Submissions

Author Guidelines

Instruction for Manuscript preparation

We thank you for visiting this manuscript preparing instruction page.

Authors general guidelines are given below for the preparation of article. It is mandatory to follow the authors instruction before submitting the article to the RALF. Manuscripts should be submitted to the editor editor.ralf@gmail.com.

General guidelines

All materials must be written in proper and clear English.
Manuscript must be double-spaced throughout.
Type written using 12 font size Times New Roman on A4 paper MS WORD format.
The page number and line number must be assigned throughout the manuscript continuously from the title page.
One of the manuscript author(s) should be corresponding author, who takes responsibility for the paper during submission and peer review.
Superscript numbers (¹) should be used to link author with institution and an asterisk (*) to refer to the corresponding author.
The abbreviations and acronyms should be defined the first time they used in the manuscript.
Do not use abbreviations in the title until and unless they are unavoidable.
Use the standard mathematical notation for formulae/symbols.
Genus and species names should be in italics.
Internationally accepted (SI) signs and symbols should be used for units.
It is advised to refer the latest issue of the journal for the format of manuscript preparation.
The cover letter, title page and manuscript, checklist, copyright assignment should be included during manuscript submission.

Title and Authorship Page: The following information should be included:

Type of article : Original / Review / Short communication / Case Report etc
Category of article : Agriculture / Livestock / Fisheries.
Paper title
Authors full names and present affiliations
Corresponding author: Ensure his / her address, e-mail, phone and fax.
Running title (brief and clear)

Main Manuscript structure: The manuscript should be in the following sequence:

Abstract and keywords
Introduction
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Competing interest
Acknowledgement
Tables with title
Figure with legends
References

Abstract and Keywords

The abstract must be concise and informative providing the aims of the work, principal results and conclusion.
An abstract of no more than 250 words (original article) or 100 words for short communication and case report.
At the end of the abstract, key words (max. 6 words or less) related to the manuscript work must be provided for indexing purposes.

Introduction

This section should be succinct, with no subheadings.
Should have supported previous works with clear statement of the problem.
It should not contain either authors result.

Materials and Method

This section must be clear and sufficient with experimental details to reproduce the works by other researchers.
Previously published procedures or methods should be cited without any detailed descriptions.
New procedures and techniques should be described in details.
Instruments and reagents information should be specified.
The source from which the sample has been obtained should be mentioned.

Results

Results should be concise and clear
Should have textual description of the data presented in tables and figures/charts.
Repetition of the same data in different forms should be avoided.

Discussion

The data should be interpreted concisely without repeating material already presented in the results section.
It should be considered the results in relation to any hypotheses advanced in the introduction.

Note: Results and Discussion section may each be divided by subheadings or may be combined.

Conclusion

This should clearly explain the main conclusions of the work highlighting its importance and relevance including any practical applications.

Competing interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests (You may write the conflict of interest like this.

Acknowledgement

All acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the very end of the paper before the references.
It may include information supporting grants, personnel involve, and so forth.

References

Only published or in press articles should be cited in the reference list.
Unpublished observations, proceedings, abstracts, websites, and personal communications are not listed as references.
All listed references must be cited in the text.
Arrange the references in alphabetical order by the first authors surname.
The citation of references in text up to two author(s) should be surname followed by year of publication (Islam, 2010 or Islam and Hossain, 2013).
The citation of references in text more than two author(s) should be Surname of first author followed by et al., and year of publication (Islam et al., 2013).
In case, an author cited has more than one publication during the same year should be identified by a lower case letter (like a, b, c), both in the text and reference list to distinguish the works (Hossain et al., 2012a; 2012b).
The number of references does not exceed 40 in original article and 15 in short communications and case reports.
Journal titles should be full in name.
Author(s) should check the references in text and reference list carefully to avoid delay in peer review and publication before submission of article for the accuracy.

Tables

Number all the table(s) in the order of their citation in the manuscript.
Include a title for each table.
Tables put after reference section.
The vertical lines or rules should be avoided in the tables.

Figures and Graphics

Each figure entry must have a reference in the text.
This section should be presented after the end of tables.
Each figure should be presented on separate pages.
The figures should have high resolutions (at least 300 dpi) with clarity.
Figures must be prepared using applications that generate high resolutions TIFF or JPEG format before using them in the MS word manuscript.
Should have concise and self-explanatory legends
Number all the figures (graphs, charts, photographs, and illustrations) in the order of their citation in the text.

Abbreviations, Units, etc.

Authors should follow internationally agreed conventions while abbreviating various terms.
Symbols, letters and abbreviations if used in the figures should be defined in the legend.

Example of reference style:

Journal Articles:

Tripura TK, SC Sarker, SK Roy, MS Parvin, RR Sarker, AKMA Rahman and MT Islam, 2014: Prevalence of subclinical mastitis in lactating cows and efficacy of intramammary infusion therapy. Bangladesh Journal of Veterinary Medicine, 12: 55-61.

Books:

Samad MA, 2005: Poultry Science and Medicine, LEP Publication, Mymensingh, Bangladesh.

Chapters in Books:

Leach J, 1993: Impacts of the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) on water quality and fish spawning reefs of Western Lake Erie. In Zebra mussels: biology, impacts and control, Eds., Nalepa, T. and D. Schloesser. Ann Arbor, MI: Lewis Publishers, pp: 381-397.

Creative Commons
All RALF articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License. Readers can copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the work provided the original work and source is appropriately cited.

Copyright
Submission of a manuscript implies that authors have met the requirements of the editorial policy and publication ethics. Authors retain the copyright of their articles published in the journal. However, authors agree that their articles remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License.

Peer Review Policy
The manuscript handling and reviewing policy is an important aspect of the publication process of an article. It helps an editor in making decision on an article and also enables the author to improve the manuscript.

At first, submitted manuscripts in the Research in Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries (RALF) are primarily checked by managing editor / section editor whether a manuscript is prepared following author guidelines or not. At the same time, the relevance of the manuscript within the aims and scope of journal RALF is also evaluated by managing editor / section editor before further processing and initial decision. If the manuscript is not well formatted, it will be immediately sent back to the corresponding author.

Author(s) identity (name, address / affiliation, country, phone / fax and e-mail) is removed from the manuscript and shielded from the reviewers during the review process. Any identical information in acknowledgement section is also removed.

Once a submitted article pass the preliminary criteria then articles are sent to at least two reviewers for their peer review process. Depending on reviewer comments, the decision is made by Chief Editor and managing editor along with section editors whether an article could be accepted or accepted with minor revision or accepted after major correction or rejected with further comments for improvements. For papers which require changes, the same reviewers will be used to ensure that the quality of the revised paper is acceptable. The rejected article is sent back to corresponding author when appropriate with editors comments by e-mail from managing editor.

After acceptance of the article, Editorial office will communicate with corresponding author within short time. Afterward, the corresponding author receive an article copy for proof reading by e-mail attachment. Upon authors satisfaction and consent with article content then we request for authorization for publication with us.

Next, the author and or co-author is requested to send back the signed and scanned 'Copyright Agreement Form' to us. In addition, the corresponding author is requested to made the payment of handling and publication fee @ USD 50 (foreign author) and/or @ BD Taka 2,500/- (Inland author) before an article to be published in RALF. After successful authorization and payment, an article is immediately appeared in the online first followed by print (hard copy) publication.

The management of RALF journal have rights to review and update this editorial policy periodically.

Contact Information

If you have any questions or comments about our Review Policy as outlined above, you can contact us at: editor.ralf@gmail.com

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.

Copyright Notice

Privacy Statement

Bangladesh Journals Online (BanglaJOL) is a member of the Ubiquity Partner Network coordinated by Ubiquity Press. According to the EU definitions, BanglaJOL is the data controller, and Ubiquity Press are the service providers and data processors. Ubiquity Press provide the technical platform and some publishing services to BanglaJOL and operate under the principle of data minimisation where only the minimal amount of personal data that is required to carry out a task is obtained.

More information on the type of data that is required can be found in Ubiquity Press’ privacy policy below.

Ubiquity Press Privacy Policy

We take seriously our duty to process your personal data in a fair and transparent way. We collect and manage user data according to the following Privacy Policy. This document is part of our Terms of Service, and by using the press portal, affiliated journals, book, conference and repository websites (the “Websites”), you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service. Please read the Terms of Service in their entirety, and refer to those for definitions and contacts.

What type of personal data do we handle?

There are four main categories of personal data stored by our journal platform, our press platform, and our book management system; Website User data, Author data, Reviewer data and Editor data.

The minimum personal data that are stored are:

full name
email address
affiliation (department, and institution)
country of residence

Optionally, the user can provide:

salutation
gender
associated URL
phone number
fax number
reviewing interests
mailing address
ORCiD
a short biography
interests
Twitter profile
LinkedIn profile
ImpactStory profile
profile picture

The data subjects have complete control of this data through their profile, and can request for it to be removed by contacting info@ubiquitypress.com

What do we do to keep that data secure?

We regularly backup our databases, and we use reliable cloud service providers (Amazon, Google Cloud, Linode) to ensure they are kept securely. Backups are regularly rotated and the old data is permanently deleted. We have a clear internal data handling policy, restricting access to the data and backups to key employees only. In case of a data breach, we will report the breach to the affected users, and to the press/journal contacts within 72 hours.

How do we use the data?

Personal information is only used to deliver the services provided by the publisher. Personal data is not shared externally except for author names, affiliations, emails, and links to ORCiD and social media accounts (if provided) in published articles and books which are displayed as part of the article/book and shared externally to indexes and databases. If a journal operates under open peer review then the reviewer details are published alongside the reviewer details.

How we collect and use your data:

1. When using the website

1.1 what data we collect

When you browse our website, we collect anonymised data about your use of the website; for example, we collect information about which pages you view, which files you download, what browser you are using, and when you were using the site.
When you comment on an article or book using Disqus, we are not collecting, controlling or processing the data. More details on the DISQUS privacy policy can be found on their website.
When you annotate an article or book, this is done via a 3rd party plugin to the website called Hypothes.is. In using this plugin we are not collecting, controlling or processing the data. More details on the Hypothes.is privacy policy can be found on their website.

1.2 why we collect the data

We use anonymised website usage data to monitor traffic, help fix bugs, and see overall patterns that inform future redesigns of the website, and provide reports on how frequently the publications on our site have been accessed from within their IP ranges.

1.3 what we do (and don’t do) with the data

We do not collect personal information that can be used to identify you when you browse the website.
We currently use Google Analytics for publication reports, and to improve the website and services through traffic analysis, but no personal identifying data is shared with Google (for example your computer’s IP is anonymised before transmission).

1.4 what to do if you want to get a copy of your data, or want your data to be removed

Please contact info@ubiquitypress.com to request a copy of your data, or for your data to be removed/anonymised.

2. When registering as an author, and submitting an article or book

2.1 what data we collect

When registering an account we ask you to log in and provide certain personal information (such as your name and email address), and there is the option to register using an ORCiD which will pre-fill the registration form.
As part of submitting an article for publication, you will need to provide personally identifying information which will be used for the peer review process, and will be published. This can include ‘Affiliation’, ‘Competing interests’, ‘Acknowledgements’.

2.2 why we collect the data

Registering an account allows you to log in, manage your profile, and participate as an author/reviewer/editor. We use cookies and session information to streamline your use of the website (for example in order for you to remain logged-in when you return to a journal). You can block or delete cookies and still be able to use the websites, although if you do you will then need to enter your username and password to login. In order to take advantage of certain features of the websites, you may also choose to provide us with other personal information, such as your ORCiD, but your decision to utilize these features and provide such data will always be voluntary.
Personal data submitted with the article or book is collected to allow follow good publication ethics during the review process, and will form part of the official published record in order for the provenance of the work to be established, and for the work to be correctly attributed.

2.3 what we do (and don’t do) with the data

We do not share your personal information with third parties, other than as part of providing the publishing service.
As a registered author in the system you may be contacted by the journal editor to submit another article.
Any books published on the platform are freely available to download from the publisher website in PDF, EPUB and MOBI formats on the publisher’s site.
Any personal data accompanying an article or a book (that will have been added by the submitting author) is published alongside it. The published data includes the names, affiliations and email addresses of all authors.
Any articles published on the platform are freely available to download from the publisher website in various formats (e.g. PDF, XML).
Ubiquity Press books and articles are typeset by SiliconChips and Diacritech.This process involves them receiving the book and book associated metadata and contacting the authors to finalise the layout. Ubiquity Press work with these suppliers to ensure that personal data is only used for the purposes of typesetting and proofing.
For physical purchases of books on the platform Ubiquity Press use print on demand services via Lightning Source who are responsible for printing and distribution via retailers. (For example; Amazon, Book Repository, Waterstones). Lightning Source’s privacy policy and details on data handling can be found on their website.

2.4 why we store the data

We store the account data so that you may choose to become a reviewer and be able to perform those tasks, or to become an author and submit an article and then track progress of that article.
Published personal data that accompanies an article or a book forms part of the official published record in order for the provenance of the work to be established, and for the work to be correctly attributed.

2.5 what to do if you want to get a copy of your data, or want your data to be removed

You are able to view, change and remove your data associated with your profile. Should you choose to completely delete your account, please contact us at support@ubiquitypress.com and we will follow up with your request as soon as possible.
To conform to publication ethics and best practice any personal data that is published alongside an article or book cannot be removed. If you have a query about a publication to which you are attributed please contact info@ubiquitypress.com

3. When registering as a reviewer

3.1 what data we collect

To become a reviewer you must first register as a user on the website, and set your preference that you would like to be considered as a reviewer. No new personal data is collected when a registered user elects to become a reviewer.
When registering an account we ask you to log in and provide certain personal information (such as your name and email address), and there is the option to register using an ORCiD which will pre-fill the registration form.
Reviewers can also be registered by editors who invite them to review a specific article. This requires the editor to provide the reviewer’s First Name, Last Name, and Email address. Normally this will be done as part of the process of inviting you to review the article or book.
On submitting a review, the reviewer includes a competing interest statement, they may answer questions about the quality of the article, and they will submit their recommendation.

3.2 why we collect the data

The data entered is used to invite the reviewer to peer review the article or book, and to contact the reviewer during and the review process.
If you submit a review then the details of your review, including your recommendation, your responses to any review form, your free-form responses, your competing interests statement, and any cover letter are recorded.

3.3 what we do (and don’t do) with the data

This data is not shared publicly and is only accessible by the Editor and system administrators of that journal or press.
The data will only be used in connection with that journal or press.
Data that is retained post final decision is kept to conform to publication ethics and best practice, to provide evidence of peer review, and to resolve any disputes relating to the peer review of the article or book.
For journals or presses that publish the peer reviews, you will be asked to give consent to your review being published, and a subset of the data you have submitted will become part of the published record.

3.4 what to do if you want to get a copy of your data, or want your data to be removed

If you would no longer like to be registered as a reviewer you can edit your profile and tick the box ‘stop being a reviewer’. This will remove you from the reviewer database, however any existing reviews you may have carried out will remain.
If you have been contacted by an editor to peer review an article this means that you have been registered in the system. If you would not like to be contacted for peer review you can reply to the email requesting that your data be deleted.

4. When being registered as a co-author

4.1 what data we collect

Co-author data is entered by the submitting author. The submitting author will already have a user account. According to standard publishing practice, the submitting author is responsible for obtaining the consent of their co-authors to be included (including having their personal data included) in the article/book being submitted to the journal/press.
The requested personal data for co-authors are at the bare minimum; first name, last name, institution, country, email address. This can also include; ORCID ID, Title, Middle Name, Biographical Statement, Department, Twitter Handle, Linkedin Profile Name or ImpactStory ID.

4.2 why we collect the data

Assuming that it is accepted for publication, this data forms part of the official published record in order for the provenance of the work to be established, and for the work to be correctly attributed.
Author names, affiliations and emails are required for publication and will become part of the permanent cited record.

4.3 what we do (and don’t do) with the data

The co-author’s personal data is stored in the author database. This personal data is only used in relation to the publication of the associated article.
Any co-author data collected is added to the author database and is only used in association with the article the user is co-author on.

4.5 what to do if you want to get a copy of your data, or want your data to be removed

To receive a copy of your data, please contact info@ubiquitypress.com
To conform to publication ethics and best practice any personal data that is published alongside an article or book cannot be removed. If you have a query about a publication to which you are attributed please contact info@ubiquitypress.com

5. When signing-up to receive newsletters

5.1 what data we collect

We require you to include your name and email address

5.2 why we collect and store the data, and for how long

This data would be collected to keep you updated with any news about the platform or specific journal

5.3 what we do (and don’t do) with the data

We use mailchimp to provide our mailing list services. Their privacy policy can be found here

5.4 what to do if you want to get a copy of your data or want your data to be removed

All emails sent via our newsletter client will include a link that will allow you to unsubscribe from the mailing list

Notification about change of ownership or of control of data

We may choose to buy or sell assets. In the case that control of data changes to or from Ubiquity Press and a third party, or in the case of change of ownership of Ubiquity Press or of part of the business where the control of personal data is transferred, we will do our best to inform all affected users and present the options.

(Updated: 18 May 2018)