Licensing and Policies
Copyrights
All articles published in Social Sciences Advancement and Governance Excellence (SSAGE) are open access and freely available to read, download, copy, and distribute. SSAGE protects the work of its authors under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts, and all Open Access articles are distributed under the terms of this license, which allows unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Plagiarism Policy
Social Sciences Advancement and Governance Excellence (SSAGE) strictly follows the plagiarism policy set by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan. All submitted manuscripts undergo a rigorous similarity check using Turnitin software. As per HEC guidelines, the Similarity Score Index (SSI) must not exceed 15%.
The editorial team will conduct the plagiarism check up to three times as outlined in sections 2, 3, and 4 of the HEC Plagiarism Policy:
- Initial Check:
Upon submission, a comprehensive SSI report is generated without excluding quotations, bibliography, or matches. This helps in evaluating the overall originality of the manuscript. - Revision Check:
If the paper is conditionally approved, authors are allowed to revise and resubmit. A second SSI report will be generated, potentially excluding quotations and bibliography. - Final Check:
If required, a third report is prepared before the manuscript is forwarded for peer review.
Failure to meet the acceptable SSI or to improve the paper after revision may lead to rejection, application of penalties, or reporting to HEC by the Internal Evaluation Committee.
The editorial team is responsible for managing and verifying all plagiarism-related evaluations.
Editorial Policy
- Ethical Standards
SSAGE follows HEC’s ethical guidelines and aims to align with COPE standards to ensure integrity in publishing. - Intellectual Property
All submitted content and supplementary materials are treated confidentially. Reviewers are prohibited from using or sharing any content without written permission. - Fair Review
Manuscripts are reviewed impartially, based on merit and journal scope, without discrimination of any kind. - Originality
Only original, unpublished work is accepted. Submissions under review elsewhere are not considered. - Plagiarism
SSAGE enforces a strict zero-tolerance policy on plagiarism. All manuscripts are checked before peer review. - Decisions
Publication decisions are made after double-blind peer review by the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor. - Confidentiality
All manuscript content remains confidential and is not used for personal gain.
Publication Policy
Authors retain the copyright of their work, while SSAGE holds first publication rights. Authors may reuse their work under ethical guidelines.
SSAGE provides open access under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) license.
Articles are free to read, download, copy, and distribute for non-commercial purposes. Commercial use is not permitted.
The editorial board is not responsible for subsequent uses of published work.