Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas. It is important to avoid data fabrication and falsification, plagiarism, multiple submissions, redundant publications, and improper author contribution or attribution. Many journals have tools and processes in place to identify researchers that engage in unethical behaviour. This journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and complies with the highest ethical standards in accordance with ethical laws. Readers, authors, reviewers and editors should follow these ethical policies when working with a journal.

For information on this matter in publishing and ethical guidelines, please visit http://publicationethics.org.

 

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Publisher responsibilities

• Publishers should ensure that editorial decisions on manuscript submissions are final, are only made based on professional judgment, and will not be affected by any commercial interests.
• The publisher should monitor the ethics of the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Editorial Board Members, Reviewers, Authors, and Readers.
• The publisher is always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, and retractions involving its publications as and when needed.

 

Editorial responsibilities

(https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_1.pdf)

• The editorial team should have the full authority to reject/accept a manuscript.
• The editorial team should maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts under review or until publication.
• The editorial team should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
• The editorial team should disclose and try to avoid any conflict of interest.
• The editorial team should be willing to investigate plagiarism and fraudulent data issues and publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.
• The editorial team must maintain the confidentiality of the content of the submitted articles until their publication.
• The editor makes the final decision on whether or not to accept articles based on the opinions of the judges and editorial board members.
• The editorial team should not disclose the information and content of the articles to anyone other than the lead author, the reviewers and, if necessary, other editorial staff.

reviewers’ responsibilities  

(https://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Peer%20review%20guidelines.pdf)

• Confidentiality of article information must be observed in all areas. The article review process is to be done anonymously.
• Reviewers should judge articles at the appropriate time and assist the editorial team in deciding whether or not to accept the article.
• The referees' suggestions regarding the published articles should be submitted in the form of judging forms and in the comment section for the author and editor.
• Reviewers should refrain from judging articles with conflicts of interest and report any such conflicts as soon as possible.
• Reviewers' judgments about the quality and content of articles should be based on professional and objective opinions.

 

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Authorship Criteria and Authors’ Responsibilities

(https://publicationethics.org/files/u7141/1999pdf13.pdf)

Authorship Criteria

 To ensure authorship for the submitted manuscripts, the contributors should meet the following three conditions:

• Conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data have been done by the author.
• Either drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content has been done by the author.
• The author has given final approval for the version to be published. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to be allowed to take public responsibility for suitable portions of the content.

Authors’ responsibilities

• Articles must observe the basic principles of writing and research and be written and arranged according to the journal's format.
• Before submitting an article to this journal, all authors should read the authors' guide and the terms and conditions.
• The corresponding author must confirm and submit the consent and knowledge of other co-authors of the article in this publication through the authors' commitment form.
• All authors whose names are mentioned in the article and the letter of commitment form must participate in writing and compiling the article.
• The article should mention the authors' appreciation and organizational affiliation and any conflicts of interest between authors or organizations.
• For the sustainability and development of the specialized review process, qualified authors are invited to participate in the review process of other articles in this journal.
• Authors should clearly report the sponsor of the research (if any).
• Authors have a duty to notify the editor as soon as possible if they find a mistake or correction in their published article so that the editor can correct or revoke the article.
• All authors should be aware that articles submitted to this journal are reviewed by similarity check software to prevent scientific misconduct.
• Authors should cite correctly and appropriately all the sources they have used, both directly and indirectly.
• During the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, the corresponding author is typically responsible for communicating with the journal and ensuring that all of the journal's administrative requirements, such as authorship details, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and conflict of interest statements, are properly completed. Throughout the submission and peer review process, the corresponding author should promptly respond to editorial queries and cooperate with any requests from the journal after publication.

Changes of Authorship

• After an article has been accepted for publication in the JHAP, no additional authors or changes to the first or corresponding authors are allowed. If an author wishes to be removed from the byline, he or she must submit a letter signed by the author and all other authors indicating their wish to be removed from the list of authors. Any change in the authors' order in the byline requires a letter signed by all authors indicating their agreement.

 

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The Principles of Transparency

• Study design and ethical approval

Good research should be well-justified, well-planned, appropriately designed, and ethically approved. Conducting research to a lower standard may constitute misconduct. The authors are responsible for the scientific content and the accuracy of the bibliographic information.

 

• Data analysis

Data should be appropriately analyzed, but inappropriate analysis does not necessarily amount to misconduct. Fabrication and falsification of data do constitute misconduct.

 

• Data Availability

Data availability statements should describe how readers can access the data supporting the conclusions of the study and clearly outline the reasons why unavailable data cannot be released. The data used to support the findings of the study should be available from the corresponding author upon request.

•  Human and animal studies

All manuscripts reporting the results of experimental investigations involving human subjects should include a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from each subject or subject’s guardian. All animal or human studies should be used after the experimental protocol is approved by a local ethics committee.

 

• Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of the author, reviewers, and editors. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial. “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and company support for staff.

 

• Peer-review

  • This journal uses single-blind peer review.
  • Authors have the right to communicate to the editor if they do not wish their manuscript to be reviewed by a particular reviewer because of potential conflicts of interest.
  • No article is rejected unless negative comments are received from at least two reviewers.
  • This process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, is clearly described on the journal’s Web site (Please See Peer review process).

 

• Archiving

• • The plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal's content is clearly indicated. This policy sets out the ways in which the authors of JHAP can archive copies of their work on their own web pages, corporate web pages, and various other subject repositories. 
  • JHAP is an open-access license. Articles can be made available immediately according to the terms of their specific Creative Commons license. If an author has published an article under an Open-Access license, JHAP will encourage the author to share the Version of the Record upon publication rather than the Accepted Manuscript.
  • Authors may also reuse the Abstract and Citation information (e.g. Title, Author name, Publication dates) of their article anywhere at any time, including social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs and Twitter, providing that, where possible, a link is included back to the article on the JHAP site. Preferably, the link should be, or include, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which can be found in the Citation information about the article online. The accepted version may be placed on: the author's personal website and/or the author's company/institutional repository or archive. Self-archiving of the submitted version is not subject to an embargo period.

JHAP is now formally archived at: 

• • National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI).
  • Doaj
  • ISC
  • Magiran

 

• Publishing schedule

JHAP publishes 4 issues per year. All the content from the beginning to the end will be available forever on the journal's exclusive website (https://jhap.du.ac.ir/browse?_action=issue)

 

• Privacy and Confidentiality

  • With the strictest consideration for the authors' confidentiality, all manuscripts must be reviewed.
  • While submitting manuscripts for review, authors entrust editors with the results of their creative and scientific labour, and their reputation and career may be on the line.
  • It may be a breach of the author's rights to disclose private information while the author's manuscript is being reviewed.
  • Editors must respect the reviewers' right to confidentially.
  • Confidentiality may need to be broken if there is a suspicion of fraud or dishonesty, but it must be upheld otherwise.
  • Editors are not permitted to reveal information regarding manuscripts (including their reception, content, status during the reviewing process, reviewer critique, or eventual outcome) to anybody but the authors and reviewers.
  • Before the article is published, reviewers and editorial staff must respect the authors' rights by refraining from publicly criticizing or appropriating their work.
  • Reviewers should only be permitted to share the manuscript with others if the editor gives them permission. They should not be permitted to make copies of the document for their personal files. 
  • Copies of manuscripts that have been rejected shouldn't be kept by editors. 
  • Reviewer comments should not be published or otherwise made public without the author, editor, and reviewer's consent.

 

• Ownership and management

• • Publisher and Owner:  Damghan University

 

• Revenue Sources/Advertising/Direct Marketing

JHAP is financially supported by Damghan University and has no other sources for earning funds. 

 

• Copyright and Licensing Statement

This journal provides immediate access to its content. All articles are published under the  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits use, sharing, adaption, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as the original author(s) and source are properly credited. The author does not retain unrestricted copyrights and publishing rights in this journal. 

 

• Advertising

The policy of the journal is not to have advertising.

 

• Corrections and retractions

To maintain the integrity of academic records, journals may have to publish corrections or retract papers published in journals. According to agreed academic community norms, corrections of published articles are made by publishing an Erratum or Retraction article without altering the original article in any other way than by adding a prominent connection to the Erratum / Retraction article. The original article remains in the public domain and should be commonly indexed to the subsequent Erratum or Retraction. We may have to delete the material from our website and archive sites in the event the material is considered to infringe those rights or is defamatory. It may be necessary for the original author(s) to make minor corrections to published articles by commenting on the published article. It will only be acceptable if the modifications do not affect the article's results or conclusions.

• • Corrections: Changes to published articles that affect the article's meaning and conclusion but do not invalidate the article in its entirety may be corrected, at the discretion of the editor(s), by publishing an Erratum indexed and linked to the original article. Changes in authorship of published articles are corrected through an Erratum.

• • Retractions: On rare occasions, if the scientific information in an article is significantly compromised, it may be appropriate to retract published articles. In these cases, the Journal must comply with the COPE retraction guidelines. Retracted papers are indexed, and the original article is referred to.

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Policy and Procedures for Dealing With and Reporting Possible Misconduct in Science

The editor-in-chief takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers containing research misconduct, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication.

• The journal editor's first action is to inform the Editorial Office of JHAP by supplying copies of the relevant material and a draft letter to the corresponding author asking for a nonjudgmental explanation.
• If the author’s explanation is unacceptable and it seems that serious unethical conduct has taken place, the matter is referred to the Publication Committee via the Editorial Office.  After deliberation, the Committee will decide whether the case is sufficiently serious to warrant a ban on future submissions. 
• If the infraction is less severe, the Editor, upon the advice of the Publication Committee, sends the author a letter of reprimand and reminds the author of JHAP publication policies; if the manuscript has been published, the Editor may request the author to publish an apology in the journal to correct the record.
• Notification will be sent to the corresponding author, and any work by the author responsible for the violation or any work these persons coauthored that is under review by JHAP journal will be rejected immediately.
• The authors are prohibited from serving on the JHAP editorial board and as reviewers for this Journal.
• JHAP reserves the right to take more action.
• In serious cases of fraud that result in the retraction of the article, a retraction notice will be published in the journal and will be linked to the article in the online version. The online version will also be marked “retracted” with the retraction date.

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Complaint and Appeal Policy and Procedure

We support legitimate editor judgment challenges. However, you must provide strong backing or new data/information to answer the editors' and reviewers' concerns. Editors seldom reverse their initial decisions and don't count on many appeals. Hence, if your paper is rejected, you are strongly advised to submit it to another publication. Since they are based on the unbiased views of the reviewers, the Editorial Board's final decisions are often irrevocable and cannot be modified. But, if you disagree with the publication's decision and think you have a valid reason to appeal, follow these steps:

• Describe your valid concerns and the reasons you disagree with the decision.
• Any additional material or data that you would like considered throughout the review process should be provided to the journal's editors.
• If you think the reviewers misjudged your manuscript, explain why and provide the necessary supporting evidence.
• If you believe there was a conflict of interest throughout the arbitration process, provide evidence.
• The editors only take into account one appeal for each article. After receiving the appeal, the editors may speak with the referees and editors who read the piece.
• The editors' and editorial board's decisions on appeals are final, and they may involve rejecting the article, seeking more peer review, or requiring submission of a revised version of the manuscript.

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Investigating Possible Misconduct

• Plagiarism

  • Plagiarism is intentionally using someone else’s ideas or other original material as one's own. Copying even one sentence from someone else’s manuscript, or even one of your own that has previously been published, without proper citation is considered plagiarism by JHAP Journal. All manuscripts under review or published with JHAP are subject to screening using plagiarism prevention software (iThenticate ).
  • Thus, plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics. The authors are expected to check their manuscripts for plagiarism before submission.
  • If plagiarism is detected during peer review, the submission can be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we reserve the right, as necessary, to issue a correction or retract the article. We reserve the right to notify the institutions of authors about the plagiarism that was found before or after publication.

• Data Fabrication and Falsification

Data fabrication and falsification means the researcher did not really carry out the study but made up data or results and recorded or reported the fabricated information. Data falsification means the researcher did the experiment but manipulated, changed, or omitted data or results from the research findings.

 

• Duplicate Publication

Duplicate publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross referencing, share essentially the same hypotheses, data, discussion points, and conclusions. 

 

• Citation Manipulation

Excessive citations in a submitted manuscript that did not contribute to the scholarly content of the article and were included solely to increase citations to a given author's work or articles published in a particular journal are referred to as citation manipulation. This is a form of scientific misconduct since it misrepresents the importance of the specific work and publication in which it appears.

 

• Simultaneous Submission:

Simultaneous submission occurs when a manuscript (or substantial sections from a manuscript) is submitted to a journal while another journal is already considering it.

 

• Redundant Publications:

Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles, often in response to the desire to fill a curriculum vitae.

 

• Improper Author Contribution or Attribution: 

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. Don’t forget to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.

 

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COPE’s Guidelines & Flowcharts  

JHAP is committed to following and applying guidelines and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in its reviewing and publishing process and issues. For more information on COPE’s Guidelines & Flowcharts, please see: (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts-new/translations). 

 

COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practices for Editors

(https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf),

(https://publicationethics.org/files/2008%20Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf)

Everything published in the journal is the responsibility of the editor-in-chief. This means that the editors must:

• Strive to meet the needs of readers and authors;
• Strive to improve their journal constantly;
• Have processes in place to ensure the quality of the material they publish;
• Champion freedom of expression;
• Maintain the integrity of the academic record;
• Preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
• Always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

Best Practices for Editors would include:

• Actively seek the views of authors, readers, reviewers, and editorial board members about ways of improving their journal’s processes.
• Encouraging and being aware of research into peer review and publishing and reassessing their journal’s processes in the light of new findings.
• Supporting initiatives designed to reduce research and publication misconduct.
• Supporting initiatives to educate researchers about publication ethics.
• Assessing the effects of their journal policies on author and reviewer behaviour and revising policies, as required, to encourage responsible behaviour and discourage misconduct.
• Ensuring that all published reports and reviews of research, including statistical reviews, have been reviewed by suitably qualified reviewers
• Ensure that appropriate reviewers are selected for submissions (i.e., individuals who can judge the work and are free from disqualifying competing interests).
• Following the COPE flowchart in cases of suspected reviewer misconduct.