Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics

Ethical Criteria of Exercise Physiology and Performance (EPP)

• Publication and Authorship

1. All submitted manuscripts undergo a rigorous peer review process by a minimum of two reviewers who are subject matter experts. It should be noted that reviewers are being selected by Editor in Chief and Associate Editors. However, an author can recommend reviewers for this journal; Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors select the reviewers.
2. The factors considered in the review are originality, relevancy, language, statistical validity, and readability.
3. Decisions available include acceptance, major, minor revisions, or rejection.
4. There is no assurance that a revised submission will be accepted if authors are urged to modify and resubmit their work.
5. The rejected manuscript will not be re-reviewed.
6. Acceptance of the paper is limited by the legal obligations that apply to defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
7. Duplicate research cannot be submitted to multiple publications in the same journal or a different one.

• Authors' Responsibilities

1. Authors must confirm their manuscript as their original work.
2. All authors of each manuscript are responsible for contributing to the manuscript's composition or research. The amount of their participation must be specified in the “Authors’ Contributions” section of the article.
3. The authors must verify that the manuscript has not been previously submitted, published, or under review in other sources simultaneously. Additionally, the authors must confirm that all the data in the paper are reliable and accurate.
4. All research and results must be documented and presented honestly.
5. We strongly disapprove of fabrication, falsification, misconduct, data manipulation, or incorrect statistical analysis.
6. Authors must be involved in the peer review and respond to the comments. Furthermore, authors must supply corrections or retractions of errors.
7. Authors may contact the editors via email and through the contact section of our website if they have any issues.
8. By submitting a paper to this journal, authors certify that they have adhered to all ethical academic international commitments and standards of peer-reviewed scientific journals. However, the exercise physiology and   performance journal examines the novelty and accuracy of the manuscript, including plagiarism.
9. Authors must disclose any mistakes they find in their published paper to the Editors.
10. Authors must not use irrelevant sources that may help other researchers/journals.
11. Authors are not permitted to withdraw their articles during the reviewing period or after submission. It should be noted that if the authors withdraw their manuscripts, they must pay the penalty defined by the publisher.
12. Authors should adhere to the journal standards and policies as well as the accepted format.
13. The peer review process in this journal is double-blind. Hence, reviewers may not recognize the authors’ information.
14. Authors are allowed to share their articles in any database and use it as a reference provided they reference the original source or make the full manuscript available in PDF format with the original journal style.
15. It is the duty of the authors to make their affiliations clearly known, and any errors in the authors’ information will not be attributed to the journal, notably after publication.
16. The authors may examine the whole manuscript following proofreading and layout before publishing.
17. During the peer-reviewing or proofreading process, editors or reviewers may recommend modifications or revisions to the title or content of a manuscript, and the authors may accept or deny these changes.
18. All authors must sign the copyright letter.
19. The authors must declare in the article any financial and non-financial sponsorship or funding they utilized.
20. The authors' information or the articles' content will not be altered after publication.
21. The authors must supply the journal with satisfactory responses for editing and proofreading prior to the deadline. In the case that authors disregard the deadlines, the journal will not be responsible for lengthy peer-reviewing processes.

• Peer Review/Responsibility for the Reviewers

1. Reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of the papers and consider them to be of privileged status.
2. Reviews should be carried out objectively, without personal criticism of the author. Furthermore, no personal knowledge of the authors must affect their comments and decision.
3. All reviewers must report any immoral cases found in the manuscripts, such as double submission, duplication, or plagiarism, to the editors.
4. Reviewers should be able to detect any relevant published works that the authors did not cite.
5. Assessors should also alert the Editor-in-Chief of any significant similarity or duplication between the manuscript currently being evaluated and any other published paper.
6. Reviewers must not assess manuscripts with which they have a conflict of interest due to collaborative, competitive, or other relations with any of the companies, authors, or institutions linked to the manuscript.
7. Reviewers must submit the comments by the deadlines when they have accepted the invitation of the editors. If they are unable to adhere to the deadlines due to any circumstance, they should reach out to the editors immediately.
8. Reviewers must evaluate the papers without prejudice and adhere to the journal's regulations and policies.
9. Reviewers must not communicate with the authors regarding the manuscripts during the peer review procedure.

• Editorial Responsibilities

1.  Associate Editors or Editor-in-Chief have authority and full responsibility for rejecting or accepting a manuscript.
2. The editors have the duty of ensuring the content and superiority of the publication.
3. Editors should always consider the requirements of both the authors and the readers when trying to improve the publication.
4. Editors are responsible for ensuring the manuscripts' quality and the academic file's integrity.
5. It is necessary for editors to release errata pages or make changes as needed.
6. Editors should be aware of the financial sources of research.
7. Editors should take into account exclusively the papers' originality, importance, relevance, and clarity to the publication's scope.
8. Editors should not modify their decisions or the decisions of prior editors without valid reasons.
9. Editors should maintain the confidentiality of reviewers (in half-blind peer review journals).
10. Editors should guarantee that all research material published is in accordance with internationally accepted ethical standards.
11. Editors should only accept a paper if there is a reasonable level of certainty.
12. Editors should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
13. Editors should not make decisions to reject papers based on assumptions.; they should have proof of misconduct.
14. Editors should not permit any conflicts of interest between authors, staff, board members, and reviewers.
15. After submitting a decision (especially after rejecting or accepting), editors must not reverse their decision unless they have a serious reason.
16. The editorial board members may observe all information and research papers submitted to the EPP.
17. Editors must maintain the confidentiality of the research papers except when they discover particular misconduct.

Note: The EPP Journal has a policy of not publishing more than two papers from its editors in a year. If a member of the editorial team, for example, the editor-in-chief or managing editor, submits a paper to the EPP journal, it will be reviewed objectively and impartially by reviewers chosen by other editors without the author's interference.

Publishing Ethics Issues

1. All editorial members, authors, and reviewers must approve and obey the rules defined by COPE.
2. If authors want to make significant changes in their article after it has been accepted, there must be a legitimate justification.
3. All authors who contributed to the research should approve the final manuscript, so all authors must sign the copyright letter. Authors are free to post and distribute the links of their articles anywhere immediately upon publication. Authors retain the copyright of their published articles.

4. It should be noted that Exercise Physiology and Performance journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) rules, particularly in suspected research and publication misconduct (e.g., redundant publication, falsification, plagiarism, inappropriate image manipulation, unethical experimentation). For further information about COPE, please check the following website: https://publicationethics.org/.

Exercise Physiology and Performance journal follow CC BY attribution. This license permits others to remix, tweak, distribute, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

Publisher’s Criteria

1. The publisher is devoted to preserving the secrecy of all documents and their histories.
2. It is the publisher's responsibility to respond to users' inquiries about the site's technical problems.
3. The publisher has an obligation to store and back up the data archive of all manuscripts.
4. The publisher is responsible for publishing articles that have been proofread and accepted by the authors.
5. The publisher must provide manuscripts with proper proofreading and layout.
6. The publisher shall address any potential technical and non-technical issues connected to the journal management systems.
7. The publisher shall address any problematic issues and misconduct based on the ethical regulations issued by COPE and the publisher.
8. The publisher will observe the journals’ activities and feedback to ensure adherence to ethical rules
9. Any person or third party can contact the journal’s mail in the ‘’Contact Section’’ or the mail of Research@khuisf.ac.ir (publisher’s research center) regarding any report or allegation of misconduct or incorrect actions by journal
10. Employees and editors of the publisher are allowed to publish their works as long as they have obtained a third editor from an outside university or institution to provide an objective peer review.
11. This journal strictly prohibits any commercial advertisements from being published.

• Plagiarism 

The plagiarism will check by the iThenticate as Plagiarism Detection Software.

Editors and publishers are responsible for investigating any alleged unethical issues, such as plagiarism, double submissions, copyright infringements, conflicts of interest, false, manipulated, or fabricated data or figures, statistical analysis, and false figures, by using plagiarism checker engines.

Editors will take necessary actions against any misconduct cases, regardless of whether the manuscripts were previously published and may be retracted or revised. The editors make decisions that are dependent on the situation.

If an article is retracted, the publisher must notify any indexing and abstracting databases that include the journal's contents.

• Readers’ Criteria

1. This journal is free for readers and authors, and published articles can be downloaded freely.
2. Users who use EPP articles in their research papers must follow CC BY attribution, and they should refer to the primary source (journal).

• Archiving 

1. The server owner is devoted to ensuring a daily backup of the website and article contents.
2. Part of the essential documents is kept in the INTERNET ARCHIVE and the National Library of Iran, while a portion of the journal office files is saved on a Hard disk.