Journal Policies

1. Commitment to Quality Over Quantity

Mdooter Journal of Communication and Digital Technologies is fundamentally committed to publishing impactful, methodologically sound research, prioritising scholarly quality over publication volume. Our selection process ensures that only manuscripts of demonstrated scientific merit, originality, and international relevance are accepted.

  • Regular Issue Constraints: Each regular issue shall contain a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 original research articles or review works to maintain curation rigour.

  • Special Issue Constraints: Special issues are optional, strictly peer-reviewed, and limited to a maximum of one special issue per calendar year, containing between 5 and 8 papers.

  • Volume Discipline and Scheduling: To prevent artificial volume inflation, the number of published manuscripts per issue is firmly capped. If the number of accepted manuscripts exceeds the capacity of an issue, remaining papers are scheduled for the next successive issue in order of final acceptance.

2. Revenue Sources and Business Model

To ensure complete transparency regarding financial governance, the business and revenue model of the journal is outlined below:

Mdooter Journal of Communication and Digital Technologies operates on an immediate Open Access publishing model. All published content is made freely and permanently available worldwide under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence upon publication.

The journal is sustained entirely through Article Processing Charges (APCs) paid following the formal acceptance of a manuscript. The APC covers editorial administration, plagiarism screening, double-blind peer review coordination, professional copyediting, typesetting, DOI registration, and permanent digital archiving. The journal does not receive institutional subsidies, commercial advertising revenue, or subscription fees.

  • Uniform Fee Structure: To sustain high-quality editorial infrastructure, independent digital hosting, and international indexing maintenance, no waivers, fee reductions, or discounts on the Article Processing Charge are offered under any circumstances. Authors must ensure their institutional or research funding covers the APC prior to submission.

  • Editorial Independence: All editorial decisions regarding acceptance, revision, or rejection are determined solely by independent peer reviewers and the Editorial Board on the basis of intellectual merit and scholarly contribution.

  • Separation of Finances and Review: The APC obligation applies solely after a manuscript has successfully completed peer review and received a formal letter of acceptance. Financial transactions and invoicing are handled strictly by the administrative office; editors and reviewers have no access to payment records, ensuring financial standing cannot influence editorial judgment.

3. Advertising Policy

The journal maintains complete editorial independence and does not participate in commercial advertising activities. The journal does not accept, host, display, or promote paid commercial advertisements, digital banners, or sponsored promotional content on its website or within its published articles. All website architecture and publication space are dedicated exclusively to academic and scholarly content.

4. Direct Marketing Policy

The journal conducts all marketing and solicitation activities ethically, professionally, and transparently:

  • Any direct marketing, including calls for papers, thematic section solicitations, or invitations to join the reviewer database, is strictly targeted, professional, and unobtrusive.

  • Communications are directed specifically to active researchers and scholars with a demonstrated publication record in communication studies or digital technology disciplines.

  • All informational materials regarding peer-review workflows, publication timelines, indexing status, and editorial scopes are accurate, verifiable, and adhere fully to international publication ethics. Marketing communications provide immediate opt-out mechanisms in accordance with global data privacy regulations.

5. Manuscript Withdrawal Policy

The journal commits significant editorial and technical resources to the review and curation of each manuscript. Authors must adhere to the following withdrawal procedures:

  • Pre-Publication Withdrawal: Authors may request to withdraw their manuscript at any point during peer review or copyediting prior to the final approval of the Galley Proof. Withdrawal requests must be made in writing to the Editor-in-Chief and signed by all co-authors, stating a clear rationale.

  • Post-Proof / Publication Archival Restrictions: Once the galley proof has received final author approval, the manuscript is scheduled, assigned a registered Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and deposited into international metadata repositories. Beyond this point, manuscripts cannot be informally removed. In accordance with Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) standards, any post-publication withdrawal requires the issuance of a formal Retraction Notice linked permanently to the DOI.

  • Editorial Removal for Ethical Non-Compliance: The Editorial Board reserves the right to terminate the processing of a manuscript at any stage if an irrecoverable breach is identified, including redundant submission, data fabrication, citation manipulation, text recycling exceeding established thresholds (similarity index above 20%), or failure to respond to formal editorial inquiries.

6. Production Timelines and Publication Scheduling

To maintain consistent release schedules, authors are required to review and return corrected galley proofs within five (5) working days of receipt.

  • Scheduling Deferrals: If an author fails to return proofs within the designated timeframe or requests substantial last-minute empirical revisions, the manuscript will be deferred automatically to the subsequent issue to prevent disruption to the publication schedule. No administrative or financial penalties are assessed for scheduling deferrals.

7. Policy Against Bulk and Third-Party Submissions

To preserve the authenticity of peer review and uphold the integrity of global scientific literature, Mdooter Journal of Communication and Digital Technologies strictly prohibits submissions handled by third-party agents, commercial placement brokers, or paper mills:

  • Direct Author Submission: Every manuscript must be submitted directly by one of the contributing, credit-earning authors through their personal, verified Open Journal Systems (OJS) user account. Submissions brokered or uploaded by third-party companies, agents, or commercial editing agencies on behalf of authors are immediately rejected.

  • Prohibition of Bulk and Clustered Submissions: The journal rejects clustered or coordinated bulk submissions originating from common commercial syndicates or third-party project coordinators designed to bypass independent peer-review scrutiny.

  • Special Issues and Thematic Sections: Thematic sections or guest-edited issues are considered exclusively through formal proposals submitted by recognized academic scholars. Guest editors must manage peer review entirely within the journal's official OJS system, subject to final oversight and validation by the Editor-in-Chief.

  • Integrity Screening: The Editorial Office employs rigorous submission tracking protocols to detect suspicious submission clusters, shared IP addresses, or disreputable institutional email patterns, and reserves the right to reject compromised manuscripts summarily.

LAST UPDATED: 4 October 2026