About the Journal

Aims and Scopes

Khulna University Studies (KU Studies) is an official journal (eISSN: 2789-2697, ISSN: 1563-0897) of Khulna University, Bangladesh. It is a double blinded peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, open-access international journal that publishes high-quality research articles twice yearly (in June and December). It provides an opportunity for researchers from across the world to publish their research and practices in all areas of knowledge. Manuscripts should reflect theoretical, factual, or technical information of national and international interest. Critical analyses and scholarly evaluations of current issues are also encouraged. Original research papers, review articles, and short communications in the broad fields of Arts and Humanities, Education, Fine Arts, Law, Life Science, Management and Business Studies, Science, Engineering and Technology, and Social Sciences are invited. The reviewers and editorial board evaluate the submitted manuscripts based on the quality of research and ideas. The decision of the editorial board is final regarding the publication of any manuscript. The editorial board is not responsible for any factual mistakes, thoughts, or ideas reflected in the published papers. Potential authors are requested to follow the Guide to authors available on the journal website during the preparation of their manuscripts.

Language

The journal accepts manuscripts only in English language, but will not accept manuscripts with poor language quality. Your submission should be clear and free of phrasing, syntax, grammar, and typographical errors. Please use either American or British English consistently, but do not mix the both. 

If your manuscript has language issues, it may be turned down early on by the editorial team or later during review and revision process. For a smooth process from submission to publication, please make sure that your manuscript meets the required language standards for clear and accurate scientific reporting.

Peer review

All manuscripts submitted to KU Studies undergo a double blinded peer review and are expected to meet high standards of academic quality. After an initial screening by the executive editor or a designated editorial board member, publishable manuscripts are considered for the peer-review process. KU Studies follows a double-blinded review process, in which each manuscript is evaluated by two independent experts in the relevant field. Each reviewer assesses the manuscript's suitability for publication and provides a recommendation to the editor. The handling editor then considers the manuscript, along with the reviewers' comments, to make a decision: accept, accept with revision, or reject the manuscript. If feedback from a third reviewer is required, the editorial board can seek additional review. All submissions and review processes by editors and reviewers are treated as confidential. For more details on effective peer review practices, please refer to the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors and Publishers.

Revisions

Authors are requested to send the corrected/revised manuscript to the editorial office following the reviewer's comments. After reviewing the total manuscripts, the executive editor or editorial board will decide to respect acceptance for publication in KU Studies. The author(s) must submit a softcopy of the original and revised manuscript showing the changes along with a cover letter.

 Open Access

KU Studies is a fully open-access international journal. Once your article is published, it will be instantly and permanently available for readers to read, download, and share at no cost. Readers will have free access to your article on Khulna University Studies.

Publication Ethics

Khulna University Studies (KU Studies) is a peer-reviewed international journal published by Khulna University. Aligned with the University’s mission, KU Studies disseminates knowledge and insights from advanced research across various fields through its scholarly, peer-reviewed publications. Adhering to publication ethics is vital for enhancing research quality, scientific integrity, trust in research findings, and recognizing authors' contributions. KU Studies is dedicated to upholding ethical standards throughout all stages of the publication process, including preliminary screening, editorial evaluation, peer review, editing, and proofreading, to ensure high-quality scholarly publications.

Publication Ethics and Quality

Respectful and Confidential Handling

  • Every submission is reviewed with respect, confidentiality, and adherence to ethical guidelines.

Originality and Exclusivity

  • Articles must be original, unpublished, and not under simultaneous submission elsewhere.

Handling Redundant Publication

  • If redundant publication is detected, KU Studies will coordinate with other publishers as needed.

Research Ethics for Human and Animal Studies

  • Studies involving human, animal, or clinical subjects require ethics committee approval and a protocol number, which should be mentioned in the paper.

Zero Tolerance for Fabrication and Plagiarism

  • The manuscript that contains any fabricated data will be rejected.
  • Plagiarism over 20% (excluding bibliography/references, quotes, and small sources with source exclusion threshold of five-word counts) is prohibited and verified through anti-plagiarism software.

Author Contributions and Funding Transparency

  • Significant contributions to the work's conception, design, data acquisition, analysis, interpretation, and critical review of intellectual content must be mentioned in the paper
  • Authorship changes are typically not permitted by the journal’s editors once a manuscript has been submitted. Authors should carefully determine the list and order of authors before submission, as the author list cannot be modified after submission.
  • Authors must disclose funding sources for their studies.

Discouragement of Unnecessary Self-Citation 

  • Unwarranted self-citation by authors, editors, or reviewers is discouraged to maintain research integrity.

Inclusive language guidelines

Frontiers values inclusivity and ask all authors to follow our inclusive language guidelines when preparing their manuscripts. Be mindful of personal biases and work to minimize their influence on your writing. Avoid language that implies any person is superior or inferior based on factors like age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability, religion, or socio-economic status. Use inclusive language and consider diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout your research and writing process.

Additional helpful guidance can be found in C4DISC’s Guidelines on Inclusive Language and Images in Scholarly Communication.

Reporting Sex- and Gender-Based Analyses:

There is no universally accepted set of guidelines for defining sex and gender. The following guidance is recommended:

Sex- and gender-based analyses (SGBA) should be incorporated into research design whenever studies involve humans, animals, or eukaryotic cells, following any applicable funder or sponsor requirements and best practices within the field. The research article should address the sex and gender aspects of the study or, if relevant, note these as limitations affecting the generalizability of the research. Clear definitions of sex and/or gender used in the study should be provided to enhance accuracy, rigor, and reproducibility and to prevent ambiguity or conflation of these concepts. Researchers are encouraged to consult the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines and the SAGER checklist (PDF) on the EASE website, which provide systematic approaches for including sex and gender information in study design, data analysis, reporting, and interpretation. For additional details, we suggest reviewing the rationale and recommendations for using the SAGER guidelines.

Policy on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in manuscript preparation:

There is an increase of using artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted tools in scientific article writing and creating research content. The KU Studies editorial team has been following the consequences of using AI and AI-assisted tools. Therefore there is an urgent need to introduce a policy of using AI and AI-assisted tools in journal-submitted manuscripts. This policy aims to enhance transparency and accountability in research and journal publication. This policy will apply only to the writing process to improve readability and language but not to data analysis during the research process, audio, video, image, or synthetic data generation. KU Studies AI policy states that authors are allowed to use AI and AI-assisted tools in writing manuscripts to improve it with proper disclosure as per journal guidelines ( https://ku.ac.bd/journal/kustudies/about ). However, generative AI tools cannot be enlisted as an author/ co-author or cited as a reference. KU Studies policy on AI tools supports and complies with COPE guidelines as they stated “AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements” https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author

Declaration of AI use in manuscript preparation:

KU Studies allows the author(s) to use AI or AI-assisted tools in writing a manuscript to improve readability and language, but not for data analysis during the research process, audio, video, image, or synthetic data generation as well as cannot be enlisted as an author/ co-author or be cited as a reference as per KU Studies policy( https://kus.ku.ac.bd/kustudies/about). The maximum limit of AI use is 20%. Authors should use appropriate disclosure if they use AI tools in their writing process and must add an announcement at the end of the article (before references) with the title “Declaration of use AI tools” as below statement:

“In the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used [TOOL Name / SERVICE NAME] for [REASON]. All author(s) read, reviewed, and edited the content as necessary to improve the language and readability of the manuscript only as well as take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.”

This announcement is not needed if there is nothing to disclose and therefore no need to add a declaration.

Conflict of interest (COI)

A conflict of interest (COI) between an author, reviewer, or editor can impede their objectivity in the publishing process, affecting submission, review, editorial decision-making, or communication. KU Studies promotes transparency in identifying and managing potential conflicts of interest. All individuals involved in the review and publication process must disclose any potential COIs, regardless of whether these influence the article's evaluation.

KU Studies recommends that authors, reviewers, and editors follow and regularly update their adherence to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) standards regarding COIs to ensure an ethical and rigorous review process. Submissions with undeclared COIs that come to light after publication may be subject to editorial action, including requests for explanation, rejection of the submission, or, in severe cases, re-evaluation of the published article. This could lead to a corrigendum or, if necessary, retraction.

Indexing

The full text of all articles is deposited on the journal website (https://ku.ac.bd/journal/kustudies) and each article is currently indexed in different database including Cross Ref, Google Scholar, Scilit, ResearchBib, ESJI, WorldCat, CiteFactor, EuroPub and ICI Journal Master List. In addition, journal authorities are working on indexing all the published articles in the other relevant index services to confirm that articles published in KU studies can be accessed in these databases when appropriate.

Copyright

If the executive editor or handling editor finds the manuscripts satisfactory for forwarding to peer review, the author(s) will have to fill out the Declaration and Copyright forms and submit those to the Executive Editor of KU Studies. Under this Declaration and Copyright agreement, authors have to declare that the submitted work has not been published anywhere (including as a pre-print) or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Once the manuscript is accepted, the copyright of the article will remain under the control of KU Studies. The published manuscript can be reproducible in any form of reproduction and KU Studies will not impose any restriction on the author’s freedom to use the article material in other works as KU Studies follow the open access license policy under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

License

KU Studies applies the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all published articles. This license permits: 

  • Distribution and Sharing: Articles published in KU Studies may be shared, copied, and redistributed in any medium or format, provided that the original authors and source are appropriately credited.
  • Adaptation and Modification: Content may be remixed, transformed, or built upon, provided changes are indicated.
  • Attribution Requirements: Proper credit must be given to the authors, along with a link to the license and the original work.
  • Non Commercial Use: All uses of the content are restricted to non-commercial purposes. Commercial use or monetization of the content is not permitted under this license.

Full license details are available at Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0

Policy on Special Issue (SI):

This policy will be considered as 'Policy on Special Issue for KU Studies – 2024', effective from January 2024. It has been approved at the editorial board meeting in November 2023. Under this policy, a special issue will be published on an emerging thematic topic or a collection of articles on innovative conferences within the journal's scope. The guest editor(s) of a special issue have to contact the editorial board through the executive editor well ahead of the conference to get approval (https://ku.ac.bd/journal/kustudies/about/submissions). The editorial board of the KU Studies will examine the proposal for the special issue and approve the proposal as well as instruct the guest editor(s) accordingly. The Editor-in-Chief might approve such a proposal subject to post-approval of the editorial board, if deemed necessary. The executive editor or any other editor of KU studies will oversee the guest editor(s). All the submitted full research papers have to go through an external peer review process like as regular issues and in accordance with DOAJ special issues guidelines (https://doaj.org/apply/guide/#special-issues). The incurred cost of the peer review process of a special issue will usually be beard by Khulna University subject to not exceeding 10 papers per special issue.