Journal Policies

Open Access Policy

We do not charge our readers or their institutions for access. Users of our online journals shall have the right to "read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link" to the full texts of every article available in this website. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia publishes fully open access journals. All articles are freely available to read, share and download. In accordance with publication ethics and best practices of scholarly publishing, authors and journals must be properly credited. All articles are accessible via the journal's website and selected indexing databases.

Editorial Process (Peer Review)

Archives of Orofacial Sciences (AoS) practices a double-blind peer review policy. At all stages of the review, until the decision to accept has been taken, neither the author nor the reviewer can identify the other. The Editorial Board may exercise their prerogative to reject a manuscript without peer review if that manuscript is judged to be outside the scope of the Journal, poorly written or formatted or lacking in significance.

Reviewers are matched to the manuscript according to their expertise. Selection of reviewers is made from the Journal’s reviewers’ data bank. If found to be of suitable quality and meets the aims and scope of the Journal, it will then be sent to at least two reviewers. The reviewer selected by the Editor may, of course, not necessarily be from the list. The Journal also welcome suggestions for reviewers from authors, though these recommendations may or may not be used. After receiving a request to peer review, it is essential that peer reviewers respond in a timely fashion, particularly if they cannot do the review, to avoid unnecessarily delaying the process. Reviewers are tasked to evaluate a manuscript for its originality and significance of contribution; subject relevancy; appropriate coverage of existing literature; the presentation of methodology, results and interpretation; and manuscript organisation. Reviewers are also required to provide anonymous comment to the author and confidential comment to the Editor.

Typically the review process will take 60–90 days. Should there be any delay, the Journal will alert the reviewers in a timely manner. For any contradict reports, the Journal will seek for further expert opinion. A revised manuscript may be returned to the initial reviewers. Where manuscript revision is required, authors are urged to ensure that the necessary corrections are made before the manuscript can be accepted for production. Author will be notified on the decision made by the Editor.

Conflict of Interest

A Declaration of Conflicting Interests policy refers to a formal policy a journal may have to require a conflict of interest statement or conflict of interest disclosure from a submitting or publishing author. Conflicts of interest arise when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgements on what is published. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived.

Reviewers
To ensure that the review process is free of conflicts:
--Editors should ensure that reviewers are free of conflict of interest with respect to an author.
--Reviewers are required to disclose any potential conflict of interest when refereeing an article.
--Minor conflicts do not disqualify a reviewer from reporting on an article but will be taken into account when considering the referees’ recommendations.

Authors
All authors and co-authors are required to disclose any potential conflict of interest when submitting their article.

Editors
Editors should not make any editorial decisions or get involved in the editorial process if they have any conflict of interest (financial or otherwise) for a submitted manuscript. When editors submit their own work to their journal, a colleague in the editorial office should manage the manuscript and the editor/author should recuse himself or herself from discussion and decisions about it.

Human and Animal Rights

All research must have been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. Articles conducting any animal or clinical studies should contain a statement in accordance with the animal and human ethics committee.

The Journal should ensure that research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.

The Journal should seek assurances that all research has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g. Research Ethics Committee, Institutional Review Board).

Informed Consent

The authors involved in research and experiments involving human subjects must confirm that informed consent was obtained from all participants and/or their legal guardians.

For manuscripts containing pictures of identifiable patients, the Patient Consent Form must be submitted as well.

Download Patient Consent Form 

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, Authors will be asked to transfer copyright. This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A notification will be sent to the corresponding Author confirming receipt of the manuscript. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the Author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. 

Licence

All articles published in AoS are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which under the following terms:

· Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
· No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

You are free to:
· Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
· Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Plagiarism Policy

Any allegations of plagiarism or self-plagiarism/text-recycling made to the Journal will be investigated by Journal’s Editor, following COPE guidelines. If the allegations appear to be founded, the corresponding author of the manuscript will be asked to provide an explanation of the overlapping material. The Editorial Board members and the author’s institution may be requested to assist in the further evaluation of the manuscript and the allegations.

All the manuscripts submitted to the Journal are subject to plagiarism check using the plagiarism checker software, Turnitin, and the similarity index should not exceed 20%. In the event it does, manuscripts may be returned to the authors with a request that they address the issues through appropriate citation, use of quote marks to identify direct quotes, or re-writing.

If the similarity is too extensive for revision, the manuscript may be rejected.

Article Publishing Charge (APC)

With effect from 1st January 2023 onwards, an Article Publishing Charge (APC) of MYR500/USD150 will be imposed on authors upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication (for submission starting 1st January 2023).

All manuscripts published in our journals are open access and freely available online. APC is crucial to sustain and develop an open-access journal. The APC payable for a manuscript is agreed as part of the manuscript submission process. Authors pay a one-time APC to cover the costs of publishing services we provide. This includes provision of online tools for editors and authors, manuscript production and hosting, liaison with abstracting and indexing services, and customer services. The corresponding author of the manuscript is responsible for making or arranging the payment upon editorial acceptance of the manuscript. We advise prompt payment as we are unable to publish accepted manuscripts until payment has been received. Payment should be made through the University’s payment gateway as instructed in the acceptance email from the Editor-in-Chief.

Upon acceptance of a manuscript, an APC of RM500/USD150 will be imposed on the authors. The APC is based on the followings:

• MYR500 for corresponding author affiliated mainly to an institution in Malaysia.
• USD150 for corresponding author affiliated mainly to foreign institution outside Malaysia.

(Bank charges have to be defrayed by authors.)

Refund Policy

The corresponding author assumes the responsibility for the APC payment. Penerbit USM will refund an APC if an error on our part has resulted in a failure to publish the accepted manuscript. APCs will not be refunded when articles are withdrawn by the author(s) or retracted as a result of author error or misconduct.

Waiver Policy

There is no discount or waiver on the APC for accepted papers.

Payment Instruction

The APC payment must be made online through USM e-payment portal. Author(s) of accepted paper will be instructed on the payment via the acceptance email from the Editor. Please note that your publication will only be considered upon acceptance of payment, not acceptance date.

Only payment through the USM e-payment portal will be accepted and processed. Once you click the provided link, you should be directed to the USM e-payment form for “Journal Publication” services, in which it will land to the designated journal e-payment portal. Please make sure that the name of the journal is correctly displayed. If the link does not direct to the correct journal, please refer the matter to the Journal Admin immediately.

Author then must fill in the Manuscript ID (provided by the journal during submission). Before you click “Next”, please ensure that you have filled in all required information. Through this portal, payment can be made either by credit card or interbank online transfer method. Author MUST ensure to select the correct currency and amount as instructed in the acceptance email. After you have successfully made the payment, please print the proof of payment as PDF and email this document to the Journal Admin. You will receive an acknowledgement email once we have received the notification of successful transaction from the bank. Should you have enquiries or issues regarding the payment process, please contact the Journal Admin.

APC Payment Guidelines
APC FAQs

USM ePayment Operating Hours

Normal Day Transaction
02:00 am – 10:30 pm
Malaysia Time Zone (UTC+08:00)

Month/Year End Transaction
02:00 am – 11:59 am
Malaysia Time Zone (UTC+08:00)