Submissions

Author Guidelines

Authors are invited to make a submission to this journal. All submissions will be assessed by an editor to determine whether they meet the aims and scope of this journal. Those considered to be a good fit will be sent for peer review before determining whether they will be accepted or rejected.

Before making a submission, authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any material included with the submission, such as photos, documents and datasets. All authors identified on the submission must consent to be identified as an author. Where appropriate, research should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the study's country.

An editor may desk reject a submission if it does not meet minimum standards of quality. Before submitting, please ensure that the study design and research argument are structured and articulated properly. The title should be concise and the abstract should be able to stand on its own. This will increase the likelihood of reviewers agreeing to review the paper. When you're satisfied that your submission meets this standard, please follow the checklist below to prepare your submission.

There is no submission fee.

The views and suggestions expressed in the articles published in JDA are those of the authors only and the editors, IPoSt, or the University assumes no responsibility for the same.

Copyright on articles is owned by the publishers.

Authors are advised to submit their manuscripts on online as per the instructions provided to them. And all submissions of manuscripts should be in MS Word format and should be written in understandable English. Authors can use either British or American English.

It is mandatory for the authors to see that the manuscript is well written and free from typographical, structural, and grammar related error issues of the English language as no editorial services are provided by the JDA of IPoSt.

Occasionally, the JDA may accept papers written in local Ethiopian languages if IPoSt feels it is a must to accept for the benefit of the readers.

Editor-in-Chief as well as Editorial Board of JDA encourages publishing articles from different scholars around the world that deals especially with the African region, Ethiopia in special, and/or a comparative picture of the issues in relation to other countries in the world

The submitted research manuscript expected to be accommodated in about 20-25 pages of single sided A4 size paper that includes like: the brief abstract of 250 words, main text, tables, graphs/maps, references, appendix tables.   

It is mandatory to submit a cover letter that explains the significance of the present study. It is to be submitted along with the manuscripts and addressed to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal and will be kept confidential.

The authors should assure in writing that the sent article/s for publication in JDA has not been sent earlier to another journal for publication/consideration or has already been published earlier. 

Authors are expected to submit the manuscripts strictly following the guidelines prescribed for JDA journal.

Those manuscripts not readable or not followed the guidelines of JDA are strictly rejected and no other correspondence is entertained in this matter.

All correspondence regarding manuscripts sent to JDA should be made only with the Editor-in-Chief with providing genuine justification for any quarry.

Once accepted the manuscript in all respects for its publication in JDA authors are advised to proof read the final PDF version of the same. After fully approved by the author no further modifications will be entertained in the published paper by the editors. However, if a correction is a must, after a request of the corresponding author, an attempt may be made by the editor to provide a correction message in the next possible issue of the journal.   

Other Guidelines to authors

Authors are advised to prepare and send the mmanuscripts as per the guidelines provided below:

1. Page one: provide the title of paper, author’s name/s, institutional affiliation and address for correspondence including telephone, fax and email details.
2. In the case of joint authorship: indicate which of them should receive correspondences from the editorial office.
3. Page two: provide the title of the paper, an abstract of not more than 250-300 words, and five (5) keywords.
4. The abstract must be presented in terms of:  Background and objectives, data and methods, results and Conclusions
5. Prepare the paper according to the following sub-headings:

1. Abstract and Keywords
2. Introduction
3. Literature Review and Theoretical or Conceptual Framework (if any)
4. Data and Methods
5. Results and discussion
6. Conclusion and policy implications (if any)

1. Type one-sided, double-spaced (including abstract, captions, notes and references)
2. Use A-4 paper (left and right margins of 3.75 cm, Times Roman Font of 12, spelling: use the Oxford English Dictionary)
3. Tables:

1. should be typed on a separate sheet, use a short descriptive title, provide above the table
2. should be numbered consecutively and in the order in which they are referred to in the text
3. The position of the table should be indicated on the right margin as: <at about here.>

1. All illustrative material, drawings, maps, diagrams and photographs should appear as:

1. Each figure: with a short title placed immediately below it
2. Each figure: should be on a separate page
3. Each figure: must be submitted in a form suitable for reduction and publication without redrawing

1. References:

1. Use the Harvard-style
2. Quotations in the text should be followed by the author’s surname and the year of the publication
3. For a direct quote, the page number should be included, e.g. (John, 2019:81)
4. References at the end of the manuscript should
5. contain more details about sources referred to in the text
6. be arranged alphabetically according to the surnames of the authors
7. When more than one publication of the same author/s are referred to, they should be arranged chronologically according to years of publication
8. If more than one publication of the same author/s appeared in one year, they should be distinguished by ‘a’, ‘b’ etc., e.g. 2019a, 2019
9. Submission of Manuscripts: Authors should indicate at the end of article that
10. all named authors have contributed sufficiently to the work submitted and,
11. the content of the manuscript has never been previously published,
12. A copyright form will be sent to author(s) to sign before publication can be done, if accepted.

Length of Manuscripts

Generally, the JDA accepts research articles, research notes, reviews, commentaries, conference proceedings and other contributions. The length of manuscripts varies accordingly.

Research articles: manuscript of research articles should not exceed 8000 words in the main text and 250-300 words in the abstract with limited numbers of figures and tables

Research notes/reviews: the manuscript should not exceed 4000 words in the main text and 150-200 words in the abstract.

Commentaries: the length should be limited to a maximum of 2000 words.

Privacy Statement

Following the standard practice adopted by Mekelle University for other journal publications the present journal JDA also assures that the names and addresses given by the authors are being used only for the stated purpose and is further assured not misused for any other purpose or given to any other party of interest.

Conflict of Interest

Authors should boldly disclose the state of conflict of interest among themselves and any third party in a statement.

Ethical considerations

JDA does not prescribe specific ethical standards but expects that authors to clarify how they handled ethical dilemmas they encountered in their investigation. It would be preferable if ethical clearance from IRB is submitted.

Review Process of the Submitted Manuscripts for JDA

Once submitted any manuscript to JDA it will undergo several stages of scrutiny before its final acceptance. We may explain the process in simple steps as follows:

• Submission of the manuscript
• Accept it for further scrutiny if all required formalities of submission fulfilled
• Reject and inform the author, if not fulfilled.
• Send the manuscript to editors (Chief-editor or sub-editors) for its internal review process
• If rejected by internal reviewer inform the author about the same.
• But, once accepted by internal reviewer and recommended by him for further scrutiny of the manuscript send the same to two external peer-reviewers. To keep confidentiality, remove the names of the authors and their other information from the manuscript and see that the two peer reviewers selected send their comments following the stipulated deadlines set to them. See that the peer reviewers send their reports in time by means of sending reminders if needed.
• There are three possibilities: The peer-reviewer 1) may suggest “Reject the paper”, or ii) may suggest “accept the paper as it is”, or iii) may suggest “accept the paper with either minor or major modifications suggested by them.”
• In case it is suggestion 1) i.e., “reject the paper” inform the author/s the same.
• In case it is suggestion 2) i.e., “accept the paper as it is” inform the author/s the same.
• In case it is suggestion 3) i.e., “accept the paper with either minor or major modifications” inform the same to the author/s and expect them to return the manuscript with taking care of the suggested modifications.
• In the third case, after receiving the modified version of the paper send it again to the concern peer reviewer for their observations and approval. If satisfied send the message to the author that his manuscript is accepted for its publication, else send him a message that he has to adhere to the comments made by the peer-reviewer once again. Continue the process till the peer reviewer says “Yes” for its acceptance.
• It is noticed; however the peer-reviewers sent their approval, the final authority whether to publish an article after peer-review process entirely depends with the Chief-editor judgement of the entire process and his own observations on the said manuscript.
• Then the managing editor facilitates the manuscripts publication in the coming issue of the journal based on the instructions received from the Chief-editor.