ANVESHAN: International Journal of Humanities, Cultural and Social Sciences
(Published by Classic Indic Press)
1. Core Ethical Framework and Institutional Commitment
ANVESHAN: International Journal of Humanities, Cultural and Social Sciences, published by Classic Indic Press, is dedicated to upholding the highest benchmarks of academic integrity, publication ethics, and scholarly rigor. Our editorial governance aligns with international ethical standards established by leading organizations, including the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
We expect all contributors—authors, chief editors, editorial board members, guest editors, and peer reviewers—to strictly adhere to the ethical protocols outlined in this statement.
2. Standards and Governance of Authorship
2.1 Criteria for Authorship
Authorship must be strictly limited to individuals who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the manuscript. To qualify for authorship, an individual must have:
Contributed significantly to the conceptualization, theoretical formulation, research design, or analysis of data/textual sources;
Participated in drafting, writing, or critically revising the manuscript for intellectual content; AND
Approved the final Version of Record to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
2.2 Prevention of Unethical Authorship Practices
ANVESHAN explicitly condemns fraudulent authorship practices and actively screens submissions to prevent:
Ghost Authorship: Excluding individuals who contributed significantly to the research or writing process.
Gift or Guest Authorship: Including individuals who made no meaningful intellectual contribution to the manuscript to boost its prestige or academic visibility.
2.3 Protocols for Post-Submission Authorship Changes
Any request to add, remove, or rearrange author names must be submitted prior to publication.
The corresponding author must send a formal request to the Chief Editor detailing the academic justification for the change.
Written consent (via signed declaration) from all co-authors (including those being added or removed) is mandatory.
The Editorial Board reserves full authority to approve or decline authorship alteration requests based on COPE guidelines.
3. Academic Integrity, Plagiarism, and Material Rights
3.1 Plagiarism and Originality
Submitting plagiarized content—including direct copying, verbatim paraphrase without appropriate citation, self-plagiarism (text recycling), or unacknowledged translation—is considered severe academic misconduct. All submitted manuscripts undergo rigorous electronic plagiarism screening prior to external review.
3.2 Third-Party Copyright Permissions
Authors bear sole legal and academic responsibility for obtaining formal written copyright permissions to reproduce third-party materials, including long quotes, maps, archival images, artwork, data sets, or illustrations. Neither ANVESHAN nor Classic Indic Press shall be held liable for copyright violations committed by authors.
3.3 Simultaneous and Concurrent Submissions
Submitting the same manuscript concurrently to ANVESHAN and any other journal, book chapter, or conference proceedings is strictly prohibited. Manuscripts found to be under active review elsewhere will be immediately rejected.
3.4 Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy
Generative AI tools (such as Large Language Models or content generators) do not qualify for authorship. AI tools may only be utilized for minor linguistic refining or basic copyediting. Any usage of AI tools during research or manuscript preparation must be explicitly disclosed in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements or Cover Letter.
4. Diversity, Inclusivity, and Scholarly Objectivity
Non-Discrimination & Neutrality: ANVESHAN is committed to fostering academic discourse free from ideological bias, activist rhetoric, or discriminatory language. Manuscripts containing hate speech or derogatory remarks targeting gender, ethnicity, race, religion, language, or disability will be rejected outright.
Defamation and Commercialism: Submissions must maintain an objective academic tone. Material containing defamatory statements, libelous assertions, or promotional/commercial marketing content will not be accepted for peer review.
5. Peer Review Mechanism and Editorial Protocol
Double-Blind Peer Review Framework: ANVESHAN operates a strict Double-Blind Peer Review system. The identities of authors and external peer reviewers remain mutually confidential throughout the entire evaluation workflow.
Initial Desk Evaluation: Submitted manuscripts undergo preliminary evaluation by the Chief Editor or Executive Editor to verify scope alignment, original contribution, and methodological viability. Submissions that fail to satisfy baseline scholarly standards are desk-rejected immediately.
Reviewer Delegation & Adjudication: Manuscripts passing desk triage are assigned to at least two independent subject experts. In cases of conflicting evaluations between peer reviewers, the Chief Editor may assign a third adjudicating reviewer or make a final editorial determination.
6. Disclosure and Conflict of Interest Governance
6.1 Author Disclosures
Authors must disclose any financial, personal, commercial, or institutional conflicts of interest that could be perceived as biasing their research findings. A formal Conflict of Interest declaration must be submitted alongside the initial manuscript.
6.2 Editor and Reviewer Recusal
Editors and peer reviewers must recuse themselves from evaluating any manuscript where a competing interest exists—whether collaborative, financial, personal, or institutional—with any of the authors.
7. Publisher Autonomy and Editorial Independence
Classic Indic Press guarantees absolute editorial independence to the Chief Editor and Editorial Board of ANVESHAN. The publisher does not interfere with peer-review evaluations, reviewer selection, or final acceptance decisions. All publishing decisions are based strictly on academic merit, peer-review feedback, and compliance with ethical guidelines.
8. Sanctions and Protocol Against Academic Misconduct
Where verified academic misconduct or ethical non-compliance occurs, ANVESHAN and Classic Indic Press will execute appropriate corrective measures following COPE flowcharts:
Formal Retraction: Publication of an official Retraction Notice on the journal portal detailing the nature of the breach for already published articles.
Corrigendum / Erratum: Issuance of a formal correction notice for minor, non-fraudulent administrative or scientific errors.
Authorship Suspension: Blacklisting the offending author(s) and imposing a temporary or permanent ban on future submissions to ANVESHAN and Classic Indic Press imprint titles.
Institutional Notification: Dispatched formal notification detailing verified evidence of misconduct to the author’s institutional head, university ethics committee, department chair, or funding body.
ANVESHAN: International Journal of Humanities, Cultural and Social Sciences
(Published by Classic Indic Press)
1. Preamble and Ethical Framework
The rapid integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technologies—including Large Language Models (LLMs), automated writing assistants, synthetic image generators, and algorithmic analytical tools—presents both transformative opportunities and complex ethical challenges for scholarly publishing.
ANVESHAN: International Journal of Humanities, Cultural and Social Sciences, published by Classic Indic Press, is committed to preserving the integrity of human-centred academic inquiry, original critical thinking, and rigorous peer review. In alignment with global ethical standards established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), this policy outlines the permissible and prohibited applications of Generative AI tools across all stages of manuscript preparation, editorial handling, and peer evaluation.
2. Authorship and Non-Human Accountability
2.1 Ineligibility of AI for Authorship
Generative AI tools, algorithms, and automated software do not meet the criteria for authorship. Authorship carries legal rights, moral responsibilities, and intellectual accountability for the published work—qualities that non-human entities cannot possess.
AI tools must never be listed as an author or co-author on any submission to ANVESHAN.
AI tools cannot be cited as a primary or secondary scholarly authority in bibliographies or works cited sections.
2.2 Absolute Human Accountability
The author(s) bear sole, unmitigated legal and academic responsibility for the integrity, accuracy, originality, and validity of every portion of their submitted manuscript. Authors remain fully accountable for any factual errors, fabricated citations, plagiarized text, or copyright infringements resulting from the use of AI tools.
3. Categorization of AI Utilization in Manuscript Preparation
3.1 Permitted Applications (Linguistic Refinement Only)
Authors are permitted to utilize basic AI-assisted tools (e.g., grammar checkers, spell checkers, and basic copyediting software) for the exclusive purpose of improving readability, syntax, and language clarity.
3.2 Strictly Prohibited Applications
Except where the manuscript itself focuses on empirical research evaluating AI technology, the following practices are strictly forbidden and constitute severe academic misconduct:
Generating Core Text & Literature Reviews: Utilizing AI to write literature reviews, theoretical frameworks, contextual background, or analytical conclusions. Qualitative research in the humanities and social sciences must originate from human reasoning, empirical observation, and scholarly synthesis.
Artificial Argument Construction: Using AI to generate or dictate the central thesis, argumentative structure, or conceptual trajectory of a paper.
Synthetic Citation & Reference Generation: Relying on AI tools to construct bibliographies, footnotes, or references. AI models frequently generate hallucinated (fake) citations, invalid DOIs, or incorrect page numbers.
Data & Synthetic Image Manipulation: Generating, altering, or synthesizing images, historical charts, maps, figures, or qualitative datasets using AI visual tools (e.g., DALL-E, Midjourney) unless explicitly required and documented as part of an approved AI research methodology.
Automated Translation Without Human Verification: Inserting AI-translated text directly into a manuscript without independent verification by a qualified bilingual scholar.
AI-Generated Metadata & Bio-Notes: Using AI tools to generate article titles, abstracts, or author biographical sketches, which often leads to inflated, generic, or deceptive representations.
4. Mandatory Disclosure Protocol
If an author has utilized Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in any capacity during the preparation of their manuscript (beyond standard word-processor spell-checkers), full transparency is mandatory.
Authors must include an explicit “AI Usage Declaration” in their Cover Letter and within the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript prior to peer review.
Standard AI Declaration Template:
“During the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) utilized [Insert Full Name of AI Tool/Model and Version] for [specify exact purpose, e.g., language editing and grammatical polishing]. The author(s) independently reviewed, verified, and edited all outputs and take full responsibility for the content, accuracy, and integrity of the final published work.”
5. Directives for Editorial Board and Handling Editors
Editors hold a sacred obligation to protect manuscript confidentiality, intellectual property, and author privacy:
Prohibition of Manuscript Uploads: Editors must never upload, paste, or import any part of a submitted manuscript (including abstracts, full text, or reviewer reports) into public or commercial Generative AI platforms. Doing so violates author confidentiality, data security, and copyright laws.
Human Editorial Decision-Making: Editors are strictly prohibited from using AI tools to draft editorial decision letters, synthesize reviewer reports, or determine the acceptance/rejection of a manuscript. All editorial judgments must reflect human expertise and independent critical evaluation.
6. Directives for External Peer Reviewers
Peer review is an inherently confidential process requiring expert human intellectual judgment:
Prohibition of AI Review Generation: Peer reviewers must never use Generative AI tools to summarize submitted papers, evaluate research methods, or draft peer-review reports.
Confidentiality & Data Protection: Uploading a manuscript or any portion thereof into an AI system compromises the author’s proprietary research and violates ANVESHAN’s non-disclosure agreement.
Direct Interaction Forbidden: Reviewers must perform all evaluations independently, relying solely on their disciplinary expertise and professional judgment.
7. Screening Mechanisms, Misconduct, and Sanctions
ANVESHAN employs advanced electronic plagiarism detection and specialized AI-content detection software to audit all incoming submissions.
Where unacknowledged or unethical AI usage is detected:
Desk Rejection: Manuscripts displaying substantial AI-generated prose, fabricated citations, or undisclosed algorithmic intervention will be subject to immediate desk rejection without external peer review.
Author Suspension: In cases of severe or deliberate academic deception (e.g., submitting fully AI-generated articles), the author(s) will be blacklisted from submitting to ANVESHAN and all imprints of Classic Indic Press for a specified period.
Institutional Escalation: ANVESHAN reserves the right to notify the author’s institutional ethics committee, department head, or university administration regarding verified instances of fraud or publication ethics violations.
8. Dynamic Policy Evolution
As Artificial Intelligence technology evolves, Classic Indic Press and the Editorial Board of ANVESHAN will periodically review and update these directives to ensure alignment with international publishing standards, legal requirements, and COPE mandates.