Introduction 

Editorial Policies

In order to make sure that the contributions submitted are in relevance to the style and principle of the journal, authors are obliged to read the “Author Guidelines” before submission.

All contributions submitted to Higher Education Forum are contingent on a rigorous peer review. Aspects such as admissible English language, originality, novelty related to this journal are considered anterior to the peer review process.

All contributions submitted to Higher Education Forum will not be made available to anyone except our individuals who take part in the publishing process of this manuscript.

It is kindly for you to know that works that has been published or in consideration for publication in other journals are nor accepted, if the data of your manuscript are presented in other platforms, please notify us. A submission checklist is needed to fill up to ensure the fulfillment of these criteria.

Authorship

List any person who has made a significant contribution to a journal article. They also share responsibility and accountability for the results of the published research, and for others who have participated in certain aspects to be listed or acknowledged as contributors in their study. They will handle all correspondence about the article and sign the publishing agreement on behalf of all the authors. They are responsible for ensuring that all the authors’ contact details are correct, and agree on the order that their names will appear in the article. The authors also will need to make sure that affiliations are correct, as explained in more detail below.

Changes of authorship

Authors should carefully check the list of authors and the order of authors before submitting a manuscript.

Any changes in the names of authors in the list of authors, such as additions, deletions, etc., can only be made before the manuscript is accepted for publication. The corresponding author should provide the editorial office with a written confirmation certificate of consent to the change, which should include the reasons for the change of the list of authors and all authors (including existing authors and authors to be added or deleted).

No changes in authorship are allowed without the approval of the editorial board.

Publication Frequency

monthly

Conflict of Interest

According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), “Authors should avoid entering into agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interfere with authors’ access to all of the study’s data or that interfere with their ability to analyze and interpret the data and to prepare and publish manuscripts independently when and where they choose.”

For authors, upon submission, authors must list all conflicts of interest related to the work, such as sources of funding, sponsor’s role in work design, data collection, and analysis of results, and whether the authors serve on the journal’s editorial board. 

For editors and reviewers, editors and reviewers must declare any possible conflicts of interest related to the manuscript, and when editorial board members publish in journals they serve, editorial boards must avoid the peer review process, allowing authors knowing that they sidestep the potential peer review process.

Editors and reviewers need to be replaced when the editor or reviewer who works in the same organization as one of the authors, is one of the authors of the work, is recused by the author, has a financial relationship with the author.

Erratum & Withdrawal Policy

Erratum

Errata are important errors made by the journal that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or of the journal. If the authors detect any errors in the published articles, please contact the journal editors. An investigation of the errors in the papers will be made under the approvement and guidance of the editors.

Withdrawal Policy

Withdrawal of articles, especially one that has been processed for peer-review or is under peer-review, is strongly discouraged and only used when there are academic misconducts and ethical violations in research and publication. In this case, a panel will organize an investigation in which the authors are required to cooperate. If the allegations are proven to be true, the paper or articles will be marked for withdrawal.

If authors themselves decide to withdrawal their papers (before the publication), they must write to the editors of the publisher at reviewer@usp-pl.com, stating the reason(s) for withdrawal sound and clear. Once the withdrawal is approved, the submission will be removed from the journal’s online submission system, and a notification email will be sent to all authors.

USD 200 is charged for the withdrawal of papers, and it should be noted that the paid Article Processing Charge will not be refunded if your papers are withdrawn for academic misconducts and ethical violation.

Plagiarism Detection

Plagiarized articles are not allowed in any publication by Higher Education Forum. Before submitting the manuscript, the authors should ensure that they have written original works. As a part of our commitment to protect the integrity of scholarly publications, we take the necessary steps in all aspects of publishing ethics. Submissions are checked for plagiarism via CrossCheck (powered by iThenticate). Overlapping and similar texts in the manuscripts submitted will be investigated promptly and may be considered as plagiarism. Papers detected with possible commitment of plagiarism will be rejected for submission.

Language

The language used in papers submitted to Higher Education Forum should be English—either British English or American English. It is very convenient to be understood by scholars all over the world. Universe Scientific Publishing will provide professional language editing service for the authors whose first language is not English.

Code of Publishing Ethics

Universe Scientific Publishing follows the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers.

Universe Scientific Publishing makes all reasonable efforts to investigate publication misconduct, including fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. If misconduct is suspected journal editors will act in accordance with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing as stipulated by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

All submissions to Universe Scientific Publishing journals are subject to rigorous review. The Editors, authors or readers can forward their concerns to the journal if they find out that the description in a submitted article may constitute an academic fraud, research misconduct or publication malpractice. The concerns or complaints on the possible allegations submitted to the journal will be dealt with promptly and appropriately according to the procedure set out in the COPE flowchart on complaints. The complainant may direct all inquiries and correspondence to the Publisher at reviewer@usp-pl.com.

Copyright and License

All articles published by Universe Scientific Publishing are Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Under this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content, and authors grant Universe Scientific Publishing a license to publish, copy, distribute, and convey the article.

Units of Measurement

Units of measurement should be presented simply and concisely using System International (SI) units.

Advertising Policy

Higher Education Forum will consider advertising opportunities, as a means to provide value to our readers. Advertisements must comply with local policies without inducement or deception. All advertisements are subject to approval to the Publisher. For more inquiries, please send email to reviewer@usp-pl.com.

Preprint Policy

A preprint is a complete draft research paper made available in open access on a preprint web server before being certified by peer review and published by a journal. Publication of manuscripts in a peer-reviewed journal often takes weeks or months from the time of initial submission. Preprints allow authors to receive early feedback from their peers, which may help revise and prepare articles for submission. However, the revised manuscripts after or during peer-reviewed are not recommended to be post on the prepress server. The manuscript whose corresponding preprint version has been indexed (e.g. in MEDLINE or PubMed) will not be considered.

Article Process Charges (APCs)

Gold Open Access format is used for all journal publication. Article Processing Charges (APCs) are charged to authors publishing open access. And fees will come from the authors’ institution or other research funding agencies. All articles published in our journals are open access and freely available online. The journal does not require readers to purchase a subscription of any kind to view the online version of the journal. Our belief is to create a better academic environment with our authors and readers.

Waiver Policy

Journals offer APC waiver policy based to reduce the financial burden on authors or institutions from low-income countries. For information about our waiver policy for authors in financial need, please contact reviewer@usp-pl.com. By the way, the Publisher reserves the right to approve or reject a waiver application.

Disclaimer

Before submitting a manuscript, the authors should understand the publishing policies and strictly abide by the relevant laws, regulations and ethics. Authors are responsible for all contents in their article (s) including the accuracy of the content, statements, citing data, and so on. Facts and opinions in articles published on Universe Scientific Publishing are the personal statements of respective authors.

The journal and the publisher disclaim any liability of any errors or consequences arising from the use of the information contained in the journal. The journal and the publisher disclaim all responsibility for any injury to the person or property of any person caused by any idea or product mentioned in the article or in the advertisements to which it refers. In addition, once the reviewers are invited, it means that reviewers must maintain an objective attitude and be responsible for the fair review of the article. You must be aware of the review policy and proactively disclose any potential conflicts of interest. As an editor, you must avoid the manuscripts that you are involved in/as one of the authors, and take the initiative to leak potential interest disputes.

Indexing & Archiving

All articles published in this journal have been included by some world-class database: Google Scholar, National Library of Singapore.

Three article storage methods are encouraged:

1. Authors are encouraged to save self-final versions of their published articles in institutional repositories (such as those listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories) through self-archiving.

2. Portico will archive all articles published in the journal for long-term digital preservation.

3. The final PDF version published can be acquired on the website by authors.

Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Before your submission, please check that your manuscript has been prepared in accordance to the step-by-step instructions for submitting a manuscript to our online submission system.

Manuscript Format

Your manuscript should be in MS Word format. All manuscripts must be written in clear, comprehensible English. Both British and American English are accepted. Usage of non-English words should be kept to a minimum and all must be italicized with the exception of “e.g.”, “i.e.” and “etc.” If you have concerns about the level of English in your submission, please ensure that it is proofread before submission by a native English speaker or a scientific editing service.

Cover Letter

All submissions should include a cover letter as a separate file. A cover letter should contain a brief explanation of what was previously known, the conceptual advancement with the findings and its significance to broad readership. The cover letter is confidential and will be read only by the editors. It will not be seen by reviewers.

Title

The title should capture the conceptual significance for a broad audience. The title should not be more than 50 words and should be able to give readers an overall view of the paper’s significance. Titles should avoid using uncommon jargons, abbreviations and punctuation.

List of Authors

The names of authors must be spelled out rather than set in initials along with their affiliations. Authors should be listed according to the extent of their contribution, with the major contributor listed first. All corresponding authors should be identified with an asterisk. Affiliations should contain the following core information: department, institution, city, state, postal code, and country. For contact, email address of at least one corresponding author must be included. Please note that all authors must see and approve the final version of the manuscript before submitting.

Abstract

Articles must include an abstract containing a maximum of 200 words. The purpose of abstract is to provide sufficient information for a reader to determine whether or not to proceed to the full text of the article. After the abstract, please give 5–8 key words; please avoid using the same words as those already used in the title.

Text

The text of the manuscript should be in Microsoft Word. The length of the manuscript cannot be more than 50,000 characters (inclusive of spaces) or approximately 7,000 words.

Section Headings

Please number the section headings (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) in boldface. Likewise, use boldface to identify subheadings too but please distinguish it from major headings using numbers (e.g. 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, etc.) Further subsections of subheadings should be differentiated with the numbers 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 2.1.1, 2.1.2, etc.

Introduction

Introduction should provide a background that gives a broad readership an overall outlook of the field and the research performed. It tackles a problem and states its importance regarding the significance of the study. Introduction can conclude with a brief statement of the aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.

Materials and Methods

This section provides the general experimental design and methodologies used. The aim is to provide enough details for other investigators to fully replicate your results. It is also required to facilitate better understanding of the results obtained. Protocols and procedures for new methods must be included in detail to reproduce the experiments.

Results

This section can be divided into subheadings. This section focuses on the results of the experiments performed.

Discussion

This section should provide the significance of the results and identify the impact of the research in a broader context. It should not be redundant or similar to the content of the results section.

Conclusion

Please use the conclusion section for interpretation only, and not to summarize information already presented in the text or abstract.

Conflict of Interest

All authors are required to declare all activities that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing interest in relations to their submitted manuscript. Examples of such activities could include personal or work-related relationships, events, etc. Authors who have nothing to declare are encouraged to add "No conflict of interest was reported by all authors" in this section.

Funding and Acknowledgements

Authors should declare all financial and non-financial support that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing interest in relations to their submitted manuscript in this section. Financial supports are generally in the form of grants, royalties, consulting fees and more. Examples of non-financial support could include the following: externally-supplied equipments/biological sources, writing assistance, administrative support, contributions from non-authors etc.

Appendix

This section is optional and is for all materials (e.g. advanced technical details) that has been excluded from the main text but remain essential to readers in understanding the manuscripts. This section is not for supplementary figures. Authors are advised to refer to the section on ‘Supplementary figures’ for such submissions.

Figures

Authors should include all figures into the manuscript and submit it as one file in the OJS system. Reference to the “Instructions for Typesetting Manuscript” is strongly encouraged. Figures include photographs, scanned images, graphs, charts and schematic diagrams. Figures submitted should avoid unnecessary decorative effects (e.g. 3D graphs) as well as be minimally processed (e.g. changes in brightness and contrast applied uniformly for the entire figure). It should also be set against a white background. Please remember to label all figures (e.g. axis etc.) and number them (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) in boldface. Please also add in captions (below the figure) as required and number them (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) in boldface. The caption should describe the entire figure without citing specific panels, followed by a legend defined as description of each panel. Please identify each panel with uppercase letters in parenthesis (e.g. (A), (B), (C), etc.)

The preferred file formats for any separately submitted figure(s) are TIFF or JPEG. All figures should be legible in print form and of optimal resolution. Optimal resolutions preferred are 300 dots per inch for RBG colored, 600 dots per inch for greyscale and 1200 dots per inch for line art. Although there are no file size limitation imposed, authors are highly encouraged to compress their figures to an ideal size without unduly affecting legibility and resolution of figures. This will also speed up the process of uploading in the submission system if necessary.

The Editor-in-Chief and Publisher reserve the right to request from author(s) the high-resolution files and unprocessed data and metadata files should the need arise at any point after manuscript submission for reasons such as production, evaluation or other purposes. The file name should allow for ease in identifying the associated manuscript submitted.

Tables, Lists and Equations

Tables created using Microsoft Word table function are preferred. The tables should include a title underneath. Titles and footnotes/legends should be concise. These must be submitted together with the manuscript. Likewise, lists and equations should be properly aligned and its meaning clear to readers. For listing things within the main body of the manuscript, please use Arabic numerals in parenthesis (e.g. (1), (2), (3), (4), etc.)

Supplementary Information

This section is optional and contains all materials and figures that have been excluded from the entire manuscript. These materials are relevant to the manuscript but remain non-essential to readers’ understanding of the manuscript’s main content. All supplementary information should be submitted as a separate file in Step 4 during submission. Please ensure the names of such files contain ‘suppl. info’. Videos may be included in this section.

In-text citations

Reference citations in the text should be numbered consecutively in superscript square brackets. Some examples:

a) Negotiation research spans many disciplines[3, 4].

b) This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman[5].

c) This effect has been widely studied[1–3, 7].

Personal communications and unpublished works can only be used in the main text of the submission and are not to be placed in the Reference section. Authors are advised to limit such usage to the minimum. They should also be easily identifiable by stating the authors and year of such unpublished works or personal communications and the word ‘Unpublished’ in parenthesis. E.g. (Smith J, 2000, Unpublished)

References

This section is compulsory and should be placed at the end of all manuscripts. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list. The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should be excluded from this section.

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. Authors referenced are listed with their surname followed by their initials. All references should also appear as an in-text citation. References should follow the following pattern: Author(s), title of publication, full journal name in italics followed by year of publication, volume number, issue number in parenthesis and lastly, page range. If the referred article has more than three authors, list only the first three authors and abbreviate the remaining authors to italicized ‘et al.’ (meaning: "and others"). If the DOI is available, please include it after the page range.

Standard journal article

Journal article (print) with one to three authors

•Halpern SD, Ubel PA. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. The New England Journal of Medicine 2002 Jul 25;347(4):284-7.

Journal article (print) with more than three authors

•Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Research 2002;935(1-2):40-6.

Journal article (online) with one to three authors

•Jackson D, Firtko A and Edenborough M. Personal resilience as a strategy for surviving and thriving in the face of workplace adversity: A literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing 2007; 60(1):1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04412.x.

Journal article (online) with more than three authors

•Hargreave M, Jensen A, Nielsen TSS, et al. Maternal use of fertility drugs and risk of cancer in children—A nationwide population-based cohort study in Denmark. International Journal of Cancer 2015; 136(8): 1931–1939. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ijc.29235.

Book

Book with one to three authors

•Schneider Z, Whitehead D and Elliott D. Nursing and Midwifery Research: Methods and Appraisal for Evidence-based Practice, 3rd ed. Marrickville, NSW: Elsevier Australia; 2007.

Book with more than three authors

•Davis M, Charles L, Curry M J, et al. Challenging Spatial Norms, London: Routledge; 2003.

Chapter or Article in Book

•Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.

*Note that the editor’s name is not inverted.

Others

Proceedings of meetings and symposiums, conference papers

•Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, Lutton E, Miller J, Ryan C, Tettamanzi AG, editors. Genetic programming. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3-5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer; 2002. p. 182-91.

Conference proceedings (from electronic database)

•Harnden P, Joffe JK, Jones WG, editors. Germ cell tumours V. Proceedings of the 5th Germ Cell Tumour Conference; 2001 Sep 13-15; Leeds, UK. New York: Springer; 2002.

Online Document with author names

•Este J, Warren C, Connor L, et al. Life in the clickstream: The future of journalism. Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. 2008; Retrieved from http://www.alliance.org.au/documents/ foj_report_final.pdf

Online Document without author name

•Princeton Writing Program. (n.d.). Developing an argument. Retrieved from http://web.princeton.edu/ sites/ writing/Writing_Center/WCWritingResources.htm

Thesis/Dissertation

•Borkowski MM. Infant sleep and feeding: a telephone survey of Hispanic Americans [dissertation]. Mount Pleasant (MI): Central Michigan University; 2002.

Standards

•Standards Australia Online. Glass in buildings: Selection and installation. AS 1288-2006, amended January 31, 2008. Retrieved from SAI Global database 2006.

Government Report

•National Commission of Audit. Report to the Commonwealth Government, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service 1996.

Government report (online)s

•Department of Health and Ageing.Ageing and aged care in Australia; 2008. Retrieved from http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ main/publishing.nsf/Content/ageing

Patent

•Rencher W F. Bioadhesive pharmaceutical car- rier. US Patent 5462749 A. 1995.

No author

•Guide to agricultural meteorological practices, 2nd ed. Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva; 1981.

Note: When referencing an entry from a dictionary or an encyclopedia with no author there is no requirement to include the source in the reference list. In these cases, only cite the title and year of the source in-text. For an authored dictionary/encyclopedia, treat the source as an authored book.

Copyright Notice

Authors submitting to USP journals agree to publish their manuscript under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) where authors agree to allow third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear

Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights (online and print) granted to Universe Scientific Publishing or the owner of the journal in question.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Focus and Scope

Higher Education Forum (HEF) is an open access, peer-reviewed journal encompassing various disciplines related to educational areas. HEF examines educational developments throughout the world in various types of institutes. It provides a forum to share educational theories and practice as well as tackle the problems of teachers as well as students, and of planners as well as administrators.

HEF publishes original research articles, review articles, editorials, short reports, etc. 

The research topics of HEF include but are not limited to:

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to Higher Education Forum are undergone a stringent peer review process which aims to uphold the high quality of papers published in Higher Education Forum and ensure the truthful and accurate reporting of the research work.

The in-house editor takes initiative to assess the suitability of the original submission of the author on the basis of the editorial policy and relevant guidelines.

The Editor-in-Chief (EIC) decides the fitness of the article and whether the topic is within the field of EDE.

The associate editors assign the accepted contributions in accordance to their area of expertise and select relevant reviewers from the editorial membership.

Reviewers are required to assess the full paper from the perspective of originality, methodology, demonstration of the results and presentation of the conclusion, contribution to the literature and research, as well as the suitable referencing of pertinent studies.

After the post-evaluation made by the reviewers, the manuscripts are sent to the associate editors who makes one of the standard suggestions (Accept; Accept with minor revision; or Reject), and then passed to the EIC for final determination.

If EIC recommends minor revisions, a maximum of 7 days is given for the authors to resubmit the revised article.

If EIC recommends major revisions, a maximum of 14 days is given for the authors to resubmit the revised article.

The above steps are repeated before the paper is accepted for publication after post-evaluation.

Authors with rejected submission are suggested to make an appeal in writing to reviewer@usp-pl.com in which specific reasons for the appeal and detailed response to the reviewers’ suggestions are included.

Publication Frequency

monthly

Open Access Policy

Open Access (OA) makes scholarly research permanently accessible online without restrictions, which can benefit all stakeholders in the scholarly publishing process, including researchers, funders, students, librarians, scholarly societies, publishers, and the public.

The freely available online work can be accessed and shared by anyone in the world. Researchers can even access OA literature outside university without encountering paywalls. Authors can benefit from the public availability of their research to others, which may increase the visibility and usage of their work. Many funding agencies encourage OA since the potential for increased visibility and discoverability promises a greater return on investment.

New connections may be made and new partners may become possible, if researchers other than those you normally work with share access to your research. Thus, paving the way for spin-offs and new research opportunities.

OA means more opportunities for the community at large and potentially more public participation in research which can help research-dependent professionals outside of academia including health workers, faculty, and lawyers benefit from access to the latest discoveries.

By publishing open access, a virtuous cycle of scholarly resources can foster social knowledge sharing and innovative creativity.

 Announcements