About the Journal

Aims and scope

Ethiopian Journal of Social Sciences (EJSS) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal. EJSS welcomes submissions of manuscripts that improve the conceptual understanding in issues related to historical, socio-economic, development, cultural, gender, political and environmental issues. It welcomes the submission of original research articles, systematic reviews, reflections, letters, book reviews, and short communications on issues pertaining to historical, socio-economic, development, cultural, gender, political and environmental issues from all corners of the world.  

 Publisher

Ethiopian Journal of Social Sciences is published by the Faculty of Social sciences (FSS) at Bahir Dar University. FSS is responsible for the administrative and budgetary aspects of the journal. Collaborating with relevant entities within Bahir Dar University, the faculty is also responsible for appointing editorial and advisory board members and approving and overseeing the journal's editorial policies. 

  Peer Review

All manuscripts submitted to the EJSS undergo a rigorous double-blind peer-reviewing process to ensure academic quality, originality, and integrity. Author(s) submitting manuscripts to EJSS are expected to ensure that their manuscripts align with the journal’s scope and adhere strictly to the prescribed formatting and submission requirements outlined in the Author guidelines (.https://journals.bdu.edu.et/index.php/ejss/). Submissions must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere, with proper citation and referencing to avoid plagiarism. Manuscripts should be clearly structured, written in academic English, and include all required sections such as abstract, keywords, introduction, methodology, results, conclusion and references. Authors are also responsible for ensuring ethical compliance in research involving human subjects and for disclosing any potential conflicts of interest.

 The Editorial Board reserves the right of final acceptance, rejection, and editorial correction of papers submitted. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made by the copy editor. Priority and time of publication are governed by the Editorial Board's decision.

Submission and Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to EJSS undergo a structured editorial and peer review process, which typically takes up to three months.

  1. Manuscripts are submitted to the Editor-in-Chief, registered, and assigned a reference number and code. Authors receive an acknowledgment of receipt.
  2. The Editorial members conducts an initial screening to ensure compliance with the journal’s scope, relevance, and formatting requirements as outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  3. Manuscripts that pass the preliminary assessment are sent to two anonymous expert reviewers under a double-blind peer review process. At this stage, authors may also be required to submit a signed copyright declaration confirming the originality of their work.
  4. Based on reviewers’ evaluations, the Editorial members determine whether the manuscript should be accepted, revised, resubmitted, or rejected.
  5. Where revisions are required, authors are expected to address all reviewer comments and resubmit the revised manuscript. The Editorial member then reassesses the revised submission to ensure that the concerns have been adequately addressed.
  6. A final decision on acceptance or rejection is made by the Editorial members and communicated to the authors through the Editor-in-Chief.
  7. Accepted manuscripts are scheduled for publication, and authors are informed of the issue, volume, and expected publication date.
  8. Prior to publication, authors are required to conduct a final proofread of their manuscript.
  9. Upon publication, authors receive a PDF copy of their article.

Open Access Policy

Ethiopian Journal of Social Sciences is an open-access journal. Hence, it 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. All contents of the journal are freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open aces. 

Originality: EJSS publishes articles based on original research using primary empirical data, including surveys, in-depth interviews, key informant interviews, focus group discussions (FGD), archives, newspapers, and government and non-governmental organization documents or articles developed by using secondary data. In the latter's case, the author should clearly outline his/her fresh/new contribution or a new reinterpretation of the existing literature.

Ethical considerations

Authors should disclose any conflict of interest related to the manuscript on a separate page after the references. They should also confirm that submissions are unpublished and not under review elsewhere.

 

Publication Scheduling

Ethiopian Journal of Social Sciences is a bi-annual journal. It publishes two issues in December and May each year. 

Licensing 

The EJSS owns the copyright of the articles. The content is free to read and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND). The articles published in this journal are licensed under: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright 

Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access)

Plagiarism policy:

EJSS maintains a strict policy against plagiarism and upholds the highest standards of academic integrity. All submitted manuscripts must be the original work of the authors and properly acknowledge the contributions of others through appropriate citation and referencing. Submissions are subject to plagiarism screening, and any manuscript found to contain plagiarism, including self-plagiarism or unattributed use of others’ work, will be rejected. In cases where plagiarism is identified after publication, the journal reserves the right to retract the article and notify relevant institutions. Authors are solely responsible for the authenticity and originality of their work.

Journal identifiers:

DOI: single identify for each published article

 Journal Serial print: 2518-4563(P)

Electronic: 3008-1041(E)