Ethical Policies of the Journal

The ethical policies of this journal are based on the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Ethical Charter of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology. All journals are required to adhere to the ethical standards set forth by COPE and the respective faculty policies. Authors, reviewers, academic editors, and the editor-in-chief must observe these ethical principles while collaborating with this journal.

Responsibilities of Publishers, Editors, Academic Editors, Reviewers, and Authors

Publisher's Responsibilities:

• The journal commits to making decisions regarding submitted articles based solely on professional and expert judgment, free from personal interests.
• The journal is dedicated to preserving the integrity of academic and research records.
• It ensures that the ethical standards are upheld by the editor-in-chief, academic editors, editorial board, and reviewers.
• The journal regularly assesses manuscripts for plagiarism, fraud, and potential misconduct.
• The journal takes appropriate action if misconduct is proven.

Editor-in-Chief and Academic Editors’ Responsibilities:

• Academic editors must keep submitted articles confidential until publication.
• The editor-in-chief, academic editors, and reviewers make the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles.
• Academic editors must maintain the anonymity of reviewers.
• They are responsible for avoiding conflicts of interest.
• Editors are required to uphold academic integrity and address the scientific needs of their readership.
• They must detect plagiarism, fraud, and possible misconduct and issue corrections, retractions, and apologies when necessary.
• Editors should focus only on the intellectual content of the articles.
• Information from the articles should not be disclosed to anyone other than the authors, corresponding author, or reviewers.
• Unpublished articles must not be used for personal purposes by editors or any other members.

Reviewers' Responsibilities:

• Reviewers must collaborate with academic editors in decision-making regarding the publication of submitted articles.
• Invited reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of the submitted articles.
• Reviewers are required to provide their opinions to academic editors in a timely manner regarding the acceptance or rejection of an article.
• Peer reviewers must not use information from the submitted articles for personal purposes.
• Their feedback should be technical and professional.
• Reviewers should not review articles if they have a conflict of interest with any of the authors, companies, or institutions.
• Conflicts of interest must be disclosed by the reviewers.

Authors' Responsibilities:

• Articles must not have been published elsewhere or be under review by another journal.
• The corresponding author must ensure the consent of all co-authors.
• Authors are responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions from the institutions related to the submitted article.
• Authors must grant permission for editorial changes to enhance readability.
• In open-access journals, authors retain ownership of their articles while allowing the public to download, print, and distribute them.
• All authors must agree on who will take responsibility for the article’s revision process post-submission.
• If an author identifies a significant error in their work, they must promptly inform the journal’s academic editor to correct it.
• Since plagiarism is a serious offense, authors must understand that submitted articles may be reviewed by plagiarism detection software.
• Authors should familiarize themselves with the submission process of the journal.

Examples of Ethical Violations by Authors:

• Plagiarism: The deliberate use of another person’s articles or ideas as one’s own. Even using another person's sentence without citation constitutes plagiarism. All submitted articles are reviewed using plagiarism detection software.
• Data Fabrication and Falsification: Data fabrication occurs when a researcher has not conducted the study but provides data and conclusions. Falsification involves changing data and results from a conducted study.
• Simultaneous Submission: This occurs when an article is submitted to two journals simultaneously.
• Duplicate Submission: This happens when two or more articles share the same hypotheses, data, and results.
• Multiple Submissions: This refers to dividing one study into multiple articles and submitting them separately.
• Incorrect Authorship: All authors listed in an article must have contributed to the work.
• Reference Manipulation: Occurs when multiple references are included in the bibliography but are not cited in the article’s content.