the paper elsewhere if it is rejected by Smṛti Journal.
  2. There should be a guarantee from the Author(s) that the work is original and approval of the affiliations of the Author(s) must be given to publish the paper, if needed. Also that all authors whose names appear in the manuscript must have given their consents to the inclusion of the names and the order in which the names have been presented for publication.
  3. The Authors should provide, if required, more facts or data that may be asked for to authenticate the content being presented.
  4. Plagiarism is a serious offence, and authors must guarantee that the work does not contain any plagiarised material.

 Editorial Responsibilities

  1. Once the Chief Editor/Editorial Board receives a manuscript, the same is responsible for the first examination of the manuscript in terms of relevance and content. Based on this, the manuscript could be rejected outrightly or passed to reviewers for comments after assigning a number to the manuscript.
  2. The review reports of comments provide guidance for the Editor to decide on the suitability or otherwise of the article under consideration; this will be in terms of acceptance or rejection of the same.
  3. The journal operates a blind review in which both the reviewer and authors do not know each other. However in certain instances, the author(s)’ identity could be made known to the reviewer if the reviewer feels that it is needed.
  4. The Editor maintains the confidentiality of the manuscript at all times.
  5. The Editor normally sends the manuscript out to a competent reviewer who looks at the intellectual merit of the same and provides comments.

Reviewer Responsibilities

  1. It is the Reviewer’s responsibility to keep all information about the manuscript confidential at all times.
  2. Relevant papers that are significant to the study may be suggested by the reviewer for the improvement of the manuscript.
  3. Reviewer needs to make sure that all sources of data used in the manuscript are duly cited in the work. Thus, if a reviewer observes that there is similarity between the work being evaluated and another work that the Reviewer has read before, it must be reported to the Editor.
  4. The review should be done professionally with a Precis of what the study is about and stating the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript as well as the Reviewer’s opinion on the manuscript.

Publication Charges:

      Smṛti is a self-supporting e-Journal, hence, the operation of the journal is solely financed by the processing fees received from authors. Being an Open Access Journal, Smṛti does not receive payment for subscription as the journals are freely accessible over the internet. It costs money to produce a peer-reviewed, edited, and formatted article that is ready for online publication, and to host it on a server that is freely accessible without barriers around the clock. Therefore, a Publication Fee is applicable to all the author(s) as given below:

Publication Fees  : ₹ 1000 ( Research Scholars, Students)

                              : ₹ 1500 (Professor/Associate Professor/Assistant Professor/Faculty)

Publication Fees of a Paper includes:

  1. Publication of one entire research paper in Online
  2. Indexing process
  3. Editorial Process
  4. Maintenance of Website
  5. Link resolvers and journal infrastructures.

Modification of the Policies:

      Smṛti reserves the rights to change the terms, conditions and policies under which Smṛti E-Journal is offered, including but not limited to the charges. The user is responsible for regularly reviewing these terms, conditions and policies.