North African Journal of Food and Nutrition Research
Journal / North African Journal of Food and Nutrition Research / About the Journal

 

Publisher

Laboratoire de Nutrition, Pathologie, Agro-biotechnologie & Santé (Lab-NuPABS), Centre de Recherche Route de Mascara (ex CFTE) UDLSBA - Sidi-Bel-Abbès, 22000, Algeria. 

Sources of Support

Djillali Liabes University of Sidi-Bel-Abbes. Department of Biology

Pr. Meghit Boumediene Khaled and Dr. Mustapha Diaf (Sponsorship)

Peer Review

Peer review is performed to ensure that the North African Journal of Food and Nutrition Research publishes high quality articles and produce “good science” which is of benefit to entire scientific community.

Revisions and improvement provided by our reviewers and our proofreading assistants are part of the publication process and actually help raise the quality of submitted/accepted manuscripts.

NAJFNR's peer review

The peer review process is performed in Double blind – in this case neither authors nor reviewers know each other’s identities. However, once the article is accepted, the names or review editors will be displayed on the final published version (first page).  

Manuscripts that are sent out for peer review receive comments and recommendations from the peer reviewers.  Based on these reviews, the editor in chief takes a final decision on the manuscript. While reviewer inputs are extremely valuable for the editor, they are just recommendations, not final decisions. The final decision on the manuscript rests with the editor. So there may be instances when the editor (1) accepts a paper if (s)he is convinced about the credibility of a paper even if it has received negative comments from all the reviewers, or (2) rejects a paper if (s)he finds it unworthy of publication even if the reviewers have given positive feedback.

 

?For further guidance on writing a critical review, please refer to the following documents:

COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Committee on Publication Ethics. Available online.

All necessary information about the review process can be found here: https://www.najfnr.org/review-process

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Publication Scheduling

This journal publishes two issues in one volume per year.

Assigning Authorship

Contributors who meet the following criteria are eligible for authorship and can be listed as authors:​

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;

  ​Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

• Final approval of the version to be published;

• 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.​

Contributorship

​Contributing to research can be broadly classified into the following categories:​

• Intellectual (ideas, writing)

• Practical (conducting research, data analysis)

• Financial (funds, experimental material)​

​When researchers disagree with the author list or have been excluded from a manuscript which they significantly contributed to, they should consult with their respective institutions for assistance.

In case there is confusion around authorship, contributorship, and to know more about who would qualify to be the lead author, researchers may approach the journal editorial team. The journal would then suggest the best approach. Also, if issues related to authorship are reported to a journal, then the Editor-in-Chief may be involved in resolving the issue. 

Group Authorship

If there is a large number of authors we may ask for confirmation that everyone listed met the ICMJE criteria for authorship. If they did, we may then require that the authors form a group whose name will appear in the article byline.

We appreciate that authors may be concerned that their work will not be properly recognised if they form a group, but this is unfounded. Medline guidance can handle group authorship and still give each individual due credit:

"When a group name for a specific consortium, committee, study group, or the like appears in an article byline, the personal names of the members of that group may be published in the article text. Such names are entered as collaborator names for the Medline citation."

Article Withdrawal, Retraction, or Removal

The editor in chief is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal are to be published. In making this decision, the editor is guided by journal policies and guided by legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. An outcome of this principle is the scholarly archive as a permanent record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published remain extant and unaltered as far as is possible. Very occasionally circumstances arise in which an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. Such actions must not be undertaken lightly and can only occur under exceptional
circumstances.

This policy takes into account current best practices in the scholarly publishing. 

Article Withdrawal

This action is only used for articles in press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information), which represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors. Occasionally, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, and fraudulent use of data or the like. Articles in press that include errors or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s) or are determined to violate the NAJFNR publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors (such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like), may be “Withdrawn” from The Researcher by the article author or the journal editor.

To withdraw an accepted article, the authors of the manuscript must write a clear and concise letter and send it to contact@najfnr.com with an in-depth explanation providing the reasons on why the manuscript needs to be withdrawn. All authors must sign the letter. In the case the author discovers a potential error or inaccuracy in the published work, he/she shall immediately notify the journal editor and shall cooperate to have the paper withdrawn or corrected in the form of an erratum. 

Article Retraction

Article retraction applies to published articles and may occur after infringement on professional codes of ethics, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, and fraudulent use of data or the like. Occasionally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of scholarly bodies such as the COPE’s Retraction Guidelines, and this best practice is adopted for article retraction by The Researcher:

--> A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.

--> Electronic versions of the article are preceded by a screen containing the retraction note.

--> The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the .pdf indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

--> The HTML version of the document is removed.

Article Removal

In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where  the article is clearly defamatory or infringes others’ legal rights; where the article is or we have good reason to expect will be the subject of a court order; or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In these circumstances, while the  metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the electronic text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.

• A retraction note named "Retraction: [Article Title]", signed by the authors and/or the Editor, is published in a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the table of contents for that issue.
• A link will be added in the original article's digital format.
• Before accessing the online article, a retraction notification is displayed on the screen. The hyperlink leads to this notification, after which the reader can continue to view the article.
• The original article is retained unchanged except for a watermark on each page of the PDF indicating that it has been "retracted".