Journal of Human Ecology and Sustainability

An international peer-reviewed open-access journal published bi-annually online by the College of Human Ecology, University of the Philippines Los Baños

Online ISSN: 3027-9100

Manuscript Submission Overview

Types of Contributions

Original Research Articles. These are full-length original articles, of high-quality research papers presenting novel scientific findings, with a suggested minimum word count of 4000 words to 8000 words..

Review Articles. These are articles that offer a comprehensive review of the existing literature within a field of study, identifying current gaps or problems, and providing critical and constructive recommendations for future research or policies, with a suggested minimum word count of 6000 words to 10,000 words.

Short Communication. These are short research papers on urgent matters or the reporting of preliminary findings, with a suggested word count of 2000-4000 words.

Research and Publication Ethics

Studies Involving Humans

For research involving  human subjects, human tissues, or human data, the authors must ensure that the work has been carried out  following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975, revised in 2013. 

As a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board must be stated. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed. 

Non-interventional Studies

For studies using surveys, questionnaires, and social media research, all participants must be fully informed as to why the research is being conducted, anonymity is assured, how their data will be used, and if there are any risks associated. Ethics approval must be provided, otherwise,  an exemption from the ethics committee should be provided. 

Declaration of Competing Interest

Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that may inappropriately influence their work. These may include but are not limited to sponsorship/grants/funding, consultancies, employment, advertisement, paid testimonies, and other financial and non-financial interests.

Authors must disclose all potential conflicts of interest during the submission process. A separate section “Conflicts of Interest” must be included in the Title Page.

See examples of Declaration of Competing Interest:

  • The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
  • Author X received research grants from Sponsor A.
  • Author Y is a consultant in Firm B.
  • Author Z is the inventor of patent C.

Declaration of Generative AI in Scientific Writing

Authors should disclose the use of AI and/or AI-assisted technologies in the writing process. These technologies may only be used to improve readability and language, and should be done with human control. Authors must carefully review and edit the result. AI should not be listed as an author as authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed ONLY by humans.

A statement should be declared on the Title Page during the submissions. JHES checks the use of AI and/or AI-assisted technologies during the submission process.  Please note that authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Authorship

Authorship allows the right people to be accredited and recognized for their work. It also means that the author(s) takes full responsibility for their published content.

Criteria for Authorship

The following criteria must be followed in order to be eligible for authorship:

  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 paper or reviewing 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.

General Guidelines for Authorship

The following are the general guidelines for authorship, which may or may not be applicable depending on the nature of the study:

  • Authorship and its order should be a joint decision of all the co-authors.
  • Individuals involved in a study who don’t satisfy the journal’s criteria for authorship should be listed as “Contributors” or “Acknowledged Individuals”. These include individuals who provided various kinds of support, from extending administrative and financial support to giving advice on the study.
  • In some cases, authors are listed alphabetically and can come with a note explaining that all authors contributed equally to the publication.

Changes in Authorship

Changes in the list of authors should be approved by all authors including those who have been removed from the original list. Please use this form and include it during the submission of the revised manuscript. JHES reserves the right to request a confirmation that all authors meet the authorship conditions.

Submission Guidelines

The submitted manuscript should not have been published elsewhere and should not be for consideration in other publications. The Editorial Board reserves the right to accept/reject or request the revision of the article prior to its submission to the reviewers. Please upload your manuscript file on the “Submit manuscript” icon below.

Manuscript Preparation

The manuscript can be submitted in either Word or PDF format. When preparing manuscript, the editorial team highly encourages authors to use citation managers (i.e., Zotero, Mendeley, Endnote).

Parts of the Manuscript

The manuscript should consist of the Title Page, Abstract, Introduction, Methodology,  Discussion, References, Tables, Figures, Acknowledgment, and References.

Title Page

A separate title page from the blinded manuscript should contain the following information;

Title

Should provide a concise description of the manuscript and written in sentence form.

Author information

  • Name(s) of author(s).
  • Author(s) affiliation including department/institution, city/municipality, province/state, and country
  • Active and official (if possible) email address of the corresponding author
  • ORCID iD of the author(s), if available

Abstract

The abstract should be limited to 150-200 words which clearly describes the significance, methodology, results, and conclusion of the study.

Keywords

Please provide 4 to 5 keywords, arranged alphabetically.

Statements and Declarations

Competing Interest. The author(s) are required to disclose any competing interest that is directly or indirectly related to the submitted manuscript.

Funding Information. The author(s) should disclose financial support for the conduct, authorship, and publication of the study.

Compliance with Ethical Standards. Article submission that involves human, and animal subjects should provide certification that the study design has undergone ethics review from an authorized ethics review board (e.g. Philippine Health Research Ethics, Social Science Ethics Review Board, etc.).

Authors Contribution. In order to promote transparency, JHES encourages the inclusion of statements that specifies the contribution of each author.

Data Availability. JHES supports open scientific exchange enabling the authors to share and archive research data. JHES acknowledges any limitations to data sharing including ethical, legal, or privacy issues. Authors should make these limitations clear in the Data Availability Statement upon submission. Authors should ensure that the data shared are in accordance with consent provided by participants on the use of confidential data. 

The following data availability statements may be used:

  • The data presented in this study are available in Supplementary Material X.
  • The data presented in this study are openly available on [website, repository, article]
  • The data in this study are available upon request from the authors. 
  • Not Applicable. No new data were created/analyzed in this study.

Blinded Manuscript

Text

  • The text is 1.5 spaced; 12-point Arial font.
  • Use italics for scientific names.
  • Use exponents instead of slash or dot in reporting units of measure.
  • Separate sentences by one character space.
  • Separate paragraphs by three (3) line spaces.
  • Self-citations should not exceed three (3).
  • Use continuous page and line numbering for easy referencing during the peer review process
  • The length of articles should range from 4,000–to 10,000 words.
  • Save your manuscript in .docx or .pdf format.
Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
  • Tables and figures should be supplied in separate files.
  • Tables and figures numbering must be in Arabic numerals.
  • Table caption should provide a concise and accurate description of what the table shows.
  • Tables can be organized in one MS Word or PDF file.
  • Each figure should be submitted as a separate file in either of the following formats (.png, .tiff, .eps) with a minimum resolution of 500 dpi.
  • Figure caption should provide a concise and accurate description of what the figure depicts.
  • Figure files should be named accordingly (e.g. “Fig1.png”).
  • Avoid using figures that were already published elsewhere. In cases the author wishes to include published/copyrighted figures, permission from the copyright owner(s) should be provided.
 

References

Citations

  • In-text citation of reference should be in square brackets (see examples below).
    1. Child malnutrition is a perennial problem in the country [1].
    2. According to Sandalo [3].
  2. Similar results were reported in several studies [1-3, 5].

Reference

Reference list should be numbered consecutively and only include published (or accepted for publication) works. Book and journal names should be italicized. Include DOI if available.

  • Journal article
  • Cuesta, J. (2007). Child Malnutrition and the Provision of Water and Sanitation in the Philippines. Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 12(2), 125–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/13547860701252298
  • Book
  • O’Donoghue, C., Ballas, D., Clarke, G., Hynes, S., & Morrissey, K. (Eds.). (2013). Spatial Microsimulation for Rural Policy Analysis. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30026-4
  • Book Chapter
  • O’Donoghue, C., Farell, N., Morrissey, K., Lennon, J., Ballas, D., Clarke, G., & Hynes, S. (2013). The SMILE Model: Construction and Calibration. In C. O’Donoghue, D. Ballas, G. Clarke, S. Hynes, & K. Morrissey (Eds.), Spatial Microsimulation for Rural Policy Analysis (pp. 55–86). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30026-4_4

Editorial Procedures and Review Process

Initial Evaluation

Upon submission of the manuscript, the Editorial team performs the technical pre-check to assess the (i) overall suitability of the manuscript to JHES or its Special Issue; (ii) Technical writing and ethical considerations; (iii) Quality of research to qualify for further review.

The Handling Editor (Associate Editor for manuscripts in regular issue and Guest Editor in a Special Issue submissions) will be assigned and invited to perform an initial evaluation. The Handling Editor determines whether to reject the manuscript, request revisions before peer review, or continue with the peer review process and recommend suitable reviewers.

Review Process

Once a manuscript passes the initial evaluation, at least two independent experts are invited for peer review. The Editorial Team invites potential reviewers including those suggested by the authors and editors. However, invited reviewers should have not collaborated with any of the co-authors during the past three years nor are currently working in the same institution as any of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.

JHES follows a double-blind review, where authors’ identities are unknown to the reviewers and vice versa. Peer review comments are confidential. 

Editorial Decision

All manuscripts submitted to JHES go through the peer-review process and are evaluated by at least two peer reviews. The editorial team communicates the decision of the editor, which will be one of the following:

  • Accept after Minor Revisions:
    The paper will be accepted after minor revisions addressing the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given a week to submit the revised manuscript and the actions taken.
  • Reconsider after Major Revisions:
    The acceptance of the manuscript depends on the revisions. Author needs to provide a point by point response or rebuttal if the reviewer’s comments are not addressed. Authors are given two weeks or more to submit the revised manuscript. This will undergo another round of peer review process. A maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript is normally provided. 
  • Reject: The manuscript has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution.

Production and Publication

Once the manuscript is accepted, it will undergo professional copy-editing, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, and publication on the JHES website and other social media platforms.

Author Appeals

Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the JHES. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ and/or Editor’s comments. Appeals should be submitted within three months from the rejection date, otherwise, it will not be considered further. The Editorial Team will forward the manuscript and related information to a designated Editorial Board Member and the Handling Editor will be asked to provide an advisory recommendation for further peer review or uphold the original rejection decision. The decision will be validated by the Editor-in-Chief, which can no longer be reversed.

Research Misconduct

Allegations of Misconduct

The Journal of Human Ecology and Sustainability (JHES) follows and abides by COPE’s Core Practices. (Hyperlink: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices)

All authors, collaborators, and institutions who have submitted or plan to submit journal manuscripts to JHES are responsible for reporting any misconduct they have witnessed so that appropriate actions can be done. If suspicion is present without hard evidence to support that suspicion, it would be up to the Editor-in-Chief along with the Editorial Board to decide on the next steps. 

Appeal Process

 

Any researcher or author has the right to raise an appeal regarding a given decision. This is how the appeal process takes place:

 

  1. After making an appeal through email or by notifying JHES through the given contact numbers, the Grievance Committee shall notify the Editor-in-Chief about the complaint.
  2. The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board will discuss the matter and attempt to resolve the grievance raised.
  3. If unable to provide a resolution immediately, the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board, and the Grievance Committee may reach out to those with expertise in the research field and can act as an adviser or mediator.
  4. JHES may also opt to invite observers who can bear witness to the deliberation of the submitted appeal.
  5. The final decision shall be decided by majority voting.

Complaints process

 Authors and their collaborators are encouraged to file a complaint once they witness any misconduct present in any submitted or published articles in JHES. This should be in compliance and reference to the policies and general guidelines of research. Concerns and complaints can be raised by sending an email to jhes_che.uplb@up.edu.ph or by contacting JHES at +639696441622 or +639456446703.

These are the following issues that can be the subject of filing complaints:

  • Authorship conflict
  • Plagiarism
  • Research Fraud/Tampering with the Results
  • Copyright issues
  • Ethical issues (ex: lack of informed consent, conflict in privacy and confidentiality)
  • Unrevealed conflicts of interest
  • Conflict in the Peer Review Process