Policies & Guidelines

 

Editorial and Peer Review Policy

BUJHSS 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. 

Every manuscript submitted to BUJHSS is initially evaluated at Editor’s desk in accordance with Journal Publishing guidelines and Aims and Scope of the journal. This decision (acceptance/Rejection) is communicated to the author within one month of submission. Finding it suitable for sending to the next stage of peer review process, manuscript is then independently reviewed by at least two reviewers in the form of "double-blind review".

Decision for publication, amendment, or rejection is based upon their Review reports. Authors are informed about the comments or suggestions of the reviewers and are required to revise their paper within a stipulated time period. It takes approximately 2 months however it could be earlier or later than that as well due to reviewers’ other professional commitments. BUJHSS aims to expedite the publishing process and do not let its authors be delayed. 

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.

Ethical Guidelines

Papers must be submitted with the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or thesis) and are not currently under consideration by another journal published by or any other publisher. The submitting (corresponding) author is responsible for ensuring that the article's publication has been approved by all the other co-authors. It is also the authors' responsibility to ensure that the articles emanating from a particular institution are submitted with the approval of the necessary institution. Only an acknowledgment from the editorial office officially establishes and confirms the date of receipt. Further correspondence and proofs will be sent to the corresponding author(s) before publication unless otherwise indicated. It is a condition for submission of a paper that the authors permit editing of the paper for readability. All enquiries concerning the publication of accepted papers should be addressed to bujhss.bukc@bahria.edu.pk

Originality and Plagiarism Policy

BUJHSS 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