Academicus International Scientific Journal

Academicus International Scientific Journal (Academicus ISJ) is an international scientific journal published in English since year 2010. Academicus ISJ is a non-profit and open access publication that is published semi-annually and is double-blind peer reviewed. Its print ISSN is 2079-3715 and its electronic ISSN is 2309-1088.

Academicus ISJ is led by an international Editorial Board, consisting of worldwide renowned members of the academic and scientific community, who by their strategic orientation of the journal and the rigid scientific content monitoring they provide, ensure that the works selected for publication meet the highest international scientific and publishing standards. The journal brings together the scientific research of academics within a wide arena of discussion in a way that few other publications of this kind are actually doing.

Conceived as a scientific journal which gives considerable space to research in the social sciences and humanities, and with a direct impact in the social, economic, political, legal, and communication fields, this journal collects works and scientific research developed from the perspective and disciplinary structuring of the social sciences, indexed in the 1XX.XX and 3XX.XX fields of the UDC ( Universal Decimal Classification).

The works published in its issues represent a scientific analysis and approach to research topics with a direct impact on decisions and policy making, as well as contribute in comprehending the great events and dialectics of our societies, expanding the definition of what is regional, starting from the Western Balkans, the Mediterranean countries, Central and Eastern Europe and beyond, with a global view.
The volumes of the Academicus ISJ can be found in hard copy at the Public Library of Vlore City, as well as at the Albanian National Public Library in Tirana, the British Library in London, UK, the ZBW - German National Library, as well as in the most important digital libraries worldwide in open access and by subscription.

In order to preserve the intellectual legacy of its digital content in open access within a long-term storage, all works published in Academicus ISJ have been archived in Portico Repository and with DSpace at an Institutional Repository. To measure the academic impact of its articles according article citations and readings, Academicus ISJ has inserted PlumX, issued and developed by Plum Analytics and Altmetric part of Digital Sciences, for each article.
 

Academicus ISJ welcomes research from scholars and academics working in different fields who meet the scientific and editorial requirements of this journal.

Prof. Dr. Arta Musaraj
Editor in Chief

Academicus
International Scientific Journal
Sheshi i Flamurit, Rruga Muze
Al-9401 Vlorë, Albania
Tel: +355 68 60 60 555 - Fax: +355 33 223 481
info@academicus.edu.al
https://academicus.edu.al

Academicus
International Scientific Journal

pISSN 2079-3715
eISSN 2309-1088

Editor in Chief

Prof. Arta Musaraj
editor@academicus.edu.al
Academicus International Scientific Journal
Vlore, Albania

Editorial Board

Prof. Musaraj Arta
editor@academicus.edu.al
Academicus International Scientific Journal
Vlore, Albania

Academic Abazi Alajdin
a.abazi@seeu.edu.mk
Academician, Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Republic of Macedonia

Prof. Canullo Giuseppe
g.canullo@univpm.it
Polytechnic University of Marche
Ancona, Italy

Prof. Carayol Valerie
valerie.carayol@u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr
University of Bordeaux
Bordeaux, France

Prof. Chasdi Richard J.
rchasdi81@gwu.edu
Department of Political Science
The George Washington University
Washington DC, USA

Prof. Chiodi Guglielmo
guglielmo.chiodi@uniroma1.it
University La Sapienza
Rome, Italy

Prof. Horner Donald H., Jr.
dhorner3@ju.edu
Jacksonville University’s Davis College of Business
Florida, United States

Prof. José María Vázquez García-Peñuela
jose.vazquez@unir.net
Universidad Internacional de La Rioja
La Rioja, Spain

Prof. Invernizzi Emanuele
emanuele.invernizzi@iulm.it
IULM University
Milan, Italy

Prof. Macioti Maria Immacolata
(Member in Memorium) † 2021)
University La Sapienza
Rome, Italy

Prof. Marsonet Michele
michele.marsonet@unige.it
University of Genoa
Genoa, Italy

Prof. Lopez Alves Fernando
lopez-al@soc.ucsb.edu
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Ambassador Thomas Patrick Melady
(Member in Memorium) † 2014)
Institute of World Politics
Washington, D.C., USA

Academicus – International Scientific Journal (Academicus ISJ) is an international scientific journal that aims to be a valid publication in the English language. It is published semi-annually (January and July) in open access and double-blind peer reviewed. It aims to influence scientific environments not only at a regional level, but also globally, by disseminating the high-quality work of its collaborators in the social sciences and humanities, particularly in the fields of sociology, political sciences, economics, law, and communication. This Statute and Regulation coordinates and manages the editing of the scientific journal Academicus ISJ and specifies the rules and procedures of the Editorial Board, as well as the principles applicable to the editing of the journal.

Journal Specification

1. In accordance with the Founding Act and its Statute, Academicus ISJ, is a self-published journal, pISSN 2079-3715 and eISSN 2309-1088, peer reviewed scientific publication, semi-annual (January - July), in Open Access and publishes results of research and scientific activities across Social Sciences and Humanities. This journal will collect works and research developed from the perspective, disciplinary and interdisciplinary structuring of these scientific areas.
2. The journal publishes the latest knowledge in the above-mentioned sciences, thus contributing to improving the socio-economic indicators of the region and expanding the concept of region from the Southwestern Balkans, to the Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe and beyond
3. The underlying principles of publishing are originality, topicality, and applicability in practice.
4. Academicus ISJ welcomes works or research resulting from the efforts of scholars and academics in different fields who are able to meet the scientific and editorial requirements of this journal.
5. Academicus ISJ is led by an international Editorial Board, whose members with their outstanding reputation in scientific research and their academic qualities, by a visionary and strategic orientation, ensure a clear focus and the qualitative contribution of the journal in the publication of the scientific content, on a global scale. The Editor in Chief runs the general management of the journal in collaboration with the Editorial Secretariat, by coordinating the activities of the publishing process including author’s submissions and the reviewer’s workflow.
6. The journal is being monitored by prestigious international indexing agencies which list and measure the academic impact of scientific publications, by integrating their web-based tools, which provide data on the use and impact of research and scholarly products and has been included in internationally recognized electronic data bases and prestigious libraries worldwide.

Author(s)

1. The author(s) (hereinafter referred to as the author) is/are responsible for elaborating and submitting articles to the Editorial Secretariat of Academicus ISJ, who has the rights of property, e.g. the right to decide on use of the work submitted for publication.
2. The author of an article is responsible for its scientific and linguistic quality, as well as for the ethics in research, in conformity with all publication provisions as laid out in the Right of Authorship and Copyright and Publication Ethics.
   Only works previously not published elsewhere or sent for publication to other the journals will be considered to publishing by the journal. Academicus ISJ is a double blind peer review journal and does not consider for publication pre-print or working papers previously posted online.
   The author is allowed to self-archive in open access repositories only post-print articles with our publishing format only after the publication online of their work at the Academicus ISJ website and, in this case, must cite Academicus ISJ as the publisher of this work.
3. The author is required to submit articles by uploading them to the journal website according to the specified procedure as in authors category. In order to protect specific characteristics present in the article or in case of failure of the above-mentioned upload, the author can send the proposal to the editorial e-mail address info@academicus.edu.al, which confirms receipt through an email within five calendar days. Otherwise the author should re-send the article. The submission and processing of articles is free of charge.
4. Based on the observations and recommendations of the Editorial Secretariat, the author shall modify or correct the article submitted. A modified final copy is to be returned to the editor's address: info@academicus.edu.al following up the above-mentioned procedure and taking into consideration deadlines that the editor sets.
5. Articles not accepted for publication shall be returned to the author via the Editorial Secretariat, together with the reason for return signed by the Editor in Chief by bringing back the parts at their initial state, with no any obligation between them.
6. The author of an accepted article shall receive 1 (one) hard copy of the issue containing the published article.

Reviewers

1. A reviewer is assigned to assess the content of each article submitted to the journal. The reviewer shall prepare a review assessment in English.
2. The Editorial Board selects a group of reviewers for each research field covered by the journal based on the UDC classification.
3. Reviewers must be selected from academic and scientific environments, and have an outstanding reputation at the European level and even further. Their reviews and assessments will assure the highest quality of the journal in terms of scientific content and publishing standard.
4. The reviewer receives the article “in blind” from the journal’s database which lists the proposals according the scientific fields he/she covers and has a reviewing limit of one article per issue. Each proposal is available to two reviewers.
5. The reviewers´ responsibility is to submit an overall assessment of the article, focusing on its originality and contribution, and specify its quality in terms of both its scientific and practical value. All comments must be sufficiently justified and the assessment conclusion must be clear and unambiguous. In the assessment, the reviewer must state whether he/she: 
   1. Recommends the article for publication.
   2. Recommends the article for publication after taking due regard to comments (minor revisions).
   3. Recommend the article for publication after eliminating formal deficiencies (major revisions).
   4.  Does not recommend the article for publication, but author(s) should be encouraged to resubmit in the future, after re-elaborating the paper, referring the reviewer’s comments.
   5. Does not recommend the article for publication.
6. The conclusions of a reviewer’s assessment are considered as recommendations.  The time allocated for elaboration of the reviewer’s assessment is 3 weeks. The Editorial Board has an exclusive right to decide on an article’s publication.

The Peer Review process

Academicus ISJ operates with a double-blind peer-review standard, where the reviewer selection is done by an automated patented system as follows:
Based on the UDC code declared by the author, the Editorial Secretariat inserts the paper into one of the corresponding folders of each field, without names and other sensitive data of the author. By using their personal login (user, pass), reviewers enter in the directories of their scientific field where they may download the paper and express their availability to review the paper by checking the corresponding box.
After two selections (availability check), the work is not available for review by other reviewers, and after 3 weeks they must stipulate their decision and communicate it to us with their detailed review, according our standard described at the journal’s Regulations directory.
In case there is no convergence of reviews for a proposal, the Editorial Secretariat passes it to a third reviewer following the same procedure.
Within 3 to 6 weeks, the Editorial Secretariat communicates to the author the results of the review process of his/her proposal.

To read the full Peer Review Process of Academicus ISJ click here

Right of Authorship, Intellectual Propriety and Copyright

1. According to the law, the author of a work is an individual who, through his or her mental inventive activity, has created a certain work. Should this work be a product of inventive activity of several individuals, the work is subject to authorship in common.
2. The author is in possession of the Personal rights of authorship, e.g. the authorship protection right, the work inviolability right, and the right for public use in a way not diminishing its value, etc. 
3. When an article is published in Academicus ISJ, a DoI is assigned to it, to identify the content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet of the full article with a customized metadata resolution.
   Academicus’ DOI http://doi.org/10.7336/academicus.2011.04.01
   will lead to the work published in Academicus year 2011 issue 4 paper 1, where 10.7336 is the DoI prefix of Academicus ISJ assigned by the registration agency (the International DOI Foundation).
   In order to preserve the intellectual legacy of its digital content in open access within a long-term storage, all works published in Academicus ISJ have been archived in 2 repositories, one of them in OA.
4. The author grants his or her permission for publication and distribution of the work by submitting the article in order to publish it in Academicus ISJ, while taking in consideration that:
   1. Academicus ISJ is a scientific and academic journal with a registered trademark protecting its own rights and intellectual rights of authorship.
   2. When a certain work is being published in Academicus ISJ, this publication is considered the intellectual property of Academicus ISJ. In order to re-publish this work, the author must formally inform the editor at the email address info@academicus.edu.al and only after receiving the approval from this editor can proceed with re-publication.
   3. The journal follows COPE guidelines and Best practices for Corrections, Retractions or Editorial expression of concerns with the article, in the post publication phase.

   4. The author has the right to distribute and auto-archive in Open Access repositories, under a CC License of Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). The author is allowed to self-archive in open access repositories only post-print articles with our publishing format only after the publication online of their work at the Academicus ISJ website (without asking the publisher for any authorization) and, in this case, must cite Academicus ISJ as the publisher of this work.

Publication Ethics, Plagiarism, Fabrication of Data and Conflict of Interest

1. Academicus ISJ follows guidance from COPE to support the ethical publishing principles. The guidelines are applied to the journal editors, authors, and peer-reviewers. The journal will follow the COPE flowcharts on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.
2. According to the international best practices in scientific publishing and professional conduct code, the author is asked to complete and sign the Declaration for Publishing in Academicus ISJ. This document declares that the proposal has not been previously published and is not currently being considered elsewhere for publication in any another journal, is not a pre-print or working paper previously posted online in an open access repository, and that he/she is the sole owner of the manuscript thereof and of all rights and title, and assigns to the publisher of Academicus ISJ the rights to publish and distribute the said manuscript and to create a derivative print work from said manuscript. The author declares that he/she understands what Plagiarism and Auto Plagiarism is and declares and warrants that his/her contribution is original, except for such excerpts or content cited correctly, that it contains no libellous statements, and does not infringe on any copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or propriety right of others.
3. Authors must declare in the Author’s Declaration for Publishing in Academicus ISJ that their proposal is not a result of Fabrication or Falsification of Data.

4. Researchers are bounded by a code of ethics in developing their research, that includes the following protections for the observed, interviewed or questioned subjects:

   a. Protected from physical or psychological harm (including loss of dignity, loss of autonomy, and loss of self-esteem)

   b. Protection of privacy and confidentiality

   c. Protection against unjustifiable deception

   d. The subject must give voluntary informed consent to participate in research. Guardians must give consent for minors to participate

5. Academicus ISJ encourages the author to declare if there is any potential Conflict of Interest related to the development and results of the research work by trying to support the interest of potential founders or sponsors with the publication of the research findings.

This Declaration is available at the website of the journal at the authors directory. The author must complete, sign, and send it by an institutional email address as a connection to the author’s identity and work authorship. After fulfilling this obligation, the Editorial Secretariat uploads the proposal into our system to be considered for publication through the double-blind peer-review process.

Presentation of articles

1. Title of the article (followed by any subtitles) (each may contain up to 120 characters)
2. Name and surname of the author(s) including scientific title or grade according their national academic advancement schema.
3. The name of the university, research center or other scientific research developing entity where the author works.
4. Abstract (which must contain from 150 - 200 words)
5. Keywords (from 4-7 words)
6. UDC code of the article
7. The text of the article must contain from 3000 - 6000 words and be structured as follows:
   1. Introduction (which must contain up to 150 words)
   2. Analysis and Results (in case the paper needs the inclusion of Methodology and Experimentation, they must contain from 200-250 words)
   3. Conclusion
8. Bibliography and References (which must not surpass 50 titles) must meet one of the following standards: MLA, APA, CSE, Ch/T. References within the text must be followed by a progressive number with superscript at the end of the word and explanations must be placed at the end of the page on which the reference is inserted.
9. Figures (no more than 5, following the standard formats jpeg, gif, png) must have a resolution 300-600 dpi and be placed in the text, followed by the figure’s title and source.
10. Graphics and schemas, in case they have not been created in a vector graphic format (Microsoft and Adobe) by the author but are instead a scanned figure, must not contain any title or legend within them, and be placed in the text, followed by the graphics or schema title and source.
11. Tables must be created in Excel format, not as an image, and placed in the text, followed by the table’s title and source.

Open Access and Licensing Policy

1. Academicus International Scientific Journal is a Diamond Open Access Journal. This means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
2. Academicus ISJ is member of the Initiative for Open Citations (i4OC), Open Abstracts (I4OA) and Open Archives Initiative for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).
3. This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons License of Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Users are not allowed to make any modification to the original texts. Users are obliged to cite the source (Academicus International Scientific Journal) and the author.
4. In order to preserve the intellectual legacy of its digital content in open access within a long-term storage, all works published in Academicus ISJ have been archived in Portico Repository and with DSpace at an Institutional Repository.

Privacy and Cookies Policy 

Academicus ISJ web site (academicus.edu.al) does not use cookies and does not store your information in any way. 

Information, Suggestion, Appeals and Complains

Readers and authors are welcomed to write at the Contact directory regarding any information, suggestion, appeal or complaint. The Editorial Secretariat (info@academicus.edu.al) will provide due answers within 24 hours,  by its own Editing Team managed by Arta Musaraj (editor@academicus.edu.al), as well as by the IT Office led by Ing. Gabor Vasmatics and Ing. Arjel Keci (itoffice@academicus.edu.al) or by the Ethics Commission, led by Prof. Fernando Lopez Alves (journal@academicus.edu.al).