Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

BCT’s Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement is based, in large part, on the guidelines and standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We expect all parties commit to these publication ethics. We do not tolerate plagiarism or other unethical behavior and will remove any manuscript that does not meet these standards. The relevant duties and expectations of authors, reviewers, and editors are set out below:

Publication Decisions

The Editor-in-Chief of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the editorial policies of the journal and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with the members of the Editorial Board or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play: The Editor-in-Chief and the reviewers evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. Confidentiality: The Editor-in-Chief, the members of the Editorial Board, and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the authors of the manuscript, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript will not be used in the own research of the Editor-in-Chief or the members of the Editorial Board without the express written consent of the author.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Peer review assists Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness: A selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and decline to review the paper.

Confidentiality: The manuscripts received for review will be treated as confidential documents. They will not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources: Reviewers should attempt to identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that a result or argument has been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards: Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Originality and Plagiarism: The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication: An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or conference. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal or conference constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources: Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his or her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Plagiarism Policy

To prevent plagiarism, BCT uses the iThenticate system for the articles. All articles before sending to the reviewers are checked for any similarity, and if the percentage of similarity is more than 20%, the article will be withdrawn from the review process. This has to be remined that any kind of unethical behavior is not appreciated, and the Editorial Board does not tolerate plagiarism and misconduct in any form.

Types of Plagiarism

• • direct or indirect use of key parts of another article without citing the source
  • presenting an entire text by another author as your own work
  • presenting the results of another research as your own work

The authors are requested to ensure that they have written entirely original works and they are advised to check their manuscript for similarity using plagiarism detection software programs prior to the submission. Authors also need to bear in mind that it is considered highly unethical to submit the same paper to more than one journal at the same time.

If proof of plagiarism is found by Editorial Board or referees, the manuscript will be rejected immediately and Editorial Board will communicate with authors to demand an explanation. If authors fail to respond within a reasonable length of time, they will not be able to submit manuscripts to BCT anymore.

Suspected or reported plagiarism in published papers is seriously investigated by Editorial Board and the corresponding author, the author’s superior and/or person responsible for research governance in the author’s institution are contacted immediately. Also, authors are blacklisted and debarred for submitting new papers to BCT.

Guidelines for Handling Complaints and Appeals

BCT welcomes genuine appeals to editor decisions or complaint about published content. However, you will need to provide strong evidence or new data/information in response to the editor’s and reviewers’ comments or author's published content. 

If an author or reader has concerns about their reviewed manuscript or another author's published paper, they may contact the Editor at [email protected] with a detailed written description of their concern and complaints, explaining clearly the basis for an appeal and compliant.

If you believe a correction (for a significant error) is necessary for your article or another author's article, contact the journal at [email protected] Online versions of the article will be corrected (if possible), and an erratum will be published accordingly.