The Ethical Guidelines

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and complies with the highest ethical standards in accordance with ethical laws and the COPE Core Practices.
 

a. Instructions for the Journal (Editorial Team)

1. Adherence to Ethical Guidelines: All managers, including the director, editor-in-chief, editorial board members, internal director, and editors, must adhere to these ethical guidelines in practice.
2. Protecting Intellectual Property: The publication must protect copyright laws and other literary works, respecting the rights of individuals and entities at the time of publication.
3. Fair Decision-Making: Decisions on articles at all stages must be made without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnicity, or citizenship of the authors.
4. Confidentiality of Information: The personal information of authors must be kept completely confidential by all persons with access to it, including editors, editorial staff, reviewers, advisers, and the publisher (other than the corresponding author). This protection applies at all times.
5. Double-Blind Review: Under the double-blind review process, the identities of reviewers and authors are hidden from each other. They must not disclose their identities during the evaluation process.
6. Managing Conflicts of Interest: All members of the editorial team must declare any potential conflicts of interest (e.g., personal, financial, or professional relationships) that could influence their editorial decisions. If a conflict exists, they should recuse themselves from the relevant decision-making process. Authors will be asked to declare any conflicts of interest upon submission.
7. Data Sharing and Reproducibility: To support transparency and reproducibility, authors may be asked to provide the raw data, analysis scripts, or other materials underlying their research findings, subject to ethical and privacy considerations. The journal encourages authors to deposit their data in recognized repositories and cite them in the manuscript.
8. Handling Complaints and Appeals: Authors have the right to appeal editorial decisions or lodge complaints regarding the review process, publication ethics, or editorial conduct. All appeals and complaints will be handled seriously, fairly, and in accordance with COPE guidelines. The initial point of contact for such matters is the Editor-in-Chief.
9. Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections: The journal is committed to maintaining the integrity of the published record. If errors are identified after publication, the journal will consider issuing a correction, an expression of concern, or a retraction, following COPE guidelines. Readers and authors are encouraged to bring any issues to the editor's attention.

b. Instructions for Reviewers

1. Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Reviewers assist the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and may also help the author improve the manuscript through their constructive comments.
2. Promptness: Any invited reviewer who feels unqualified to review the reported research or knows that a timely review is impossible should immediately notify the Editor-in-Chief so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.
3. Confidentiality: All manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shared, discussed with others, or uploaded to any public or generative AI tools.
4. Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments and avoid personal, political, racial, religious, or other biased criticism of the author.
5. Acknowledgement of Sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement in the review that is based on another source should be accompanied by a complete bibliographic reference.
6. Declaration of Conflicts of Interest: Reviewers must decline the invitation to review if they have any potential conflicts of interest (e.g., competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors or institutions connected to the manuscript).

c. Instructions for Authors

1. Simultaneous Submission: The corresponding author must officially declare that the manuscript has not been and will not be forwarded to another journal until the review process (maximum six months) is complete. The submitted article should not have been presented or published previously in any conference or other venue. The legal responsibility for this lies solely with the author(s).
2. Collective Work and Theses: In collective articles or those extracted from a thesis written under the supervision of a supervisor, the supervisor's name must be mentioned as a co-author or contributor, as appropriate.
3. Originality: Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original works. If they have used the work and/or words of others, they are responsible for ensuring that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.
4. Scientific Foundation: The articles should be based on sound scientific research and reliable sources. Authors should avoid sensitive, immoral, personal, racial, fake, and anonymous topics and quotes.
5. Author Information: When submitting an article, the author's full name, academic rank, contact number, university/institution, and email address are required.
6. Prior Publication: Submitting a previously published or accepted article to this journal is a direct violation of ethical codes.
7. Proper Referencing: Reference involves listing all books, journals, websites, and other research in the bibliography. The full specifications of the references must comply with the journal's style sheet (APA).
8. Authorship and Contributorship: The corresponding author is the one who prepared and wrote the article. Other authors are cited as contributors. All authors should have read the final manuscript and agreed to its submission.
9. Financial Sponsors: If the research received financial support, the name of the sponsor(s) must be mentioned in the article.
10. Plagiarism and Misconduct: The author(s) submit the manuscript and are fully responsible for the authenticity of the work. The journal uses plagiarism detection software to authenticate the article. Examples of plagiarism and misconduct include, but are not limited to:

• Submitting another person's work as one's own.
• Mentioning the names of authors or researchers who had no role in the article.
• Copying or duplicating significant portions of another article (even if unpublished) without attribution.
• Presenting the results of others' research as one's own.
• Republishing the same article in several journals.
• Using invalid data or manipulating research data.

11. Declaration of Conflicts of Interest: Authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial) that could be perceived to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. If none exist, a statement to that effect is required.
12. Data Availability Statement: Authors are encouraged to provide a data availability statement, indicating where the data supporting their findings can be accessed (e.g., in a public repository, as supplementary files, or upon reasonable request from the corresponding author).

In case of confirmed plagiarism or research misconduct, the journal will follow these legal and ethical actions without leniency:

1. The article will be rejected immediately. If it has already been published, it will be retracted and removed from the journal's website.
2. The names of the authors will be placed on the institute's blacklist.
3. Judicial and legal pursuit will be reserved for the journal.
4. The case of plagiarism will be formally reported to the relevant university and affiliated institutions.
5. The plagiarism will be officially reported to the databases where the author(s) have benefited from their invalid paper (e.g., ISC, SID, Noormags, Magiran).

Date of Update: August 15, 2026