Al Wusul: The Arab Journal of Open Science Policies and Practises

Submission Guidelines

Author Responsibilities

We want to provide you with an easy and professional experience at every stage of your publishing journey. 

To help us achieve this goal, you, as the author, also have some responsibilities. These include:

• Responding quickly to queries during the review and publication process
• Taking responsibility for all aspects of your work, including ensuring copyright is not violated, and permissions are obtained, and swiftly resolving any issues relating to the integrity and accuracy of your research, should any arise.
• Familiarize yourself with our ethical policies for authors and comply with all of our guidelines, including acknowledging everyone who has made a substantial and meaningful contribution to the submitted manuscript.
• The journal follows COPE’s Guidelines on Authorship and AI Tools and does not consider an AI tool as an author of a paper. Authors who use an AI tool for the writing of their manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data must disclose clearly in the Materials and Methods (or similar) section of the paper how and which AI tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, including the parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.

Copyright Permissions

Before submitting a manuscript, you must ensure that you have applied for and received written permission to use any third-party materials included in your manuscript that are under copyright.

Permissions we require:

• Non-exclusive rights to reproduce the third-party material in the article
• Print and electronic rights
• The right to use the material for the life of the published work (ie. no time restrictions on the permission granted)

By submitting an article to use for consideration, you are confirming that you have obtained all the necessary copyright permissions required to publish your article.

Preparing Your Submission

We offer a full array of manuscript preparation services to help improve the quality of your manuscript, save time, and maximise the impact of your research. Our easy-to-use platform connects authors with relevant experts in language support, translation, editing, statistical review and more. More details are available here.

Please note that this is an optional service and does not guarantee acceptance.

Manuscript Requirements

Al Wusul accepts the following types of manuscripts in the English and Arabic languages: Original Research Articles, Review Articles, Case Reports, Systematic Reviews, Book Review, Brief Reports, Commentary, Methods Articles, Letters

All manuscripts should be organised as follows:

Title Page
Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
Acknowledgements (if applicable)
References

Manuscript Preparation

Use a standard font (e.g., Times New Roman, Arial) and font size (e.g., 12-point) throughout the manuscript. Maintain uniform margins (e.g., 1-inch or 2.54 cm) on all sides. Double-space the entire manuscript, including text, references, and figure/table captions.

Our preferred file format is DOCX or DOC.

Title Page

The title page must contain:

The manuscript title, names of all authors with affiliations and ORCID IDs, corresponding author’s contact information, and any disclosures of funding sources or conflicts of interest.

Abstract

The abstract should provide a brief summary of the manuscript, including the research objective, methods, key findings, and conclusions. It should be around 250 words.

For articles in Arabic, an English abstract is required.

 
Keywords

Provide a list of keywords (3-6) that best describe the content of the manuscript. These keywords should aid in indexing and discoverability.

Introduction

A background relevant to the manuscript topic is stated with proper citation of the resources.

Discussion

This is the main section of the article. All content must be presented here.

Declaration Section

This section includes the following:

• Acknowledgements
• Ethical considerations
• Competing interests
• Availability of data and material
• Funding

References

Utilize the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation style for references. In-text citations include the author’s name and the page number in parentheses.  If the author is named in the sentence, then only the page number needs to be mentioned in parentheses..

Reference formatting examples:

• Journal Article: Last name, First name. “Article Title.” Journal Name, vol. Volume, no. Issue, Month Year, Page range. DOI or URL.
• Book: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
• Website: Author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number (if available), Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available), DOI (preferred), otherwise include a URL or permalink. Date of access (if applicable).

 
Tables and Figures

Figures and tables should be clear, legible, and labeled with informative captions. Use Arabic numerals to number figures and tables sequentially (e.g., Figure 1, Table 2). Include sources or permissions for figures and tables if they are reproduced from other sources.

Submission Checklist

Submitting your manuscript is simple with our online submission system. But to make sure the process is as easy as possible, read through the below checklist to ensure you have everything you need ready.

• Always double-check your manuscript before submitting it, as it is your responsibility to ensure that it is complete, meets the journal’s criteria, and has no spelling or typographical errors.
• Have a final read of the journal’s scope and aims, and make sure your article is a good fit and that your research is presented in a suitable way to match the scope.
• Does the manuscript comply with all of the stated ethics policies?
• Have you acquired all the necessary copyright permissions?
• Make sure you have removed all information that would allow the peer reviewers to identify you and thereby compromise the blind peer review process. (Also, if quoting your previous work, do not state it explicitly as ‘my / our’)

Submission Process

Manuscripts should be submitted via our submission system [Link] by the corresponding author.

You will be asked to create a personal account. Please remember to note down your username and password, as you will need these to check on the status of your manuscript and to respond to editorial enquiries.

Workflow and What Happens Next

• The author receives an automated email noting receipt of the submission
• The editor reads and decides whether to send the manuscript to peer review or to reject it if it does not fit with the journal’s aims and scope or if the quality is not high enough for the journal
• If the editor thinks it is suitable for publication, the manuscript is sent to two independent reviewers for a double-blind peer review
• The reviewer reports are returned to the editor
• The editor decides whether to reject, return with minor or major suggestions for improvements and resubmission, or accept
• If the editor decides that improvements are needed, the paper is sent back to the authors
• The authors make the suggested corrections
• The authors should receive a decision about acceptance within 45 days, revisions within 15 days and rejection within 30 days. If you have not received an answer after this point, please email publishing@knowledgee.com to request an update.

If accepted, the manuscript will then undergo the following steps:

Proofing and typesetting
Author checks
Editor checks
Galley proof preparation
Final checks
Publishing online

How to Share and Promote Your Paper

This journal is listed with a range of indexes and bibliometric databases. We also promote published papers through social media and content alert emails.

KnE Publishing also partners with Kudos, a free service we offer all our authors to help them increase the accessibility and visibility of their work, to reach a wider audience.