BK strives to maintain a high standard in scholarly publications. All submitted manuscripts will be first reviewed by the associate editor assigned to the manuscript for its suitability for publication in BK. The chief editors may also assign one of the editorial board members for this initial review. After the manuscript passes the editorial screening, it is then sent for an external peer review. In order to fast track the publication of a manuscript, not more than one round of blind peer review will usually be conducted to reach a final decision that will be taken by the associate editor. The goal is to disseminate important research findings to the readers in a timely manner.
In order to maintain a stringent, but a fair peer review process, associate editors of BK carefully choose and assign only those peer reviewers to judge the quality of the manuscripts who are subject experts and do not have conflict of interests with the authors of the manuscripts under consideration. Peer reviewers are asked to declare if they have any conflict of interests with the authors or if they have co-authored any papers with the authors in last 3 years. Likewise, authors who wish to suggest names of potential reviewers while submitting their manuscripts to BK should exclude their co-authors and collaborators, who they have worked with in the last three years.
The timeline for the editorial handling of a manuscript from the date of receiving of a manuscript to a final decision on the manuscript is usually 15 days. The accepted article is published online within a week after the final acceptance for publication. If a manuscript is not considered suitable for publication in BK during the initial editorial screening, the manuscript is returned to the authors promptly.
It is a strict policy that all articles submitted to BK for publication must be original and must not have been submitted to any other publication. It is the policy of BK that every author of a contribution be credited for his or her contribution. Simultaneously, the editorial policy of BK states that a person not to be named as an author when he or she did not make substantial contribution to the work.
Manuscripts submitted by the editorial board members or the associate editors of BK are handled by one of the chief editors who performs the editorial screening for the quality, and then sends out the manuscript for an external peer review.
To prevent plagiarism and maintain a high ethical integrity and quality of a manuscript, the editorial policies strongly encourage all authors to seek permission, give credit or acknowledgement to the work of another author. BK editorial office usually conducts an iThenticate software based analysis to check the similarity index of the submitted manuscript before sending it out for external peer review. The similarity index report is important from both ethical and legal perspectives. Manuscripts with high similarity index (>30%) are usually returned to the authors for reducing the similarity index before their manuscripts can be considered for further actions. In the event of any dispute regarding research results or authorship of research results, the editor (s) may seek guidance from other specialists in the field of research.

Peer Review of Submitted Manuscripts

External reviewers are asked to judge the quality of the manuscript by providing detailed comments on the manuscript. In addition, they are provided with the following questionnaire for their comments on the manuscript.
GENERAL
Is the work presented in the manuscript original?
YES NO
Does the work make important contributions to the field?
YES NO
Does the research work structure have high quality?
YES NO
Are the sections and subsections presented in the manuscript complete and in logical order?
YES NO
Is the English in the manuscript of publication quality?
YES NO
TITLE
Does the title of the manuscript convey the important aspects of the research?
YES NO
ABSTRACT
Does the abstract summarize the reported work in a concise manner?
YES NO
Does the abstract present key findings?
YES NO
INTRODUCTION
Does it include background and sufficient rational of the study?
YES NO
METHODOLOGY
Are the research methods and analysis adequately explained and accurate?
YES NO
Do the experiments present enough details for the peers to reproduce the experiments and obtain the same outcomes?
YES NO
Do the authors need to include supplementary materials?
YES NO
KEY RESULTS & CONCLUSION
Is the discussion presented by the authors provided with enough scientific details that support the key results?
YES NO
Does the conclusion summarize well and include the methodology and main findings along with applications (if any) of the study?
YES NO
REFERENCES, TABLES AND FIGURES
Are all references to previously published literature cited in the work?
YES NO
Are all figures and tables of sufficiently high quality?
YES NO