Publishing of Journals at BU

BUORIC-P12 – Publishing of Journals at BU 
Policy Number:        BUORIC-P12
Policy Title:    Publishing of Journals at BU 
Approval Authority:    Higher Education Research Committee (HERC)
Status:    ACTIVE
Responsible Party:
Higher Education & Research Committee (HERC)
Dte. of Research, Innovation & Commercialization (RIC)    
Purpose:    
To develop standard operating procedures for the publication and recognition of journals published by Bahria University.
Scope:
This policy is applicable on all the present and prospective journals published by Bahria University.
Policy Statement:
The policy guidelines have been devised for the implementation of standard template along with the procedure of publication and recognition of journals published by Bahria University.
Policy:
All the editors should comply with the rules and regulations devised for the publication of journals by the Higher Education Commission and other Statutory/Regulatory Bodies. 
All journals should have diverse Editorial Board
The credentials of the Board Members should be taken into consideration with respect to the area of concern.
Fifty percent of the Board Members should be from outside BU.
All the papers should be Peer Reviewed
The policy of blind review should be followed and mentioned clearly in the Call for Papers announcement
Peer Reviewed at least by two reviewers (including one international reviewer i.e. from industrially/academically advanced country in respective discipline)
For the purpose of getting indexed and acquire the higher category, each journal published by BU should be abstracted and indexed with the renowned international indexing agencies of the world (List available at http://beta.hec.gov.pk/InsideHEC/Divisions/QALI/QADivision/Pages/HECRecognizedJournals.aspx) 
The editors of BU journals recognized by HEC should apply to HEC for acquiring annual financial grant for publishing.
Journals published by BU should have separate dedicated websites under the domain of the parent website of BU. The writing guidelines shall be developed, circulated and uploaded on the official website of each journal. A web link should be available In case the journals is located within an electronic databases (e.g. Springer, EBSCO etc.
The research journal articles should be made available in the digital format either through its own website or through existing electronic databases 
All the research papers published by the faculty/researchers of BU will be rewarded as per the Cash Award Policy (Policy No BUORIC-P01).
One Course will be reduced from Standard Course Load of the faculty member designated as the ‘Editor’ of the journal.
Honorarium of Rs. 2,000/- and up to USD 250 per article can be paid to local and foreign reviewers respectively.
The research papers published by BU faculty in BU journals will also be considered towards promotion and award of annual increments.
Dynamic advertisement campaign should be launched for the promotion of research journals of BU
Procedure:
The application for the publication of new journal by the head of department/editor shall be submitted on the prescribed application form to Dte. of RIC through respective Director Campus/Principal for initial scrutiny which will be processed further for the approval of the Competent Authority.
All the editors of the present and prospective research journals of BU will follow the guidelines and should keep in loop the Directorate of RIC and Directorate of Quality Assurance in the official correspondence with HEC/PMDC/HEC or any other external organization.

SOPs for Review and Publishing of BU Journals
Guidelines for Submission of Research Article & Peer-Reviewed 
Manuscripts will be evaluated by at least two reviewers in addition to the editor. The research manuscripts will be processed through double blind peer review process. Submission should comply with the ethical considerations laid down by the APA (for social sciences Journals, if applicable) in its latest publication manual. As per HEC policy, the manuscript will be published subject to plagiarism clearance. The other guidelines are as follows: 
1.1 Preparation of the Manuscript: Articles written only in English language are accepted for publication. Spellings should follow Webster’s Dictionary or Oxford English Dictionary. All submissions may have a title, abstract, keywords, introduction, relevant work, proposed methodology, result & analysis, discussion and conclusion sections. 
1.2 Abstract: The abstract section is the mandatory part for all articles. An abstract is a concise summary of the whole paper, not just the conclusions. It should state the purpose of the study, hypothesis, method, analysis, main findings and conclusions.
1.3 Introduction: It should contain the theoretical framework, rationale of the study and the litreature review of updated and relevant researches. Research objectives and / or hypotheses should be clearly listed.
1.4 Proposed Methodology: This section should include the design of the study, description of the study sample, assessment protocols, ethical considerations (for social sciences Journals if applicable) and the procedure of data collection.
1.5 Results and Analysis: The results should be presented in a logical sequence in the text utilizing tables and illustrations (figures). Do not state the information that has been already presented. Tables, figures and illustrations must be prepared according to prescribed referencing format. Each table must have a title, and must be numbered in sequence. Clear notes should be made by the author(s) at the approximate point of insertion in the text.
1.6 Discussion & Conclusions: This section includes major findings; and emphasize new and important aspects of the study including conclusion and implications. Repetition of the material already provided in the Introduction section and Results must be avoided.
1.7 References: International Standard References Style (i.e. APA, Chicago Manual Style, Turabian, IEEE, etc.) should uniformly be followed throughout the publications.
1.8 Authors Note: Include the names of all authors, according to their position in authorship, their organizational / departmental affiliations, contact details and complete postal as well as email address(es) of the corresponding author.

Peer Review Policy 
BU Journal has a double blind peer review policy. Initial screening for the suitability of the article for publication is carried out by the editorial committee and subsequently the manuscript is processed for a blind paper review. Authors are informed about the comments or suggestions of the reviewers and are required to revise their paper within a stipulated time period.
Plagiarism Policy 
BU Journal has zero tolerance for plagiarism and follows the guidelines given by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan. Each submitted manuscript will be evaluated for plagiarism using Turnitin, plagiarism detecting software (https://www.turnitin.com/). The journal only accepts papers that have a similarity index score of less than 19%. Moreover, no single source should have a matching similarity index score of greater than 5%. It is expected that the submitted manuscript is not under review of any other journal or has not been published before. BU is following the HEC Plagiarism Policy, the details of the same can be found on the given link: https://hec.gov.pk/english/services/faculty/Plagiarism/Pages/default.aspx 
Article Acceptance Policy 
The submitted manuscripts are accepted for publication only after the acceptance from two reviewers. If the manuscript is rejected by any of the reviewers it is sent for the review process again (to a reviewer of the same capacity) and if that reviewer also rejects the manuscript, then the authors are informed about the decision of the reviewers. Only those manuscripts are eligible for publication which are either accepted “without any revision” or “with minor or major revisions” by the reviewers. 
Article Publication Policy 
The journal follows the general publication guidelines that are provided by HEC where the journal holds the rights of publication and distribution of the accepted manuscripts. However, the authors have the rights for the commercial and non-commercial utilization of the published material. Moreover, the journal holds the rights to retract the publication at any point based on the publication policy and HEC guidelines for research article publications.

Steps Involved in the Publication of the Article 
The following publication steps are followed by the journal: 
After submission of the manuscript the authors receive the acknowledgement from the journal. 
The submitted manuscript is sent for a desk review to the editorial committee. It examines the manuscript for appropriateness and relevancy for the journal. 
If the editorial committee finds that the manuscript does not meet the journal’s standards the paper is rejected and the author(s) are informed of the decision. If the manuscript is found to meet the standards of the journal, it is then sent to the reviewers for the blind review process.
As per the article reviewing policy the accepted manuscripts remain in the publication process are sent to authors for further processing while the rejected manuscripts are retracted from the publication process. 
After the revision of the manuscript by the author, it is again revaluated by the editorial committee to ensure that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s guidelines for publication. 
After copy editing, the manuscripts are sent in online and print publications.
Policy regarding the Conflict of Interest 
At the time of submission, the author(s) should make it clear that they do not have any conflict of interest. If author(s) have received any funding or grant for the research they have to report all the relevant details.
Policy for the Correction and Retraction of the Research Article 
BU retains all the rights to correct or retract the articles that have been published or under the publication process. However, the author(s) are encouraged to notify the editorial committee of any error they find in their publication. In case of any dispute between the journal and the author(s), the decision will be taken by the Editor as per HEC guidelines. 
Policy for the Contribution and Consents of the Author(s) 
At the time of submission, the corresponding author should ensure that all authors agree to the order of authorship shown in the manuscript. All the content of the manuscript is pre-approved by all the authors and there should be no conflict of interest. Furthermore, all the relevant information regarding all the author(s) and their respective affiliation must be updated and complete. Journal will not accept more than two affiliations for a single author.