Journal Policies

Peer Review 

The Editor will determine if the manuscript subject is within scope for Hypothesis. The Editor also will gauge the potential appeal of the manuscript subject to the Hypothesis readers. If either of these criteria are not met, the Editor will suggest that the manuscript author(s) submit the manuscript to a more appropriate journal. Below are the Hypothesis submission categories: 

Peer Reviewed Categories 

Editorial Reviewed Categories 

Brief Report 

 

Hypothesis Failure 

Data Bytes

Methods Moment 

Editorials 

Research 

MLA RTI Abstracts 

Voices of Experience 

Research Mentor 

A member of the Editorial Team will screen each submission to ensure it meets the basic requirements. Next, the Editor will decline, request additional edits, or send the submission out for review. Manuscripts sent out for review will receive a minimum of two anonymized peer reviews. Peer reviewers will be asked to decline the request, if they have any conflicts or feel unable to perform the review for any reason.  

Upon reviewing peer reviewer comments, the Associate Editor will recommend the article be accepted with minimal revisions, request revisions, or decline the submission. Any revised manuscript and letter addressing peer reviewers’ suggestions will be distributed to the original peer reviewers. After soliciting input, the Editor will make a final decision for each submission. 

Open Access Policy 

Hypothesis is a Diamond (1) open access journal and provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal, or use them for any other lawful purpose. 

Research Approval 

For any studies dealing with human subjects or animals, authors should indicate Human Ethics, Institutional Review Board (IRB), or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) approval include the name of the approving body, approval number, and date of approval. Approval should be listed in the both the abstract and Methods section of a manuscript. 

Copyright Policy 

All works in Hypothesis are licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 DEED Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. Authors own copyright of their articles appearing in Hypothesis. Readers may copy articles without permission of the copyright owner(s), as long as the author(s) are acknowledged in the copy, and the copy is used for educational, not-for-profit purposes. For any other use of articles, please contact the copyright owner(s).  

Indexing 

Hypothesis is indexed by CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), LISSA (Library and Information Science Source), and LISTA (Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts). 

Article Processing Charges (APC) 

Hypothesis is a Diamond open access journal (1) and does not charge article processing charges for accepted publications. 

Copy Editing 

Copy editors will ask authors to rework statements for clarity or to improve readability. Citations will be reviewed to conform with the Vancouver style. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

Hypothesis Editorial Team members will not use artificial intelligence (AI) as they complete screening, peer review, copy editing, and production of submissions.  

Authors, who choose to use AI, must do the following: 

1) Artificial intelligence cannot take the place of or be listed as an author per the ICJME guidelines for authorship, "Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved."  

2) Disclose both the name of tool and how (e.g., figure and chart generation, data analysis, and so forth) the researchers used it in the research project as explained by Annette Flanagin, et al., in the JAMA March 7, 2024 edtiorial (2)  and in the ICJME guidelines for authorship, which they updated in January 2024 with a new Artificial Intelligence policy (3). 

3) Implications for bias should be addressed in the manuscript. 

When using AI to check grammar, structure, and readability of the document, authors do not need to provide a citation. 

Hypothesis reserves the right to review and update all policies to ensure they remain compliant with changing standards in both research and publishing. Contact the Editor with any questions or concerns regarding any of these policies. 

Publication Frequency 

Hypothesis publishes two online issues each year in September and March. Submissions are accepted and reviewed year-round. Learn more about the projected Submission-to-Production timeline and review the Submission Categories for more information. contact the Editorial Team with questions or concerns. 

Editorial Team Submissions 

For submissions by the Editorial Team (e.g., Editor, Associate Editors, Copy Editors, or Production Editor), the Editorial Team author will remain blinded throughout the process. Other members of the Editorial Team will assess the quality of submissions, assign peer reviewers, review and make recommendations about the manuscript. 

Corrections, Erratum, and Retractions 

Corrections and Erratum 

Authors, who identify mistakes or information that did not make it in a published manuscript, should contact the Editor. Depending on the extent of the corrections, the Editor will update and republish the published manuscript. Hypothesis will publish erratum or a corrected article in a future issue, if the author(s) need to update the data analysis, figures, or tables in an article.  

Reasons for Retraction (4) 

  1. Manuscript has been previously published in another journal without appropriate attribution or disclosure to editor, permission to republish, or justification. 
  2. Author(s) have plagiarized or violated copyright. 
  3. Study design and/or data was not analyzed correctly, which disproves the analysis of the team.   
  4. Manuscript reports unethical research. 
  5. It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process. 
  6. Author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (aka conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors or peer reviewers. 

Retraction Process 

  1. If the Editor has concerns about a manuscript, author(s) will be contacted to discuss the situation. If the meeting can resolve the concerns of the Editor, the process still stop. The Editor may also write an Expression of Concern4 and publish it with a future issue.  
  2. If the Editor discovers an article has published previously in a conference proceeding or another journal, the author(s) will be contacted and a meeting will be arranged. If possible, the Editor will allow the author(s) to correct the manuscript and feature a Corrected version of the manuscript in a future issue of the journal. If the author(s) are not willing to work with the Editor, then a retraction notice will be added to the title of the published manuscript.  

If an author or reader have concerns about any Hypothesis publication, contact the Editor to discuss both the publication and concerns. 

Archival Policy 

Hypothesis is digitally preserved using the PKP Private LOCKSS Network (PLN). For more information about the PKP PLN, see https://pkp.sfu.ca/pkp-lockss/. 

References 

  1. Yoon J, Ku H, Chung E. The road to sustainability: Examining key drivers in open access diamond journal publishing. Learned Publishing [Internet]. 2024 Jul [cited 2024 Nov 27];37(3):e1611. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/leap.1611
  2. Flanagin A, Pirracchio R, Khera R, Berkwits M, Hswen Y, Bibbins-Domingo K. Reporting Use of AI in Research and Scholarly Publication—JAMA Network Guidance. JAMA [Internet]. 2024 Apr 2 [cited 2024 Nov 26];331(13):1096. Available from: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2816213
  3. Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals [Internet]. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. 2024. Available from: https://icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf
  4. Barbour V, Kleinert S, Wager E, Yentis S. Guidelines for retracting articles [Internet]. Committee on Publication Ethics; 2009 Sep [cited 2024 Nov 22]. Available from: https://publicationethics.org/node/19896