About the Journal

1. Focus and Scope

The main objective of this academic publication is to create an exchange platform between researchers, teachers and scholars who study, teach, learn or are connected to the educational or education-related disciplines. Our aim is to build and maintain a mutually beneficial and long-term bidirectional informational dialogue among our authors and beneficiaries of the published research. Its principal scope is to disseminate the latest research findings and scientific advances in the educational field of study, exploring traditional and modern tendencies, observing social and cultural effects and investigating interdisciplinary methodologies. We invite our collaborators to actively participate with their latest scientific research and to contribute their theoretical and practical experience in the development of this informational platform as a novel tool for the advancement of educational science. Our publication provides an active instrument for authors to publish and distribute their achievements worldwide in accordance with the Open Access policies and methods, as well as a powerful tool for researchers in order to obtain theoretical and practical knowledge for future research projects.

 

2. Peer Review Process

This journal follows a double-blind review method, preserving the reciprocal academic appreciation, respect and impartiality between authors and reviewers.

The peer review process:

A. A designated member of the editorial board will make an initial assessment of the quality and suitability of a submission in terms of scope, originality and plagiarism. This assessment allows our qualified reviewers a better usage of their time and resources. Papers written within the guidelines regarding the structure of the paper are thus very important.

B. Once the designated internal editorial board member is satisfied with the suitability of a submission, it is sent to two anonymous peer reviewers for their comments.

C. The reviewer will assign marks and make comments about the following six categories:

- Originality of the paper,

- The value of the research question and research gap,

- The soundness of the conceptual and technical or methodological framework,

- Insightful discussion in the results and discussion section,

- The policy implications of the paper,

- Academic writing quality.

D. The decision/remarks/suggestions will be communicated to the author(s).

 

3. Open Access Policy

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

3.1 Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

This journal follows the standard for Ethics and Publication Malpractice set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore 2010.

3.2 Responsibilities for Editors

3.2.1 Publication Decisions

The Managing Editor is the authority for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the editorial policies of the journal and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with the members of the Editorial Board or reviewers in making this decision.

3.2.2 Fair Play

An editor may at any time evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the nature of the authors or the host institution, including race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

3.2.3 Confidentiality

The editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate. Open Journal Systems (OJS) is a well-known platform for scholarly open access journals that prevents unauthorized access to its unpublished contents. In the case of a misconduct investigation, the editor may disclose material to third parties (e.g., an institutional investigation committee or other editors).

3.2.4 Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editors should excuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.

3.2.5 Involvement and Cooperation in Investigations

The editors will respond to all allegations or suspicions of research or publication misconduct raised by readers, reviewers, or other editors. Cases of possible plagiarism or duplicate/redundant publication will be assessed by the journal. In other cases, the editors may request an investigation by the institution or other appropriate bodies.

3.3 Responsibilities for Reviewers

3.3.1 Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with the author, may assist the author in improving the paper.

3.3.2 Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

3.3.3 Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

3.3.4 Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

3.3.5 Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

3.3.6 Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

3.3.7 Reviewer Misconduct

Editors will take reviewer misconduct seriously and pursue any allegation of breach of confidentiality, non-declaration of conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), inappropriate use of confidential material, or delay of peer review for competitive advantage. Allegations of serious reviewer misconduct, such as plagiarism, will be taken to the institutional level.

3.4 Responsibilities for Authors

3.4.1 Reporting Standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

3.4.2 Data Access and Retention
Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

3.4.3 Originality and Plagiarism
Authors should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarized, and has not been published elsewhere - fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. If an author has used the work and/or words of others, then this original is appropriately cited or quoted and accurately reflects individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.

3.4.4 Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication
An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

3.4.5 Acknowledgement of Sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

3.4.6 Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

3.4.7 Hazards
If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

3.4.8 Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

3.4.9 Fundamental Errors in Published Works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

3.5 Disclaimer

Neither the editors nor the Editorial Board is responsible for authors' expressed opinions, views, and the contents of the published manuscripts in the journal. The originality, proofreading of manuscripts and errors are the sole responsibility of the individual authors. All manuscripts submitted for review and publication in the journal go under double-blind review for authenticity, ethical issues, and useful contributions. Open Access Publishing Group shall not be responsible or answerable for any loss, damage or liability caused in relation to/arising out of conflicts of interest, copyright violations and inappropriate or inaccurate use of any kind of content related to or integrated into the research work. Decisions of the reviewers are the only tool for publication in the journal and will be final.

 

4. Privacy Policy Statement

4.1 Introduction

In this privacy & cookies policy (“Policy”), we describe the information that we collect about:

- The persons who make use of our website by visiting it (“Users”), reading, downloading, comparing or citing the published content without applying for a registered account as readers \ authors \ members of the editorial board,

- The persons who make use of the services of our website and apply for being registered as users (“Registered users”):

- Readers: users who choose to subscribe in order to be informed when new content is published (“Readers”);

- Authors: users who choose to submit a manuscript for publication (“Authors”),

- Editorial board members: users who choose to be an active part of our community as reviewers, editors (“Collaborators”).

Our company values the privacy of the users and registered users of its website. This privacy policy is effective beginning on May 20, 2018, and it summarizes what information we might collect from a user and/or registered user, and what we will and will not do with it. Also, it defines our procedures in the event of any potential request regarding the modification, total or partial deletion or immediate and definitive deletion of information collected and stored on our website.

Please note that this privacy policy does not govern the collection and use of information by companies that our company does not control, nor by individuals not employed or managed by our company. If visiting a website that we mention or link to, it is highly recommended to closely review its privacy policy before providing the site with any information.

4.2 What Information We Collect

4.2.1 Information Collected from Users

Users are able to access and make use of the published content without any kind of restrictions or the necessity of registering an account. All the research works published in this journal meet the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used for educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

4.2.1.1 Information Collected by Us

Our website only collects information on accessing the article’s webpages. This information does not contain any sensitive data (like IP, access time, hardware used, operating system, etc.) meant to identify users. Only the opening/viewing of the page is registered as a number of visualizations counted since the article has been published.

4.2.1.2 Information Collected by Third Party Service Providers

Information regarding access to the website using third-party service providers (like Google Analytics, Wopra) is collected, stored, analyzed and used according to the regulations and policies of the mentioned service providers. Reviewing their privacy policy before providing the site with information is highly recommended (Google Privacy Policy, respectively Wopra, Inc Privacy Policy). All the information collected is stored on their secure servers; both websites (our website and our third-party service providers) benefit from SSL-encrypted access and data transfer. The information collected by the third-party service providers is periodically and permanently deleted. Besides the mentioned ones, no other information about users is collected, stored or analyzed by our website and our third-party service providers.

4.2.2 Information Collected from Registered Users

4.2.2.1 Readers

Registering in order to receive updates regarding newly added content is an unprompted action and is completely free of charge. A registration request should contain: a username, the name and an email for correspondence. Opting out as registered user is always, immediately and definitively applicable by requesting it at contact@oapub.org. After the account removal, no information about the deleted user will remain stored on our server. Besides the mentioned ones, no other information about authors is collected, stored or analyzed by our website and third-party service providers.

4.2.2.2 Authors

Registering in order to submit new content is optional (not required) and completely free of charge. Manuscripts can be alternatively submitted by using our email (contact@oapub.org, submit@oapub.org) or by using our third-party service provider (Cognito) submission form. The service provider collects all the submission information meant to identify and to allow us to communicate with the author(s). These include: author’s name, affiliation (optional), email, a short abstract regarding the submitted manuscript (optional), recommendations (optional) and the submitted manuscript file (a text file containing the material to be published). The entire submission process occurs on the third-party service provider website (Cognito), which benefits by secure servers and SSL with encrypted access and data transfer. Creating an account in order to use the Cognito submission form is not necessary. The third-party service provider (Cognito) is entitled to collect, store and analyze the author’s information under their own privacy policy (Cognito Privacy Policy). Our company uses the collected information for contacting the submitters, communicating our publication policies to them, and for offering support during the publication process. If the publication process is not concluded with the publication of the submitted manuscript, all the information collected during the submission process is automatically and definitively deleted from the third-party service provider's servers and our platform. Authors may always ask for the immediate and definitive deletion of any information regarding their submission(s) by requesting it at contact@oapub.org. The information which is publicly displayed on our website after the publication of a submitted manuscript is meant for uniquely identifying the published research work and includes the author(s)’ name, affiliation and email address. All the information is voluntarily provided by the authors who agree to the publication of the submitted manuscript in a periodical that meets the Open Access Publishing requirements, with content that can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Author(s) may always opt out of immediately, definitively, totally or partially deleting/modifying the information publicly displayed by requesting it at contact@oapub.org. Besides the mentioned ones, no other information about authors is collected, stored or analyzed by our website and third-party service providers.

4.2.2.3 Collaborators

Our collaborators are Editorial Board members who are actively participating in the publication process. The registration of the editorial members is made by request at contact@opaub.org, with the applicant voluntarily providing us with information regarding their full name, academic education, academic experience and research interests. Every editorial member request is carefully analyzed, and both approved and non-approved applicants will be informed of our decision. Editorial member profiles are created using exclusively information provided by the applicant and are stored on a secure server that benefits from an SSL-secured connection and data transfer. Besides the information publicly available on their profiles, no other information is stored on our website. Editorial board members may always opt out for immediate, definitive, total or partial deletion/modification of the information publicly displayed by requesting it at contact@oapub.org. Besides the mentioned ones, no other information about collaborators is collected, stored, processed and/or analyzed by our website and third-party service providers.

4.3 What We Do with Personally Identifiable Information

It is always up to the user whether to disclose personally identifiable information to us, although if the user elects not to do so, we reserve the right to not register him as a user or provide him with any products or services. "Personally identifiable information" means any information that can be used to identify the user as an individual, such as, for example:

- users’ computer's domain name and IP address, indicating where the computer is located on the Internet;

- user’s hardware, operating system used to visit and use our website;

- name, affiliation, email address provided when registering;

- registered username and password;

- any account-preference information the registered users provide us;

- name, affiliation and correspondence email address publicly displayed on published research works and editorial board members’ profiles.

If users do provide personally identifiable information to us, either directly or through third-party service providers, we will:

- not sell or rent personally identifiable information to a third party without visitors’/users’ permission;

- although unless users choose to opt out, we may use the information for providing information we believe the registered users need to know or may find useful, such as news about our services and products, modifications of our policies and terms of service;

- take commercially reasonable precautions to protect the information from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction;

- not use or disclose the information except:

- as necessary to provide services or products the user has ordered, such as (for example) by providing it to a carrier to deliver products the user has ordered;

- in other ways described in this privacy policy or to which the user has otherwise consented;

- as required by law, for example, in response to a subpoena or search warrant;

- to outside auditors who have agreed to keep the information confidential;

- to a successor organization in the event of a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, or other sale or disposition of all or a portion of our company's assets. The successor organization's use and disclosure of users’ personally-identifiable information will continue to be subject to this privacy policy unless (i) a court orders otherwise, for example, a bankruptcy court; or (ii) the successor organization gives the user notice that the user’s personally-identifiable information will be subject to the successor organization's own privacy policy, along with an opportunity for the user to opt out (which may cause the users not to be able to continue to use our website. If the user submits personally-identifiable information after such a transfer, that information may be subject to the successor entity's privacy policy;

- as necessary to enforce our policies and terms of service;

- as necessary to protect the rights, safety, or property of our company, its users, or others; this may include (for example) exchanging information with other organizations for fraud protection and/or risk reduction.

4.4 Information We Do Not Collect

Information necessary for concluding the payment procedures is not collected, stored, processed or analyzed by our website. The payment process takes place on the secure servers of our payment gateway providers, which benefit from SSL-secured connections and data transfer. The information necessary for concluding the transfer is precisely decided by each service provider under their own policies, fulfilling the regulation regarding international banking and online payments. The information we receive from the payment gateway providers contains the elements that allow us to identify the customer and to fulfill our accounting and fiscal requirements.

4.5 Cookies Policy

Our company and our third-party service providers use "cookies" to store personal data on the computers that access our website. We may also link information stored on the user’s computer in cookies with personal data about specific individuals stored on our servers. The user may also decide on their first visit regarding the acceptance of the cookies when browsing our website. If the user sets up the web browser (for example, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Firefox) so that cookies are not allowed, the user might not be able to use some of the features of our website. Deleting cookies can be done by clearing the visited content from the web browser. Cookies provided by third-party service providers are regulated by the policies available on every provider’s website; usually, their deletion takes place at determined intervals. Our company is offering the necessary support in solving any potential discomfort caused by the improper use of our and/or our third-party service providers’ cookie policies.

4.6. Deletion of the Provided\Collected Information

By requesting it at contact@oapub.org, the following information collected from users and/or registered users by our website platform or third-party service providers will be immediately and definitively deleted:

- information collected by our website registered users (readers, authors, editorial board members) used to create their accounts (as readers and authors) and their profiles as editorial board members.

- accounts created and information provided by the users (readers, authors, collaborators) can be deleted at any time by their creators. In case of the impossibility of recovering the sign-up credentials (email, username, and/or password), their deletion will be made immediately and definitively upon request at contact@oapub.org.

- collected cookies are automatically deleted after a determined period by our platform and by third-party service providers. Any request for immediate deletion will be accepted and promptly enacted.

4.7 Registered Users’ Privacy Responsibilities

To help protect their privacy, our users should be sure:

- to not share their user ID or password with anyone else;

- to log off our website when finished;

- to take customary precautions to guard against "malware" (viruses, Trojan horses, bots, etc.) by installing and updating suitable anti-virus software and keeping their operating systems and browsers updated.

4.8 Information Collected from Children

Our users must be at least 13 years old to use our website and service(s). Our website does not knowingly collect information from children under 13 years old.

4.9 Changes to This Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change this privacy policy as we deem necessary or appropriate because of legal compliance requirements or changes in our business practices. If the users have provided us with an email address, we will endeavor to notify them of any updates regarding our policies and terms of use.

4.10 Questions or Comments?

For any questions, comments or suggestions about our privacy policy, please contact us via email at contact@oapub.org.

 

5. Copyright Policy Statement

By submitting an article, the author(s) confirm(s) and guarantee(s) on behalf of him-/herself and any co-author(s) that the manuscript has not been submitted or published elsewhere, and that he or she holds all copyright in and title to the submitted contribution, including any figures, photographs, line drawings, plans, maps, sketches, and tables, and that the article and its contents do not infringe in any way on the rights of third parties. The author indemnifies and holds harmless the publisher from any third-party claims. After publication, the author(s) retain(s) the copyrights of their published research works under a CC BY - Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which allows users to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) for any purpose, even commercially, with the condition of attribution (users must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made). Users may do so in any reasonable manner. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the user follows the license terms. The entire legal code of CC BY - Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 is available here: The entire legal code of CC BY - Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 is available here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

6. Editorial Board Membership Policy Statement

The open access principles of publishing require a highly specialized team of reviewers, consultants and associate editors in order to provide a proper and efficient publication process. The members of our editorial team should possess wide experience in their research field, good analytical capabilities and solid knowledge of the latest achievements in their research area. The requests for editorial team membership must include a detailed description of affiliation, research interests and professional and editorial activity. The requests could be submitted to contact@oapub.org. In order to certify membership on the editorial board of the journal, a Certificate of Membership is issued. It contains the name of the member, the journal name and identification (ISSN) and the date on which the certificate is issued.

 

7. Publication Procedures and Policies

7.1 Publication Frequency

The journal publishes 2 issues / year.

7.2 Procedures

All our published research works can be freely accessed, viewed, downloaded and modified under a Creative Commons License 4.0. No registration or creating an account is necessary. Authors who choose to publish their research works may contact us at contact@oapub.org and submit their manuscripts at the specified email addresses indicating the selected journal or by using the appropriate submission form. 

After submitting, an informative email containing the present publication procedure will be sent to the email address provided by the submitter. The review procedure begins after the author communicates to us his agreement \ acknowledgement of our publication procedure.

After the manuscript’s review, the submitter is informed about the acceptance of his submission at the email address provided by the submitter. In case of accepted manuscripts, an informative email containing the details for the processing fee payment procedure.

The Article Processing Fee is required to be paid only if the article has been accepted for publication.

After the payment of the processing fee, the manuscript is updated, edited, formatted and published in the current issue of the selected journal. A DOI is assigned, and a publication certificate is issued.

The Crossref DOI (prefix 10.46287) will be assigned at the time of publication (when the final form of the article is published online). In order to allow (potential) post-publication last adjustments, updates, corrections, etc., the DOI’s activation will be delayed, usually until the current issue is closed. After the registered DOI is activated, no more changes can be made to the registered content (the article) and the article’s metadata. If an earlier activation of the DOI is necessary, we will offer our support in this regard. In the eventuality of post-publication updates, adjustments, corrections, etc., the stability of the platform and a backup of the platform will be a priority; the mentioned operation will take place after a backup copy is made.

The article’s file (as a PDF file) and the publication certificate (as a PDF file) are sent attached to an informative email containing the addresses of the issue, abstract’s and article’s page.

7.3. Processing Charge, Payment, Refund and Cancellation Policies

7.3.1 Processing Charge Policy

Open Access publishing is a new generation non-profit digital publishing where the author(s) are charged an Article Processing Charge (APC) which allows the covering of:

- the operative costs occasioned by the publication procedures (editing, processing, indexing); and

- the administrative costs (web-hosting, web-mastering, upgrades) which allow maintaining the publications and their contents available on-line, anytime, for free, to anyone, as requested by the Open Access principles.

The APC is the only requested fee for the online publishing of an article.

7.3.2 Payment Policy

After the submission, the author(s) must:

- acknowledge and confirm the publication procedures; and

- agree that in case of the acceptance of the submitted manuscript, the publication will occur only after the payment of the APC.

After acceptance for publication, the author(s) are informed about and become responsible for the payment of the APC. An email containing the detailed modalities of payment is provided. The payment can be made by using any of the following modalities:

- via online banking credit/debit card payment;

- via international (SWIFT or SEPA) bank transfer.

Prompt payment is advised, as the article will not be published until the payment is received.

During the entire publication procedure and, especially during the payment process, in order to avoid any unpleasant situation, communication is highly recommended. In case of delayed payment, lack of communication, etc., the rejection of the submitted article will be applied.

7.3.2 Refund Policy

Open Access Publishing Group will agree, at its discretion, to a refund in case an article has not been published within 30 days from the date of payment, if the fact occurs as a consequence of Open Access Publishing Group's fault. The policy applies only in case the publisher delays the publication. The refund policy does not apply under any circumstances once\after the article is published and available online.

7.4 Cancellation Policy

Open Access Publishing Group does not encourage the withdrawal of a manuscript once the submitted article has been reviewed and accepted. It also does not allow the cancellation, withdrawal or refund of the processing fee once\after the article has been published.

7.5 Complaints Policy

The authors are entirely responsible for the quality of the submitted manuscripts as well as their content source and originality. Any complaint, no matter which part is responsible for it, regarding the editing characteristics, omissions, adjustments, publishing or web hosting issues must be expressed by the author(s) via email at contact@oapub.org within 10 days after publication. The occurrence will be resolved in an amicable way and will not be considered as a potential cause of cancellation, withdrawal or refund. For any other questions and information regarding our policies, please contact us at contact@oapub.org.