Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
This bye-law is a charter which specifies some ethical limits and responsibilities related to scientific research and its publication in the Scientific Journals. The purpose is to preclude authors' conscious or unconscious violation of research and publication principles.
1- Introduction
Authors, reviewers, the editorial board, and the editor in-chief are obliged to know and abide by all the principles of publication ethics and responsibilities. The submission of articles by authors, reviewing of articles by reviewers, and the decision of accepting or declining them by the editorial board as well as the editor in-chief are tantamount to knowing and following the rules.
In case of the breach of principles, the journal has the right to take legal actions against violators. "The Charter and Regulations of Research Ethics" enacted by the research and technology deputy of ministry of science, research and technology of Iran, should be taken as the guideline for authors, and all parties involved in review and publication of the articles.
2- Authors’ Responsibilities
3. Research and Publication Misconduct
If the occurrence of the following cases was confirmed at any stages of submission, review, revision, or publication of the article in the journal, it will be considered Research and Publication Misconduct and the journal has the right to act according to the law.
4. Reviewers
Reviewers assist the editor in-chief and the editorial board in reviewing the quality, content and scientific characteristics of the articles. Through the journal office, they assist in enriching the quality and the content of the articles.
5. Editor in-Chief and Editorial Board
The editor in-chief and the editorial board have the authority of accepting or declining an article after having the reviewers' decisions, and in this way:
The editor in-chief and the editorial board try to choose proper reviewers based on their specific field, their competence, scientific and professional experience, as well as ethical commitment. They are expected to respect the authors' reasonable and rational requests for not wishing special reviewers to review their article.
The editor in-chief welcomes profound and logical reviews, avoids shallow and weak judgments, and confronts biased, nonsense, or contemptuous judgments.
The decision on accepting or declining articles should be based on evaluating the reviewers' professional opinions and assessing their opinion accuracy. Moreover, scientific documentations and enough reasons should be provided and personal, stylistic, vocational, racial, religious, and decisions should be avoided.
The editor in-chief and the editorial board should keep all information in the article confidential and avoid revealing to or discussing its details with others.
Before the article gets published, the editor in-chief and the editorial board have no right to use its data or its new concepts for or against his own or other studies, or to criticize or discredit the author. After the article gets published, the reviewer will not be allowed to reveal more details than what the journal presents. The exceptions involve cases related to the authors' Research and Publication Misconduct if there is any acceptable reason to do so.
The editor in-chief and the editorial board have to avoid any conflict of interests in reviewing process with respect to any personal, business, academics, or financial relations which may potentially affect the acceptance and the publication of the submitted article.
The editor in-chief should carefully and seriously examine those articles suspected of breaching the publication and research ethics reported by reviewers and if needed, act to sue for “publication and research misconduct".
The editor in-chief should provide enough time to the authors accused of publication and research misconduct to respond.
The journal editor in-chief has to immediately remove the published articles proved to include publication and research misconduct and clearly inform the readers and the indexing data bases.
The editor in-chief and the editorial board are expected to welcome reasonable and acceptable criticisms of the published articles.
6. Office of Scientific Journals
Isfahan University of Technology Office of Scientific Journals is responsible for editing and formatting the accepted articles and finally getting the electronic and printed versions published. Along with its general responsibilities, this office considers the following cases:
Determining and clearly announcing its publication policies especially about the independence of editorial board's decisions, publication ethics, intellectual property and copyright, interests (or conflict of interests) of the authors, reviewers, editor in-chief, and editorial board, the process of reviewing and decision-making, reconsideration and complaints requests, safeguarding the scientific documents of the decision-making process, revising or removing the accepted articles, and settling the conflicts between the complainant and the person suspected of Publication and Research Misconduct
Protecting the authors' personal information, content, and details of the articles in the review process and after making decisions about the articles, except what will be published in the journal after acceptance. The exceptions involve cases related to the authors' Research and Publication Misconduct if there is any acceptable reason to do so.
Protecting the editor in-chief and the editorial board's independence
Attempting to give necessary training to the authors of the journal to improve the journal format and content as well as the proper consideration of publication and research ethics principles
Cooperating with the editor in-chief to keep the highest level of publication and research ethics in the journal and ensuring that the journal is without any format and content errors
Cooperating with the editor in-chief in investigating the reports on Publication and Research Misconduct and giving expert consultation to the complainants and the accused if needed
Considering the requests related to using the materials published in the journal in other publications with proper citation
7. Confronting the Publication and Research Misconduct
Upon observing “Publication and Research Misconduct” cases, the journal reserves its right to stop the review process before publication or removal of the article from the publication list. After careful examination by the editorial board, these cases will be revealed to the authors and at the same time will be subjected to further legal procedure.
References
1. "The Charter and Regulations of Research Ethics" enacted by the Research and Technology Deputy, Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, Iran.
2. Ethical Charter of Scientific Publications, 1st edition, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies.
3. Scientific Ethics Bye-law of the Physics Society of Iran.
4. Journal of Advanced Materials in Engineering Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement.
5. Ethical principles of article publication, Urban Landscape Research, Specialized Journal of Landscape Architectures and Urban Design.
6. Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE Code of Conduct, www.publicationethics.org.
7. Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, www.publicationethics.org.
8. S. Rockwell, Ethics of Peer Review: A Guide for Manuscript Reviewers, http://www.wame.org/ethical_issues_in_peer_review.pdf/view.
9. Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, www.publicationethics.org.
10. Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers, www.publicationethics.org.
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