e-ISSN: 2349-3232
Journal of
Biological Engineering Research and Review
an official Journal of the SB Publications (a unit of Shanti Braj Educational & Welfare Society)
JBERR Indexed In:
Editorial responsibilities
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal will be published. The decisions are made based exclusively on the manuscript's merit. They must be free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias. When making decisions the Editor-in-Chief is also guided by the editorial policy and legal provisions relating to defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
Members of the Editorial Board including the Editor-in-Chief must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. Members who feel they might be perceived as being involved in such a conflict do not participate in the decision process for a particular manuscript.
The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential. Information and ideas contained in unpublished materials must not be used for personal gain without the written consent of the authors.
Editors and the editorial staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the authors/reviewers remain anonymous during and after the evaluation process in accordance with the type of reviewing in use.
The Editorial Board is obliged to assist reviewers with additional information on the manuscript, including the results of checking manuscript for plagiarism.
COPE
By submitting a manuscript to this journal, each author explicitly confirms that the manuscript meets the highest ethical standards for authors and coauthors. Our ethic statements are based on the Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors proposed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which is a charity registered in the UK. It is concerned with the integrity of peer-reviewed publications in science, particularly biomedicine.
ICMJE
The Editors of Journal of Biological Engineering Research and Review endorse the policies of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, including those that cover overlapping publications.
The following duties outlined for editors, reviewers and authors are based on the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors. Editors, authors, and reviewers will also adhere to the journal submission guideline policies.
Responsibilities of the Editor and Editorial Board
Publication decisions: The decision to publish an article submitted to the Journal of Biological Engineering Research and Review is taken by the editorial board. The editor must stick to the contemporary regulations pertaining to libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism that are effective. He is entitled to carry out decision-making in consultation with reviewers or members of the editorial board.
Fair play: an editor should 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 and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Reviewers Responsibilities
Reviewer is responsible to both the author and the editor in regard to the manuscript. Peer review is the principal mechanism by which the quality of research is judged. Most funding decisions in science and the academic advancement of scientists are based on peer-reviewed publications.
Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
Confidentiality: - Reviews and reviewer comments should be held confidentially. Manuscripts or copies of the process shouldn't be retained with the reviewers after the process is commenced.
Constructive Evaluation: - Decisions and judgment should be constructive that provides legible insight to author without any controversy or inefficiencies with the review process
Competence: -Reviewer with passable expertise will serve the purpose to complete the review. People lacking adequate expertise should feel responsible and can decline the review.
Impartiality and Integrity: - Reviewer decision should solely depend on scientific merit, relevance to the subject, scope of the journal rather on financial, racial, ethnic origin etc. of the authors.
Timeliness and Responsiveness: - Reviewer should be responsible to complete the review within the relevant time and should take all necessary steps to fulfill the limitations of the journal.
Authors Responsibilities
Reporting Standards: Authors should present an accurate account of their original research as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Manuscripts will follow the submission guidelines of the journal.
Originality: Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original work.
Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publications: Authors should not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently. It is also expected that the author will not publish redundant manuscripts or manuscripts describing the same research in more than one journal.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Authors should acknowledge all sources of data used in the research and cite publications that have been influential in the research work.
Authorship of the Paper: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to conception, design, execution or interpretation of the reported study. Others who have made significant contribution must be listed as co-authors. Authors also ensure that all the authors have seen and agreed to the submitted version of the manuscript and their inclusion of names as co-authors.
Data Access and Retention: Authors should provide raw data related to their manuscript for editorial review and must retain such data.
Fundamental Errors in Published Works: If at any point of time, the author(s) discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in submitted manuscript, then the error or inaccuracy must be reported to the editor.
Submission policies
Submission of a manuscript to a JBERR journal implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s policies. When you submit a manuscript to Journal of Biological Engineering Research and Review, we will take it to imply that the manuscript has not already been published or submitted elsewhere. If similar or related work has been published or submitted elsewhere, then you must provide a copy with the submitted manuscript. You may not submit your manuscript elsewhere while it is under consideration at Journal of Biological Engineering Research and Review.
The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated. Journal of Biological Engineering Research and Review remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. If the manuscript includes personal communications, please provide a written statement of permission from any person who is quoted. Permission by email is acceptable.
We reserve the right to reject a paper even after it has been accepted if it becomes apparent that there are serious problems with its scientific content, or our publishing policies have been violated.
Authorship
To give appropriate credit to each author, the individual contributions of authors should be specified in the manuscript. An 'author' is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines, to qualify as an author one should have:
- made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
- been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
- given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
- agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
- Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not usually justify authorship.
Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘acknowledgements’ section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Changes in authorship
In line with COPE guidelines, JBERR requires written confirmation from all authors that they agree with any proposed changes in authorship of submitted manuscripts or published articles. This confirmation must be via direct email from each author. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors confirm that they agree with the proposed changes. If there is disagreement amongst the authors concerning authorship and a satisfactory agreement cannot be reached, the authors must contact their institution(s) for a resolution. It is not the Editor’s responsibility to resolve authorship disputes.
Closed peer review
Journal of Biological Engineering Research and Review operate a closed peer review process. Reviewers will be treated anonymously and the pre-publication history of each article will not be made available online. All submissions to JBERR are assessed by an Editor, who will decide whether they are suitable for peer review. Submissions felt to be suitable for consideration will be sent for peer review with appropriate independent experts. Editors will make a decision based on the reviewers’ reports and authors are sent these reports along with the editorial decision on their manuscript. Authors should note that even in light of one positive report, concerns raised by another reviewer may fundamentally undermine the study and result in the manuscript being rejected.
Confidentiality
Editors will treat all manuscripts submitted to all JBERR in confidence. Reviewers are also required to treat manuscripts confidentially. JBERR will not share manuscripts with third parties outside of JBERR except in cases of suspected misconduct. See our Misconduct policy for further information. Manuscripts may be shared with other Editors at JBERR, unless authors indicate on submission that they do not wish for their manuscript to be passed on beyond the journal they submitted to.
Guidelines for retracting articles
Journal of Biological Engineering Research and Review takes its responsibility to maintain the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record of our content for all end users very seriously. Journal of Biological Engineering Research and Review places great importance on the authority of articles after they have been published and our policy is based on best practice in the academic publishing community.
It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor of a learned journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision, the editor is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as far as is possible. However, very occasionally circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. Such actions must not be undertaken lightly and can only occur under exceptional circumstances, such as:
Article Withdrawal
Only used for Articles in Press which represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like.
Article Retraction
Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Occasionally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication.
Article Removal
Legal limitations upon the publisher, copyright holder or author(s).
Article Replacement
Identification of false or inaccurate data that, if acted upon, would pose a serious health risk..
Maintaining the integrity of the academic record
Encouraging academic integrity
- Request evidence of ethical research approval for all relevant submissions and be prepared to question authors about aspects such as how patient consent was obtained or what methods were employed to minimize animal suffering.
- Ensure that reports of clinical trials cite compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki, Good Clinical Practice and other relevant guidelines to safeguard participant.
- Ensure that reports of experiments on, or studies of, animals cite compliance with the US Department of Health and Human Services Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals or other relevant guidelines.
- Consider appointing a journal ethics panel to advise on specific cases and review journal policies periodically.
Ensuring the integrity of the academic record
- Take steps to reduce covert redundant publication, e.g. by requiring all clinical trials to be registered.
- Ensure that published material is securely archived (e.g. Via online permanent repositories, such as Index Copernicus, PubMed Central etc.).
- Have systems in place to give authors the opportunity to make original research articles freely available.
Preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards.
Errors, inaccurate or misleading statements must be corrected promptly and with due prominence. Editors should follow the COPE guidelines on retractions.