Submissions

Copyright Notice

Editorial Policies  

AJGEER adheres to the National Code of Best Practice in Editorial Discretion and Peer Review for South African Scholarly Journals

• Reviewers’ Recognition: Reviewers assigned to a manuscript should not hold any conflict of interest with the authors. They should not come from the same institution as the authors or published together with the authors in the last three years. Reviewers must have a doctorate equivalent with a proven publications record in the field of the submitted paper (Scopus or ORCID) and recognized academic affiliation. Reviewers, who accept a review invitation are expected to provide quality review reports and remain responsive throughout the peer review process by maintaining a standard of professionalism and ethics. 
• Suggesting/excluding reviewers: Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, authors should make sure they are independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer, or, if this is not possible include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepage, a link to the publication record, or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.

Post-Publications Policy

• Author name and affiliation change: Within 30 days of publication, where author wants to change the name or affiliation under which the manuscript was published. The author must submit a formal written request to the editor-in-chief and the publisher, outlining the reason for the name change. This must come with all supporting documentation (marriage, divorce, religious conversion, and any other legal documentation), upon approval, the AJGEER will update and republish the paper by directing the updated metadata to indexing services. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and any other sensitive information (such as personal reasons for a name change) will not be disclosed without the author's consent. At the disc
• Article corrections: Where errors are detected post-publications, corrections will be made and published online and in print forms at the discretion of the editor-in-chief as errata or corrigenda. is published when errors emanate from the publication process. The latter involves the correction of an error made by the authors. In both cases, the author will have to approve the corrections for publication. Where corrections are minor typographical mistakes, these will not warrant a whole new publication. 
• Article Retraction:Articles published by AJGEER should remain intact. However, should the situation warrant such as in cases of plagiarism, or data error, among others where the integrity of the journal is at stake, a paper may be retracted or replaced to protect scholarship. The editor-in-chief may determine such cases where an article needs to be retracted. The author may also initiate a retraction process if there are perceived errors in data and conclusions. A notice of retraction will be published online and in print forms for all articles which will include the details of the article, the reason for retraction, and the initiator of the retraction. 
• Appeal and Complaints:Authors may appeal a decision on their submission if they believe the decision was unfair. Please contact the editor-in-chief with your reasons for the appeal within 14 days of the decision through a letter. The editor-in-chief, in consultation with relevant members of the editorial board, will review the appeal letter. Where deemed appropriate, new reviewers may be appointed to evaluate the submission. Feedback will be communicated within 30 days. The decision of the editor-in-chief is final. If you have complaints about the procedures/policies of the journal, or conduct of our staff members, please contact the managing editor or the editor-in-chief with your complaints.
• Responses and Rebuttals:To encourage discussions on our publications, we welcome formal responses on articles published in the Journal in the form of commentaries. Such commentaries must be submitted within 30 days of the original publication. The commentaries will be subject to an external review. Responses and rebuttals must be written with respectful and collegial standards. Note that they must be directed at the content of an article and not the author(s).  Responses and rebuttals can also be submitted in the form of commentaries to articles published in other journals. 
• Conference Papers: Expanded and high-quality conference papers can be considered as articles if they fulfill the following requirements: (1) the paper should be expanded to the size of a research article; (2) the conference paper should be cited and noted on the first page of the paper; (3) if the authors do not hold the copyright of the published conference paper, authors should seek the appropriate permission from the copyright holder; (4) authors are asked to disclose that it is conference paper in their cover letter and include a statement on what has been changed compared to the original conference paper.
• Publications Ethics : AJGEER, follows the guidelines of the   Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and its  Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing to deal with potential unethical behaviour by authors, reviewers, or editors.
• Author Agreement:The author(s) agree(s) that the contribution is original work, was not published elsewhere, is not being considered for publication elsewhere, and will not be submitted for publication elsewhere unless it is rejected by AJGEER or officially withdrawn by the author(s). Authors submitting their papers to AJGEER automatically agree with all the policies of the journal. All opinions or arguments stated by the author(s), as well as facts and figures are strictly the responsibility of the author(s).
• Copyright and Licensing:All articles are published under a Creative Commons licence:( CC BY SA.4.0). This open-access license allows authors to grant copyright to share, copy, distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the work into all language formats, where the credit must be given to the creator and journal.  If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, proper attribution is given to the original author(s) and the journal. The journal standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of the published versions of the article under specific conditions. This includes publishing on personal websites or institutional repositories after publication while providing bibliographic details that credit this journal.
• Digital Archiving:The digital contents of the journal are easily accessible and are preserved for long-term access. All our articles are digitally archived on Sabinet and preserved through Portico which is a leading digital preservation service worldwide. The content is preserved as an archival version and is provided when required under specific conditions, such as discontinuation of the collection or website crisis.
• Privacy and Confidentiality: The privacy of authors, reviewers, and editors is of utmost importance. AJGEER ensures that all personal data, including contact information, manuscript details, and correspondence are treated confidentially. Manuscripts and related information are shared only with relevant parties involved in the peer review and editorial processes.

Language: The journal publishes in English only.

Data Transparency and Reproducibility: AJGEER encourages authors to provide access to raw data and materials to promote transparency in research. Where applicable, authors should provide sufficient detail in the methods and analyses sections. Authors should state whether data sets are publicly available or indicate reasons for restricted access if applicable, and the journal may request data availability statements.

Plagiarism: Authors must ensure that their work is original and free from plagiarism. Any form of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, is strictly prohibited. All manuscripts submitted to AJGEER are screened for plagiarism using software tools (e.g., Turnitin or iThenticate) to detect instances of copied text from other sources.

Citation Policy:  AJGEER observes citation manipulation practice by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Authors should ensure that the source cited is the material taken from the right sources (including their own published writing) and that appropriate permission is obtained. Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their work. Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.

Authorship and Attribution: All authors listed on a manuscript must have made a substantial contribution to the research. The corresponding author must ensure that all co-authors are aware of and agree to the manuscript’s content and submission. This requires all submissions to AJGEER to include details of every author who has made a significant contribution to the research and the drafting of the manuscript. The journal frowns completely at the practice of ‘gift authorship’, ‘honorary authorship’, and ‘ghost authorship’ where authors are listed without making significant contributions to the research or writing process.  At the point of submission, author details and respective contributions should be outlined in the manuscript and the cover letter with the corresponding author identified. All contributing authors will instantly receive a notification of submission and must be listed accordingly in a manner determined and agreed upon by the authors. Before publication, all contributing authors must have seen and approved the final version, whereby further changes to the authorship details should be communicated in writing to the editor-in-chief.  Authors are requested to read the submission procedures carefully and confirm that their manuscript has fully abided by the journal guidelines before submission. Authors are required to indicate their contributions to the manuscripts. Authors are to note that the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as artificial intelligence (AI) tools for generating text, editorial corrections, and spell checks of the manuscript cannot be considered as an author.  As such, where authors have consulted AI-assisted tools in their research methodology, its use must be disclosed, described transparently, and correctly referenced. If there are any competing interests, authors should acknowledge this at the point of submission by adding a ‘comment to the editor’. We advise that all potential authors go through the ASSAf and SciELO Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools and Resources in Research Communication as AJGEER fully subscribes to the guidelines provided by ASSAf and ScieLO. 

Research Ethics:  All manuscripts that involve human or animal subjects must adhere to ethical guidelines for conducting research and must be declared at the point of submission in compliance with ethical practices    Authors must indicate that an appropriate ethical review board approved their studies. Authors must also ensure that informed consent was obtained from participants involved in the study, where applicable. Details of these must be included in the methodology section of the manuscript. Manuscripts that fail to adhere to these instructions will not be considered for publication.

Misconduct or Unethical Practices: All submissions to AJGEER must be free of unethical practices. These practices may include plagiarism, falsification/fabrication of data, salami-slicing, ghost authorship, AI-generated full manuscripts as well as other practices that violate the principles of research ethics. Should the editorial team suspect any form of unethical practice, the review process is paused, and authors will be requested to explain for the sake of procedural fairness. The review process will only continue provided the suspected unethical practice is not substantiated. If the suspected unethical practice is substantiated, the article is instantly rejected. If the article has been published before the unethical practice is established, such an article will be retracted in line with the retraction policy discussed under the editorial policy.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest:  Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest that may influence their work. This includes financial, personal, or professional relationships that could bias the manuscript or its review process. Any conflicts of interest should be clearly stated at the time of submission. This arises when certain information is not made fully apparent, especially where such detail may influence the judgment of authors, reviewers, and editors. As such, at the point of submissions, authors must indicate if there are any conflicts of interest e.g. funding or acknowledgement that the editorial office should be aware of. An indication of the conflict of interest does not imply a rejection of the paper. Where a conflict of interest is stated, such information will be published alongside the paper. Although we use a double-blind peer-review process, reviewers are also asked to declare any conflict of interest which could include the perceived identity of the author, or shared relationship, among others. Such a declaration does not invalidate the review report. The editor-in-chief is also obliged to declare any conflict of interest about any submission. Where the editor is listed as an author for a particular manuscript, the system automatically excludes the editor-in-chief from accessing the manuscript. The editor-in-chief will withdraw from the evaluation process of any manuscript where they feel conflicted for instance e.g., submission by a student, close associate, or colleague, etc. The assistant editor-in-chief will take over the submission. Other members of the editorial office or the advisory board are allowed to publish in the journal. All their submissions will be treated exactly as other submissions by other authors.