The Philippine Social Science Journal (PSSJ) is an open access indexed peer-reviewed journal published by Recoletos de Bacolod Graduate School, University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos. The journal publishes original and quality scientific papers dealing with social science and allied disciplines such as anthropology, human geography, demography, business, management, economics, education, psychology, criminal justice, political science, social policy, international relations, sociology, law, media studies, history, health and well-being, and religion.
As a refereed journal, PSSJ continuously commits itself to provide a mentoring space for researchers and scientists to publish original and unpublished scholarly papers that can foster new knowledge and understanding of various societal issues and become the basis for policies and programs to enhance organizational practices and improve the quality of life.
ISSN: 2704-288X (Online) and 2672-3107 (Print)
PSSJ Editorial Team is composed of respected academics in the journal's field from across the globe. Selected by the journal editor, they provide expert advice on major journal policy and content. In addition, they review submitted articles, invite new authors and submissions, and promote the journal to the global academic community. With their field of expertise and extensive work as scientists and researchers, the Editorial Team members enhance and strengthen the quality, integrity, prestige, and sustainability of our journal.
PSSJ subscribes to the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors to ensure fair and unbiased evaluation, confidentiality, observance of non-competing interest, and editorial responsibility and accountability for all submitted articles.
As an open access journal, PSSJ is committed to free access of its published scientific papers to increase their credibility and visibility for quick dissemination of their scientific findings. PSSJ is now indexed/listed in the following:
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA)
Index Copernicus International (ICI)
The Andrew Gonzalez Philippine Citation Index (AGPCI)
Manuscripts currently under consideration by another journal or publisher should not be submitted. The author/s must state upon submission that the work has not been submitted or published elsewhere.
Authors must fill out the Declaration Agreement for original contribution and sole responsibility of the author vs. plagiarism and the hierarchy of authorship (in case of multiple authors).
In addition, authors must accept and adhere to the Open Access and Copyright Policy of the journal.
Responsibilities of Authors
In reference to the international standards for authors developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in 2010, authors are expected to adhere to the principles and practices of responsible research publication.
1. The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.
2. Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation.
3. Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.
4. Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarized, and has not been published elsewhere.
5. Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work.
6. The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.
7. Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed.
In addition, authors are expected to participate in the peer-review process; carefully examine that no part of the manuscript has been copied verbatim; obtain and use data/references from scientific databases traceable from the web; provide retractions or corrections for errors; and agree to the Open Access and Copyright Policy of the Philippine Social Science Journal.
Authors must strictly adhere to the format and style of the journal to avoid manuscript rejection. Hence, authors are encouraged to carefully read the instructions for authors before submitting their manuscripts.
1. Submit the manuscript in MS Word Format through the online submission portal of the journal. Self-identifying references should be deleted from the text and notes.
2. Prepare the cover page indicating the following: A concise and informative title; name(s) of the author(s); affiliation(s), email address (es), and ORCID number(s) of the author(s); and an abstract of 150 words with at least 3-5 key words
3. Organize the paper following these major sections/headings: Title, Abstract (150 words) with at least five keywords, Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion, Conclusion, and References.
4. Format the entire manuscript in single-spaced on a short white bond paper (8.5x11in) on one side only with 2.5 cm (1 inch) margins all around using a Times New Roman, the font size of 12.
5. Serially number all pages, including tables, appendices, and references. Major sections should be numbered, but subsections should not be numbered.
6. Leave two spaces before and after the major headings and two spaces before and after the sub-headings. References, Acknowledgments, Table Titles, and Figure Legends should be typed single-spaced or numbered consecutively on all pages, including the title page, figures, and tables.
7. Spell out acronyms or unfamiliar abbreviations when mentioned for the first time in the text.
8. Write the scientific names of species completely with author(s) when it is first mentioned in the text and without an author in succeeding references. Scientific names should be written in italics or boldface.
9. Do not spell out numbers unless they are used to start a sentence. Spell out numbers from one to ten, except when used in tables and lists, and when used with mathematical, statistical, scientific, or technical units and quantities, such as distances, weights, and measures. Percentage and Decimal Fractions. In nontechnical copy, use the word percent in the text.
10. Use the metric system only or the International System of Units. Use abbreviations of units only beside numerals (e.g., 6 m); otherwise, spell out the units (e.g., kilometers from here). Do not use plural forms or periods for abbreviations of units. Use the bar for compound units (e.g., 1 kg/ha/yr). Place a zero before the decimal in numbers less than 1 (e.g., 0.25).
11. In preparing tables and figures, consider the journal’s printed page of 9 in x 6 in and the reduction that will be necessary. Titles of Tables should be found on top of the table itself, while Captions of Figures should be found right below the figure. It has to be as short as possible and understandable without referring to the text. Figures should consist of simple line drawings, computer-generated graphics, or good quality original photographs in a jpeg or png file format that is not enhanced electronically. Figures' labels should be of such a size so that these are still legible even after reducing the size by as much as 50%. Use preferably Adobe Photoshop CS, Adobe InDesign CS, and or PDF computer-generated graphics.
12. All cited sources should substantially consist of articles published in current content-covered or peer-reviewed journals. Use the newest edition of the American Psychological Association (APA) for citation and referencing format and style. Do not use footnotes; rather, use endnotes if required by the discipline.
13. The manuscript should be concise as the subject and research method permits. Generally, it should be 4,000 to 6,000 words, single-spaced.
All research articles undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review, based on initial editor's screening and anonymized refereeing by two or three anonymous referees who are experts on research topic content and methodology.
Authors' and reviewers' identities are not disclosed to ensure an objective technical review of all submitted manuscripts. To facilitate an anonymized manuscript for review, the authors are requested to remove details indicating their names, affiliations, email addresses, and ORCID numbers.
PSSJ promotes and observes ethical peer-reviewing principles and practices as outlined in the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.
Before accepting and declining the invitation to review the manuscript, referees are expected to consider their areas of expertise to provide quality review of the paper; potential conflict of interest in providing an independent and unbiased review; availability and commitment to meet the journal deadline; and familiarity of the double-blind review process and journal guidelines to authors. The referees must also agree that the manuscript they received for review must be treated as a confidential document. It must not be shown or discussed with others except authorized by the author/editor. Any ideas obtained during the peer review process will be kept confidential and will not be used for personal advantage.
During the review process, referees are guided by the review form provided to them by the editor. They must correctly and legibly accomplish and submit the form on or before the deadline determined by the editor. Their comments and suggestions will be consolidated with the other referees to refine the manuscript being evaluated and come up with a quality publishable article.
Essentially, referees provide a technical evaluation of the paper regarding its suitability for publication, content and presentation, novelty, and accessibility of the content. Their comments and suggestions will provide the basis for the improvement of the manuscript. Also, they will recommend an action to be taken with regards to the manuscript from the options set by the journal: Accept without revision(s), Accept with minor revision(s), Accept with major revision(s), Reject with the option to resubmit, or Reject. If referees recommend that revisions are required, they must furnish the author/s specific guidance regarding those revisions. Also, they must indicate their willingness to review the paper after revision. If the referees substantially disagree about the paper's quality, the editor will solicit one or more reviews as a tie-breaker. The editor will have the final decision for the acceptance and rejection of the paper.
Criteria for Acceptance and Rejection
For the manuscript to be accepted for publication, it must: (1) be recommended by two or three referees; (2) address the comments and suggestions of the referees; (3) comply with ethical standards and protocols; (4) adhere to journal format and style; (5) pass Plagiarism Detection Test with a score of at least 10% or less and Grammarly Rating of 95% or more; and (6) be endorsed for publication by the International Editorial Advisory Board.
Publication Ethics and Malpractice
PSSJ is guided by the Council of Scientific Editors (2018) in its commitment to promote and uphold integrity in scientific journal publications and address research misconduct.
All accepted papers are subjected to a rigorous review process and stringent grammar and plagiarism tests. Likewise, all authors are requested to declare that the paper/abstract submitted for publication in PSSJ is not published or considered for publication in part or whole in any journal or magazine for private or public circulation. They must agree to the hierarchy of authorship (in the case of co-authorship) depending on their significant contribution to the work to qualify for authorship. For funded research papers, authors are requested to declare and acknowledge the valuable support of agencies, institutions, and individuals in the research projects' conduct.
Any papers suspected of intellectual dishonesty and authorship's falsification will not be published or retracted from the website.
Policy on Handling Complaints
If the Journal receives a complaint that any contribution to the Journal infringes the copyright or other intellectual property rights or contains material inaccuracies, libelous materials, or otherwise unlawful materials, the Journal will investigate the complaint. The investigation may include a request that the parties involved substantiate their claims. The Journal will make a good-faith distribution whether to remove the allegedly wrongful material. A decision not to remove material should represent the Journal’s belief that the complaint is without sufficient foundation, or if well-founded, that a legal defense or exemption may apply, such as fair use in the case of copyright infringement or truthfulness of a statement in the case of libel. Journal should document its investigation and decision. After investigation, if an author is found guilty, the article shall be subjected to the retraction policy.
Policy on Retraction
Retraction is an act of the journal publisher to remove a published article from the digital file due to post-publication discovery of fraudulent claims by the research, plagiarism, or serious errors of methodology which escaped detection in the quality assurance process. Complaints by third-party researchers on any of the grounds and validated by the editorial office trigger the retraction but only after the writer has been notified and allowed to present his side in compliance to due process.
Policy on Conflicts of Interest
The Journal will only publish articles after the author(s) have confirmed that they have disclosed all potential conflicts of interest.
Policy on Use of Human Subjects in Research
The Journal will only publish research articles involving human subjects after the author(s) have verified that they have followed all laws and regulations concerning the protections afforded human subjects in research studies within the jurisdiction in which a research study they describe was conducted.
Ethics clearance and, if applicable National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) permit, shall be submitted as an attachment to the manuscript for consideration.
Policy on Digital Preservation
Digital Preservation is the process of storing systematically electronic files in multiple formats such as compact discs; cloud computing, Google drive, email accounts, external hard drives, among others. This is to guarantee that in conditions where the website crashes, there is a natural calamity, fire, and other man-made destructions, virus invasions, the files are preserved. Relative to this, all of our electronic content are stored on different sources. Content on one server is online and accessible to the readers. The copy of the same content is kept as a backup on two other sources.
Our journal’s abstracting/indexing services store much essential information about the articles. They archive not only the metadata about the article but the electronic versions of the articles, as well. Therefore, copies of the articles are available to the scientific community through their systems as an alternative to the journal's own.
Authors may archive the final published version of their articles in personal or institutional repositories immediately after publication.
Open Access and Copyright Policy
The journal offers open access to its content on the principle that making research freely and permanently available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Hence, PSSJ does not charge subscription fees to our readers to access, read, download, copy, distribute, print, and link the full text of all published articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or author. Also, the journal does not collect fees from potential authors in the publication of their papers.
PSSJ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Authors sign an exclusive license agreement, where author/s have copyright but license exclusive rights in their article to the publisher. In this case, the author/s have the right to (a) share their article in the same ways permitted to third parties under the relevant user license so long as it contains the journal logo, the end-user license, and a link to the version of record on Philippine Social Science Journal; (b) retain patent, trademark and other intellectual property rights (including research data); and (c) proper attribution and credit for the published work.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
PSSJ is a quarterly publication. It comes out in March, June, September, and December. Special issues may be published in a year.
The journal is funded by Recoletos de Bacolod Graduate School, University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos.
The Philippine Social Science Journal was envisioned to provide an online platform to graduate students and professors and all research enthusiasts across the globe to engage in research publication. Led by Dr. Dennis V. Madrigal, first chief and managing editor, and Rev. Fr. Jose Alden B. Alipin, OAR as the Graduate School Dean, and Vice President for Academics, the print maiden issue was released in December 2018. Then, the journal's website was launched in May 2019 with the release of the online version of the maiden issue.
PSSJ initially released journal issues twice a year in June and December. In 2021, PSSJ started to release quarterly issues: March, June, September, and December. The publication frequency will provide more opportunities for researchers to publish their scholarly works and strengthen our commitment to foster social science researches in the Philippines and beyond.
On January 22, 2021, PSSJ has been accepted into DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals). Being indexed in DOAJ will enhance PSSJ's reputation and prominence, standard and best practice, funding and compliance, discoverability and visibility, and international coverage.
The journal was also accepted and indexed in Crossref on February 22, 2021. Crossref is one of the official DOI registration agencies of the International DOI Foundation. The DOIs they generate for journal articles make the latter “easy to find, cite, link and assess”.
The Philippine Social Science Journal has been accepted/included in the ASEAN Citation Index (ACI) beginning October 2021. ASEAN Citation Index (ACI) is a central regional database that was designed and set up to index all the bibliographic records and the citations of all quality ASEAN research outputs that appeared in the ASEAN scholarly journals. The member countries of the ACI are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Phillippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Capping the pandemic year 2021, the Philippine Social Science Journal was accepted and indexed in the Index Copernicus International (ICI) Journals Master List Database for 2020 last December 31, 2021.
On August 17, 2022, the Philippine Social Science Journal was indexed in The Andrew Gonzalez Philippine Citation Index (AGPCI). It is a journal indexing and citation database for Philippine academic journals which aims to assist local journals improve their quality and attain international accreditation.
PSSJ was officially listed as a member of the prestigious Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) last Novermber 18, 2022. Based in Netherlands, OASPA is a diverse community of organizations engaged in open scholarship. Its membership includes scholar-led and professional publishers of books and journals, across varied geographies and disciplines, as well as infrastructure and other services. OASPA is a trusted convenor of the broad, global spectrum of open access stakeholders and a proven venue for productive collaboration. With our OASPA membership, we commit and support open access as the predominant model of communication for scholarly outputs.
The opinions expressed in the articles published in the Philippine Social Science Journal (PSSJ) website are entirely of author/s of research papers. It does not reflect the opinions of both the Editor and members of the Editorial Board. The responsibility of the matter of the research paper is entirely of the author/s. However, in view of the possibility of human error by the authors, editors, or publisher, nor any other who has been involved in the preparation of the work warrants that the information contained herein in every aspect accurate or complete, and they are not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained from the use of such information. Readers are advised to confirm the information contained herein with other sources.
Journal Information
Criteria for Acceptance and Rejection
Publication Ethics and Malpractice
Policy on Conflicts of Interest
Policy on Use of Human Subjects in Research
Policy on Digital Preservation
Open Access and Copyright Policy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
