Ethics Statement

BIJHSS is committed to the highest standards of publication ethics. We follow the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and expect authors, reviewers and editors to act with honesty, fairness and transparency at every stage of the publication process.

Our principles

Integrity: only original, honestly reported research is published.
Fairness: manuscripts are judged on their academic merit alone, regardless of the authors' gender, religion, caste, ethnicity, nationality, institution or political views.
Confidentiality: submitted manuscripts and review reports are treated as confidential documents.
Transparency: our review, publication and correction procedures are public.
Accountability: complaints and allegations of misconduct are investigated and answered.

Responsibilities of authors

Originality: the work must be the authors' own and must not have been published or be under consideration elsewhere.
Plagiarism: every manuscript is checked with similarity-detection software. Copying text, ideas or data without proper citation, including self-plagiarism, leads to rejection or retraction.
Data: results must be reported accurately. Fabrication, falsification or selective reporting of data is serious misconduct.
Authorship: all persons listed as authors must have made a significant contribution and approved the final version. Everyone who contributed but does not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged.
Disclosure: conflicts of interest and all sources of funding must be declared at submission.
Research involving people: studies with human participants must have informed consent and, where required, approval from an ethics committee.
Artificial intelligence: AI tools cannot be authors, and any use of AI must be declared, as described in our AI policy.

Responsibilities of reviewers

Review only manuscripts within their expertise and decline when they cannot assess the work impartially or on time.
Keep manuscripts confidential and never use unpublished material for their own research.
Give objective, constructive and well-supported comments, free of personal criticism.
Inform the editors of any suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication or other misconduct.

Responsibilities of editors

Decide on publication based on peer review, the journal's scope and academic quality only.
Protect the anonymity of authors and reviewers during double-blind review.
Step aside from any manuscript in which they have a conflict of interest.
Act promptly on complaints and publish corrections, expressions of concern or retractions when needed.

Handling misconduct, corrections and retractions

Suspected misconduct, whether before or after publication, is examined by the Editorial Committee following COPE flowcharts. The authors are always given the opportunity to respond. Depending on the outcome, the journal may reject the manuscript, publish a correction, issue an expression of concern or retract the article. Retracted articles remain online, clearly marked as retracted.

To report an ethical concern, please write to us through the Contact page. All reports are handled confidentially.