Journal Policies

This page brings together the editorial, ethical and operational policies that govern Dhaara Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (DJPS), based on the guidelines and standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Open Access Policy

DJPS is an open access journal, meaning all its content is freely available to any reader without charge. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of any article in this journal, in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access.

Licensing. As an open access journal, DJPS publishes under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

This statement sets out the relevant duties and expectations of authors, reviewers and editors of the journal.

Responsibilities of Authors

By submitting a manuscript to DJPS, the author(s) warrant that the manuscript is their own, original work and that it has neither been published previously nor is currently being considered for publication elsewhere. They also warrant that the sources of any ideas and/or words in the manuscript that are not their own have been properly attributed through appropriate citations and/or quotes. An author should not normally publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in multiple journals or publication venues; such redundant publication is generally considered unethical and, if discovered, may result in a manuscript being rejected or a published article being retracted.

Authors of manuscripts reporting original research should present an accurate account of the work performed, accompanied by an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately, and the manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fabrication of results and knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and may be cause for rejection or retraction.

Where a manuscript reports on commercial software, hardware or other products, authors must include a declaration at the beginning of the manuscript stating that no conflict of interest exists, or describing the nature of any potential conflict. All sources of financial support for the research should also be disclosed.

Authors agree that, if accepted for publication, the article will be published under a Creative Commons licence as described in the Copyright and Licensing Policy below. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to include any images or artwork for which they do not hold copyright, and the copyright holder must be made explicitly aware that the material will be made freely available online under that licence.

Authors' names should be listed in order of their contribution, and all authors take responsibility for their own contributions. Only individuals who have made a substantive contribution should be listed as authors; others whose contributions are indirect or marginal (for example, colleagues who reviewed drafts or provided proofreading assistance) should instead be named in an Acknowledgements section. The corresponding author must ensure that all appropriate co-authors, and no inappropriate ones, are included, and that every listed co-author has seen and approved the final version of the article. Where an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published article, they have an obligation to promptly notify the editors and cooperate with them to correct or retract it as appropriate.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

DJPS reviewers perform this work on a voluntary basis. Reviewers are free to decline an invitation to review at their discretion — for example, if workload makes it impractical to complete a timely review — and should not accept assignments for which they feel unqualified. Reviewers who accept an assignment are normally expected to submit their review within three weeks, and should recuse themselves if they lack the required expertise or have a potential conflict of interest (for example, a competitive, collaborative or other relationship with the authors, institutions or companies associated with the manuscript).

Privileged information or ideas obtained through the peer review process must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Manuscripts under review must be treated as confidential documents and not shown to or discussed with others except as authorised by the DJPS editors.

Reviewers are asked to review as objectively as possible, refraining from personal criticism of the author(s), and to explain and justify their recommendations with detailed, constructive feedback. They should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the author(s), note any instances of improper attribution, and bring to the editor's attention any major resemblance between the manuscript and other published work, as well as any concerns about the ethical acceptability of the research reported.

Responsibilities of Editors

The DJPS editors have ultimate responsibility for deciding whether a submitted manuscript should be published, guided by the journal's policies and constrained by applicable legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Editors may consult with other members of the editorial team and with reviewers in making publication decisions.

Editors evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy of the author(s). They will not disclose information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than the author(s), reviewers and potential reviewers, and relevant editorial board members, as appropriate, and will make every effort to preserve the integrity of the double-blind review process.

When evaluating a manuscript, in addition to its rigour, presentation and contribution to the field, editors will also seek evidence that ethical harms have been minimised in the conduct of the reported research. Since DJPS welcomes submissions from any country, editors recognise that laws and regulations on research ethics vary worldwide, and may request a letter from the relevant institutional ethics committee or board where clarification is needed. Editors are guided by COPE's Retraction Guidelines and COPE's guidance on cooperation between research institutions and journals when considering a retraction, expression of concern, or correction.

Corrections, Retractions & Withdrawal

Corrections. Corrections are published in a subsequent issue under a dedicated Corrections and Addendum notice.

Retractions. A retraction is a public statement that withdraws, cancels, refutes or reverses an earlier published statement. It may be initiated by the journal's editors or by the author(s)/their institution; the editors will consult reviewers for their comments. An article will be retracted in cases such as multiple submission, plagiarism, or fraudulent use of data. An alteration that changes the main point of the original article is a retraction; one that leaves the main point intact is usually a correction. DJPS's retraction policy is based on the guidelines developed by COPE — see the COPE retraction guidelines.

Withdrawal. To withdraw a manuscript, the corresponding author must submit a formal request using our Article Withdrawal form. A withdrawn article remains archived in our database but is not further acted upon. A manuscript may also be withdrawn by the editors if it is discovered to be an accidental duplicate of another published article, or is found to violate our publishing ethics guidelines.

A withdrawal fee applies depending on timing: manuscripts withdrawn within 10 days of submission may be withdrawn free of charge; manuscripts withdrawn any time after review and acceptance are subject to a withdrawal fee of Rs. 1,000/- (India) or $50 (other countries). A fee is levied even where withdrawal is permitted after publication, and any article processing charge already paid is non-refundable.

Peer Review Policy

Once submitted, a manuscript first goes through initial screening for scope and quality. Manuscripts that pass this screening are sent for peer review, which helps editors reach a decision and helps authors improve their work. DJPS follows a double-blind review process, with reviewers assigned based on subject expertise and any ethical concerns taken into account. The peer review process usually takes 4–5 weeks.

Reviewers make one of the following recommendations:

Accept unconditionally — accept, with or without editorial revisions.
Accept conditionally — invite the authors to revise the manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision.
Reject in current form — reject, but indicate that further work might justify re-submission.
Reject outright — typically on grounds of specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance, or major technical/interpretational problems.

The final decision to accept or reject an article, after any revisions, rests with the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editors. A review certificate is issued to reviewers following a successful review, and a list of reviewers' names is published upon issue release.

Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of interest arise when authors, reviewers or editors have interests that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgement on what is published — interests which, if revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived.

Reviewers. Editors will select a guest editor where a conflict of interest exists with respect to an author, and will otherwise ensure reviewers are free of such conflicts. Reviewers should contact the editorial office to declare any potential conflict before reviewing an article. Minor conflicts do not disqualify a reviewer but will be taken into account alongside their recommendation.

Authors. All authors and co-authors must disclose any potential conflict of interest when submitting an article (for example, employment, consulting fees, research contracts, stock ownership, patent licences, or advisory affiliations). If accepted for publication, this information is included in the published article.

Editors. Editors will not make editorial decisions or take part in the editorial process for a manuscript where they have a financial or other conflict of interest — for example, a submission from their own academic department or institution. When an editor submits their own work to the journal, a colleague in the editorial office manages the manuscript, and the editor recuses themselves from discussion and decisions about it.

Plagiarism Policy

DJPS follows a strong plagiarism policy to ensure no part of a manuscript is plagiarised from other sources, and that proper reference is provided for all content drawn from elsewhere. All submitted papers pass through initial screening and are checked using the Advanced Plagiarism Detection Software, CrossCheck by iThenticate.

Plagiarism is the copying of ideas, text, data or other creative work (including tables, figures and graphs) and presenting it as original research without proper citation. Separate from plagiarism is the need for authors to obtain permission to reuse previously published work, even if properly cited, from the copyright holder (which is typically not the author). Authors must inform editors and reviewers when any portion of a paper is based heavily on previous work — including their own — and indicate the extent to which the paper depends on it.

Copyright and Licensing Policy

Copyright. Copyright of any article published in DJPS is retained by the author(s). Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely, as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified.

Publishing Rights. DJPS allows its author(s) to retain publishing rights without restriction. Authors grant DJPS a licence to publish the article and to identify itself as the original publisher. The Copyright Transfer Form must be completed and signed by all authors and submitted online together with the manuscript.

Licensing. As an open access journal, DJPS publishes under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which states:

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made, in any reasonable manner that does not suggest the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the licence permits.

Publication Charge / Waiver Policy

DJPS is an open access journal: all content is freely available to any reader, with no charge to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of any article.

For Editors. Where an editor is directly involved as principal author of a submitted article, that article receives a complete waiver of publication charges (no APC is levied). Where an article is recommended by an editor, a 20% relaxation is provided on the total publication amount.

For Reviewers. Reviewers who complete their review within the journal's requested timeframe receive a 20% waiver on the total publication charge for a manuscript they submit as first author or corresponding author.

For Authors. The DJPS editorial selection committee decides APC waivers based on the quality of the research and the submitting author's country of origin (developing or least-developed country status). The waiver is applicable to one article per year for each submitting author.

Digital Archiving Policy

To ensure the long-term preservation, usability and accessibility of published content, DJPS follows a digital preservation policy built on three principles:

Intellectual Property — access to digital materials is provided while respecting and upholding authors' intellectual property rights and obtaining prior consent.
Access — digital preservation activities are carried out with the primary goal of long-term access to digital collections.
Authenticity — data remain unaltered, and the original record is preserved.

Digital preservation guards against a number of well-known risks: technology obsolescence (hardware, software, file formats, storage media); missing metadata that makes information hard to locate or render; unstable storage media that deteriorate over time; incompatible file formats, particularly from older software; loss through fire, flood, equipment failure or other disaster; records that are preserved but too poorly described to be found; and the discontinuation of a journal, which would otherwise make its published research inaccessible.

Self-archiving. All authors hold full copyright and self-archiving rights, and are permitted to archive their articles in open access repositories as preprints. Our self-archiving policy is recorded with SHERPA/RoMEO, a database of publishers' copyright and self-archiving policies.

DJPS is archived in Portico, the first digital preservation service to be independently audited by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) and certified as a trusted, reliable digital preservation solution serving the needs of the library community.

Advertising Policy

DJPS does not endorse any product or service marked as an advertisement or promoted by a sponsor in its publications.
Editorial content is not compromised by commercial or financial interests, or by any arrangement with advertising clients or sponsors.
The editorial board does not accept for consideration, and does not print, advertising articles, whether reimbursable or free.
Authors of scientific articles may not link to advertisements using keywords.