The ethical policy of Journal of Rescue & Relief is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Readers, authors, reviewers, and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with Quarterly Scientific Research Journal of Rescue & Relief.
The publishing decision is based on the suggestion of the journal's reviewers and editorial board members. The reviewers are necessary to evaluate the research papers based on the submitted content in confidential manner. The reviewers suggest the authors to improve the quality of research paper by their reviewing comments. Authors should ensure that their submitted research work is original and has not been published elsewhere in any language.
Any kind of plagiarism constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
This publication ethics is a commitment that draws up some moral limitations and responsibilities of research journals. The text is adapted according to the “Standard Ethics”, approved by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, and the publication principles of
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Section A: Publication and Authorship
- All submitted papers are subject to strict peer-review process by at least two international reviewers that are experts in the area of the particular paper. Reviewers are being selected by Associate Editors and Editor in Chief. Author also can propose reviewers for some journals and article types.
- The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, originality, readability, statistical validity and language.
- The possible decisions include acceptance, minor revisions, major revision or rejection.
- If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
- Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
- The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
- No research can be included in more than one publication, whether within the same journal or in another journal.
Section B: Authors' Responsibilities
- Authors must certify that their manuscript is their original work.
- Authors cannot withdraw their articles within the review process or after submission, or they must pay the penalty defined by the publisher.
- Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere, or even submitted and been in reviewed in another journal.
- Authors must participate in the peer review process and follow the comments.
- Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
- All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research. Level of their contribution also must be defined in the “Authors’ Contributions” section of the article.
- Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
- Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
- Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
- Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.
- Authors must not use irrelevant sources that may help other researches/journals.
Section C: Peer Review/Responsibility for the Reviewers
- Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
- Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
- Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author. No self-knowledge of the author(s) must affect their comments and decision.
- Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments in 500 to 1000 words.
- Reviewers may identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
- Reviewers should also call to the Editor in Chief's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
- Reviewers' and authors' identities are kept confidential.
- The existence of a submitted manuscript is not revealed to anyone other than the reviewers and editorial staff.
- They should not use knowledge of the manuscript before its publication for their personal interests.
- The reviewers' comments should be constructive, honest, and polite.
Section D: Editorial Responsibilities
- Editors (Associate Editors or Editor in Chief) have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
- Editors must not change their decision after submitting a decision (especially after reject or accept) unless they have a serious reason.
- Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
- Editors should always consider the needs of the authors and the readers when attempting to improve the publication.
- Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
- Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
- Editors should have a clear picture of a research's funding sources.
- Editors should base their decisions solely one the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope.
- Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason.
- Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers (in half blind peer review journals).
- Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to international accepted ethical guidelines.
- Editors should only accept a paper when reasonably certain.
- 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.
- Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions; they should have proof of misconduct.
- Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members.
Section E: Publishing Ethics Issues
- All editorial members, reviewers and authors must confirm and obey rules defined by COPE.
- Any notes of plagiarism, fraudulent data or any other kinds of fraud must be reported completely to COPE.
- Corresponding author is the main owner of the article so she/he can withdraw the article when it is incomplete (before entering the review process or when a revision is asked for).
- Authors cannot make major changes in the article after acceptance without a serious reason.
- All editorial members and authors must will to publish any kind of corrections honestly and completely.
Retrospective Ethics Approval
If a study has not been granted ethics committee approval prior to commencing, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained and it may not be possible to consider the submission for peer review. The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the discretion of the journals’ editors.
Patient Consent and Confidentiality
Any item submitted to the Addiction and Health that contains personal medical information about an identifiable living individual requires patient’s explicit consent before it can be published. Consequently; all studied patients are required to sign an informed consent form after reading the studies’ information sheet.
If consent cannot be obtained because the patient cannot be traced in a study, then publication will be possible only if the information can be sufficiently anonymized. Anonymization means that neither the person nor anyone else could identify the individual with certainty.
If the patient is dead the authors should seek permission from a relative (as a matter of courtesy and medical ethics). If the relatives are not contactable, the journal will balance the worthwhileness of the case, the likelihood of identification, and the likelihood of offence in decision to publish a submitted paper.
Images—such as x-rays, laparoscopic images, ultrasound images, pathology slides, or images of undistinctive parts of the body—may be used without consent so long as they are anonymized by the removal of any identifying marks and are not accompanied by text that could reveal the patients’ identity.