Deanship of Research and Graduates Studies

https://www.asu.edu.bh/research/strategic-plan/

Vision

Towards a Deanship that hosts distinguished research and innovated graduate programs that promote the university locally, regionally and globally.

Mission

Creating of an academic environment that supports distinguished research and graduate programs that accomplish the goals of the university and community at large.

Guiding Principles

To realize our vision and mission, ASU is committed to adopt guiding principles that leverage its classification among other universities locally and regionally.

These principles are:

Multidisciplinary, collaborative research that transfers knowledge and graduate studies at the heart of our investments, while continuing to sustain support for nichebased research.

• Contributing to the achievement of national plans and priorities and comprehensive sustainable development of the Kingdom, and implementation of the national strategy for scientific research.
• Enriching the quantitative and qualitative science and knowledge in various fields.
• Continuing to encourage and emphasis the international dimensions of research and knowledge transfer.
• Considering ethical policies and procedures for obtaining all necessary approvals before proceeding and conducting any research.
• Promoting the partnership between teaching and research.
• Engage key stakeholders, community and end users in identifying university research priorities to maximize its impact.
• Providing a strong and effective strategic framework for research, transfer of knowledge and postgraduate studies.

Deanship Tasks

The Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies is administratively linked to the President of the University and is responsible for the following tasks:

• To propose periodic scientific research plans, in line with the scientific research strategy of the institution, in coordination with the academic departments and to prepare the necessary budget for them, in preparation for submission to the Board of Trustees of the University for discussion and approval.
• Develop and implement the research funding mechanism in the institution.
• Issuing decisions and identifying the procedures governing the research activity in the institution.
• Approve research and studies projects, follow up their implementation, publish and spend on them.
• Cooperation with local, regional and international scientific research centers.
• Coordination, supervision and follow-up on research funded from other sectors outside the university.
• Follow up the establishment and updating of the scientific publication database and the research production of the university. Issuing the scientific journals of the university.
• Preparation of the annual report of the scientific research of the university, the mechanism and items of annual budget disbursement.
• Follow up any other matters related to scientific research.

The Journal of Applied Science University

https://www.naturalspublishing.com/show.asp?JorID=67&pgid=388

Applied Science University Journal is dedicated to rapid publication of the highest quality short papers, regular papers, and expository papers. Applied Science University Journal considers only original and timely contributions containing new results in various fields of Business Administration, Engineering Applications and Law and Information Sciences.

Aim and Scope

The ASU Journal publishes papers covering all aspects of Applied Sciences and in particular core disciplines of the University. All articles (full length & short papers) should include a validation of the idea presented, e.g. through case studies, experiments, or systematic comparisons with other approaches already in practice.

ASU Journal is established such that:

 Submitted articles should not have been previously published or be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.

 Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written (taken to mean more than 50%) and the author has cleared any necessary permissions with the copyright owner, if it has been previously copyrighted.

 All papers are refereed through a double-blind process. The journal welcomes state-of-the-art surveys and reports of practical experiences on topics of interest.

Publication Ethics Policy

Natural Sciences Publishing (NSP) follows clear ethical standards for publication to ensure high quality scientific work and to enhance public trust in their findings. Thus, NSP applies this policy to all its owned journals in adherence to the Best Practice Guidelines outlined in the COPE Core Practices. This policy should be read with our guidelines for authors and reviewers.

NSP goes through a robust process to detect and prevent misconduct practices. Well-known and specialized experts are selected to run this process, which at end leads to reliable and accurate manuscripts with informative findings and valuable applications. NSP is highly strict in handling violation of theses professional guidelines (see section 3). All submitted manuscripts must be original and not in a process of consideration elsewhere (for example in other journals or conference proceedings).

1. Editorial Standards and Processes

Each NSP journal adopts well defined standards of authorship disclosed in the section of “For Authors”. Authors and co-authors are required to meet theses standard and confirm that all who met these standards are still listed under the list of authors.

1.1.  Authorship: Published work must be attributed to one or more authors who are complied with authorship standards. A description of each author contribution should be summarized in a statement titled “Authors Contributions

1.2.    Authorship Problems: To handle authorship problems; editors refer to COPE “Advice on how to spot authorship problems[3] ”

1.3.      Fund and Support: Authors are requested to disclose any received fund or support from individual or organization in the “Acknowledgment” section.

2. Peer-review Process

To ensure robust, objective, confidential, transparent and free of conflicts of interest peer-review process, NSP adopts the international policies of peer-review process (i.e. single-blind or double-blind, reviewers selection, conflict of interest, response time).

2.1.  Reviewers Selection: Authors have to provide the list of the potential reviewers in their cover letter and the uploading system. NSP has the right to adopt the same list of provided reviewers or switch to another.

2.2.  Peer-review Conflict of Interest: Any conflict of interest should be reported directly to the editors as soon as receiving the invitation to review manuscripts.

2.3.  Confidentiality during Manuscript Handling: To ensure utmost confidentiality; NSP’s editors don’t share Manuscripts with any third party except the peer reviewers.

2.4.  Manuscript Handling Time: Strictly rules are adopted by NSP’s editors to ensure timely process and update authors of any possible delays.

3. Publication Ethics

Research integrity is at the top of NSP’s priorities; so they make every effort to identify, detect and prevent any breach of the ethical code.

3.1.  Misconduct: NSP’s editors make every effort to identify, detect and prevent any practices of data fabrication, authorship abuse, falsification, image manipulation, unethical research, plagiarism, biased reporting, duplicate publication, and undeclared conflicts of interest.

3.2.  Fabrication, Falsification and Image Manipulation: All NSP journals make every effort to identify, detect and prevent data fabrication, falsification and image manipulation by implementing advances image processing system. Except for some cases where it is necessary to manipulate image, and in this case adores have to explain where manipulation has been done.

3.3.  Plagiarism: NSP’s editors make every effort to ensure that manuscripts are original material and prevent any practices of plagiarism and duplicate of publication. If such practices detected, authors are informed to handle them.

3.4.  Duplicate Submission: To make sure that all manuscripts are not being published elsewhere, NSP’s journals make every effort to identify, detect and prevent concurrent or duplicate submission. If such practices detected, NSP applies strict actions and sanctions against these authors i.e papers are withdrawn from the website.

3.5.  Sanctions: If any violations of the publication ethics or professional codes are detected, then strict action is taken, according to NSPs procedures for dealing with unethical behaviour as follows:

▪ A warning letter to the author covering the misconduct.

▪ Immediate rejection of the submitted manuscript.

▪ Probation period is applied to all responsible authors regarding any further submission to NSP journals.

▪ Probation period is applied to all responsible authors regarding serving as referees/reviewers for NSP journals.

▪ Publication of a formal notice detailing the misconduct.

▪ A professional letter to the chairman of the authors or reviewers department or funding agency.

▪ Formal retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the journal.

▪ Reporting the case and outcome to a professional organization or higher authority for further investigation and action.

▪  Further sanctions may be imposed, if violations of the above policies are found to be serious.

3.6.  Editors and Board Members as Authors: NSP’s journals adopt well defined procedures and police to exclude editors from publication decisions when they are authors.

3.7.  Conflicts of Interest: To ensure objectivity in the review procedure, editors and peer reviewers are requested to disclose that there is no any conflict of interest.

3.8.  Libel and Defamation: NSP’s editors make every effort to identify, detect and prevent any certain language or expression either in the manuscripts or peer reviewer reports that would lead to legal action for defamation and negligent misstatement.

3.9.  Editorial Independence and Commercial Issues: To ensure a formal relationship between the editors and the publisher (NSP), each NSP’s journal adopted polices and established mechanism to avoid biased decisions that financially influenced by authors.

3.10. Academic Debate: Comments or constructive criticism of any published work are allowed by all NSP’s journals. If such practice occurred, authors are informed to respond before the comments are published.

3.11. Appeals: To appeal against editorial decisions, authors refer to the international based mechanism that is adopted by NSP.

3.12. Corrections: NSP welcomes authors or readers to notify the journal editorial office if any errors discovered in the published work. If such occurred, editors and authors are notified to correct theses errors, then an erratum will be published in an issue in the same journal.

4. Research Ethics in Journal Articles

4.1.  Human Rights, Privacy and Confidentiality: Outcomes of clinical trials studies must be officially registered with public health authority in the country. Otherwise, authors are requested to a letter of explanation.

4.2.  Cultures and Heritage: NSP’s editors make every effort to identify, detect and prevent publishing any images or texts that related to religious or historical events that could be offensive to some social groups.

4.3.    Reporting Guidelines: NSP’s editors and peer reviewers make every effort to ensure that the necessary information is available in the submitted manuscripts for the purpose of evaluation by readers.

5. Copyright and Access

5.1.  Copyright and Licensing Information: Copyright and licensing are clearly described on the NSP journal’s web site (in the guidelines for authors). By submitting a manuscript for publication to the journal, authors acknowledge that the work is original and is not being submitted to another journal. The submission of a manuscript by the authors implies that the authors automatically agree to assign exclusive copyright to NSP if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication.

5.2.  Archiving: NSP is a member of CrossRef which gives NSPs journals the ability to create and deposit digital object identifiers (DOIs) for the content we produce. We allocate DOIs to our publications by depositing bibliographic metadata for each article with CrossRef while citing metadata that includes the current location of the journal on the web site.

5.3.  Author Self-Archiving Policy: Authors may upload their accepted manuscript PDF to institutional and/or centrally organized repositories, but must stipulate that public availability be delayed until 6 months after the first online publication in the journal have elapsed.

5.4.  Ownership and management: NSP clearly provide information about the ownership and/or management of all its journals on the journal’s web site.

5.5.  The website: NSP journals’ web sites have been created and maintained to ensure high ethical and professional standards are applied.

5.6.  Publishing schedule: NSP clearly indicates in the first page of each journals website the publication frequency, i.e. the periodicity at which the issues of the journal are published.

5.7.  Name of the journal: NSP selects very carefully each journals name, which must be unique and reflective of the broad scope of the journal. A given journals name is selected to avoid confusion with other journal(s) while not misleading potential authors and readers about the journal’s origin or organization with other journals.

ASU Research Policy

https://www.asu.edu.bh/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ASU-Research-Policy.pdf

Scientific research is one of the most significant sectors that contributes to the development and progress of countries and societies. Therefore, Applied Science University, in the Kingdom of Bahrain, realized the prominence of research and its influence in the development and advancement of society.

ASU Research Policy aims to organise the process of supporting research in all of its forms through the development and adoption of specific procedures and mechanisms consistent with the regulations and bylaws of research at the University.

Scope

This Policy applies to:

• All faculty members who may conduct any research activity at the University.
• All University students (undergraduate and postgraduate students) who conduct any research activity at the University.
• Employees involved in administrative procedures for any research activity.

Article 3: Research Submitted by Organisations Outside the University

1. Contractual research projects may be received from the external bodies as well as research projects proposed by the University through the Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies.
2. Research projects shall be referred to the Research, Innovation and Research Ethics Committee for consideration, approval and referral them to specific College(s) related to the received project.
3. A research team shall be formed in the concerned College to study the research project and indicate the feasibility of conducting it, determine its requirements and evaluate the budget allocated from the external body or from the University. If the research project is rejected, a notification will be sent to external body or to the University in this regard.
4. The study shall be referred to the Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies through the College for the approval and arrangement of contractual matters.
5. A contract is signed between the Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies and the external body in case the research project is proposed by a third party or between the research team and the Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies if the research project is proposed by the University.
6. Initiate the implementation of the research project according to the proposed contract.

Article 4: Research and Development Database

1. The Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies, in cooperation with the Library Management, creates a database of the research outcomes in the University in terms of the numbers and titles of published articles in the refereed journals and conferences, published books, number of researchers holding PhD and MSc in the University and registered patents.
2. The Deanship links the University’s research and development database with the Higher Education database of Bahraini universities and updates it annually.
3. The University creates a comprehensive electronic library that will include an electronic tracer for all the periodicals, manuscripts, historical documents and databases at the University.

Article 5: Participation in Conferences, Workshops or Seminars

a.The University shall, fully or partially, fund the expenses of the faculty members’ participation in conferences, workshops or symposium unless otherwise funded by the organiser.

This funding includes any of the following items:

• Conference or seminar fees.
• Tickets.
• Accommodation fees.
• Daily Allowances.

b.If the faculty member participates in a conference, workshop or symposium within the Kingdom of Bahrain, the University shall contribute only to the registration fees.

c.The following conditions must be taken into consideration when applying for funding for participation in conferences, workshops or symposium:

1. The conference, workshop or symposium must be organised by universities, institutes or other academic and research institutions.
2. The participant submits a research article to the conference, workshop or symposium that is relevant to the conference topics and the faculty member specialisation.
3. The participant must provide an acceptance letter of the abstract or the article in the conference or symposium.
4. The faculty member affiliation should include the name of Applied Science University /Kingdom of Bahrain in the accepted article.
5. The participant should have published two articles in refereed ad peerreviewed journals after his last conference participation.
6. The participant undertakes to submit a report about his/her participation to the Head of the Department to which he/she belongs, showing what benefits gained and any suggestions or recommendations he/she considers University benefit.
7. The conference, workshop or seminar must be specialised and reputable in terms of the organising body and the topics, and that related to the philosophy and objectives of the University.

Research Ethics Policy

https://www.asu.edu.bh/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Research-Ethics-Policy.pdf

This policy aims to establish and disseminate key principles and procedures of good ethical practice in research at the University. The objective of this policy is to prevent any possible occurrence of research misconduct by academic staff or students. In particular, Human Subject Research usually raises ethical issues and hence, the University must ensure that ethical practices are followed and ethical principles are explicitly applied.

Guiding Principles

 This policy is guided by the following principles regarding conducting research by students and staff:

1. Honesty: Honesty needs to be assured in all scientific communications without any fabrication, falsifications or misprinted data. This should be assured in reports, data, results, methods and procedures, and publication status.
2. Integrity: Consistency of thought and action throughout the research must be assured.
3. Objectivity: bias must be avoided in all aspects of research: research, experimental design, data analysis and interpretation, review, etc,.
4. Accuracy: Care must be taken to avoid errors and negligence. Good records of research activities, such as data collection, research design, and correspondence with agencies or journals need to be assured and maintained.
5. Openness: Be open to criticism and new ideas by sharing your data, results, ideas, tools, resources with peers to allow outcomes and contribution revision.
6. Research freedom: The researcher has the right to freely select research topics along with the right to use relevant methodology,
7. Respect for Intellectual Property: Do not use unpublished data, methods, or results without permission and proper acknowledgement and do not plagiarize.
8. Confidentiality: Confidential communications, such as personnel records, trade or military secrets, and patient records should not be shown to the public.
9. Mentoring: Help to educate and advise students. Promote their welfare and allow them to make their own decisions.
10. Respect for Colleagues and Social Responsibility: Respect your colleagues and treat them fairly.
11. Competence: Promote competence in science to improve your own professional expertise through lifelong education and learning.
12. Legality: Know and follow relevant laws related to institutional and governmental policies regarding scientific research.

Scope

This policy applies to research proposals prepared by either staff or students which include any of the following research works:

• Projects funded by the university or externally
• Articles published in conference proceedings or journals
• Master theses and projects
• Undergraduate student projects
• Books or chapter(es) in books

Responsibilities

• It is the responsibility of academic staff to read, understand and be familiar with this Policy.
• It is the responsibility of every academic staff to ensure compliance with the Policy.
• In the case of students, it is a joint responsibility of the student and his/her supervisors to follow and be aware of this Policy
• It is the responsibility of the Committee to ensure that all research works conducted by students and staff are free of plagiarism or any unethical misconduct.
• It is the responsibility of the University to ensure intellectual property (IP) rights of individuals and institutions as stated in the University Intellectual Property Bylaw.

Procedure for Obtaining Ethical Approval

• Before submitting the research work for funding or publication, the PI fills the Application Form for Research Proposal Ethical Approval which is issued by the Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies.

The PI must provide the following information accompanied with the application:

– Clear and sufficient information about the participants involved in the research

– Participant consent forms

– Clear and sufficient information about the type of the data to be collected and its sensitivity degree.

– Risk assessment of the proposed research work (risks to researchers themselves and to participants)

– The questionnaires, interview questions, and any information about the experiments to be conducted

– A data management plan: how data is accessed, collected and analyzed, how data will be protected, and archived

– The anticipated benefits for the participants in research and communities to which the research will be relevant

– Permissions from other organization(s) (if applicable)

• If the PI believes that his/her research does not needs an ethical approval, he/she still needs to fill the form.
• The PI submits the application along with the supporting documents to his/her College Scientific Committee through his/her Dean and Head of the Department • Upon approval by the College Scientific Committee, the College Dean transfers the application to the Dean of Research and Graduate Studies
• The Dean of Research and Graduate Studies transfers the application to the Committee for approval.
• If the information for ethical approval provided by the PI is not sufficient, or if further explanation is needed, the applicant will be informed by the Dean of Research and Graduate Studies to submit the necessary information.
• If the Committee is not convinced that the submitted research work meets the ethical requirements, it may decide to reject the proposal.

For ASU, the freedom of students and teachers to carry out research in the areas they consider to be of interest is essential as this increases their motivation and capacity to investigate. In this sense ASU added a new Article to give this choice to its researchers [4].

Criteria for Ethical Review

The following criteria are considered by the Committee when evaluating the applications for ethical approval:

• Capacity of the researcher(s): The PI and co-researcher(s) have the qualifications and experiences to conduct the proposed research.
• Recognition of efforts of individual researchers: The PI recognizes the efforts of the collaborators in the research and that their rights are not violated
• Confidentiality: The PI Ensures that there is no unauthorized use of confidential research results, and that there is no breach of academic values and scientific norms
• Culturally sensitive issues: The PI ensures that the research does not include any culturally sensitive issues that may harm the reputation of the University or the Kingdom of Bahrain.
• Permissions: The PI ensures that he has obtained (or will obtain) the required permissions or consents to conduct or to publish his research where applicable.
• Risk Management: The PI has identified the risks to researchers themselves and/or to participants and a plan to mitigate these risks
• Intellectual Property: The research work must respect the IP rights of individuals and/or organizations where necessary

Freedom to choose research areas

https://www.asu.edu.bh/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ASU-Research-Policy.pdf

• The student will have the free choice to venture into the research area that is most of their interest.
• The teacher will have the free choice to venture into the research area that is most of their interest.
• The student will carry out research in the fields they want but an investigation must be completed to continue with the next.
• The teacher will carry out research in the fields they want but an investigation must be completed to continue with the next.
• The student has the right to publicly teach the research he has carried out.
• The teacher has the right to publicly teach the research he has carried out.

Research Handbook: Principles and Structure

https://www.asu.edu.bh/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Resarch-Handbbook.pdf

In this handbook, we give an overview of the research activities in ASU and assist new and established investigators in the conduct of research. The importance of research can be seen at the national level through the establishment of a national research strategy launched by the Higher Education Council and through the regulation of funding bylaws to support Bahraini economic and resources development. We aim to retain and develop our existing high performing staff, enabling them to realize their full potential in undertaking world-class teaching and research to place the University in the top 10 universities in the GCC.

The importance of research of research at ASU makes the University to articulate research strategies and bylaws involving all stakeholders from students and staff to employers and establishes a Deanship for research and graduate studies. The linkage between research and postgraduate studies is because postgraduate research projects are main resources of applied research of our students and faculty. The other important factor in the ASU research strategy is the connection between research and teaching. Research based teaching is well practiced at ASU beginning with the research methodology course taught under the |supervision of the deanship with the colleges’ cooperation and further, academic staff enhance each course syllabus continuously to update the teaching material according to the latest research on the subject.

Essentials Research Ethics, Values and Practices

The following are the most important values related to ethical research that should be addressed for all research conducted at the University, page 23:

1. Honesty: Honesty needs to be assured in all scientific communications without any fabrication, falsifications or misprinted data. This should be assured in reports, data, results, methods and procedures, and publication status.
2. Integrity: Consistency of thought and action throughout the research must be assured.
3. Objectivity: In all aspects of research: research, experimental design, data analysis and interpretation, review, etc. bias must be avoided.
4. Accuracy: Care must be taken to avoid errors and negligence. Good records of research activities, such as data collection, research design, and correspondence with agencies or journals need to be assured and maintained.
5. Openness: Be open to criticism and new ideas by sharing your data, results, ideas, tools, resources with peers to allow outcomes and contribution revision.
6. Research freedom: The researcher has the right to freely select research topics along with the right to use relevant methodology
7. Respect for Intellectual Property: Do not use unpublished data, methods, or results without permission and proper acknowledgement and do not plagiarize.
8. Confidentiality: Confidential communications, such as personnel records, trade or military secrets, and patient records should not be shown to the public.
9. Mentoring: Help to educate and advise students. Promote their welfare and allow them to make their own decisions.
10. Respect for colleagues and Social Responsibility: Respect your colleagues and treat them fairly.
11. Competence: Promote competence in science to improve your own professional and expertise through lifelong education and learning.
12. Legality: Know and follow relevant laws related to institutional and governmental policies regarding scientific research.

Graduate Studies Handbook

https://www.asu.edu.bh/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Graduate-Studies-Handbook.pdf

The Deanship of Research and Graduate studies at the Applied Science University gladly presents the Graduate Studies Handbook as the basic reference for graduate students and their supervisors from both academic and administrative staff, as it includes the offered graduate studies programs (Masters) and their study plans. In addition, the Handbook includes bylaws, instructions and all of the necessary information that a graduate student may need to facilitate his/her studying process through clear and simplified comprehension of systems and regulations, so, we hope that all of you carefully read the guide, especially the students before taking any study-related steps, as it provides them with all of the necessary information about their studies directly without relying on anyone else. Therefore, this Handbook is the officially qualified source to provide guidance for students; in addition to this guide, other parties that students can get in touch with are:

The Program Leader

• The Head of the Academic Department.
• The Dean of the College you’re enrolled in.
• The Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies.
• The registrar of graduate studies at the Deanship of Admissions and Registration.

The Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies will post this guide on the university’s website, and while the Deanship is honored to annually receive new cohorts of our dear students who are keen on gaining more knowledge from various higher studies programs, it also seeks to harness all of its academic and administrative capabilities to provide assistance for the students in order to facilitate all steps regarding admissions and registration, and also during the period of their enrollment in the university’s graduate studies programs until their graduation.

Objectives of the Deanship of Scientific Research and Postgraduate Studies

The Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies seeks to achieve the following primary objectives:

1. Introducing graduate studies programs that meet the needs of labor market and the society.
2. Preparation of top-notch specialists in different scientific and practical fields.
3. Upgrading the level of master dissertations and widening the scientific research base.
4. Performing studies and research to solve local, regional, and international contemporary problems.
5. Improving the knowledge level of university first degree’s holders and training them on scientific research methods, therefore, enhancing their competitive capabilities to obtain suitable job opportunities.
6. Increasing awareness of the importance of graduate studies, continuous learning, and scientific research among university graduates.