Siksha Samhita

CHIEF EDITOR

Dr. Lakhi Prasad Hazarika
Principal,
PDUAM, Dalgaon, Darrang, Assam-784116, INDIA

Email : principal@pdduamdalgaon.in

CO-CHIEF EDITORS:

1. Dr. Dinesh Baishya
   Professor, Department of North East India Study, Assam Don Bosco University, Sonapur, Assam-782402, INDIA
   Email: dinesh.baishya@dbuniversity.ac.in.in

2. Dr. Hari Prasad Sarma
   Former Professor & HoD, Department of Environmental Science Gauhati University, Gopinath Bordoloi Nagar, Jalukbari, Guwahati, Assam-781014, INDIA
   Email: sarmahp@gauhati.ac.in

EDITORS

1. Dr. Sufian Ahmed Tapadar
   Assistant Professor, Dept. of Botany, PDUAM, Dalgaon, Darrang, Assam-784116
   E-mail: stapadar@pdduamdalgaon.in

2. Dr. Kumar Chandan Jyoti
   Assistant Professor, Dept. of Political Science, PDUAM, Dalgaon, Darrang, Assam 784116
   E-mail: chandanjt499@pdduamdalgaon.in

3. Jinti Kalita
   Assistant Professor, Dept. of Education, PDUAM, Dalgaon, Darrang, Assam-784116
   E-mail: jintikalita@pdduamdalgaon.in

This statement outlines the ethical responsibilities of all parties involved in publishing articles in this journal, including authors, the chief editor, co-chief editor, editorial board members, peer-reviewers, and the publisher.

Ethical Guideline for Journal Publication

Publishing an article in SIKSHA SAMHITA is a vital step in building a credible and respected body of knowledge. It reflects the quality of the authors’ work and strengthens the scientific process through peer review. To maintain the highest standards, all participants in the publication process—the author, the journal editor, peer-reviewers, the publisher, and the academic community—are expected to adhere to principles of ethical behaviour.

Publication ethics in SIKSHA SAMHITA encompass the standards, policies, and guidelines designed to safeguard the integrity, quality, and credibility of research published in the journal. These practices foster honesty, transparency, and accountability among all stakeholders: authors, editors, reviewers, publishers, and readers.

Publication Decisions

The chief editor of SIKSHA SAMHITA holds the responsibility for deciding which submissions will be published. Decisions are made impartially, based on the originality, significance, and relevance of the research. Editorial policies, legal considerations (such as libel, copyright, and plagiarism), and peer-review feedback guide this process. The editor may also consult with other editors or reviewers before making a final decision.

Fair Play

Editors and peer reviewers evaluate manuscripts solely on their academic merit, without discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnicity, citizenship, or political views of the authors.

Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff are bound to maintain confidentiality. Manuscripts under review must not be shared with anyone except the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, or the publisher, as required.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Unpublished material from a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the author’s explicit written permission.

Plagiarism

SIKSHA SAMHITA upholds the highest standards of academic integrity. Plagiarism, in any form, is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. To ensure originality, all manuscripts undergo a Turnitin Similarity Check prior to peer review. Manuscripts with a similarity score below 10% are considered for further peer review.

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are expected to ensure that:

• Their manuscript is original and has neither been published nor submitted elsewhere.
• All sources are properly cited and referenced.
• Self-plagiarism is avoided by minimizing redundant use of their previous works.

1. Submission of Paper

The author must submit the manuscript to the journal via journal e-mail: sikshasamhitaisssn@gmail.com

2. Editorial Office work

The editorial office verifies the manuscript’s structure and formatting in accordance with the journal’s Author Guidelines. At this stage, the paper undergoes a plagiarism check using Turnitin. If the manuscript meets the required standards, it is forwarded to reviewers in the relevant field already selected. The manuscript that doesn’t adhere strictly to the journal submission format will be summarily rejected.

3. Review Process

Reviewers carefully examine the manuscript as per their responsibilities defined in ‘Duties of Peer Reviewer’. Based on their evaluations, reviewers submit their report with a recommendation to accept, revise, or reject the manuscript.

4. Journal Evaluation of Reviews

The handling editor considers all reviewers’ reports before reaching a decision. If the reviews show significant discrepancies, a senior or experienced reviewer may be invited to provide further clarity.

5. Communication of Review Report

The editors communicate the reviewer comments to the author via email. The editor specifies the time frame for the author to submit a revised manuscript as per reviewer’s suggestions.

6. Final Process

After incorporating all final comments, the author receives an acceptance letter along with the galley proof. Following publication, the author is provided a copy of the journal and a soft copy.

Duties of Peer-Reviewers

• Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer-reviewers support editors in making decisions and, through their feedback, help authors in improving their manuscripts.

• Subject Expertise
Manuscripts are assigned to peer-reviewers who are experts in the relevant subject area.

• Confidentiality
All manuscripts received for review are confidential and must not be shared or discussed with others unless authorized by the editor.

• Standards of Objectivity
Reviews must be objective, constructive, and free from personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should clearly state their opinions, supported by evidence and reasoning.

• Acknowledgement of Sources
Reviewers should identify uncited but relevant work. Any claim or argument made in the manuscript must be properly referenced. They should also notify the editor of any overlap or similarity between the manuscript under review and other published works known to them.

Manuscripts must present valid data, clear and concise writing, reproducible results, and adherence to formatting guidelines. Discussions should highlight the novelty of the work and provide sound conclusions.
The following should be used as a guide in preparing papers for publication.

Manuscript Text

Files must be single-spaced, with automatic word-wrap and no hyphenation or hard returns within paragraphs. Ensure consistent typing, clearly distinguishing similar characters such as 1/l and 0/O. Manuscripts must be prepared in MS Word, using Times New Roman, 12-point font, and limited to 5000 words; extra pages will incur additional charges.

Title Page

The title page must include: (i) paper title, (ii) full author names with affiliations, and emails, and (iii) an asterisk marking the corresponding author, with their email and phone number for correspondence.
Titles must be concise, informative, and include key terms that reflect the paper’s content. Avoid use of ‘&’ symbol, non-standard abbreviations, and unnecessary phrases such as ‘A study of…’ or ‘Observations on…’.

Abstract

The Abstract should be concise and briefly reflect all the aspects of the study, containing at most 250 words. The Abstract should be unstructured, i.e., it should not contain sections or subheadings. Minimize using abbreviations, and do not cite references, figures or tables in your Abstract.

Keywords

Manuscripts should include five keywords, presented in plain text without bold or italics.

Introduction

The introduction should provide adequate background and clearly state the study’s objective, purpose, and significance.

Materials and Methods/Methodology

This section should provide sufficient technical details to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New procedures should be described in detail while previously published procedures can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Sources of all important chemicals, equipment, or microbial strains should be indicated.

Results

Results should be concise and presented through text, tables, or figures, clearly describing the study’s findings. Use the past tense when reporting results.

Discussion

The Discussion should interpret, not repeat, the results and conclude by addressing the research question stated in the introduction. Results and Discussion may be combined into a single section.

Tables

Tables must be editable (MS Word or Excel), numbered consecutively, and include a caption with informative column headings. Place abbreviated units below headings, use superscript lowercase letters for footnotes, and define all abbreviations beneath the table. The caption of should be placed above the table. Use single space, and don’t add space before and after paragraph.

Figures

Figures should also be provided separately from the main text. Figures must be cited in the order that they appear. Include a legend describing the figure and it should be below the figure. Provide each axis with a brief but informative title (including units of measurement). It is the author’s responsibility to ensure that figures are provided at a sufficiently high resolution to ensure high-quality reproduction in the final article. Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures or tables that have previously been published elsewhere.
Acceptable file formats: JPEG (.jpg) and PNG.

Declarations (following statements to be added just before References):

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements of any financial support and personal assistance for the work being published must be indicated.

Conflict of Interest

All authors must disclose any conflicts of interest, including academic, commercial, financial, personal, or professional affiliations relevant to the work, to avoid potential bias and ensure accountability for the manuscript.

Authors’ Contribution

Each author contribution should be clearly mentioned.

Funding

Kindly mention the funding organisation name, if any.

Ethics Statement

If the study involves an experiment on humans and animals; then the name of the authorizing body should be stated in the paper.

Informed Consent

The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed, if applicable.

Data Availability

If any datasets are not included in the manuscript or supplementary files, authors must provide the database or repository name(s) along with the corresponding accession number(s), if applicable.

References

The reference list must be presented alphabetically. Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citations. Please mention the DOI number/HTML link for every reference that is available. When listing references, follow the APA https://www.mendeley.com/guides/apa-citation-guide/

The referencing styles shown in the examples below should be used.

Journal Article:

El-Naggar MY, Yousry MG, Khouloud M, Nowara SA. Physiological response, anti bacterial activity, and cinnamaldehyde production by a marine Streptomyces chartreusis. J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2016;10(3):1797-1808.

Online Journal Article without DOI:

Salman SA, Gokcen D, Baldan R, et al. Molecular Characterization of Carbapenem Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii and Investigation of Genetic Diversity Between Local and International Clones, J Pure Appl Microbiol, 2016;10(3):1675-1682. https://microbiologyjournal.org/molecular-characterization-of-carbapenem-resistant-acinetobacter-baumannii-and-investigation-of-genetic-diversity-between-local-and-international-clones. Accessed November 25, 2019.

Books:

Brock TD, Madigan MT. Biology of Microorganisms, 5th Ed. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1988.

Specific Chapter in books:

Gershon AA, Russa P La, Steinberg SP. Varicella-zoster virus. In Murray PR, Baron EJ, Pfaller MA, Tenover FC, Yolken RH (eds.), Manual of Clinical Microbiology, 7th Ed. American Society of Microbiology, Washington, D.C. 1999:900-911.

Patents:

Aviv H, Friedman K and Vered V. Submicron emulsions as ocular drug delivery vehicles. U.S. Patent US 5496811; 1996.

Websites:

Quick dissolving tablets. http://www.biospace.com, Accessed 27 may, 2001.

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text not in references.

Nomenclature

Nomenclature for chemical and biochemical agents, microorganisms, proteins, enzymes and genetic should be used.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined at their first use in the text and to be used consistently thereafter.

Manuscripts should only be submitted through e-mail () in MS-Word format only. Author(s) must provide an email address as all correspondence, notification and comments regarding the manuscript will be through email sikshasamhitaissn@gmail.com

Covering letter

The covering letter must contain a statement that the content is submitted only to SIKSHA SAMHITA and has not published already, neither it is under consideration for publication or in press elsewhere. The manuscript does not contain any material taken from other copyright sources and wherever such material has been included, proper citation is included in the reference section.

Manuscript Checklist for Final Submission

1. The manuscript must be submitted in Microsoft Word (.docx) format, properly structured with all required sections. Authors should ensure that the document is free from spelling and grammatical errors, and that text spacing is consistent. All figures should be embedded within the manuscript file for ease of review.
2. The title should not contain the ‘&’ symbol or any non-standard abbreviations.
3. Full names of all authors, along with their complete institutional affiliations and ORCID IDs, must be provided.
4. One author must be clearly designated as the corresponding author, and their email address should be provided.
5. The abstract must not exceed 250 words.
6. A minimum of five keywords should be included.
7. All tables must be submitted in an editable format (e.g., .docx).
8. Each figure should also be supplied separately in JPEG (.jpg) or PNG format, with a minimum resolution of 300 DPI. Multi-panel figures should be clearly labeled as (A), (B), (C), (D), etc.
9. Tables and figures must be numbered sequentially and appropriately cited in the text.
10. All sources must be properly cited. References should be numbered consecutively and correspond precisely with in-text citations.
11. If the manuscript has been previously posted on a preprint server, authors must provide complete details, including the DOI or URL.
12. Page numbers must appear on every page of the manuscript.
13. Declaration statements are included:
    Acknowledgement
    • Conflict of Interest Disclosure
    • Funding Source Statement
    • Authors’ Contribution
    • Data Availability Statement
    • Ethical Approval Statement
    • Informed Consent Statement

A nominal publication processing fee will be applicable for articles accepted for publication in Siksha Samhita. The payment link for the processing fee will be sent to the corresponding author via email after the manuscript has been accepted.

• Indian Author: INR 1500
• Foreign Author: USD 50