Shortcuts
1. Types of Publications
2. Peer Review Process
3. Publication Frequency
4. Open Access Policy
5. Core Editorial Policies
6. Publishing Ethics
7. Preprint Policy
8. Authorship and Author Information
9. Changes to Authorship
10. Conflict of Interest
11. Language
12. Anonymity and Privacy
13. Policy Enforcement
14. Copyright and License
15. Advertising Policy
16. Indexing & Archiving
17. Disclaimer
18. Privacy Statement
1. Types of Publications
Original research article
Original research articles refer to exclusively unpublished peer-reviewed research papers in demography and related fields. Papers may cover a wide range of topics on demography, as well as on population with a focus on empirical research, theory, and methods. Research papers are evaluated according to the quality, relevance and topicality of the key research question and results in relation to the current state of research. The assessment of relevance and topicality does not exclusively focus on the specific discipline, but also considers the contribution to an interdisciplinary debate between population studies and its adjacent fields of research. It should include critical overviews of the state of research, review of relevant research approaches and available results as well as references to the respective research literature, commensurability of the underlying research concepts and the empirical methods and sources/statistics. All articles in this category should present new findings or discoveries in a subject area that have not been published elsewhere. Quantitative and qualitative approaches are equally appreciated.
This article type typically has 5 tables and/or figures in total, approximately 50 references, and up to 9,000 words (inclusive of Abstract and References).
Review article
Review articles are summarized descriptions of recent findings and significant developments about a particular subject area of research. Review articles should include critical assessments of novel technologies and evaluation of subject advancement, elucidate unresolved questions, encompass comparative analysis with a substantial coverage of previous works, and highlight future prospects.
This article type typically has 5 tables and/or figures in total, approximately 70 references, and up to 10,000 words (inclusive of Abstract and References).
Perspective article
Perspective articles are author’s personal opinion on a subject/topic. Unlike reviews, perspective articles may cover a more specific part of the field. However, these are still required to uphold the spirit of academia of being objective as well as aim to initiate or further discuss on novel experimental procedures in the field. Therefore, perspective articles will be peer-reviewed. Accepted articles may be solicited or unsolicited.
This article type typically has 3 tables and/or figures in total, approximately 40 references, and 7,000 words (inclusive of Abstract and References).
Report
Reports are documents that summarize the execution and results of a clinical case involving population construct or a collaborative research programme that is directly related to the advancement of population research. Submissions will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and are usually solicited by the editors.
This article type typically has 1-3 tables and/or figures in total, approximately 20 references, and 3,000 words (inclusive of Abstract and References). In International Journal of Population Studies, the abstract of a report is unstructured and should be in the length of 100-150 words.
Commentary
A commentary presents an in-depth analysis of current issues in population studies.
This article type typically has 3 tables and/or figures in total, approximately 50 references, and 4,000 words (inclusive of Abstract and References).
Letters
Letters contain comments from reader(s) about individual articles. These letters must be constructive and contribute to the development of individual articles published or the entire journal. Letters containing new ideas, supporting data, or data criticizing the article may be subjected to peer-review (determined on a case-by-case basis by the journal’s editorial team). Letters should be addressed to either the editors or the authors of a particular article published in International Journal of Population Studies. The authors of the original paper may be invited to respond to these with a letter of their own.
This article type typically has no more than 3 tables and/or figures in total, no more than 20 references, and 2,000 words (inclusive of References). No Abstract is required.
Editorial
An editorial refers to a concise commentary highlighting prominent topics presented in a particular issue. Alternatively, an editorial represents the official opinions of the editors of the journal or the special issue.
An editorial piece should not exceed 1,000 words (inclusive of References). An Abstract is not required. Up to 2 figures or tables are allowed.
Book review
A book review can be a review of a single book (800-1,200 words) or an essay on multiple books on the same subject or multiple books from the same author (3,000 words). No figures or tables are allowed. A book review cannot have more than 5 references.
Erratum
An erratum is a notification of a significant error made by the editors that affects the scholarly record or the scientific integrity of a published article. An erratum is always accompanied by Publisher Correction of the error. The corrections will not be made directly in the already-published articles. Authors who notice an error in their published articles should contact the editors at editor.ijps@accscience.com.
All publisher-introduced changes will be highlighted to the author for proofreading before final publication of the erratum.
Corrigendum
A corrigendum is a notification of an important error made by the author(s) that affects the scholarly record or the scientific integrity of a published article. A corrigendum is always accompanied by Author Correction of the error. The corrections will not be made directly in the already-published articles.
If certain errors are found, author(s) should contact the editors at editor.ijps@accscience.com, who will evaluate the impact of the errors and decide on the appropriate course of action. The publication of any corrections to a paper is at the sole discretion of the editors.
Addendum
An addendum is a notification of additional information about a published article. An addendum will only be published if the editors decide that the additional information is essential to the reader’s understanding of a significant part of the published article. The additional information can be construed as description, information, details or data that aid the readers to better understand the published works and should not significantly or substantially alter the original ideas of the works.
2. Peer Review Process
Every paper submit to the International Journal of Population Studies will be pre-screened by the editors to ensure its adherence to the scope, policies and style of the journal prior to peer review. Author(s) may suggest up to 4 academically qualified reviewers for consideration per submission. Authors should insert the current contact details, including full name, email address and affiliation, of the reviewers, and state the reason(s) for recommendation in the cover letter. However, the editorial team strives to ensure that the peer review process is fair and unbiased; therefore, there is no guarantee that a recommended reviewer will be approached to perform the peer review. In addition, author(s) may indicate the name of individuals that should not be invited as peer reviewer and provide the reasons in the cover letter.
Editor-in-Chief will decide on the submissions that should be considered for publication, and assign reviewers from inside the editorial board or outside, depending on the topic, to initiate double-blind peer review. Based on the review reports and reviewers’ recommendations, Editor-in-Chief makes one of the following editorial decisions: accept, minor revision, major revision, and reject.
If the decision made necessitates minor revisions to the paper, author(s) should spend no more than 10 days to prepare and submit the revision file containing revised manuscript, title page and back matter, cover letter, and response/rebuttal letter. If the decision made necessitates major revisions to the paper, author(s) should spend no more than 28 days to prepare and submit the revision file. The revision file will be once again pre-screened by editor and subsequently reviewed by the assigned reviewers.
The peer review process is considered complete for a submission once it has been accepted for publication in International Journal of Population Studies. Only accepted papers will be arranged for copy-editing, typesetting and proofreading before being published online.
Semi-annual
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle of making research freely available to the public in support of a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Authors should read the “Instructions for Authors” before making a submission, and make sure that the manuscripts are written in accordance with the style and specifications of International Journal of Population Studies.
All submissions to International Journal of Population Studies are subject to rigorous peer review. Prior to the peer review process, all manuscripts will be pre-screened for conformity with the theme and scope of the journal, significance of the work (and novelty for original research article), and language used.
All submissions, accessory files, article metadata and author metadata will be treated confidential. The manuscripts will only be disclosed to editorial staff, reviewers and editors who participate in the pre-screening, review, processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication.
A paper would not be considered for publication in International Journal of Population Studies if it has been published or is under consideration for publication in other journals. In the cover letter, authors must confirm and state that neither the manuscript nor any significant part of it is under consideration for publication elsewhere or has appeared elsewhere in a manner that could be construed as a prior or duplication of the same work. The authors are required to notify the editorial team if the findings and data in their submissions have been presented in conferences.
After acceptance, the editors reserve the rights to edit the work so that it is of publishing standards.
International Journal of Population Studies requests all members involved in the journal editing and publishing process to adhere to the Core Practices on publication ethics and follow the guidelines on handling publishing ethics allegations stipulated by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
The journal strictly adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).
The journal editors take all possible misconducts seriously. The editors, authors or readers can forward their concerns to the journal if they find out that the description in a submission or a published article may constitute an academic fraud, research misconduct or publication malpractice. The concerns or complaints on the possible allegations submitted to the journal will be dealt with promptly and appropriately. The complainant may direct all inquiries and correspondence to the Publisher at editor.ijps@accscience.com.
The editors do not approve of any plagiarism attempts. Duplication checker will be utilized at the editor’s discretion to verify the originality of submissions. A submission will be desk-rejected (during submissions stage) or rejected (during peer review stage) if the paper contains apparent and significant amount of plagiarized content. Therefore, authors are advised to adhere to the contemporary rules in academic writing and publishing ethics.
International Journal of Population Studies adopts a zero-tolerance policy concerning any academic misconducts and ethical violations in research and publication regardless of the severity of these issues. The violations include plagiarism, falsification of research, data fabrication, submitting manuscripts of others as one’s own, submitting same manuscript to different publication venues at the same time, and breached intellectual property rights. In cases of suspected misconduct and ethical violation, a panel will be formed to investigate the allegation. If the allegation is supported by evidence, the submitted manuscript in question will be declined for consideration in the journal and all authors will be informed in this regard. A retraction initiated by authors or by the journal is required to take place if the paper has already been published, and a retraction note will be published. Authors of the work in question will receive the Panel’s Decision via email and all appeals regarding the decision will have to be made to the Publisher at editor.ijps@accscience.com within 28 days of the decision date.
Authors are permitted to post their non-peer-reviewed original research manuscripts to any preprint servers before or in parallel with the formal submission to International Journal of Population Studies, as long as the preprint is not shared under any exclusive or restrictive license. During submission, authors are obliged to declare in the cover letter if the corresponding preprint version of their submission has been deposited on a preprint server, and provide any associated accession numbers or DOIs. Preprint versions that have been shared on a preprint server will not count as prior publication.
Authors are not allowed to post any versions of articles that have been revised after peer review, accepted for publication or published in the journal on a preprint server. A submission will not be considered by International Journal of Population Studies if its corresponding preprint version has been indexed.
International Journal of Population Studies reserves the right not to consider for publication or publish material that has been formally published in digital media that shall not be construed as preprint servers.
We encourage formal citation of preprints in the reference list, where appropriate.
8. Authorship and Author Information
Authorship should be limited to individuals who have contributed substantially to the work; for instance, conception or design of the work or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work. Authors must indicate their specific contributions to the published work under the “Author Contribution” section. The Author Contributions section must be presented in original research articles and review articles. Refer to the author contribution section of the Instructions for Authors for more information
Corresponding author(s) should be clearly indicated with asterisk (*) on the title page of every submission. We suggest no more than 2 corresponding authors per submission. A corresponding author is responsible for:
- obtaining permission to submit and revise paper from all the authors mentioned in the manuscript,
- ensuring adherence to all editorial and submission policies and for any communications and actions that may be necessary after publication, and
- including written permission from the authors of the work concerned for any mention of any unpublished material included in the manuscript, e.g., data from manuscripts-in-press, personal communication, or work in preparation.
All authors should have a say in the final approval of the version to be published, in addition to reviewing the final manuscript prior to submission.
Authors that made equally significant contributions to the submitted work should be clearly indicated with superscript dagger symbols (†). The following footnote should be used for authors who have made equal contributions, and placed beneath the affiliation part:
“ †These authors contributed equally to this work.” The names of all equally contributing authors are preferably indicated together in the foremost part of the authorship list, and ideally, there should be no more than 2 equally contributing authors.
Accurate and complete author information, including full name, affiliation, email address, must be disclosed and provided during submission. Affiliations should contain the following core information: department, institution, city, state, postal code, and country.
The Editorial Office of International Journal of Population Studies considers the authorship list is definitive by the time the submission is received. Thus, authors should check the list and order of authors before submitting their papers.
Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript is accepted for publication. The corresponding author should provide the valid reasons for the change in authorship list and the proof of written confirmation from all authors agreeing with such change (including the existing authors, author(s) to be added and/or removed) to the Editorial Office.
The requests for authorship changes need to be approved by the Editorial Office before any changes can be made.
If any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in the published article is granted following the finalized (online) publication of an accepted manuscript, the new changes will only be implemented in a correction (corrigendum or erratum).
At the time of submission, authors must declare any (potential) conflicts or competing interests with any institutes, organizations or agencies that might influence the integrity of results or objective interpretation of their submitted works. Conflicts of interest can be divided into two categories: financial and non-financial.
Authors should declare financial conflict of interest based on the following aspects:
- Author relation with the funding body and any potential conflicts of interest should be declared if the organization may gain or lose financially through the article publication. Disclosure should also include all sources of revenue paid (or promised to be paid) directly to authors or their institution on authors’ behalf over the 36 months before submission of the relevant work.
- Any changes to the employment status of authors in any organizations, including resignation, current employment in another organization, and anticipated employment, should be declared if the organization may gain or lose financially through the article publication.
- Ownership of stocks or shares by the authors in any organizations should be declared if author(s) may gain or lose financially through the article publication.
- Receiving consultation fees or other forms of remuneration (including reimbursements for attending conferences) from organizations should be declared if the organization may gain or lose financially as a result of article publication.
- Status of patents or patent applications (either awarded or pending) filed by the authors or their institutions should be declared if their value may be influenced by the article publication. Patent application number, patent applicant, name of inventor(s), application status, and specific aspect of paper covered by the patent application’s specification and/or claims should be disclosed.
Authors, reviewers and editors should declare any (potential) non-financial conflicts of interest and declare any unpaid roles or relations that may influence the decision on the article publication. This includes, but is not limited to, unpaid role in a government or non-governmental organization, unpaid role in an advocacy or lobbying organization, and unpaid advisory position in a commercial organization.
Authors who have nothing to declare are encouraged to add "No conflict of interest was reported by all authors" in this section of the paper. Failure to declare will result in a delay to editorial process and peer review progress. If necessary, the initial disclosure statement provided by the authors will be subject to edits for grammar corrections by the editors. Failure to comply with the conflict of interest disclosure statement requirement may result in rejection of the submissions.
In addition, reviewers and editors must disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript. Examples of such activities could include personal or work-related relationships, events, etc. Reviewers must be aware of the peer-review policies, and proactively disclose all potential conflicts of interest, and guarantee that an article will be judged fairly and objectively.
(The explanation about financial conflicts of interest is adapted from https://www.nature.com/nature-portfolio/editorial-policies/competing-interests)
All submissions should ideally be written entirely in good American English. Submissions in good British English can be accepted as long as a mixture of spelling variants are not used in the submissions. Clarity and conciseness are critical requirements for publications; therefore, submissions that are not clearly written will be returned to authors. Authors are encouraged to employ the use of English editing service to polish and edit their papers so that they are submit-ready or publish-ready. The articles published in International Journal of Population Studies are in adherence with the publishable standards of academic and scientific writing.
Please note that utilizing a language editing service is not a guarantee of acceptance.
Human subjects have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information or identifiers, including names, initials, date of birth, contacts, medical record numbers, hospital numbers, and geographical location, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the human subject (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Efforts must be made by the authors to at least mask or conceal any identifying information of the patients that appear in writing or within photograph.
Authors are obliged to explain to the human subject if revealing his/her identity cannot be fully avoided, e.g., an image of an identifiable body part like the face has to be published in the report. The relevant identifying information to be published, e.g., the image, must be shown to the subject, and consent for publication taken for the use of that information in the publication. If the subject dies, then consent must be obtained from next of kin or legal representative. Authors may consider using our sample Consent Form for Publication in International Journal of Population Studies. International Journal of Population Studies shall consider author version of consent form for publication if all the essential items as shown in our sample consent form were included.
All submissions will be checked for documentation of human subject consent for publication and for any potentially identifying information. Submissions that include identifying patient information without appropriate consent will not be considered for publication.
All submissions describing human and/or animal research will be preliminarily examined by journal editors to ensure that the specific requirements set out in the journal policies and guidelines are met. Submissions that do not meet the requirements may be rejected.
International Journal of Population Studies reserves the right to decline submissions that the editors believe the described works have not been conducted to the highest possible ethical standards, despite formal ethics approval has been obtained.
If ethical concerns arise or are discovered after publication, investigations will be organized. Any evidence pointing to substantial violations of ethical codes or oversight for the research may lead to a correction (e.g., erratum, corrigendum) or retraction of the paper. Authors’ institution, ethics committee or other appropriate body in relation to the potential ethical concerns may be contacted during the investigation.
Copyright
The authors shall retain the copyright of their work but allow the Publisher to publish, copy, distribute, and convey the work.
License
NOTE: Starting from August 19, 2022, all articles published by International Journal of Population Studies will be licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) In order to allow unrestricted reuse of article content and remove the barriers of mining article content for research, the new commercial CC BY 4.0 license will replace the default Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) that has been in use since the inception of the journal.
International Journal of Population Studies publishes accepted manuscripts under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Authors who submit their papers for publication by International Journal of Population Studies agree to have the CC BY 4.0 license applied to their work, and that anyone is allowed to reuse the article or part of it free of charge for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as the author and original source is properly cited, anyone may copy, redistribute, reuse and transform the content.
Reuse of International Journal of Population Studies article content
Anyone is free to reuse International Journal of Population Studies article content licensed under CC BY 4.0 provided that proper attribution is given through citation of the original source.
To reuse International Journal of Population Studies article content licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 for commercial purposes (including republishing in journals or books), please seek written permission of the copyright owner, i.e., the authors. Upon obtaining the permission to reuse, you are required to adhere to the guidelines below for giving proper attribution of International Journal of Population Studies article content:
(i) Cite the article in your final work (i.e., as one of the references); if possible, include the DOI of the article.
(ii) Depending on the style of the medium or journal where you will publish or produce your work, mention the last name of the first author (i.e., the copyright holder) and et al., year of publication, reference citation number (depending on journal’s requirement, and the type of the Creative Commons license used in the form of a statement and place it beneath the content you reuse from the article; see example below:
Adapted with permission from Lee, et al., 2018 [38]; licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
(iii) If you remix or modify the original work to create a derivative work, you should still attribute the original work and identify that changes have been made to it.
If you have any questions, please contact our editors at editor.ijps@accscience.com.
Reuse of licensed material published in another journal or book (third-party content)
Authors who submit to International Journal of Population Studies are responsible in obtaining permissions from the copyright owner, e.g., original publisher or authors, to reuse or republish any previously published text, figures, tables, Supplementary Information, etc., in an article of International Journal of Population Studies that is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license. The official and written proof of permission must be provided along with submission, and include in the cover letter a summary regarding the licensed materials that are reused in the paper (e.g., materials that require permission and those that do not if they were published under an unrestrictive license). Upon obtaining the permission, authors should also give proper attribution as per the copyright owner’s style.
It is important to note that there is a range of Creative Commons licenses with terms that cater to different needs of copyright owners. In general, if the material was published under a CC BY license or another license that permits free and unrestricted use, the material may be reused in International Journal of Population Studies paper as long as proper attribution is given by citing the original source. Another example is Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives License (CC BY-ND) that allows redistribution of the content, even commercially, provided that the content is reused in its entirety. Nevertheless, contact the copyright owner if you have any questions about the license terms because the editors of International Journal of Population Studies cannot give any professional and legal advice regarding the rights to use third-party content.
Authors are not allowed to use any third-party content in International Journal of Population Studies articles if written permission to reuse is not obtained from the copyright owner. In the absence of official documentation granting permission to reuse third-party content or when concerns about copyright, license or permissions arise, the editors of International Journal of Population Studies reserve the right to remove any third-party content from any article, whether before or after publication.
All advertisements are subject to approval of the Publisher. Advertisements must comply with the relevant regulations in the country where the advertisements appear. For more inquiries, please send email to editor.ijps@accscience.com.
Indexing & Archiving
Indexing
International Journal of Population Studies aims to be indexed by world-recognized databases. IJPS has been indexed by several world class abstracting/indexing databases:
- SafetyLit
- Crossref
- Google Scholar
- CNKI Scholar
- Worldcat
- Portico
- Scilit
- National Library Singapore
- Pusan National University Library
- SJIF
Archiving Service (Archives)
The contents of International Journal of Population Studies are archived and preserved by Portico.
International Journal of Population Studies is not liable to the statements, perspectives, and opinions contained in the published articles. The appearance of advertisements in the journal shall not be construed as a warranty, endorsement, or approval of the products or services advertised and/or the safety thereof. International Journal of Population Studies and the Publisher disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas or products referred to in the articles or advertisements.
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.