About the Journal

Aims and Scope

International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences – the Journal of National Institute of Ecology is an open access peer reviewed journal.

The journal aims to offer authors a forum to address environmental issues from, across and within the natural and social sciences. The journal welcomes contributions both from fundamental and applied aspects of Ecology and Environmental Sciences. Contributions could be conceptual or methodological and empirical. In order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and the global challenges, the Journal promotes contributions which may address broader developmental considerations vis-à-vis ecological systems, sustainability, equity and justice.

We welcome trans/inter-disciplinary approaches including (but not limited to) biodiversity conservation, natural resource management, wetlands and aquatic ecosystem management, environmental science & engineering, ecological and environmental history, environmental economics, energy analysis, social ecology and human ecology.

Papers could focus on issues such as (indicative and not exhaustive) forests, water, energy, climate change, biodiversity, pollution, agriculture, eco-restoration and conservation, poverty-environment nexus; demography and bio-physical resource base; land-use changes; sustainability and sustainable development (ecological, economic, social, political, etc.); alternative development pathways; socio-ecological transitions and social metabolism; cultural, anthropological and economic analysis of environmental changes; eco-socialist approaches; ecological modelling; environmentalism and ecologic-economic conflicts; environmental law and governance; industrial ecology; valuation of natural resources and green accounting; alternative well-being matrices.

Contributions should be academically rigorous, logically consistent and address the globally priority concerns. Contributors could be academics, policymakers, professionals and students.

Editorial Policies

GENERAL

International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences – the Official Journal of the National Institute of Ecology is an open access peer-reviewed journal. Its registered office is c/o National Institute of Ecology, Delhi 110067, India. IJEES follows internationally accepted guidelines and practices that include the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers recommended by the relevant bodies.

The Editors or external reviewers review all manuscripts submitted to the IJEES once the editorial office clears the plagiarism level. Manuscripts submitted to the journal are expected to follow all the Guidelines. The author(s) is/are solely responsible for the contents in their submission and must be able to defend them, if necessary. Manuscripts not following the Guidelines are liable to be rejected or sent back to the authors for revision. Manuscripts accepted for publication may undergo changes in style, format, and language as warranted by copy editing, typesetting, and printing requirements.

EDITORIAL INDEPENDENCE

IJEES follows the best practices as listed by the internationally accepted guidelines. IJEES is governed by its Advisory Board based on Rules and Regulations approved by the NIE Executive Committee. The Advisory Board selects the Editors and frames the policy to be followed by IJEES. These Rules and Regulations ensure the complete independence of IJEES from the NIEs Executive Committee pertaining to its policies, practices, contents, and daily functions. The EC appoints the Managing Editor.

EDITORIAL REVIEW PROCESS

Only electronic submissions are accepted by IJEES (through the Submission portal). All subsequent communications are carried through the OJS platform. Submissions are checked for their adherence to the Guidelines and style sheet. All submissions are checked for similarities with existing works using software. The review process starts with the similarity report. Unless the similarity percentages (total as well as with individual sources) are less than the threshold value, it is not taken to the next stage.

The Editors review submissions, and the refereeing process is undertaken to arrive at a decision. Once assigned, the designated Editor/Associate Editor makes a decision on whether the paper is to be sent for review or not (i.e., 'desk rejection'). In case of review, the editor assigned identifies at least two reviewers from the list of experts. Currently, the reviewers are rotated to ensure that no reviewer has to advise on more than five papers per year. Submissions are reviewed in a blind review process. In case of desk rejection, the decision is communicated with general comments on the shortcomings and/or scope for improvement. Submissions made for the section Book Reviews are reviewed by the respective Section Editors in a single-blindfolded fashion.

The journal invites submissions in the following Sections: Commentary, Review, Research article, Short communication. Editors either designate (usually) one of the Associate Editors or choose reviewers and review in a single-blindfolded fashion, i.e., the identity of the author is known to the reviewer but not vice versa. All communications between the authors and the reviewers in all Sections are carried through the OJS platform.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

(i) Editors and Associate Editors excuse themselves from being involved in any manner with such research papers which are :

(a) authored by current colleagues as well as graduate students at the same institution as authors.

(b) authored by students they taught and/or supervised.

(ii) Editors and Associate Editors must disclose any other close personal or professional relationship with the author(s) of a paper assigned to/placed before her/him for decision of any kind including and not limited to co-author of a current project, former student that s/he is still close to and/or her/his advisee or referee, which, in their opinion, may create a conflict.

(iii) Papers with such conflicts as mentioned above are handled by the Editors with appropriate procedures for confidentiality of refereeing. Papers submitted by an Editor/Associate Editor are handled by one of the Editors/Associate Editors with appropriate confidentiality procedures.

Editorial Standards

The Journal IJEES shall be as much inclusive as possible in terms of welcoming and considering submissions in both theoretical and applied, irrespective of the disciplinary lens and method. Submissions with empirical or experimental content are considered, though such a submission must contain a substantial and innovative component to be considered for publication.

Turnaround Time

IJEES aims to turn around papers as quickly as is consistent with a thorough evaluation of their scientific contribution. It aims to adhere to the following standards for turnaround time.

From submission by author as per guidelines to communication of the decision to the author: ~14 weeks.

Periodicity

The journal was published as a quarterly as print only till 2016 and started with online version. Starting 2019 it being published online only and print issues are produced on specific requirement. It is being published as bimonthly (6 issues per year) starting 2021.

Final version of the accepted papers (after copy editing and proof reading) will be published on the website in the order of receipt of the accepted versions. The final versions with pagination will be published subsequently as per the periodicity.

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

GENERAL

International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences – the official Journal of National Institute of Ecology Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement is based, in large part, on the internationally accepted guidelines and standards.

Recognising the ethical and other responsibilities, all reasonable measures are taken by IJEES against malpractices. IJEES publishes contributions based only on their quality, importance, originality, and relevance to the Aims and Scope of the Journal. Manuscripts are evaluated on the basis of their intellectual content without regard to caste, gender, sexual orientation, race, religious belief, citizenship, ethnic origin, or political philosophy of the authors. Relevant duties and expectations of authors, reviewers, and editors of the journal are stated below:

RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS

By submitting a manuscript to IJEES, the contributor(s) certify that the expressions in the manuscript are their own, original work and that it has neither been published previously nor is currently being considered for publication elsewhere. They also confirm 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, following the relevant Citation Style.

All contributors have to submit a declaration (by corresponding author, in case of multi-authored submissions) on the (a) copyright-free attribute of the content, (b) plagiarism-free attribute of the content, and any such. In case copyrighted material is used, the necessary permission must be enclosed with the submission in a separate file (see, Guidelines). Authors who publish in IJEES will release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial license (Attribution 4.0 International). The authors will sign a declaration to this effect before publication. This license allows anyone to copy and distribute the article for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given. The author(s) retain copyright on work published by IJEES unless specified otherwise.

Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to include any images or artwork for which they do not hold copyright in their articles, or to adapt any such images or artwork for inclusion in their articles. The copyright holder must be made explicitly aware that the image(s) or artwork will be made freely available online as part of the article under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial license (Attribution 4.0 International).

Submitting the same manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unacceptable. Such redundant publication is generally considered to constitute unethical publishing behaviour; if discovered, such practices shall result in rejection of a manuscript under consideration, and even retraction of a published article or any such action the Editors mat deem fit.

It is expected that authors of manuscripts reporting on original research will present an accurate and comprehensive account of the work performed, accompanied by an objective discussion of its significance. Relevant data, information, and other such should be represented accurately in the manuscript. The manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. The fabrication of results and the making of fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and may be cause for rejection or retraction of a manuscript or published article or any such action the Editors may deem fit.

All sources of financial support for the submitted research should be reported in the manuscript as part of acknowledgements.

The authors’ names should be listed in the submission in order agreed by them, and all authors take responsibility for their own contributions. Only those individuals who have made a substantive contribution should be listed as authors; those whose contributions are indirect or marginal (e.g., colleagues or supervisors who have reviewed drafts of the work or provided proofreading assistance, and heads of research institutes/centers/labs) should be named in the “Acknowledgments” section at the end of the submission, immediately preceding the List of References. The corresponding author must ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the submission, and that all listed co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the article and agreed to its submission for consideration of publication.

Where an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her/their article that has been published in IJEES has an obligation to promptly notify the editors and cooperate with them to correct the article or retract it as deemed appropriate.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF REVIEWERS

Reviewers of IJEES perform the work for the journal on purely voluntary basis and without any financial return. Their contribution in maintaining the quality of contents is acknowledged through a list of all reviewers published periodically. The Journal also issues reviewer certificates if requested.

All communications with reviewers are carried out only by the journal office. Reviewers are free to decline invitations at their discretion. Further, they should excuse themselves from the assignment if it becomes apparent to them at any stage that they do not possess the required expertise to perform the review, or that they may have a potential conflict of interest in performing the review (see, the Guidelines for IJEES reviewers).

Reviewers who have accepted manuscript assignments are normally expected to submit their reviews within four weeks.

Privileged information or ideas obtained by reviewers through the peer review process must be kept confidential and not used for any other purpose, including personal advantage. Every manuscript must be treated as a confidential document.

Reviewers are requested to be objective and refrain from engaging in personal criticism of the author(s). They are encouraged to express their views clearly, explaining and justifying all recommendations made. They are requested to provide detailed and constructive feedback to assist the author(s) in improving their work, even if the manuscript is, in their opinion, not publishable currently.

Reviewers should suggest relevant published work which has not been cited by the author(s). They also point out any instances where proper attribution of sources has not been provided. They should call to the attention of the responsible Editor or Associate Editor any major resemblances between a manuscript under consideration and other published articles or papers of which they are aware, as well as any concerns they might have in relation to the ethical acceptability of the research reported in the manuscript.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORS

The concerned Editor/Associate Editor has the responsibility for deciding if a submission made to IJEES should be published, and in doing so is guided by the journal’s policies as determined by the Editorial Board and approved by the Advisory Board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The Editor/Associate Editor may consult with the other members of the Editorial Board, as well as with reviewers, in making such decisions.

The Editor/Associate Editor will evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the caste, gender, sexual orientation, race, colour, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s).

The Editor/Associate Editor/Managing Editor will disclose only appropriate and necessary information about a submission under consideration to the author(s), reviewers and potential reviewers. Additionally, the Editor/Associate Editor/Managing Editor will make every effort to ensure the integrity of the blind review process.

When evaluating a manuscript for publication, in addition to considering standard criteria pertaining to the rigor of the manuscript, the quality of its presentation, and its contribution to humanity’s stock of knowledge, the Editor/Associate Editor will also seek evidence that ethical harms have been minimized in the conduct of the reported research. They will question whether the benefits outweigh the harms in the particular study’s case. Since IJEES welcomes submissions from any country, it is necessary to recognize that laws and regulations regarding research ethics and ethical approval vary worldwide. As such, the Editor/Associate Editor may seek clarification in this regard with the author(s) and request that they supply a letter from the relevant institutional ethics committee or board that approved the research if necessary.

The Editors will be guided by internationally accepted guidelines when considering retracting, issuing expressions of concern about, and issuing corrections pertaining to articles that have been published in IJEES.

Complaints and Appeals

COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS

The text below describes how IJEES deals with complaints and concerns raised, and how authors can appeal to an editorial decision.

Nature of complaints considered:

Complaints may relate to a failure of process (e.g. delays) or a severe misjudgement (e.g. an improperly applied retraction notice). They may also relate to author or reviewer misconduct. Complaints may be made by anyone, including authors, reviewers and readers.
All complaints must be within the scope of the Rules and Regulations governing IJEES, and must be related only to the content, policies or processes of the journal. The Journal will not consider complaints where the complainant simply disagrees with a decision taken by the Editorial team (see appeals process below).

Process for making a complaint

Complaints should be emailed to ijees1[at]gmail.com with a header “complaint on …………… published in vol. XX issue XX”. Please provide as much detail as possible and include supporting information where appropriate (for example, copies of email correspondence). Please include the title and DOI if it is already published and the manuscript ID number if it is unpublished (with copies of system generated email acknowledgement to the receipt of submission).

Process for handling the complaints

A formal acknowledgement of the complaint will be made within five working days. Every attempt will be made to provide a full response within four weeks. Otherwise, regular interim communications will be made, at least once in every four weeks.
Complaints will be dealt with by the journal office wherever possible, with reference to IJEES policies and guidelines, but will be escalated to the Corresponding Editor where necessary. The Corresponding Editor has the right to consult the other Editors or with any third party over the issue and make a final decision. That final decision shall be binding, and the matter shall be deemed closed.
Where a complaint is made about an Editor, it will be independently investigated by one or the other two Editors. All complaints against the Editors be referred to NIE President, and then, be referred to Advisory Board or NIE Executive Committee as s/he deems appropriate. The purpose of the investigation is to establish that (a) the correct procedures have been followed in line with the guidelines and policies including Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement, (b) decisions have been reached based on academic criteria and (c) personal prejudice or bias has not influenced the outcome.

Complaints or concerns about author or reviewer misconduct

If you wish to complain or raise a concern about suspected author or reviewer misconduct, please refer to our Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement for more detail about our processes for dealing with allegations and the kind of evidence we might require. The process for raising these complaints and concerns is the same as above.
Concerns may include, but are not limited to:

Suspicion of an ethical problem with a manuscript (including undeclared conflicts of interest, false ethical declarations, use of identifiable images without consent or use of copyright images without permission)
Suspicion of unethical image manipulation in a published article
Suspected manipulation of the publication process (including practices such as duplicate publication, self-plagiarism, salami-slicing or excessive self-citation)

We take allegations of misconduct very seriously and will investigate following established best practices in publication ethics.

If your complaint is not satisfactorily resolved:

If you do not feel your complaint has been addressed, you may wish to refer it further.
NIE: Complaints against editors may be referred to the President of NIE, the Society owning the journal through nieindia[at]gmail.com. Please note, however that IJEES and NIE abide by a strict policy of editorial independence. Complaints about editorial matters (rejections, retractions, appeals etc.) will be referred back to the Editors, whose decisions on such matters are final.

Appeals

We will consider appeals against the editorial decision only under highly specific circumstances and usually only where a clear breach of policy can be demonstrated or author can indicate a clear misunderstanding of the article by the reviewer.

Rejected manuscripts

The most common reasons for rejecting manuscripts are:

The article content is not within the scope of the journal.
The article is not written in clear and intelligible English.
The article does not conform to our Guidelines for Authors in terms of content, style and/or formatting.
The article does not meet the journal’s quality as per recommendations of reviewers and decision of the editor.

In the last three instances, articles are normally reopened to authors to allow changes to be made within a four week window. Failure to meet this deadline will result in automatic rejection of the manuscript.
We will not consider appeals against the Editor’s decision under any of these circumstances.
It is the author’s responsibility to provide the correct contact details, to monitor correspondence from our office, to respond promptly using the correct email address, and to comply with our requirements. Where a manuscript has been rejected because authors have failed to meet the revision deadline, a new submission is possible.

Rejection of revised articles

Revised articles will not usually be rejected provided they conform to our guidelines for revised versions. We will not consider appeals against the editorial decision to reject a revised article if it does not meet our requirements.
Authors whose manuscript has been rejected on other grounds may follow the appeals process if they wish to make an appeal but note that Editors are unlikely to reverse their original decision unless significant new information is supplied or it can be demonstrated that our processes were at fault.

Retracted articles

Editors do not take the decision to retract articles lightly and will usually have conducted an extensive investigation before doing so. We will only consider appeals against retractions if substantial evidence can be provided to demonstrate that the decision was unjust.

Appeals process

Any appeals against the editorial decision must be made by email to ijees1[at]gmail.com with a copy to nieindia[at]gmail.com addressed to the Publisher within two weeks of the decision. You will need to provide a detailed explanation of why you disagree with the decision and include supporting information. You should also include the article title and DOI if you are appealing a decision to retract a published article and the manuscript ID number you are appealing a decision to reject an unpublished manuscript.
We will acknowledge receipt of your appeal within five working days and it will be passed to the Editors for consideration. Wherever possible, the appeal will be considered by an Editor who was not involved in the original decision. The handling Editor will make a recommendation to either reject the appeal, request further information or uphold the appeal. We aim to resolve all appeals within four weeks. The editorial decision on these matters is final and we will not consider further appeals on the same grounds.

Adapted from, MedEdPublish, "Complaints and Appeals".

Allegations of Misconduct

Allegations of Misconduct

What are construed as Misconduct:

Fabrication: making up review, data or results and recording or reporting them
Falsification: manipulating research materials and methods, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the submission
Plagiarism: the claim and/or appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or expressions without giving appropriate credit.

It does not include honest error or differences of opinion. If misconduct is suspected, editors will act in accordance with the relevant internationally accepted guidelines.

If, after assessing the available evidence, the editor has concerns about a submission, a response will be sought from the authors. If the editors find the response unsatisfactory, the editors may take suitable action including writing to employee instructional head and the funding agency.

In cases of published plagiarism or dual publication, an announcement will be made in IJEES explaining the situation, including 'retractions' if work is proven to be fraudulent. In such cases editors will act in accordance with the relevant internationally accepted guidelines. The other journal will be informed in case of dual publication.

Prior submission and redundant publication

IJEES only considers article submissions which have not been published previously. Authors are to make a declaration to this effect prior to release of their work. In addition, it is not acceptable for an author to submit a manuscript (or manuscripts describing essentially the same matter) to more than one journal at a time. However, prior release (or publication) in some recognised forms is permitted (see, below).

It is important to ensure that research work is only published once. If it is published more than once, it might cause problems in systems which use the number of publications to assess an individual’s or an institute’s research output.

Conference presentations or posting unrefereed manuscripts on preprint servers are not considered prior release (or publication) and are therefore permitted. There may be situations where previously released (or published) work is included in summary form, but it must be made clear to the editor on submission that this is the case. Publication of an abstract at a meeting does not preclude later submission of the full article to IJEES. Submissions containing material that has previously formed part of a Master's, MPhil, PhD or other academic thesis which has been published according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification is not considered as prior release (or publication). However, covering letter should clearly indicate such a case.

It is called redundant publication, duplicate publication and text recycling, where authors reproduce verbatim content from their other publications (occasionally referred as self-plagiarism); it is not permitted. When this is identified editors will follow the relevant internationally accepted guidelines and consider publishing a notice of redundant publication.

Minor overlap or a small amount of redundancy may be unavoidable. This must always be reported transparently and be properly attributed and compliant with copyright requirements. In research articles, some degree of text recycling in the background/ introduction/ methods section of an article may be reasonable. However, overlap in the methods, analysis, results and conclusions section will not be acceptable. In review articles, if text is recycled from an earlier publication without any further novel development of previously published opinions or ideas or when they are presented as novel without any reference to previous publications, it will not be acceptable.

Source: Adapted from Royal Society, "Misconduct and redundant publication"

Authorship

AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA

1. General Introduction:

As a term, authorship can refer to the creator or originator of an idea, or those who develop and bring to fruition the product that disseminates intellectual or creative works (or, expressions). It confers credit and has important academic, social, and financial implications. Authorship also implies responsibility and accountability for published work.

At a minimum, authors should guarantee that they have participated in creating the work as presented and that they have not violated any other author’s legal rights (e.g. copyright) in the process.

2. Criteria for authorship:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work s/he has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged (see, below).

3. Non-Author Contributors

Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged. Examples of activities that alone (without other contributions) do not qualify a contributor for authorship are acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading. Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group under a single heading (e.g. "Surveyors" or "Participating Investigators"), and their contributions should be specified (e.g., "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data", "participated in writing or technical editing of the manuscript").

Adapted from ICMJE, 'Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors'

Access, Copyright and License

Access

There will be only an e-version of the journal and on specific request print version could be provided at cost to the requesting authors/agencies.

This journal allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of its (e-version) articles and to use them for any other lawful purpose.

The e-version will be open access to all registered readers/users of the Journal.

The author(s) retain copyright on work published by NIE unless specified otherwise. This Journal is registered at the COPYRIGHT CLEARANCE CENTER INC. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, AM 01923, USA.

Licensing and publishing rights

Author(s) of work published by NIE are required to transfer non-exclusive publishing right to NIE of the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose.

Authors who publish in International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences – the official Journal of National Institute of Ecology will release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. This license allows anyone to copy and distribute the article for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given.

For details of the rights that the authors grant users of their work, see the "human-readable summary" of the license, with a link to the full license. (Note that "you" refers to a user, not an author, in the summary.)

The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences – the official Journal of National Institute of Ecology with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.

In case of re-publishing a previously published work, author may note that earlier publication may have taken place a license different from Creative Commons. In all such cases of re-publishing, we advise the authors to consult the applicable licence at article level.

Author Submission Fee

No fee will be charged to the author of a submission.

Article Processing Charges (APC)

The journal levies Article Processing Charges (APC) on all accepted for publication (see, Author Guidelines for the Rates).

E-version will be freely accessible to everyone.

Author Approval Form

All authors will submit the following form, before publication. For joint authorship, corresponding author will submit it after obtaining the approval from each author and it will be the responsibility of the corresponding author. IJEES office will share this form with the corresponding author.

AUTHOR APPROVAL FORM

The author(s) retain copyright on work published by NIE unless specified otherwise.

Licensing and publishing rights

Author(s) of work published by NIE are required to grant the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. NIE requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

1. I solely/jointly with ___________________ is the author of the work presently titled as _____________________________________________________________________

2. The Editor of International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences – the official Journal of National Institute of Ecology may cause this work to be included in the journal.

3. I hereby confirm that the article in no way whatever a violation of any existing copyright and that it contains nothing obscene, objectionable, indecent, or of a libelous or scandalous character or nature.

4. I am willing to publish the work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.

Signature

Name

Date

Full Address

Phones

e-mail

Archiving

All papers published in International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IJEES) are permanently archived on a server that hosts NIE website.

All papers are archived through PKP Preservation Network at LOCKSS.

Deposit /Repository policy

Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time. Sharing preprints will not count as prior publication (see 'Prior submission and redundant publication' for more information). If accepted for publication, we would advise authors to link the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI).

Authors are free to share ‘Author’s Accepted Manuscript’ on any institutional or subject depository.

Authors can enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after its publication in IJEES with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

The licensing agreement requires all authors to give IJEES the permission to publish and archive their work electronically. IJEES does not ask authors to transfer any copyrights to the journal. The author(s) retain all copyrights of their articles. However, authors only grant the publisher non-exclusive publishing rights to publish the articles. Please note that IJEES publishes only original materials, that is, works that have not been previously published elsewhere.

All authors and users are free to use, reproduce, or distribute the works published in IJEES in any way they prefer on the condition that the reproduced/ redistributed material clearly acknowledges that it was originally published in IJEES with all relevant publication details. When sharing works originally published in IJEES on other platforms, please use the final version made publicly available on IJEES's website. We also ask authors to avoid from engaging in new contractual or licensing agreements that will influence IJEES's existing rights.

If you are unsure whether the above statement allows you to reproduce or redistribute a work originally published in IJEES in your particular case, feel free to send an email to the managing editor.

Guidelines

Stage 1: Submission

All articles are to be submitted through Submissions portal only in MS-Word format.

Kindly read the Aims and Scope of the journal to ensure that the subject matter of submission is covered within it.

Please ensure that the submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
Author will need to give an undertaking that the submission in no way whatever a violation of any existing copyright and that it contains nothing obscene, objectionable, indecent, or of a libelous or scandalous character or nature. A declaration to this effect will be included in the cover letter. It will also include willingness of the author to publish the work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.

Along with the (a) cover letter, at the minimum three other documents containing (b) Title and Author Information, (c) Abstract, (d) Main Text are to be submitted.

The following copy-editing rules must be followed: British English (ize, iza, izy) for spellings (set Language as English (UK)); Oxford English Dictionary for hyphenation; Chicago Manual of Style 2017 author-date references style (parenthetical citation) for all citations and references. Where available, DOI and URLs for the references are to be provided by the author (may use https://search.crossref.org/ for locating DOIs).

The line spacing may be set at single spacing, and a 12-point font (preferably Times New Roman); may employ italics but not underlining (unless URL in the references). All illustrations, figures, and tables are preferably submitted as separate files with tables, figures, maps and other display items, but indicating their preferred location in the text (these should be submitted as supplementary files along with cover letter and declarations).

Authors may note that coloured display items (maps, figures, images) will be placed in the e-version and thus should check that the quality of such items is sufficient. Each item to accompany Legend for figures and tables. Further,

Maps: High resolution files (with at least 300 dpi, in JPG) are to be provided.
Tables: These items need to be in editable formats, ordinarily in MS Word and Excel (in .doc or .xls 1997-2003 version).
Figures/graphs: These items need to be in editable formats, ordinarily in MS Excel (in .xls 1997-2003) with headings, number and sources. Original data file used for drawing the Figures are to be submitted separately.

All authors must be registered with IJEES on OJS platform. However, during the registration corresponding author be indicated for multi-authored submissions.

All contributors will have to submit a declaration on the (a) copyright-free attribute of the content, (b) plagiarism-free attribute of the content, and any such. In case copyrighted material is used, the necessary permission must be enclosed with the submission in a separate file.

Submission of Revised Text: Authors who has received a 'revise and resubmit' decision are expected to complete a revision within six months of being notified. A revised version submitted after this deadline would ordinarily be treated as a new submission, though the Editor handling the paper has the discretion to treat such a paper as a resubmission. If a paper is returned after this period it may or may not be sent to the original Associate Editor. Revised submissions should be accompanied by a document containing point-wise replies to reviewer comments.

Stage 2: Copyediting and Query Resolution

Once a submission is approved for publication, it is sent for copyediting. Copyediting involves a thorough review of grammar, spellings, punctuation, citations, references, stylistic elements for maintaining the stylistic consistency across the pages of the journal. The aim is to make the text clear, coherent, correct, and consistent as much as possible. All suggested changes will be made in the track change mode in the .doc (MS-Word 1997-2003) version.

Copy editing queries (content related, subject specific, or related to other aspects of manuscript) will be sent to the author for any clarifications that we may require ('Authors Query'). It may be noted that this is the only stage to make any change in the text. It would not be possible to accept any change to the manuscript after this stage will get an opportunity to carry out only minor factual corrections to the text at later stages.

Authors will convey the responses in .doc version by using Comment tab in Review menu. In case the author is agreement with copy editor on change of text, no action is required. Otherwise, alternative text be provided in as Comments.

Review time: one week.

Stage 3: Typesetting

The copyedited version is typeset as per the journal specifications (layout, font, font size, page size, margins, line spacing, and format). Author will receive this version as a PDF document. Only minor changes can be accommodated at this stage. Editing tools such as 'Insert text at cursor', 'Add note to replace text', etc. may be used for this purpose.

Review time: three days.

Stage 4: Proof Reading

It is a preliminary version of the publication meant for proofreading by the author for identification of typos, and production errors, if any. At this stage the author can only indicate essential corrections and avoid any changes that are only desirable or could be called mere improvements. Upon hearing from Author, the manuscript is checked internally for the final check, before sending it for preparing the print copies. This stage may be merged with Stage 3 by the editorial team.

Review time: three days

Stage 5: Publication

Once the online publication is released, all authors will be informed.

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