Policies
Who Can Submit?
Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication in the Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling (JFIC) provided they own the copyright to the work being submitted or is authorized by the copyright owner or owners to submit the article. Authors are the initial owners of the copyrights to their works (an exception in the non-academic world to this might exist if the authors have, as a condition of employment, agreed to transfer copyright to their employer).
General Submission Rules
Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). By submitting material to the JFIC, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that they will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at the JFIC. If you have concerns about the submission terms for the JFIC, please contact the editors.
Manuscript Review and Production Process
At the Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling (JFIC) we use a blind peer review system to evaluate manuscripts and to nurture authors. Throughout the review process the identities of the authors and peer reviewers are blind and are not known to the involved parties.
The review process begins with a preliminary evaluation of the author’s initial submission to assess the manuscript’s quality, originality, and editorial fit. The paper may then be assigned to an Associate Editor and two Reviewers. Each Reviewer conducts a full review of the manuscript by embedding comments, changes, and suggestions into the manuscript by utilizing Microsoft Word review tools or a separate document with specific feedback, and offers a recommendation as to the paper’s disposition. The Associate Editor reviews the manuscript, compiles the reviews and makes an editorial recommendation. The Associate Editor adds comments, changes, and suggestions to create a composite review and submits the review along with a recommended editorial decision to the Editor. The Editor reviews the composite review and editorial recommendations adding new comments, changes, and suggestions to create a final composite review which reflects the perspectives of the Reviewers, Associate Editor, and Editor. The Editor then renders a final editorial decision (i.e., accept, accept with changes, minor revisions, major revisions, or reject) and sends the editorial decision and review to the author.
If the editorial decision is accept or accept with changes, the Editor will review any revised submissions returned by the author. If the editorial decision is minor revisions or major revisions with an option to revise and resubmit, the Editor will re-assign the manuscript to an Associate Editor who may also re-assign the paper to a Reviewer or may decide to conduct the subsequent reviews alone. The process of Associate Editor and Reviewers comments of the revised manuscripts is the same as described above for initial review. For each review cycle the Editor makes the final editorial decision and submits the decision and review to the author.
After a manuscript is accepted, the Editor notifies the author of the decision, assigns the paper to a JFIC issue, and transfers the paper to the JFIC Production Editors for copy editing and JFIC formatting. Prior to the publication date, the Editor sends the formatted version of the article to the author for a final approval for proofing and minor edits. After the author returns the proofed article, the Editor posts the paper online for publication and notifies the author.
The JFIC editorial review, production, and publication processes are free with no fees charged to the author at any time.
Formatting Requirements
The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA; 7th ed.) is used as a guide for contributors to JFIC. This means that we ask authors to look to APA recommendations regarding the title, abstract, and headings used in the paper, as well as the format of references and citations within the text. We also request some writing practices we think improve the reporting of qualitative research methods and results, such as the use of active voice and the inclusion of the researcher's context as it relates to the topic under study.
Rights for Authors
As further described in our submission agreement (the Submission Agreement), in consideration for publication of the article, the authors agree to licensing their work under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA). This means that others are allowed to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as they credit the author(s) and the Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling and license their new creations under the identical terms.
Attribution and Usage Policies
Noncommercial reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material therein is permitted under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license. Credit to the author(s) as copyright holders is required (e.g., Jane Doe © 2016).
People seeking an exception, or who have questions about use, should contact the Editor.
General Terms and Conditions of Use
If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between The Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.