Instruction to Author
Checklist
Before submitting for publication, please check that your manuscript has been prepared in accordance to the step-by-step instructions for submitting a manuscript to our online submission system. Submissions may be returned to authors if they do not adhere to the following guidelines:
• The submission has not been published before, and it is not being considered by another journal.
• The submission file is in Microsoft Word document file format. PDF submissions are not acceptable
• Full author names, affiliations, and email addresses must be represented
• All information in a manuscript is the sole responsibility of the authors, including the accuracy of the data and the resulting conclusion.
• The reference list is complete and in proper order
• All figures and tables are cited in text
• There is no limit to the number of words
• Figures have high resolution
• Obtain an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) for each author or at least the corresponding author if you do not already have one.
Preparation of Manuscript
1. Contributions should be made in Standard English. Manuscripts should be submitted in soft copies, including all illustrations, figures, tables, photographs, images and any other accompanying documentation.
2. The entire manuscript must be word-processed, two columns, single spaced, on one side of A4 paper with all margins at least 1 cm wide. All pages should be numbered including the tables and figure legends and should be close to where they are first cited. All figures and tables obtained from other sources must be properly cited and acknowledged.
3. The title of the paper font type Ebrima and font size 16, the names of the author is font type Ebrima and font size 12, the affiliation of the authors font type Ebrima and font size 8, the abstract and the keywords font type Ebrima and font size 10. Correspondence email address, copyrights and competing interest font type Ebrima and font size 8.
4. All figures and tables obtained from other sources must be properly cited. Each figure/table photograph/plates etc. should be numbered consecutively and should be cited in the text. Each author should ensure that all figures and tables are clear, and all axes clearly labelled to allow reproduction by other researchers elsewhere. Photographs should be of excellent quality to avoid loss of contrast during printing. the legends/labels of all figures should be in black; the lettering should be legible (bearing in mind that these may be reduced in size for the final layout). Table titles, each containing all the general information about the table, should be typed on top of the table. However, for all figures, titles should be placed below the individual figures and should communicate adequately what the figure is all about using brief statements.
5. The international system of units (SI) must be used throughout; abbreviations and acronyms should be identified where they first appear; mathematical symbols and formulas should be used only when necessary, and if used, should be clearly defined in the text. Scientific names of organisms must be italized and are to be given on first mention with full author citation
6. A complete manuscript must include the following parts: title page, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion and conclusion, acknowledgements, references, and illustrations (tables, figures and figure legends, if applicable); in that order.
7. Author/s must ensure that the manuscripts have been checked for plagiarism using a reliable plagiarism checker. The editorial team upon receipt of the manuscript shall subject it to a plagiarism check for conformance to the journal’s regulation. Plagiarism level above 10% shall be returned to the author for corrections and above 40% shall be automatically rejected
Information for Authors
Title Page: This is the first page. It should contain a concise title, the names(s) of author(s), followed by affiliation(s) and complete postal and e-mail address(es). The corresponding author must be indicated by an asterisk (*). Capitalize only the first letter of the title. Any change of affiliation requests will not be allowed after publication. A note about the author's new address can be added to the article's webpage if needed.
Abstract: The abstract should not exceed 500 words and should be on one page. It should briefly describe the introduction, statement of the problem, the objective of the study, research methodology employed, main findings of the study and the conclusions with brief recommendations. Avoid abbreviations, diagrams, and citations in the abstract.
Keywords: A list of four to six key words should be included and each word separated by a period.
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Headings and Subheadings
There should be no more than 3 levels of headings. The font of headings and subheadings should be 10-point normal Times New Roman, and each word should be capitalized. Introduction: A brief survey of relevant literature and objectives of the work should be given in this section. Thus, the introduction should largely be limited to scope, purpose and rationale of the study.
Materials and Methods: In this section the methodology used should be clearly demonstrated, including relevant references used, so that another person/researcher can be able replicate the same study elsewhere. It should provide the framework for getting answers to the research questions or the overall problem which the study is trying to answer. If materials, methods, and protocols are well established, authors may cite articles where those protocols are described in detail, but the submission should include sufficient information to be understood independent of these. For studies involving human participants, a statement detailing ethical approval and consent should be included in the methods section. For further details of the journal's editorial policies and ethical guidelines.
Results and Discussion: These sections may all be separate, or they may be combined to create a mixed Results/Discussion section (commonly labeled "Results and Discussion". The text should be as objective and descriptive as possible. Only material pertinent to the subject should be included. Avoid giving the same information in both graphical and tabular formats. Discussion section should interpret the results in view of the problems identified in the introduction, as well as in relation with other published work.
Conclusion and Recommendation: The final paragraph of this section could consist of some concluding remarks and recommendations. This section may be combined with the Results section to give Results and Discussion.
Authorship and AI tools; Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.
Acknowledgement: This should be brief. Authors are advised to limit acknowledgements to those whose contributions were substantial in: financial support, scientific and technical and editorial aspects of the paper; and in the improvement of the quality of the manuscript.
Conflict of Interest: All authors are required, at the time of submission, to declare all activities that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing (commercial) interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. Examples of such activities could include personal or work-related relationships, events, etc. The disclosure should also include all sources of revenue paid (or promised to be paid) directly to authors or their institution on your behalf over the 36 months before submission of the relevant work. Authors who have nothing to declare are encouraged to add "No conflict of interest was reported by all authors" in this section.
During submission, the Conflict of Interest statement should be included in both the cover letter and manuscript (beneath the Acknowledgments section)
• Ethical Approval: Author should provide below approvals or consents (wherever necessary)
• Statement of ethical approval: If studies involve use of animal/human subject, authors must give appropriate statement of ethical approval.
• Statement of informed consent: If studies involve information about any individual e.g. case studies, survey, interview etc., author must write statement of informed consent as “Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.”
Citations: Authors should be cited using their surnames, followed by the year of publication in brackets. If there are two authors use ‘and’ but for more than two, the citation should be first author, followed by `et al.’ in italics
References: This section is compulsory and should be placed at the end of all manuscripts. Footnotes or endnotes are not accepted as a substitute for a reference list. The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should be excluded from this section. If the DOI is available, please include it after the page range.
All citations in the text, figures or tables must be in the reference list and in numerical order; the citations should be called out in square brackets. For accepted but unpublished works, use “in press” in place of page numbers. For material intended for publication but not yet accepted, use “unpublished work”or“submitted for publication”. Unpublished data or personal communications should be cited within the text only and not listed in the references.
References should be formatted as follows:
Journal: Martin, R. K. (1987). Generating alternative mixed-integer programming models using variable redefinition. Operations Research, 35(6), 820-831.
https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.35.6.820Book: Pochet, Y., & Wolsey, L. A. (2006). Production planning by mixed integer programming (Vol. 149, No. 2, pp. 163-175). New York: Springer.
Presentation/Lecture: Haltiwanger J (2004) What do we know (and not know) about the contribution of young businesses to economic growth? Presentation, Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century Conference, March 26, Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business Administration, Washington, DC.
Dissertation, Unpublished: Yi Y (1998) Developing and validating an observational learning model of computer software training. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.
Interview and Personal Communication: Hunt H (1976) Interview by Ronald Schatz. Tape recording, May 16. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg.
Conference Proceedings: Kasim, H., March, V., Zhang, R., & See, S. (2008). Survey on parallel programming model. In Network and Parallel Computing: IFIP International Conference, NPC 2008, Shanghai, China, October 18-20, 2008. Proceedings (pp. 266-275). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Revisions
1. Reviewers are allowed time to complete their review and submit comments to the editor.
2. Reviewers provide comments aimed to help create a better manuscript. Reviewers will recommend that:
o The manuscript is acceptable for publication.
o The manuscript requires further revisions.
o The manuscript is not acceptable for publication.
3. Editor makes a publication decision based on the reviews and sends out a decision letter.
4. If the manuscript needs modifications:
o One may resubmit after revisions have been made (use a response letter to explain each change, point by point). Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.
o Editor decides whether to accept revised manuscript or refer it back to reviewers for further comment.
o Editor makes final decision.
Note: BAP journals accept two rounds of revisions
