About the Journal
FOCUS AND SCOPE
The Normal Lights is a peer-reviewed journal in education and educational innovations and development. Its mission is to rationalize and bridge the gap between theory and practice in educational systems in the Philippines and beyond. Specifically, it intends to: 1) promote understanding of issues on education and development through publication of empirical quantitative and/or qualitative research articles and scholarly essays both methodologically or theoretically innovative; 2) provide an avenue for education researchers and practitioners to debate current trends, problems and challenges in this field, and; 3) offer a national, regional, and global perspective of education and development in the Philippines, Asia and other parts of the world.
PEER REVIEW PROCESS
REFEREEING SYSTEM
The refereeing system shall adopt a three-stage evaluation process: initial appraisal, double blind external review, and Editorial Board evaluation. Upon receipt, each submitted manuscript will be subjected to an appraisal by the Publication Team. This initial appraisal will include plagiarism check. This process shall ensure that each manuscript fits the objectives and standards of the journal. It will likewise establish significance, technical soundness of the paper, and originality of the manuscript (similarity index should be not more than 10%). The result of the initial appraisal shall determine whether the manuscript will be endorsed for an external review or be returned to the author/s for revision. Author/s is/are given two to four weeks to revise the manuscript depending on the security and completeness of revisions required. Manuscripts revised following the initial appraisal with attached accomplished and signed commitment form are sent to double blind refereeing by at least two external reviewers. The external reviewers are determined by the Editorial Board and given a month to evaluate the manuscripts. Comments and suggestions resulting from the refereeing are consolidated and sent to the authors for appropriate action. The author/s is/are given two (2) weeks to revise and resubmit the manuscript. The revised manuscript shall undergo final scrutiny by the Editorial Board. This process ensures that the external reviewers suggestions are incorporated in the manuscript, on which the acceptance for publication of the proposed article shall be contingent. Accepted papers for publication are then subjected to final language editing by the Managing Editor and the Editor-in-Chief. When ready, proofs are again sent to the author/s for his/her/their final review. The author/s is/are expected to return the proofs within a week. Failure on the part of the author/s to send any feedback within said time implies acceptance of proofs without corrections. As soon as the camera-ready copy of the journal volume is prepared, it will be sent to the Web-Editor for uploading of the new issue of the journal on the online platform.
PNU-MN-2016-PUB-GL-06
OPEN ACCESS POLICY
This journal 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.
ARCHIVING
This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...
PUBLICATION ETHICS
The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is a very crucial task in disseminating knowledge and contributes for the scientific development. As a peer-reviewed journal, the rigor of scientific publication is expected to be observed in the course of evaluating papers that are submitted. Therefore, ethical behavior is expected for all parties involved during the publishing process: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher.
Click here to read the duties for authors, editors and reviewers according to the Omnia Publisher Publication Ethics statement.
