Indexing & Refund Disclaimer Policy

Third-Party Indexing & Article Processing Charge (APC) Refund Policy:

This policy outlines the ACIE Journal and publisher’s official stance regarding third-party indexing services, Article Processing Charges (APCs), publication fees, and refund eligibility. Authors are required to review this policy thoroughly before submitting a manuscript or remitting any payment.

1. Third-Party Indexing Disclaimer

Independent Management: Indexing and abstracting coverage in external databases—including Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and others—are managed independently by third-party organizations.

Lack of Direct Control: The ACIE Journal and publisher have no direct control over evaluation procedures, inclusion or exclusion decisions, indexing schedules, coverage windows, or database suspensions/discontinuations made by external agencies.

Variable Status: A journal’s inclusion or ongoing coverage within any indexing database is subject solely to the evolving policies, selection criteria, and operational decisions of the respective indexing provider.

No Guarantee of Permanent Indexing: The ACIE Journal and publisher do not warrant, guarantee, or claim permanent, uninterrupted, or perpetual indexing of the journal or its published articles in any specific third-party database.

Author Responsibility: Authors are responsible for verifying the current, real-time indexing status directly with the relevant indexing agency if database inclusion is a critical requirement for their submission or institutional benchmarks.

 2. Publication Fee & Non-Refundable APC Policy

Article Processing Charges (APCs) cover the professional editorial, production, and dissemination services provided by the ACIE Journal, which include:

Peer-review administration, coordination, and editorial assessment

Copyediting, typesetting, figure layout, and proofreading

Formatting, metadata preparation, and digital asset production

Permanent web hosting and repository preservation on the journal’s official platform

3. Non-Refundable Policy

Once a manuscript has completed peer review, been accepted, and been published online on the ACIE Journal website, all APCs and publication fees paid are strictly non-refundable. Payment of an APC covers the editorial and publishing services rendered and must not be construed as a fee paid for guaranteed indexing in any third-party database.

No Refund Claims Based on Indexing Status

If the ACIE Journal is delisted, discontinued, removed, suspended, or excluded from Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, or any other third-party indexing database—whether such action takes effect before, during, or after an article's online publication:

The publisher and journal bear no liability for the indexing or non-indexing of the article by external databases.

Requests for refunds, chargebacks, financial compensation, or fee adjustments based on third-party indexing status changes will not be considered under any circumstances.

The publisher's obligations are fully satisfied upon completing the editorial, peer-review, formatting, and web publication services associated with the APC.

Author Acknowledgment

By submitting a manuscript, proceeding with publication, or making an APC payment, authors explicitly confirm that they have read, understood, and agreed to all terms outlined in this Indexing & Refund Disclaimer Policy.