General Guide
The Philippine Journal of Fisheries (TPJF) publishes scientifically significant papers on relevant topics covering all aspects of fisheries, both in basic and applied sciences. Some of the related fields of studies are Capture Fisheries, Aquaculture, Postharvest Technology, Marketing and Industry, Aquatic Ecology, Oceanography, Aquatic Resource Conservation, Health of Aquatic Organisms, Biotechnology, Food Safety and Traceability, Socioeconomics, and Systematics in freshwater, estuarine, marine, and other identifiable water habitats, among others.
The journal strictly considers that the manuscript is the authors’ original work and has not been previously published elsewhere, nor is it submitted partly or wholly in any other journal.
All manuscripts and materials submitted to TPJF should contain accurate information and properly cite all sources, including the author’s previous work. It is assumed that the analyses and conclusions are not based on fraudulent data. All manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer-review process (see Peer Review Process).
The contents of the journal will be available in open access through the journal’s website. Issues are released every June and December yearly.
In submitting to TPJF, all authors must agree to abide by TPJF editorial and journal policies.
Copyright and Permission
TPJF, as an open access journal, is publishing Creative Commons-licensed research, which promotes access and re-use of scientific and scholarly research. Authors who submit manuscripts to us agree that their work will be licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license (This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms). However, if your work contains a novel method or requires protection over the discovery of new technology, let us know beforehand to guide you in finding the appropriate license option.
Authorship and Contributorship
All authors must have contributed substantially to the research and preparation of the manuscript. For the submission of each revision of the paper and any authorship change, the corresponding author must have received permission from all the authors.
For transparency, TPJF requires authors to submit an author statement file, included in the cover letter, outlining their individual contributions to the paper using the relevant Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) roles. Authorship statements should be formatted first with the writers' names following the CRediT role(s). An author may mention more than one contribution, and more than one author may have contributed to the same aspect of the work. This should also reflect in the manuscript itself under the section Author Contributions. See sample below.
Conflict of Interest
All authors should disclose any conflict of interest that might be perceived to influence the authors’ objectivity. Also called competing interests, conflicts of interest are defined as financial, personal, social, or other interests that directly or indirectly influence the author’s conduct with respect to the particular manuscript (Sengupta and Honavar 2017). If there is no conflict of interest to declare, state it explicitly, both in the cover letter and the manuscript (under the section Conflicts of Interest).
A potential conflict of interest includes but not limited to:
Data and Reproducibility
To support robust research design and analysis, TPJF encourages authors to register trials and other study designs according to standard practice in their discipline, if applicable.
Authors should deposit as much of their data as possible (i.e., code, data, reagents, gene sequence, etc.) in publicly accessible data repositories. If data deposition is not possible, authors may use supporting information (SI) to show all necessary data. Research datasets should be cited in the references.
Ethical Consideration
TPJF adheres to the standards, best practices, and regulations set by various Philippine laws and institutions such as the Republic Act (RA) 8550 “The Philippine Fisheries Code of 1988”, Republic Act 10654 “Amending RA 10654”, Republic Act 9147 “Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act”, Republic Act 11333 “National Museum of the Philippines Act”, Republic Act 8485 “The Animal Welfare Act of 1988”, Republic Act 11038 “Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 2018” and the National Committee on Biosafety of the Philippines. Research on wildlife and genetic resources in the Philippines is regulated through Executive Order (EO) 247. EO 247 requires permits and prior informed consent (PIC) from local communities, local government units, and the Protected Area Management Board (for legislated Protected Areas). Permits and consents should be stated in the cover letter, if applicable.
For studies involving human subjects, please state the following sentence or an equivalent statement in the manuscript under the Ethics Statement section that relates to your situation: “All the procedures followed were in line with the ethical principles of the responsible committee on human experimentation and the 1975 Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2000. The authors obtained informed consent from all participants for inclusion in the study.” The following sentence should also be included if any identifying information about participants is included in the paper: “Additional informed consent was obtained from all individuals for whom identifying information is included in this article.”
For studies with animals, provide the following sentence in the manuscript under the section Ethics Statement: “The researchers followed all institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals.”
If the authors did not carry out animal or human studies as part of their research, they must include the following statement in the manuscript under the section Ethics Statement: “No animal or human studies were carried out by the authors.”\
If the authors have not included or cannot include one of these statements in your manuscript, please provide the reason or an alternative statement in the cover letter and the manuscript.
Plagiarism, Misreporting, and Falsification of Data
Plagiarism is committed when one author uses another work without permission, credit, or acknowledgment. Plagiarism takes different forms, from literary copying to paraphrasing the work of another. In judging whether an author has plagiarized, the following definitions may be used:
If there is any question about whether research results reported in a submitted article are original to the purported author or authors, the editorial board shall make inquiries of the authors and their institutions.
All manuscripts and materials submitted to TPJF should contain accurate information and should properly cite all sources. The editors and reviewers will report any suspected plagiarism, misreporting, or falsification of data to the Editor-in-Chief.
Manuscript Charges and Color Reproduction
There is no publication fee. Color figures will be reproduced in the online publication free of charge.
Archival Policy
TPJF articles are deposited in and available from multiple digital archives around the world. Content published in TPJF shall be deposited in AquaDocs and NFRDI Digital Repository to guarantee long-term digital preservation. The NFRDI Digital Repository uses DSpace, an open-source software, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries. It is an Open Archives Initiative (OAI)-compliant. Materials deposited shall be subjected to existing policies and regulations of the NFRDI Digital Repository.
Self-Archiving Policy
Authors are encouraged to deposit the final published PDF in their personal or institutional repository.
Authors should provide a link from the deposited version to the URL of the published article on the journal's website. In all cases, the requirement to link to the journal's website is intended to protect the integrity and authenticity of the scientific record, with the online published version on the journal's website clearly identified as the definitive version of record.
Authors are advised to check their funders' deposition requirements to ensure compliance.
Article withdrawal
Only used for Advanced Online Publication (AOP) or Article in Press, which represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors. Authors themselves have the prerogative to withdraw their paper for any personal or professional reasons. When an article is withdrawn, its content (HTML and PDF) is removed and replaced with an HTML page and PDF, stating that the article has been withdrawn.
Author/s’ name/s and affiliation/s will be removed as agreed upon by the TPJF editorial board members.
Corrections, Retractions, Complaints, and Allegations
If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud, the Journal or Publisher will investigate following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:
The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, expression of concern, or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform
, watermarked “retracted,” and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.
References:
Executive Order No. 247. 1995. Prescribing Guidelines and Establishing a Regulatory Framework for the Prospecting of Biological and Genetic Resources, their By-Products and Derivatives, for Scientific and Commercial Purposes; and for Other Purposes. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1995/05/18/executive-order-no-247-s-1995/
[PNAS] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America. 2021. Editorial and Journal Policies [Internet]. Available from: https://www.pnas.org/authors/editorial-and-journal-policies#peer-review-process
Republic Act No. 8485. 1998. An Act to Promote Animal Welfare in the Philippines, Otherwise Known as "The Animal Welfare Act of 1998". https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1998/02/11/republic-act-no-8485/
Republic Act No. 8550. 1998. An Act Providing for the Development, Management
and Conservation of the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Integrating All Laws Pertinent Thereto, and for Other Purposes. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1998/02/25/republic-act-no-8550/
Republic Act No. 9147. 2001. An Act Providing for the Conservation and Protection
of Wildlife Resources and their Habitats, Appropriating Funds Therefor and for Other Purposes. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2001/07/30/republic-act-no-9417/
Republic Act No. 10654. 2015. An Act to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal,
Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, Amending Republic Act No. 8550, Otherwise Known as “The Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998,” and for Other Purposes. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2015/02/27/republic-act-no-10654/
Republic Act No. 11038. 2018. An Act Declaring Protected Areas and Providing for
Their Management, Amending for This Purpose Republic Act No. 7586, Otherwise Known as the "National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act of 1992" and for Other Purposes. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/
downloads/2018/06jun/20180622-RA-11038-RRD.pdf
Republic Act No. 11333. 2018. An Act Strengthening the National Museum of the
Philippines, Repealing for the Purpose R.A. No. 8492, Otherwise Known as the "National Museum Act of 1998", and Appropriating Funds Therefor. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/downloads/2019/04apr/20190426-RA-11333-RRD.pdf
Sengupta S, Honavar SG. 2017. Publication ethics. Indian Journal of Ophthalmology.
65(6): 429–432. doi: 10.4103/ijo.IJO_483_17