Publication Ethics Guidelines
The BAP upholds ethics as an integral component of integrity in publishing. Research and publication misconducts will be handled as per the COPE guidelines, Council of Science Editors (CSE) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)and any other prescribed guidelines if deemed necessary.

Ethical Issues Touching Research Approvals and Confidentiality of Data
All research involving human beings and animals must be approved by the Institutional Research Board (IRB), the Ethics and Research Boards (ERB), or other regulatory board, and copies of the approvals must be submitted with the manuscripts. All data arising from human subjects and animals shall be treated with confidentiality as stipulated in the regulatory and legislative policies.

Publishing Ethics
The publication process adheres to ethical criteria to ensure high-quality, accuracy, and clarity. BAP is receptive to recommendations for improving the journal's quality and devoted to the highest peer review standards as outlined in COPE, CSE, ICMJE and any other prescribed guidelines if deemed necessary. Therefore, Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, and Publication Integrity are adhered to by the committed editorial board

https://publicationethics.org

Handling of Research and Publication Misconduct
The BAP promotes ethics as a fundamental aspect of publication integrity and does not condone any sort of research and publication misconduct.

If any type of research or publication misconduct is discovered, the Chief Editor and editorial staff will act in accordance with guidelines provided in COPE, CSE, ICJME and other regulatory guidelines. Once a decision regarding the infraction has been reached, the involved authors will be notified, and action will be taken in accordance with the established policies.

https://publicationethics.org

Research and publication misconducts include, but are not limited to, plagiarism in all its forms (whether intentional or unintentional), data falsification, data fabrication, duplication publication in all its forms, peer review misconduct, author misconduct, citation manipulation, digital image/s manipulation, using someone else's research paper as a template paper mills, social media publication misconduct, salami slicing, conflict of interest/competing interests and other emerging forms of misconduct. Each ethical concern will be addressed on an individual basis following the regulatory guidelines.

https://publicationethics.org

Plagiarism
Intentional or inadvertent plagiarism. It includes stealing others' text without attribution. Self-plagiarism involves copying one's own text from a published paper and presenting it as new knowledge. Plagiarism is most common research misconduct. Researchers must reference sources and take notes.

Plagiarism may also involve:
• Presenting someone else's findings as one's own

• Presenting someone else's findings without a citation

• Copying a substantial amount of text from past publications (even with a citation, direct copying without using quotations is usually wrong)

• Repeating one's own previously published findings without a citation

• Text recycling from one’s own publication/s

• Intentional plagiarism-done deliberately

• Unintentional plagiarism- done unintentionally

Handling of plagiarism
Plagiarism will be addressed following COPE (https://publicationethics.org)

https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/02A_Plagiarism_Submitted.pdf and also as outlined in CSE, ICJME and any other approved guidelines.

Data Falsification
The falsification of data, information, or citations in any formal academic exercise. Manipulating research data with the intention of giving a false impression. This includes manipulating images (e.g. micrographs, gels, radiological images), removing outliers or “inconvenient” results, changing, adding or omitting data points, etc. Falsification is also the changing or omission of research results (data) to support claims, hypotheses, other data, etc.

Falsification can also include the manipulation of research instrumentation, materials, or processes. Manipulation of images or representations in a manner that distorts the data or “reads too much between the lines” can also be considered falsification.

Changing the data obtained from experiments so that the research question is answered favourably, or leaving out unfavorable data. The COPE guidelines will be used to address the issues raised

https://publicationethics.org

Data Fabrication
Fabrication is adding data, observations, or characterizations that never occurred in data collection or experimentation. Fabrication might occur when completing experiment runs. Assertions about outcomes must be based on complete data sets (as is typically expected), while claims based on incomplete or assumed findings are a type of fabrication or inventing data for an experiment without completing it.

https://publicationethics.org/files/fabricated-data-submitted-manuscript-cope-flowchart.pdf

https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/fabricated-data-published-article

Duplication Publication in all its Forms
Making minor modifications to a paper one has already published and publishing the 'new' paper. A published paper is a unique contribution. It is ethically wrong to try to publish it again, either in its entirety or a substantial part of it. Otherwise, it can lead to a form of ethical violation called 'duplicate publication'. (There is sometimes a case for publishing an article simultaneously in multiple outlets, but this is done only with a solid rationale and full transparency).

Further, scholarly metrics track citations to each published paper, and the aggregated information is used for ranking journals, researchers, or institutions. If the same paper is published more than once, this is problematic for the scholarly record. Plus submitting a previously published paper to a new journal may lead to wasting resources: reviewer time, editor workload, etc. (source Authoraid, 2021).

https://publicationethics.org/files/image-manipulation-published-article-cope-flowchart.pdf

Peer Review Misconduct
This may involve reviewers manipulating the review process before publication of the manuscript, or during review or after publication of the manuscript for personal gain. This type of misconduct is adequately covered the COPE guidelines. Peer review must be a transparent process and any deviation from the norm must be addressed as per the regulatory guidelines.

https://publicationethics.org/files/reviewer-misconduct-suspected-cope-flowchart.pdf

https://publicationethics.org/files/peer-review-manipulation-after-publication-cope-flowchart.pdf

https://publicationethics.org/files/peer-review-manipulation-during-review-cope-flowchart.pdf

https://publicationethics.org/files/recognising-peer-review-manipulation-cope-infographic.pdf

https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/peer-review-manipulation-suspected-after-publication

https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/how-recognise-potential-manipulation-peer-review-process

https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/systematic-manipulation-publication-process

https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/reviewer-suspected-have-appropriated-authors-ideas-or-data

 

Author Misconduct
Author misconduct or fraud is designating a person as an author of a journal article or contribution in which they did not directly participate or in which they have a financial or other stake. The COPE guidelines will be followed in dealing with the named misconduct.

Citation Manipulation
Citation deception is an issue when references are added solely to boost citations. Penalties may be levied on authors whose submitted manuscripts contain references that boost the number of references to a given writer's work or to journal articles. Editors and commentators shouldn't ask authors to cite their own or a collaborator's work, the journal, or a publication they're involved with

https://publicationethics.org

Digital Image/s Manipulation
This refers to images that have been copied, used to show different things, edited, copied from prior works, and incorporated in the manuscript or modified. The editorial board rejects such submissions when misconduct is confirmed.

https://publicationethics.org/files/image-manipulation-published-article-cope-flowchart.pdf

https://publicationethics.org

Using someone else's research paper as a template, and other emerging forms of misconduct. COPE guidelines will be applied appropriately.

https://publicationethics.org/guidance

Papermills
Systematic manipulation of the publication process is where an individual or a group of individuals have repeatedly used dishonest or fraudulent practices to:

• Prevent or inappropriately influence the independent assessment of a piece of scholarly work by an independent peer.

• Inappropriately attribute authorship of a piece of scholarly work.

• Publish fabricated or plagiarised research.

Systematic manipulation is conducted with the goal of influencing the publication record and/or achieving financial gain, and involves more than one manuscript and possibly more than one journal.

Systematic manipulation of the publication process may raise concerns at different levels:

https://publicationethics.org/files/publication-process-manipulation-cope-flowchart.pdf

Social Media Publication Misconduct
How to respond to whistleblowers when concerns are raised about a published article on a social media site. How should you respond when a published article is criticised on social media or a post-publication peer review site(s)? The criticism could include anonymous or not anonymous concerns about scientific soundness or allegations of plagiarism among such other allegations

https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/responding-whistleblowers-when-concerns-are-raised-social-media

https://publicationethics.org/guidance

Salami Publication

It is defined as the unnecessary splitting of findings from a single study across several publications. Salami slicing is considered a form of redundant publication. We do not accept publications where we suspect salami slicing has occurred, as these publications have the potential to skew the scientific record and create biases in the results of meta-analyses. All submitted articles will be assessed for potential salami slicing by our editorial team as part of our standard checks. Studies that share significant similarities in the hypotheses, population, and methods should usually be presented to the readers in a single paper.