Publication Ethics Statement | BAU Journal - Science and Technology | BAU Journals | Beirut Arab University
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Publication Ethics Statement

Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). Please note: "publication" in a working-paper series does not constitute prior publication. In addition, by submitting material to BAU Journal - Science and Technology, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at BAU Journal - Science and Technology. For any concerns about the submission terms for BAU Journal - Science and Technology, please contact the editors.

In addition, by submitting material to BAU Journal - Science and Technology, the author agrees that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the editorial decision process at BAU Journal - Science and Technology is complete. For any concerns about the submission terms for BAU Journal - Science and Technology, please contact the editors.

Publication Ethics Policy

BAU Journal - Science and Technology (BAUJ-ST), follows clear ethical standards for publication to ensure high quality of scientific work and to enhance public trust in their findings. Thus, BAUJ-ST applies this policy in adherence to the Best Practice Guidelines outlined in the COPE Core Practices. This policy should be read with our guidelines for authors and reviewers.

  1. Authorship: Published work must be attributed to one or more authors who are complied with authorship standards.
  2. Authorship Problems: To handle authorship problems; editors refer to COPE “how to spot authorship problems”.
  3. Fund and Support: Authors are requested to disclose any received fund or support from individual or organization in the “Acknowledgment” section.

Peer-review Process

To ensure robust, objective, confidential, transparent and free of conflicts of interest peer-review process, BAUJ-ST adopts the international policies of peer-review process (i.e., double-blind, reviewers’ selection, conflict of interest, response time).

  1. Reviewers Selection: Authors can provide the list of the potential reviewers in their cover letter and the uploading system. BAUJ-ST has the right to adopt the same list of provided reviewers or switch to another.
  2. Peer-review Conflict of Interest: Any conflict of interest should be reported directly to the editors as soon as receiving the invitation to review manuscripts.
  3. Confidentiality during Manuscript Handling: To ensure utmost confidentiality; BAUJ-ST’s editors don’t share Manuscripts with any third party except the peer reviewers.
  4. Manuscript Handling Time: Strict rules are adopted by BAUJ-ST’s editors to ensure timely process and update authors of any possible delays.

Publication Ethics

Research integrity is at the top of BAUJ-ST’s priorities; so, they make every effort to identify, detect and prevent any breach of the ethical code.

  1. Misconduct: BAUJ-ST’s editors make every effort to identify, detect and prevent any practices of data fabrication, authorship abuse, falsification, image manipulation, unethical research, plagiarism, biased reporting, duplicate publication, and undeclared conflicts of interest.
  2. Fabrication, Falsification and Image Manipulation: BAUJ-ST makes every effort to identify, detect and prevent data fabrication, falsification and image manipulation by implementing advances image processing system. Except for some cases where it is necessary to manipulate image, and in this case, authors have to explain where manipulation has been done.
  3. Plagiarism: BAUJ-ST’s editors make every effort to ensure that manuscripts are original material and prevent any practices of plagiarism and duplicate of publication. If such practices are detected, authors are informed to handle them.
  4. Duplicate Submission: To make sure that all manuscripts are not being published elsewhere, BAUJ-ST make every effort to identify, detect and prevent concurrent or duplicate submission. If such practices are detected, BAUJ-ST applies strict actions and sanctions against these authors i.e papers are withdrawn from the platform.
  5. Sanctions: If any violations of the publication ethics or professional codes are detected, then strict action is taken, according to BAUJ-ST’s procedures for dealing with unethical behavior as follows:
    • A warning letter to the author covering the misconduct.
    • Immediate rejection of the submitted manuscript.
    • Probation period applied to all responsible authors regarding any further submission to BAUJ-ST.
    • Probation period applied to all responsible authors regarding serving as referees/reviewers for BAUJ-ST.
    • Publication of a formal notice detailing the misconduct.
    • A professional letter to the chief of the authors or reviewer’s department or funding agency.
    • Formal retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the journal.
    • Reporting the case and outcome to a professional organization or higher authority for further investigation and action.
    • Further sanctions may be imposed, if violations of the above policies are found to be serious.
  6. Editors and Board Members as Authors: BAUJ-ST adopts well-defined procedures and policies to exclude editors from publication decisions when they are authors.
  7. Conflicts of Interest: To ensure objectivity in the review procedure, editors and peer reviewers are requested to disclose that there is no conflict of interest.
  8. Libel and Defamation: BAUJ-ST editors make every effort to identify, detect and prevent any certain language or expression either in the manuscripts or in peer reviewer reports that would lead to legal action for defamation and negligent misstatement.
  9. Editorial Independence and Commercial Issues: To ensure a formal relationship between the editors and the publisher BAUJ-ST, BAUJ-ST adopted policies and established mechanisms to avoid biased decisions that financially influenced by authors.
  10. Academic Debate: Comments or constructive criticism of any published work is allowed by BAUJ-ST. If such practice occurred, authors are informed to respond before the comments are published.
  11. Appeals: To appeal against editorial decisions, authors refer to the international based mechanism that adopted by BAUJ-ST.
  12. Corrections: BAUJ-ST welcomes authors or readers to notify the journal editorial office if any errors discovered in the published work. If such occurred, editors and authors are notified to correct these errors, then an erratum will be published in an issue in the same journal.

Research Ethics in Journal Articles

  1. Human Rights, Privacy and Confidentiality: BAUJ-ST ensures confidentiality of submitted manuscripts; editors do not share Manuscripts with any third party except the peer reviewers.
  2. Cultures and Heritage: BAUJ-ST editors make every effort to identify, detect and prevent publishing any images or texts that related to religious or historical events that could be offensive to some social groups.
  3. Reporting Guidelines: BAUJ-ST editors and peer reviewers make every effort to ensure that the necessary information is available in the submitted manuscripts for the purpose of evaluation by readers.

Copyright and Access

  1. Copyright and Licensing Information: Copyright and licensing are clearly described on the BAUJ-ST’s page on Digital Commons (in the “Authors Guidelines”). By submitting a manuscript for publication to BAUJ-ST, authors acknowledge that the work is original and is not being submitted to another journal. The submission of a manuscript by the authors implies that the authors automatically agree to assign exclusive copyright to BAUJ-ST upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication.
  2. Archiving: BAUJ-ST is a member of CrossRef, which gives it the ability to create and deposit digital object identifiers (DOIs) for the content we produce. We allocate DOIs to our publications by depositing bibliographic metadata for each article with CrossRef while citing metadata that includes the current location of the journal on the website.
  3. Ownership and management: BAUJ-ST clearly provide information about the ownership and/or management of the journal on its website on Digital Commons.
  4. The website: BAUJ-ST’s web site on Digital Commons has been created and maintained to ensure high ethical and professional standards are applied.
  5. Publishing schedule: BAUJ-ST clearly indicates in the first page of each journal’s website the publication frequency, i.e., the periodicity at which the issues of the journal are published.
  6. Name of the journal: BAUJ-ST selects very carefully its journal name, which must be unique and reflective of the broad scope of the journal. A given journal name is selected to avoid confusion with other journal(s) while not misleading potential authors and readers about the journal’s origin or organization with other journals.