East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences: *A Nationally Accredited Journal

Focus and Scope

The East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (EAJVAS) publishes original scientific papers and technological information on aspects of veterinary and animal sciences to the users in Eastern Africa and elsewhere in the world. Manuscripts related to economically important large and small farm animals, poultry, equine species, aquatic species, and bees, as well as companion animals such as dogs, cats, cage birds, and laboratory animals are particularly welcome. Manuscripts written on the subjects of basic sciences and clinical sciences related to veterinary medicine, nutrition, and nutritional diseases, as well as the breeding and husbandry of the above-mentioned animals and the hygiene and technology of food of animal origin, as well as papers describing the animal-related aspects of Life Sciences at a molecular level (proteomics) or environment and animals (or humans), biotechnology are also under the domain of the Journal.

Peer Review Process

The East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (EAJVAS) maintains a high standard of publication quality through a double-blind peer review process, in which the identities of author(s) are not disclosed to reviewers and the identities of reviewers are also not disclosed to author(s). All research articles published in EAJVAS are subjected to a full double-blind peer review process as indicated below:

• All research articles are reviewed by at least two suitably qualified experts.
• Decisions are made by the journal’s Editorial Board based on reviewers' and editors’ comments.
• International members of the Editorial Board of the journal lend insights, advice and guidance to the other Editorial Board members of the journal.
• The Editorial Manager provides administrative support and facilitates communications between editors, authors, and reviewers. This allows EAJVAS to maintain the integrity of the peer review process and ensures a rapid turnaround with maximum efficiency.
• The Editorial Board of EAJVAS will decide promptly whether to accept, reject, or request revisions of referred papers based on the reviews and editorial insight of the journal.
• Authors will be advised to incorporate all the comments made by the reviewers and editors.

Publication Frequency

The EAJVAS is published twice a year. EAJVAS publishes a minimum of five articles per issue.

Copyright Notice

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Sponsorship

The East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences is sponsored by Haramaya University (https://www.haramaya.edu.et/).

Open Access Policy

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

History of the Journal

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences was started in 2016 by Haramaya University to enhance the exchange of ideas among scientists engaged in research and development activities.

Editorial Policy

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (EAJVAS)

Haramaya University, Ethiopia

 I. Aims and Scope

The East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (EAJVAS) publish original scientific papers and technological information on aspects of veterinary and animal sciences to the users in Eastern Africa and elsewhere in the world. It also enhances exchange of ideas among scientists engaged in research and development activities and accepts papers from anywhere else in the world. Manuscripts related to economically important large and small farm animals, poultry, equine species, aquatic species, and bees, as well as companion animals such as dogs, cats, and cage birds, and laboratory animals are particularly welcome. Manuscripts written on the subjects of basic sciences and clinical sciences related to veterinary medicine, nutrition, and nutritional diseases, as well as the breeding and husbandry of the above-mentioned animals and the hygiene and technology of food of animal origin, as well as papers describing the animal-related aspects of Life Sciences at molecular level (proteomics) or environment and animals (or humans), biotechnology are also under the domain of the Journal.

II. Editorial Policy

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences adopts and adheres to international standards and requirements of research and publication. Therefore, it requires all researchers to conduct their work ethically and responsibly with integrity and compliance with all relevant international codes required for doing research and reporting findings. This policy describes guidelines for the publication process of the journal.

1. Publication Ethics and Consent

Submission of a manuscript to EAJVAS implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and structure, and that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s standards and policies. The journal remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps, third party data sets and institutional affiliations. Papers must be submitted with the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published dissertation or thesis) and are not currently under consideration by any other journal or publisher for possible publication.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the submission and publication of the manuscript has been approved by all the other co-authors. It is also the authors' responsibility to ensure that manuscripts emanating from a particular institution are submitted with the approval of the concerned institution. The Editorial Office of the journal officially acknowledges receipt of manuscripts submitted for publication. Further correspondence and proofs will be sent to the corresponding author(s) before publication unless otherwise indicated. All authors are also expected to sign a consent form once their manuscript(s) are accepted by the journal.

1.1. Ethical Issues

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences is responsible for ensuring and maintaining international standards of ethical conduct in research and publication. The journal rigorously guards against all types of unethical conduct in research and publication, including, fraud, plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate publication, and other forms of unethical conduct.

Errors could be due to negligence (for example, errors related to statistical analysis, figure reporting and the like) or honest errors which are part of the normal course of doing research. However, scientific frauds that would put scientific merits and careers at risk will be treated seriously. Thus, when a potential misconduct is reported by the reviewer(s) or editor, the editorial office corresponds to the author and request verification. But if the explanation provided by the author is unacceptable and seems that misconduct has taken place, the editorial office has the right to decide on the fate and even ban the author(s) from further submission. Further notes could be communicated to the author.

In the following sections, some of the fundamental ethical issues have been defined.

Ethical principles most common in research and publication of scientific papers are the following: (i) reporting data, results, methods and procedures; (ii) not fabricating, falsifying or misrepresenting data (Honesty); (iii) avoiding bias in experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation, peer review, personnel decisions, and other aspects of research (Objectivity); (iv) keeping promises and agreements, acting with sincerity, striving for consistency of thought and action (Integrity); (v) avoiding careless errors and negligence and carefully and critically examining one’s own work and the work of one’s peers (Carefulness); (vi) honoring patents, copyrights, and other forms of intellectual property and not using unpublished data, methods, or results without permission and giving credit where credit is due, and avoiding plagiarizing (Respect for Intellectual Property); (vii) protecting confidential communications, such as papers submitted for publication, personnel records, patient records, etc. (Confidentiality); (viii) avoiding wasteful and duplicative publication (Responsible Publication); (ix) striving to promote social good and prevent or mitigate social harms through research, public education, and advocacy (Social Responsibility); (x) avoiding discrimination against colleagues or students on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or other factors that are not related to their scientific competence and integrity (Non-Discrimination); (xi) maintaining and improving your own professional competence; and showing proper respect and care for animals when using them in research and not conducting unnecessary or poorly designed animal experiments (Animal Care); (xii) when conducting research on human subjects, minimizing harms and risks and maximizing benefits, respecting human dignity, privacy and autonomy (Human Subjects Protection).

Procedures for responding to some of the unethical conduct in publication have been outlined in the following section. Each issue is followed by recommended actions as advised by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for Journal Editors.

1.1.1. Data fabrication/falsification

Data fabrication affects the making up of research findings. Data falsification is referring to manipulating research data with the intention of giving a false impression of one’s findings. This includes manipulating images, removing outliers from results, changing, adding or omitting data points, inclusion of false data, rearranging of data, polishing of analysis outputs, and others. If an author’s figures are questionable, it is suggested to request the original data from the authors.

If a manuscript is found to have fabricated or falsified results, including manipulation of images and figures, it may be sanctioned; and if the fraud is identified after the manuscript gets published, the article may be retracted. Note that there are instances where technical manipulations of images and figures are allowed for readability and balance of contrasts. You may refer from the website for further recommended actions of manipulation of images and figures before submission to EAJVAS.

1.1.2. Duplicate publication/segmentation

Duplicate publication refers to the practice of submitting results of the same study to more than one journal or publishing more or less the same material in more than one journal. Duplicate publication often occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her own published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from publishing an identical paper in multiple journals, to only adding a small amount of new data to a previously published paper.

The submission/publication can be nearly simultaneous or years later. As duplicate publication dilutes science, manuscripts submitted to EAJVAS must be original and not submitted for publication or published in any other journal.

Authors who have related material under consideration or in press in any other journal should upload a clearly marked copy at the time of submission and draw the editor's attention to it in their covering letter. If a part of a contribution that an author wishes to submit to the journal has appeared or will appear elsewhere, the author must specify the details in the covering letter. The author is responsible to get permission from previous publisher or copyright holders if an author is re-using any part of a paper published or copyrighted elsewhere.

Segmented publication (also described as ‘salami publishing or slicing’) refers to the situation that one study is split into several parts and submitted to two or more journals; or the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification. In the process, contents are supposed to recycle from previous work without citation. This practice is widespread and might be unintentional and the editorial office is expected to cross-check both duplication and segmentation of publications to keep standards and scientific integrity in accordance with COPE recommendations for action against the issues.

1.1.3. Plagiarism/duplication of texts and/or figures

Unacknowledged copying or an attempt to misattribute original authorship, whether of ideas, text or results and presents as his/her own work is defined as plagiarism. As defined by the Office of Research Integrity of US Department of Health and Human Services, plagiarism can include, "theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work". Plagiarism can be said to have clearly occurred when large chunks of text have been cut and pasted without appropriate and unambiguous attribution. Authors should ensure that they credit the originator of any ideas as well as the words and figures that they use to express the ideas. Copying without proper acknowledgement of the origin of text or figures is strictly forbidden. Small amounts of text, a line or two, are usually ignored. Plagiarism includes self-plagiarism, which is, in effect, publishing the same work twice. All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wording must be limited and be attributed or quoted in the text. EAJVAS editors assess all such cases on their individual merits. When plagiarism becomes evident post-publication, EAJVAS may correct or retract the original publication depending on the degree of plagiarism, context within the published article and its impact on the overall integrity of the published study.

The process of detecting plagiarism by EAJVAS could involve the use of software (Crossref Similarity Check). A manuscript exceeding 20% leads to accusations of plagiarism. CrossCheck is an initiative from CrossRef to help scholarly publishers verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. The web-based tool can be used in the editorial process to identify matching text but it cannot, on its own, identify plagiarism. Manual examination of the matching text is still required and judgment used to identify if plagiarism has occurred or not.

Of course, there are different degrees of plagiarism. The severity is dependent on various factors: extent of copied material, originality of copied material, position/context/type of material and referencing/attribution of the material used. Every case is different and therefore decisions will vary per case. For the sake of clarity, the Editorial Office of EAJVAS is advised, while reviewing, to consider points like professional seniority of author, cultural background, verbatim copying of another work or significant portion of a single source, mixing verbatim, changing keywords and phrases but retaining the content, rephrasing, wrong citation and others. Details of each qualifier could be accessed from the website. However, for a review paper, the above is not directly applicable as it is expected to give a summary of existing literature. But authors are encouraged to use their own words otherwise properly quoted and/or cited texts, and the work should include a new interpretation.

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences will also guard against “Salami publication. Salami publication occurs when authors break their work down into “minimum publishable units” to try to get as many publications as possible out of a piece of research. If EAJVAS editors believe authors have practiced salami science, they may reject manuscripts with such features.

1.1.4. Authorship

An author is an individual who has significantly contributed to the development of a manuscript, and is an explicit way of assigning responsibility and giving credit for intellectual work. Authorship practices should be judged by how honestly they reflect actual contributions to the final product. The journal assumes that all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted. Signed consent letter of authors is a prerequisite for publication of a manuscript in this journal.

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences recommends that authorship be based on the following four important criteria (as suggested by many other scientific journals): (1) substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND (2) drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND (3) final approval of the version to be published; AND (4) 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. Details of each criterion could be obtained from COPE website.

Authors should all agree on the order in which their names will appear in the article. The first author should be the person who carried out most of the work reported, with other workers mentioned in decreasing order of contribution. The scientist who oversaw the work is usually placed last. All people who are listed as authors must be aware of the paper, must have agreed to be named as an author, and must have had the opportunity to contribute to and comment on the paper.

i. Co-authors, corresponding authors, affiliations, and changes

A co-author is any person who has made a significant contribution to a journal article. They also share responsibility and accountability for the results. If more than one author writes an article, authors have to choose one person to be the corresponding author. This person will handle all correspondence about the manuscript with the Editorial Office of the journal. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all the authors’ contact details are correct. Authors should give an address and affiliation for each author mentioned on the title page – that is, the address and affiliation of the author at the time when the work was done. If any authors have moved, include a footnote with their present address.

1.1.5. Authorship disputes

Disputes sometimes arise about who should be listed as authors of an intellectual product and the order in which they should be listed. Many of such disagreements result from misunderstanding and failed communication among colleagues and might have been prevented by a clear, early understanding of standards for authorship that are shared by the academic community as a whole. In such disputes, the journal will not take part in to investigate or adjudicate. Instead, authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If the disagreement persists, the journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process.

2. Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgements’ Section. Individuals who are in the acknowledgement list do not qualify as author(s). For instance, a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance, or personnel who provided only general support upon the experimentation of the research should be acknowledged. Moreover, organizations/institutes that provided support in terms of funding and/or other resources should also be acknowledged.

The Acknowledgements generally include one or more of the following.

• Sources of funds;
• People who gave significant technical help (e.g., in the design of your experiment, in providing materials);
• People who gave ideas, suggestions, interpretations, etc.;
• People who provided technical assistance; and
• The anonymous reviewers.

3. Competing Interests

In the interests of transparency and to help readers form their own judgments of potential bias, the journal requires authors to declare any competing financial and/or non-financial interests in relation to the work under consideration. The corresponding author is responsible for submitting a competing interests' statement on behalf of all authors of the paper. A conflict of interest can occur when you (or your employer or sponsor) have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them, that influence your research. The Editorial Office of EAJVAS is supposed to use the information to undergo editorial decisions.

4. Entertaining Complaints

Authors who believe that their manuscripts have been treated unfairly in the peer review process of EAJVAS can lodge complaints by writing a formal letter to the Editorial Manager of the journal. The decisions against which complaints could be submitted include outright rejection, unduly long review process, and any ethical concerns that may arise in due course in relation to authors and reviewers. In response, Editorial Office of the journal will assess the merit of the complaint based on data and office records of the manuscript and reach a decision. The Editorial Manager will present the case to a committee of technical editorial board members for a quick decision. If the committee finds that the complaint has merit, the authors will be advised to proceed to rectify the problem. Subsequently, the Editorial Office (Editorial Manager) will inform the authors about the case and subject the manuscript to a fresh peer review process. If the complaint has no merit whatsoever, EAJVAS will reject it and inform the authors about the decision in writing.

5. Peer Review

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences strives to provide researchers or contributors with a rigorous, constructive, positive and timely peer review for their manuscript(s). The peer-review process is blind for all submitted manuscripts. All manuscripts (full length research articles, short communications, reviews or variety or other technology registration) submitted to EAJVAS that are selected for the peer review process are supposed to be sent to two or more independent reviewers, selected by the editorial office. When an Editor is on the author list or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to assume responsibility for handling the peer review process.

All submissions to EAJVAS are expected to pass through prior assessment by the Editorial Office (Deputy-Editor and Editor-in-Chief) to decide whether they are suitable for peer review or not. Submissions found to be suitable for consideration in the journal will be sent for peer review by appropriate independent experts identified by the Editorial Office.

The review process of EAJVAS follows the following specific procedures:

1. Each received manuscript is subjected to a preliminary review process by relevant technical editorial board members and the editors (Deputy Editor and Editor-in-Chief);
2. The editorial manager of the journal sends each paper received to two or three anonymous ‘peers’, who are experts in the subject covered by the respective manuscript;
3. The referees read the manuscripts and may recommend that the manuscripts be accepted with no change, rejected or revised (usually providing detailed lists of recommended changes);
4. The Editorial Office (Editor-in-Chief) decides whether to reject each paper or accept it, with no changes, minor amendments, moderate or major revisions; and
5. The Editorial Manager then informs the authors of the decision, usually providing a list of referees’ comments, and his/her comments, that they should address.

i. Editorial decision

Once the review process is completed, the Editorial Office will make a decision based on the reviewers’ reports, and author(s) are sent these reports along with the editorial decision on their manuscript(s). Authors should note that even in light of one positive report, concerns raised by another reviewer may fundamentally undermine the study and result in the manuscript being rejected, or the editorial office has the prerogative to entertain the manuscript and send for another reviewer (in accordance with decision categories).

ii. Confidentiality

Authors should treat all communication with the Editorial Office of the journal as confidential, which includes correspondence with Editorial Manager and Editors-in-Chief on behalf of the journal, and/or handling editors’ and reviewers’ reports unless explicit consent has been received to share the information obtained through the process. Reviewers are, therefore, required to respect the confidentiality of the peer review process and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond the information released by the journal. Thus, authors should feel confident that their manuscripts are not shared with third parties out of EAJVAS Editorial Office.

6. Ethical Procedures

As stated in Section 1.1.4, authors should include information regarding sources of funding and potential conflicts of interest (financial or nonfinancial) to ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed. Moreover, if the research involves human participants, informed consent is required, and if the research involves animals, a statement on welfare of animals should be produced before submitting the manuscript to EAJVAS.

To this end, authors involving animals as experimental set must confirm that all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The manuscript must also include a statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments along with any relevant details. Furthermore, authors who involve living organisms in experiments are advised to access more information, regarding ethical procedures and clearance, from international standards.

7. Journal’s Policy on Intellectual Property

7.1. Repository Policy

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences allows authors to deposit the different versions of their papers in an institutional or other repository of their choice. Permitted sites include institutional repositories that are operated by domestic and foreign universities and non-profit research institutions; websites of research funding organizations that have provided support for the research of this article; author’s web site; and non-commercial online thesis archives. However, the use of the final version of the author’s paper (accepted for publication but not formatted according to EAJVAS guidelines) is not permitted. The work can be freely shared and adapted, provided that appropriate credit is given and any changes specified. The copyright holder and source must also be indicated.

7.2. Open Access Policy

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences provides online free gold open access to the journal and all of its research publications. EAJVAS is fully compliant with open access mandates, by publishing its articles under the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY).

7.3. Copyright Statement

Under the Conditions for Website Use and the General Conditions for Authors, authors of articles published in EAJVAS retain copyright on their articles, except for any third-party images and other materials added by EAJVAS, which are subject to the copyright of their respective owners. Authors are therefore free to disseminate their articles. Visitors may also download and forward articles, subject to the citation requirements. The ability to copy, download, forward or otherwise distribute any materials is always subject to any copyright notices displayed. Copyright notices must be displayed prominently and may not be obliterated, deleted or hidden, totally or partially. By submitting a manuscript to the editor or publisher, you are deemed to have granted permission to publish the manuscript.

8. Communication Policy

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences believe that only through relationships based upon mutual respect can we build trust and deliver quality publishing products and services to the communities we serve. EAJVAS staffs are expected to behave professionally and respectfully at all times when engaging with authors, reviewers and readers. Likewise, we expect the same standards of behavior from the academic community and the public in their interactions with our staffs. We do not tolerate aggressive behavior, or any form of harassment, bullying or discrimination directed against EAJVAS staff. We reserve the right to bring serious cases to the attention of employers or local authorities, if needed, and may refuse to interact, or do business, with individuals who repeatedly or seriously violate this policy.

9. Promoting EAJVAS Publications

Individual articles are widely promoted by our marketing and communications teams in a variety of ways. This could be through email updates, table of contents, email alerts, postings on the Haramaya journal homepage, social media, blogs and/or press releases. These may result in higher levels of views and downloads for each article. Haramaya journals are also promoted at many major scientific conferences, to bring your work to the attention of professionals in your field. We would encourage you to promote your article via your own email lists, social media, distribution at conferences and any other innovative techniques you wish to adopt.

10. Research Involving Animals

Experimental research on vertebrates or any regulated invertebrates must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. The International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) has published ethical guidelines. The Editor will take account of animal welfare issues and reserves the right to reject a manuscript, especially if the research involves protocols that are inconsistent with commonly accepted norms of animal research. In rare cases, the Editor may contact the ethics committee for further information. Field studies and other non-experimental research on animals must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing compliance with relevant guidelines and/or appropriate permissions or licences must be included in the manuscript.

11. Data Sharing and Reproducibility/Consent for publication

For all manuscripts that include details, images, or videos relating to an individual person, written informed consent for the publication of these details must be obtained from that person (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18). The consent must be for publication of their details under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (such that they will be freely available on the internet).

12. Post-publication Handling

12.1. Permanency of Articles

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences has taken steps to ensure that all open-access articles published by EAJVAS are deposited in a number of safe open-access archives.

12.2. Article Corrections

Corrections to published articles will be made by publishing a correction note and without altering the original article in any way other than to add a prominent link to the note. In this way, the original article remains in the public domain and the subsequent correction will be widely indexed.

12.3. Article Removal

The preservation of scientific research is a cornerstone of science and as such we will use our best efforts to ensure that material published by EAJVAS is preserved and remains available for access. However, in the exceptional event that material is considered to infringe certain rights or is defamatory, we may have no option but to remove that material from our site and those sites on which we have deposited the material in question. EAJVAS therefore reserves the right to cease to make available articles, or relevant article content, that it has been advised are potentially defamatory or that infringe any intellectual property right, or are otherwise unlawful. Where this occurs the article will remain indexed. However, in place of the article or content, an appropriate explanatory note will be attached. An example of such an explanatory note is as follows: "EAJVAS regrets that this article is no longer available to avoid threatened legal claims".

12.4. Retractions

On rare occasions, when the interpretation or conclusion of an article is substantially undermined, it may be necessary for published articles to be retracted. EAJVAS as part of Haramaya University will follow the COPE guidelines in such cases. Retraction notices are indexed and bidirectionally linked to the original article. The original article is watermarked as retracted and the title is amended with the prefix “Retracted article:”

13. Funding Policy

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Authors are required to mention the funding sources (e.g., government grants, private organizations, institutional funds) and provide grant agreement details such as project title, program name, and grant agreement number, if applicable. If there is no funding, authors are required to state that: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”

14. Access and Archiving Policy

Because EAJVAS will be published freely online to attract a wide audience, authors will have free electronic access to the full text (in PDF) of the article. Authors can freely download the PDF file from which they can print unlimited copies of their articles.  Moreover, articles are freely and immediately available to everyone upon publication, and there is no subscription or payment to access articles.

East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences maintains an archiving policy where all published content is available online on the journal's website for free and permanent access, ensuring open access to research.

15. Advertising and Marketing

Journals shall state their advertising policy if relevant, including what types of adverts will be considered, who makes decisions regarding accepting adverts and whether they are linked to content or reader behaviour (online only) or are displayed at random. Advertisements should not be related in any way to editorial decision making and shall be kept separate from the published content.

Any direct marketing activities, including solicitation of manuscripts that are conducted on behalf of the journal, shall be appropriate, well-targeted, and unobtrusive. Information provided about the publisher or journal is expected to be truthful and not misleading for readers or authors.

Promotional activities aimed at authors are pertinent, targeted, and non-disruptive. EAJVAS engages with researchers to promote the journal and attract high-quality submissions by focusing on the appropriate authors for its scope.