Statement of Publication Ethics

  1. Overview & Commitment to Integrity

The Bulletin of Education and Research (BER) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics, integrity, and scholarly rigor. BER adheres to the principles established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan, and the Clarivate Web of Science quality standards.

All parties involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, peer reviewers, and the publisher, are expected to understand and comply with these ethical standards.

  1. Responsibilities of Authors
  • Originality and Plagiarism: Authors must ensure that their work is original. Plagiarism in any form, including text copying, self-plagiarism, paraphrasing without proper attribution, or misappropriation of ideas, is unacceptable. All manuscripts undergo similarity checks using Turnitin before peer review. Manuscripts exceeding the similarity threshold specified by the journal in accordance with applicable HEC guidance may be rejected.
  • Authorship Criteria: Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the research, including one or more of the following:
    1. The conception, design, or execution of the study.
    2. The acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.
    3. Drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
    All listed authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission. Ghostwriting, gift authorship, and honorary authorship are prohibited.
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy: Generative AI tools, including ChatGPT and other large language models, cannot be credited as authors or co-authors. Any substantive assistance from AI tools in activities such as literature searching, data organization, analysis, or language editing must be transparently disclosed in the appropriate section of the manuscript, where applicable. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and authenticity of their submitted work.
  • Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication: Authors must not submit manuscripts reporting substantially the same research to more than one journal simultaneously. Concurrent submission of the same manuscript to multiple journals constitutes unethical publishing behavior.
  • Data Access and Integrity: Authors may be asked to provide relevant research data for editorial assessment and should retain their data for a reasonable period after publication. Fabrication, falsification, inappropriate manipulation of data, and misrepresentation of research findings constitute serious violations of research and publication ethics.
  1. Human Subjects & Research Ethics in Education

Because BER publishes empirical research in education involving human participants, including students, teachers, administrators, and other members of educational communities, authors must comply with applicable ethical requirements.

  • Ethical Approval: Authors must state whether the research received approval from an appropriate institutional review board (IRB) or institutional ethics committee, where applicable. Relevant approval details should be provided in the manuscript.
  • Informed Consent: Authors must ensure that informed consent was obtained from participants where required. For research involving children or other individuals who cannot provide legally valid consent independently, consent must be obtained from parents, guardians, or legally authorized representatives, as applicable. Participant assent should also be obtained where appropriate.
  • Confidentiality and Privacy: Authors must protect the privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity of research participants, schools, and institutions. Identifiable information must not be disclosed without appropriate authorization and consent.
  1. Conflicts of Interest & Funding Disclosures
  • Competing Interests: Authors must disclose financial, personal, professional, or institutional relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research, its interpretation, or its publication. If no competing interests exist, authors should explicitly state this.
  • Funding Acknowledgments: Authors must clearly disclose all funding sources and grants supporting the research, including grant numbers and funding agency names, where applicable. Authors should also state when the research received no external funding.
  1. Responsibilities of Editors and Editorial Independence
  • Fairness and Impartiality: Editors evaluate manuscripts on their academic merit, originality, relevance to educational research, methodological rigor, and contribution to knowledge. Editorial decisions must not be influenced by authors' race, gender, institutional affiliation, religious beliefs, political philosophy, or other irrelevant personal characteristics.
  • Editorial Independence: Decisions to accept, revise, or reject manuscripts are based on scholarly merit, the peer-review process, and the journal's editorial policies. Editorial decisions must remain independent of inappropriate publisher, commercial, institutional, or other external influence.
  • Confidentiality: Editors and editorial staff must treat submitted manuscripts and related communications as confidential. Information must not be disclosed to anyone other than individuals involved in the editorial process or otherwise authorized to receive it.
  • Conflict of Interest: Editors must declare relevant competing interests and recuse themselves from handling manuscripts when personal, professional, financial, competitive, or collaborative relationships could compromise, or reasonably appear to compromise, their impartiality. An independent editor should be assigned where necessary.
  1. Responsibilities of Peer Reviewers
  • Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Peer review assists the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board in making informed editorial decisions and helps authors improve the quality and clarity of their manuscripts.
  • Confidentiality and Intellectual Property: Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not share manuscript content or use unpublished research materials disclosed in a submission for their own research without appropriate authorization.
  • Objectivity and Constructive Feedback: Reviews must be objective, fair, and constructive. Personal criticism of authors is inappropriate. Reviewers should explain their assessments clearly and support their recommendations with relevant academic arguments.
  • Disclosure of Competing Interests: Reviewers must disclose potential competing interests and decline assignments when personal, professional, financial, competitive, or collaborative relationships could compromise their impartiality.
  • Timeliness: Reviewers should respond to review invitations promptly and submit their reports within the agreed timeframe. If additional time is needed, they should inform the editorial office.
  1. Managing Misconduct, Appeals, and Post-Publication Actions
  • Handling Allegations of Misconduct: BER investigates credible allegations of publication or research misconduct, including plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, unethical research, and inappropriate authorship. Investigations are conducted fairly and confidentially, following applicable institutional procedures and recognized guidance from COPE. Authors may be asked to provide explanations, supporting documents, or relevant research data.
  • Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern: BER may take appropriate post-publication action when concerns arise about the reliability, integrity, or ethical acceptability of published work. Such action may include:
    • Corrections: An erratum or corrigendum may be published when a material error requires correction but does not invalidate the overall reliability of the article.
    • Retractions: A published article may be retracted when serious ethical breaches, unreliable findings, substantial plagiarism, or other grounds justify retraction under recognized publication ethics guidance.
    • Expressions of Concern: An expression of concern may be issued when substantial questions arise about an article and an investigation is ongoing or the available evidence is insufficient for a definitive conclusion.
  • Appeals and Complaints: Authors who wish to appeal an editorial decision or submit a complaint should contact the Editor-in-Chief with a clear explanation and relevant supporting evidence. Appeals and complaints will be considered impartially, and an independent assessment may be arranged where appropriate.
  1. Open Access, Copyright & Archiving
  • Licensing: BER is an open-access journal. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), subject to the journal's applicable licensing terms. The license permits sharing and adaptation with appropriate attribution.
  • Copyright: Authors retain copyright of their published articles, subject to the journal's applicable publication and licensing agreements.
  • Archiving and Preservation: BER aims to preserve published scholarly content and maintain its long-term accessibility through the journal's online platform and applicable digital preservation and archiving arrangements.
  1. Policy Implementation
  • The journal reserves the right to investigate suspected breaches of this statement at any stage of the editorial and publication process. Appropriate action will depend on the seriousness of the concern, the available evidence, applicable institutional procedures, and recognized publication ethics guidance.
  • By submitting a manuscript to BER, authors acknowledge their responsibility to comply with the journal's publication ethics requirements and applicable submission policies.
  • Ethical Framework: BER refers to the core publication ethics guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Further information is available at COPE Core Practices .