About

BURJES is an annually published scientific research journal. The authors, readers, and librarians searching for a range of research articles in the domains of Earth & Environmental Sciences may consider the content published in BURJES.

Scope

The researcher and scientists from academia, research institutions,  industry, and government organizations working in the domains or departments of Geophysics, Geology, Environmental Sciences, GIS, Remote Sensing and related sub-disciplines are welcome to contribute to BURJES.

Abstracting & Indexing

BURJES is a well-recognized research journal of Bahria University (Karachi Campus).  The Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan has included BURJES in its database about journals. Details can be seen at HEC Journal Recognition System (HJRS). It is envisioned that the articles are included in the following databases/resources:

  • Pakistan Scientific and Technological Information Center (PASTIC)
  • Google Scholar
  • Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (Application is under-process)
  • SCOPUS (Application is under-Process)
  • ISSN- International standard serial numbers for the BURJES is 2415-2234

Editorial Working Environment

BURJES uses Open Journal System for all editorial activities (submission, review, publication, production, subscription). OJS is an open-source journal management and publishing software developed, supported, and freely distributed by the Public Knowledge Project under the GNU General Public License. The Editorial Board/Team ensures that ethical guidelines framed by HEC for authors, editors, and reviewers are followed in true letter and spirit.

Authors are required to submit the manuscripts using the OJS-based website. All papers will be refereed according to the standard review process and publishing ethics. BURJES review the manuscript, only submitted through the OJS website/submission portal. The journal's peer review policy and processes for readers and authors, including the number of reviewers typically used in reviewing a submission, the criteria by which reviewers are asked to judge submissions, typical time is taken to conduct the reviews, and the principles for recruiting reviewers are depicted as below:

Steps Involved in the Publication of the Article

The following publication steps are followed by the journal:

  • After submission of the manuscript the authors receive the acknowledgement from the journal.
  • The submitted manuscript is sent for a desk review to the editorial committee. It examines the manuscript for appropriateness and relevancy for the journal.
  • If the editorial committee finds that the manuscript does not meet the journal’s standards the paper is rejected and the author(s) are informed of the decision. If the manuscript is found to meet the standards of the journal, it is then sent to the reviewers for the blind review process.
  • As per the article reviewing policy the accepted manuscripts remain in the publication process are sent to authors for further processing while the rejected manuscripts are retracted from the publication process.
  • After the revision of the manuscript by the author, it is again revaluated by the editorial committee to ensure that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s guidelines for publication.
  • After copy editing, the manuscripts are sent in online and print publications.

Peer Review Process

BURJES has a double blind peer review policy. The research manuscripts will be processed through double blind peer review process.  Initial screening for the suitability of the article for publication is carried out by the editorial committee and subsequently the manuscript is processed for a blind paper review. Authors are informed about the comments or suggestions of the reviewers and are required to revise their paper within a stipulated time period.

Each submission is placed in a review round, and sent to at least two reviewers. The review process may take approximately one to two months. The time length of the review process may vary among different papers and many factors, depending upon the complexity and the type of the manuscript/study submitted, affect the time it takes to complete the review of a paper. Editorial team do rigorous effort to keep the review time to such a minimum length that is consistent with BURJES’s timeline, quality, and integrity.

Article Acceptance Policy

The submitted manuscripts are accepted for publication only after the acceptance from two reviewers. If the manuscript is rejected by any of the reviewers it is sent for the review process again (to a reviewer of the same capacity) and if that reviewer also rejects the manuscript, then the authors are informed about the decision of the reviewers. Only those manuscripts are eligible for publication which are either accepted “without any revision” or “with minor or major revisions” by the reviewers.

Article Publication Policy

The journal follows the general publication guidelines that are provided by HEC where the journal holds the rights of publication and distribution of the accepted manuscripts. However, the authors have the rights for the commercial and non-commercial utilization of the published material. Moreover, the journal holds the rights to retract the publication at any point based on the publication policy and HEC guidelines for research article publications. The Editorial office of BURJES follows the standard guidelines provided by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) for publication and review of the manuscripts.

Plagiarism Prevention

BURJES aims to promote original research. BURJES Journal has zero tolerance for plagiarism and follows the guidelines given by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan. Each submitted manuscript will be evaluated for plagiarism using Turnitin, plagiarism detecting software (https://www.turnitin.com/). A turn-it-in based similarity index report is required highlighting the percentage of overlap content between the submitted manuscript and the published articles. The journal only accepts papers that have a similarity index score of less than 19%. Moreover, no single source should have a matching similarity index score of greater than 5%. It is expected that the submitted manuscript is not under review of any other journal or has not been published before. BU is following the HEC Plagiarism Policy, the details of the same can be found on the given link: https://hec.gov.pk/english/services/faculty/Plagiarism/Pages/default.aspx

Policy regarding the Conflict of Interest

At the time of submission, the author(s) should make it clear that they do not have any conflict of interest. If author(s) have received any funding or grant for the research they have to report all the relevant details.

Policy for the Correction and Retraction of the Research Article

BU retains all the rights to correct or retract the articles that have been published or under the publication process. However, the author(s) are encouraged to notify the editorial committee of any error they find in their publication. In case of any dispute between the journal and the author(s), the decision will be taken by the Editor as per HEC guidelines.

Policy for the Contribution and Consents of the Author(s)

At the time of submission, the corresponding author should ensure that all authors agree to the order of authorship shown in the manuscript. All the content of the manuscript is pre-approved by all the authors and there should be no conflict of interest. Furthermore, all the relevant information regarding all the author(s) and their respective affiliation must be updated and complete. Journal will not accept more than two affiliations for a single author. 

Copyright Policy

Manuscripts should be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript. The corresponding author is required to submit a filled-in copyright form along with the manuscript (at galley proof stage), on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Open Access Policy

BURJES is an open-access journal implying that all contents are freely available without charge to the users or their institutions. BURJES provides public support as a greater global exchange of knowledge. BURJES implying that all contents are freely available to the readers and libraries of research institutions and organizations. Readers and Researchers are allowed to search, read, download, copy, distribute and print the full text of the articles without asking prior permission from the publisher, the contributing author. In the case of a copy of the text, the researchers are advised to cite the original authors as ethical practices or norms. Otherwise, those authors are violating the copyright of BURJES.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses and metadata entered in the OJS website/submission portal of BURJES will be used exclusively for the stated purposes and will not be shared for any other purpose or to any other party.

 Disclaimer

Views expressed in published articles are exclusive to the authors. Bahria University or the Editorial office does not necessarily ask for any clarification of the technical content presented in the research articles by the contributing authors.

 License 

BURJES follows a liberal CC license for publishing scientific articles under the suggestions of Creative Commons Attribution license, as it allows the public to adapt and share an author’s work, as long as the author is properly cited. BURJES supports a greater global exchange of knowledge and provides immediate open access to its content to make research freely available for the public.  All the published research work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Publisher

Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Bahria University, Karachi Campus, Pakistan