"This publication respects the rules of ethics in publications and is subject to the rules of the Ethics Committee for Publication (COPE) and follows the executive regulations of the Law on Prevention and Combating Fraud in Scientific Works."
The ethical principles of the journal
The publisher makes sure that the editor and the editorial board's decisions about all the articles are final and that all these decisions have been made professionally and have not been impacted by any sort of commercial interests. The publisher makes sure that all those involved with the journal including the editor, authors, editorial board, reviewers and readers constantly observe the ethical principles.
The ethical principles of the editor and the editorial board
- Making decisions about papers: The editor is in charge of making decisions about the acceptance or rejection of a paper. The editor in collaboration with the editorial board and reviewers and considering copyright issues and plagiarism decides whether to accept a paper or not. The editor should constantly provide strategies to improve the quality of papers.
- Observing fairness: The editor should observe fairness in publication; editors actually judge papers based on their scientific content and therefore should abstain from any form of bias (including nationality, gender, religion, etc.) toward the authors.
- Double-blind reviewing: Based on the journal's double-blind policy, reviewers and authors shall be kept anonymous. Based on such policy, authors do not know about the reviewer and vice versa. Authors should respect the confidentiality of the reviewing process and do not reveal their identity to the editor and if the reviewer happen to know the identity of the author, he/she should inform the editor in order to avoid any kind of bias.
- Observing confidentiality: Part of the submitted paper which has not been published should not be used by the editor and the editorial board in their own works. Confidential ideas or information which has been gained through paper examination shall be kept confidential and not used for personal interests. The editor and the editorial board should not reveal the paper's information during the reviewing process to any individuals other than the reviewer, author and the literary editor.
- Conflict of interests: Editors should abstain from any actions that increase conflict of interests. For example, in order to avoid potential conflict of interest, the editor should publish contents that are clearly identifiable or not reviewed or reviewed in a single-blind format. In case the scientific work belongs to the editor himself, he should refer it to other qualified people.
- Monitoring the review process: Monitoring the timely reviewing of papers and replacing reviewers in case it is necessary.
The ethical principles of reviewers
- Not accepting a paper in case of no expertise: If the reviewer feels that the paper does not match his/her expertise he should return the paper to the editor immediately.
- Avoiding biased reviewing: The reviewer should avoid biased reviewing of the paper; while the reviewer respects the author's ideas, he/she should evaluate the quality of the paper without any bias.
- Conflict of interests: The reviewer should abstain from reviewing a paper that has conflict of interests and should report any conflict of interests immediately.
- Confidentiality: The reviewer should see the paper that has been received for reviewing as a confidential document. The reviewer should not provide the received paper to others or talks about it with other individuals unless he/she wants to benefit from other people's comments in reviewing the paper. The reviewer is not allowed to use other people's information that has been included in the submitted paper to the journal in their personal works without having the original author's permission.
- Timely review of the paper: The reviewer should be quick in his/her review process. In case the reviewer cannot make it on time (within the one month deadline), he/she should inform the editor either to select a new reviewer or to extend his/her time.
The ethical principles of authors
- Authenticity: When an author submits a paper, he/she should make sure that the work is new and authentic. The author cannot submit a paper where part or all of it has been submitted to other journals.
- Contribution: The corresponding author is the person in charge of the overall content of the paper and he/she is the one who has had the main responsibility for preparing, designing and writing the paper and other authors who have had important contributions in preparing the research plan, conducting the research and interpreting it are considered as co-authors.
- Authors of the paper: The corresponding author should carefully check the names and information of all the authors and makes sure that no other names are included other than the authors' names. Authors are obliged to report their findings completely and observe accuracy in their interpretations. The paper should include sufficient details and references in a way that other researchers could benefit from it in case it is needed.
- Plagiarism: The journal actively evaluates" Plagiarism". If plagiarism is identified by a member of the editorial board, reviewer, editor, etc. during any phases of paper submission, the journal would take the following actions based on the extent of plagiarism and COPE`s plagiarism guideline:
- A letter will be sent to authors to provide an unbiased explanation. In case the explanations are not acceptable and unethical behavior is proved, the case will be followed through the Publication Committee. If violations are limited, a warning will be sent to authors and if the paper has been published, the editor asks the author(s) to correct the parts detected with plagiarism and write an apology letter to be published in the journal. In the case of serious manipulation which leads to the retraction of the paper, the retraction notice will be published and it will be linked to the online copy of the paper.
- The names of all the authors will be included in the journal's blacklist.
- The plagiarism case will be shared with the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, ISC and other universities and domestic/international journals through official correspondence.
Different types of plagiarism:
- Using other people's work and adding it to the paper without making proper references. Not using " " when making direct quotations.
- Re-writing a text without making proper references.
- Presenting false results or tampering with the research findings.
- Using invalid data or manipulating the data.
- Using other people's words or ideas immensely (In other words, over-use of other people's resources is considered plagiarism even if their references are provided).
- Frequent publication of the paper in multiple journals.
- Including names of people who have had no role in the paper.
All the articles of the journal are controlled for plagiarism by "Samim software".
- Re-submitting a rejected paper: Authors should not re-submit a paper that had once been submitted, reviewed and rejected by the journal. If the first draft was not accepted and the author is interested to send the corrected version, then the reason for re-sending the paper shall be specified. Re-submission of the paper is only allowed under particular circumstances.
- Acknowledgement: All the names that are mentioned on the paper as "authors" should have had important contributions in all parts of the paper. If an author is involved with only one part of the paper, his/her name can come under the acknowledgement section as an assistant. Authors should point out the people or institutions that have helped the formation of the study in this section. The financial sponsor of the research should also be acknowledged.
- Conflict of interests: Authors are responsible to point out any conflict of interests between authors and organizations.
- Paper revision: If an author notices a mistake or an inaccuracy in his/her work, he/she should immediately notify the editor. Authors should take immediate action in their review and correction process. In case the author is not able to fulfill this procedure during the determined time-line (max 2 weeks), then he/she should notify the journal to either provide him/her with extra time or that he/she is willing to withdraw from the process.
- The revision process: The reviewing process is two sided. It is necessary that authors be responsible for all the used data and they should present the details of the data in case requested.