Publication Ethics

BORNEO Journal of Engineering and Applied Science is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics. This statement is based on the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and on the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing issued jointly by COPE, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). All parties involved in the act of publishing — the publisher, the editors, the reviewers, and the authors — are expected to observe these standards.

Duties of the Publisher
- The publisher guarantees the editorial independence of the journal and does not interfere with editorial decisions on individual manuscripts.
- The publisher provides the resources, infrastructure, and training necessary for the journal to operate ethically and to preserve its content permanently.
- The publisher supports the editors in investigating allegations of misconduct and, where necessary, in issuing corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions.
- The publisher ensures that commercial considerations, including any institutional interest, do not affect editorial decisions.

Duties of Editors
- Fair play and editorial independence. Editors evaluate manuscripts solely on their intellectual merit and relevance to the journal's scope, without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, institutional affiliation, seniority, or political philosophy.
- Confidentiality. Editors and editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
- Disclosure and conflicts of interest. Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by an editor in their own research without the express written consent of the author. Editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a competing interest arising from collaborative, competitive, financial, or institutional relationships with any of the authors.
- Publication decisions. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which submitted articles are published, guided by the reviewers' reports, the journal's policies, and legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
- Involvement and cooperation in investigations. Editors take responsive measures when ethical complaints are presented concerning a submitted or published manuscript, following the relevant COPE flowchart. Such measures generally include contacting the author and giving due consideration to the response, and may extend to contacting the author's institution.
- Editorial submissions. Manuscripts authored by members of the editorial team are handled by an independent editor who has no conflict of interest with the submitting editor, and are subject to the same peer review as any other submission. Editors have no access to the review records of their own submissions. Manuscripts authored by editorial board members shall not exceed 10% of the articles published in any volume.
- Vigilance over the published record. Editors monitor the published record and, when errors, misconduct, or unreliable findings come to light, act promptly to issue corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern.

Duties of Reviewers
- Contribution to editorial decisions. Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communication with the author, may assist the author in improving the manuscript.
- Promptness. Any reviewer who feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript, or who knows that prompt review will be impossible, should notify the editor immediately and decline the invitation.
- Confidentiality. Manuscripts received for review are confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorised by the editor, and must not be uploaded to any public or third-party system, including generative artificial intelligence tools.
- Standards of objectivity. Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable. Reviewers must express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
- Acknowledgement of sources. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors, and should call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
- Disclosure and conflict of interest. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, financial, or other relationships with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the paper.

Duties of Authors
- Reporting standards. Authors of original research must present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data must be represented accurately. A paper must contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.
- Originality and plagiarism. Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original works, and that where the work or words of others have been used, this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism in all its forms — presenting another's paper as one's own, copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another's paper without attribution, and claiming results from research conducted by others — constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
- Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publication. An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
- Acknowledgement of sources. Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately must not be used without explicit written permission from its source.
- Authorship of the paper. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author ensures that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
- Hazards and human or animal subjects. If the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript. Research involving human participants or animals must comply with the relevant institutional and national requirements, and the corresponding approval must be stated.
- Disclosure of financial support and conflicts of interest. All authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project must be disclosed.
- Fundamental errors in published works. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author's obligation to notify the journal editor promptly and to cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.