Publication Ethics

Moral principles

The publication of articles in the Quarterly Journal of Philosophical Foundations of Iranian Art, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, is subject to specialized and scientific review by expert reviewers in the subject related to the article. Adherence to ethical and behavioral standards by authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher is of great importance to ensure the high quality of published scientific articles, the validity of scientific findings, and the academic credibility of the authors. This journal adheres to the principles and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Some important points are as follows:

Statement on Best Practices and Prevention of Publication Misconduct

The COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines for journal editors are designed to establish a set of minimum standards that all COPE members are expected to adhere to. Best practice guidelines are highly regarded and were developed in response to editors’ requests for guidance on an extensive and growing range of complex ethical issues.

Although COPE expects all members to comply with the mandatory code of conduct for journal editors (and addresses complaints related to members who fail to adhere to it), we recognize that editors may not always be able to implement all the recommendations of best practices—these are, therefore, voluntary. However, we hope our suggestions will help identify journal policies and practices that require review and discussion.

In this version, a combination of documents presents the mandatory code of conduct for journal editors as organized texts with numbered provisions.

General Duties and Responsibilities of the Editor

The editor must take responsibility for everything published in their journal. This means the editor should:

1. Strive to meet the needs of both readers and authors.
2. Continuously work to improve their journal.
3. Adopt approaches to ensure the quality of the published content.
4. Advocate for freedom of expression.
5. Safeguard the integrity and accuracy of academic records.
6. Fulfill professional needs through adherence to rational and ethical standards.
7. Always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.

Best Practices for Editors May Include the Following:

1. Actively seek the views of authors, readers, editors, and members of the editorial board regarding ways to improve the journal's approaches.
2. Encourage and remain aware of research related to peer review and publication, and reassess the journal's practices in light of new findings.
3. Strive to encourage publishers to provide appropriate resources and expert guidance (e.g., designers and legal advisors).
4. Support initiatives designed to reduce problems in research and publication.
5. Support initiatives aimed at educating researchers on publication ethics.
6. Evaluate the impact of journal policies on author and reviewer behavior and revise policies as necessary to strengthen accountability and reduce unethical practices.
7. Ensure that all published content reflects the intent of the article's publication and conveys it accurately in the text.

Communication with Readers

Readers should be informed about the funding sources or execution of the research and whether the funders had any role in the research and its publication. If so, the specific role should be clearly stated.

Best Practices for Editors Include:

1. Ensuring that published research reports and reviews are conducted by qualified reviewers (including statistical reviews where necessary).
2. Ensuring that non-peer-reviewed sections of the journal are clearly identified.
3. Adopting approaches that enhance the accuracy, completeness, and clarity of research reports, including technical editing and the use of appropriate guidelines and checklists.
4. Paying attention to improving transparency policies to maximize clarity regarding the origins of non-research articles.
5. Implementing authorship or contributorship systems that promote best practices (e.g., ensuring the listing accurately reflects who performed the work) and reduce problems such as guest authorship.
6. Assuring readers that articles written by journal staff or editorial board members are evaluated impartially.

Communication with Authors

1. The editor's decision to accept or reject a manuscript must be based on its importance, originality, clarity, the validity of the study, and its relevance to the journal's objectives.
2. The editor should not reverse a decision to accept submissions unless significant issues arise concerning the manuscript.
3. A new editor should not overturn decisions made by the previous editor regarding publication unless serious problems are identified.
4. The evaluation and review procedures should be described publicly, and the editor must be prepared to justify any significant deviations from the described approaches.
5. Journals should define a mechanism that allows authors to appeal editorial decisions.
6. The editor must publish their expectations for authors in the form of guidelines. These guidelines should be regularly updated and linked or referenced to this code of conduct.
7. The editor should prepare clear guidelines regarding the criteria for authorship or contributorship and clarify who qualifies as an author in compliance with these standards.

Best Practices for Editors

1. Regularly review the author's comments and provide relevant links to these guidelines.
2. Disclose any conflicts of interest for all partners involved and publish corrections if conflicts of interest are identified after publication.
3. Ensure that manuscript reviewers are properly selected (for example, individuals who are qualified to review the manuscript and are free from conflicts of interest).
4. Respect author requests to prevent anyone from reviewing their manuscript if it is acceptable and feasible to do so.
5. In cases where authorship is suspected of having issues or disputes, refer to the COPE flowchart for guidance.
6. Publish details of how suspicious issues were resolved (for example, by linking to the COPE flowchart).
7. Publish the dates of manuscript submissions and article acceptances.

Relationship with Reviewers

1. The editor should provide clear expectations for reviewers, including how the submitted materials should be used to ensure reliability, in the form of guidelines. These guidelines should be regularly updated and referenced or linked to the code.
2. Editors must ensure that reviewers are aware of any potential conflicts of interest before assigning them a manuscript for review.
3. The editor should have a system in place to ensure that reviewers' decisions remain confidential, unless the review is openly available for authors and reviewers to access.

Best Practices for Editors

1. Encourage reviewers to challenge ethical questions and potential research issues arising from manuscripts related to publication (e.g., unethical research design, insufficient information to gain consent or support from research subjects, including animals, or improper use and presentation of information).
2. Encourage reviewers to challenge the originality of manuscripts and be vigilant regarding publications with redundancy and plagiarism.
3. Provide reviewers with necessary tools to identify related publications (e.g., providing links to cited sources and searching the book list).
4. Communicate reviewers' comments to authors in full, unless the remarks are offensive or defamatory.
5. Ensure that reviewers collaborate effectively with the journal.
6. Encourage academic institutions to accept review activities as part of a research approach.
7. Assess the performance of reviewers and take steps to ensure it meets high standards.
8. Develop and maintain a database of suitable reviewers and update it based on reviewer performance.
9. Avoid using reviewers who frequently provide quick, low-quality, or delayed reviews.
10. Ensure that the reviewer database reflects the journal's community, and add new reviewers as needed.
11. Use a broad range of resources (not just personal contacts) to identify potential new reviewers (e.g., author suggestions, book list databases).
12. Follow the COPE flowchart when reviewer performance issues arise.

Editorial Board Members' Engagement

The editor should consider new editorial board members, provide them with guidelines based on the expectations for their role, and keep them updated according to policy and new developments.

Best Practices for Editors:

1. Have the necessary policies in place to manage the contributions of editorial board members to ensure impartiality in the review process.
2. Identify qualified editorial board members who actively contribute to the development and effective management of the journal.
3. Regularly review the composition of the editorial board.
4. Provide clear guidance to editorial board members about their expected roles and responsibilities, which may include:
• Acting as an executive member of the journal.
• Supporting and promoting the journal.
• Seeking out the best authors and works (e.g., from conference abstracts) and actively encouraging quality submissions.
• Editing manuscripts for the journal.
• Accepting responsibility for reviewing, editing, and providing feedback on articles within their area of expertise.
• Attending and participating in editorial board meetings.
• Consulting periodically with editorial board members (e.g., annually) to review feedback on journal management, inform them of any policy changes, and identify upcoming challenges.

Relationship with Journal Owners and Publishers

1. The relationship between the editor and the publisher or owner of the journal is often complex but should fundamentally be based on principles of editorial independence.
2. The editor should decide on the publication of articles based on the quality and relevance to the journal, without interference from the owner or publisher.
3. The editor should have a written contract that outlines the terms of their relationship with the journal owner or publisher.
4. The terms of this contract should align with the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines for journal editors.

Best Practices for the Editor-in-Chief:

• Establish mechanisms for resolving conflicts between the editor and the journal owner or publisher through legal procedures.
• Maintain continuous communication with the owner and publisher of the journal.

Editorial and Review Approaches

1. The editor must ensure that the review process in their journal is fair, impartial, and timely.
2. The editor must have a system in place to ensure that the content submitted to the journal remains confidential during the review process.

Best Practices for the Editor-in-Chief include:

1. Ensuring that editorial staff (including the editor themselves) are sufficiently trained and benefit from the latest guidelines, recommendations, and evidence regarding the review and management of the journal.
2. Being aware of research conducted on peer review and technological advancements.
3. Adopting the most appropriate review methods for the journal and its academic community.
4. Reviewing the performance of the review process periodically to improve it.
5. Referring problematic issues to COPE, especially when questions arise that are not addressed by COPE’s guidelines or when new issues in the journal are suspected.
6. Holding a formal meeting to arbitrate complaints that have not been resolved.

Ensuring Quality

1. The editor must take reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the content they publish, considering that journals and their sections may have different objectives and standards.

Best Practices for the Editor-in-Chief include:

1. Having a system in place to identify false information (such as images that are improperly used or plagiarized text) when suspicions arise.
2. Making decisions regarding the layout of the journal based on evidence related to factors that enhance the quality of the reports, rather than relying on aesthetic reasons or personal preferences.

Protection of Personal Information

The editor must adhere to confidentiality principles in their judgments. Regardless of internal regulations, they must always keep confidential the information obtained from individuals during research or professional interactions (e.g., doctor-patient relationships). Therefore, it is always necessary to obtain written consent for publication from individuals who may be identifiable or recognized by others (e.g., through reports or photos).

Best Practices for the Editor-in-Chief include:

• Publishing the journal's policy on the publication of personal information (e.g., personal data or images) and providing a full explanation to the author; note that consent to participate in research or related matters is not the same as consent for the publication of personal data, images, or quotations.

Encouraging Ethical Compliance (e.g., Research Involving Humans and Animals)

1. The editor must ensure that the research they publish has been conducted according to internationally accepted ethical guidelines (e.g., the Declaration of Helsinki for clinical research, and AERA and BERA guidelines for educational research).
2. The editor should ensure that all research has been approved by a competent ethics committee (e.g., an ethical review board). However, the editor must understand that such approvals do not guarantee the ethical nature of the research.

Best Practices for the Editor-in-Chief include:

1. Being prepared to request evidence of ethical approval and inquire about the ethical aspects of the research from authors (such as how participant consent was obtained or methods used to minimize animal distress) if concerns arise or clarification is needed.
2. Ensuring that clinical trial reports are conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, Good Clinical Practice, and other relevant guidelines for participant safety.
3. Ensuring that reports of animal experiments or studies are conducted in accordance with World Health Organization guidelines, animal care standards, and other relevant protocols.
4. Appointing an ethics advisor or board to consult on specific matters and periodically reviewing the journal's ethics policy.

Dealing with Potential Misconduct

1. The editor is responsible for taking action when misconduct or signs of misconduct are observed. This responsibility applies to both published and unpublished articles.
2. The editor should not simply reject articles that are suspected of misconduct. Ethically, they must investigate such cases.
3. The editor must follow the COPE guidelines whenever possible.
4. Initially, the editor should seek an explanation for any suspected misconduct. If a satisfactory response is not found, the editor should seek the involvement of staff, the institution, or other relevant individuals for further investigation.
5. The editor must make every effort to ensure that proper handling of the misconduct has been carried out; if this does not occur, the editor should exert all efforts to find a solution to the problem. This is a difficult but important responsibility.

Ensuring the Accuracy of Academic Records

1. Errors or mistakes in articles should be corrected promptly based on their level of significance.
2. The editor should follow COPE guidelines when correcting mistakes.

Best practices for the editor include:

1. Moving towards reducing misleading or defamatory content in publications (for example, ensuring all clinical cases are properly registered).
2. Ensuring that published content is archived in a secure manner (for example, permanent repositories such as PubMed Central).
3. Having a system in place to allow authors the opportunity to freely submit research articles

Intellectual Property

The editor should be aware of intellectual property issues and work with the publisher to manage the potential violation of intellectual property laws and obligations.

Best practices for the editor include:

1. Adopting a system to detect plagiarism (e.g., software to search for similar titles); for submitted articles (regularly or when facing suspicious cases).
2. Supporting authors whose copyrights have been violated or who have fallen victim to plagiarism.
3. Being prepared to collaborate with the publisher to defend the author's rights and to take legal action against infringers (e.g., by requesting retraction or removal from websites), regardless of whether the journal adheres to copyright laws

Encouraging Dialogue

1. The editor should encourage and be eager to address persuasive critiques of works published in the journal.
2. The author of the criticized work should be given the opportunity to respond.
3. Negative report findings should not be overlooked.

Best practices for the editor include:

Providing the freedom to investigate cases that challenge the content published in the journal.

Complaints

1. The editor should promptly address complaints and understand that unresolved complaints lead to more complaints. The mechanism and how unresolved issues are referred to COPE should be clearly outlined in the journal.
2. The editor should follow the procedure outlined in the COPE flowchart for handling complaints.

Economic Considerations

1. Journals should have policies and systems in place to ensure that economic considerations do not interfere with editorial decisions (e.g., the advertising department should operate independently from the editorial department).
2. The editor should have a clear advertising policy regarding the journal's content and the required approaches for sponsorship.

Best practices for the editor include:

1. Publishing an explanatory overview of the journal’s revenue sources (e.g., revenue share from advertising, sales, sponsorship materials, etc.).
2. Ensuring that the sponsorship review process is the same as the journal’s review process.
3. Ensuring that items included in sponsorship are considered solely based on academic merit and appeal to readers, with no interference from commercial considerations in the decision-making process.

Conflict of Interests

1. The editor should have a system in place to manage conflicts of interest involving themselves, as well as staff, authors, reviewers, and editorial board members.
2. Journals should have a clear procedure for handling submissions from editors, staff, or editorial board members to ensure that the review process remains impartial.

Best practices for the editor include:

Publishing a list of shared interests (financial, academic, or other types) of editorial staff and editorial board members (which should be updated annually).