Publication Ethics
The ethical policy of the JOURNAL OF RESCUE & RELIEF (JORAR) is based on the principles and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Readers, authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial staff are expected to observe these ethical policies when engaging with the JOURNAL OF RESCUE & RELIEF.
For information on publishing ethics and ethical guidelines, please visit: http://publicationethics.org
All papers submitted to the journal are evaluated by a group of consulting editors to determine whether the topic falls within the scope of the journal and whether the manuscript adheres to the journal's word limits and formatting requirements. Papers are also assessed for originality, scientific quality, clarity of presentation, and conciseness. Before papers are sent for double-blind peer review, they are screened for possible plagiarism, and authors must submit a Competing Financial Interests Declaration Form on behalf of all authors. Papers selected for review are assigned to an Associate Editor, who identifies suitable reviewers and makes recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief. Members of the Editorial Review Board serve as a pool of potential reviewers. The Board of Associate Editors and the Editorial Review Board are composed of leading scientists from across the various fields of rescue and relief. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore essential to establish clear and agreed standards of ethical conduct for all parties involved in the publishing process: authors, journal editors, and peer reviewers.
The ethical policy of the JOURNAL OF RESCUE & RELIEF (JORAR) is based on the principles and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Readers, authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial staff are expected to observe these ethical policies when engaging with the JOURNAL OF RESCUE & RELIEF.
For information on publishing ethics and ethical guidelines, please visit: http://publicationethics.org
All papers submitted to the journal are evaluated by a group of consulting editors to determine whether the topic falls within the scope of the journal and whether the manuscript adheres to the journal's word limits and formatting requirements. Papers are also assessed for originality, scientific quality, clarity of presentation, and conciseness. Before papers are sent for double-blind peer review, they are screened for possible plagiarism, and authors must submit a Competing Financial Interests Declaration Form on behalf of all authors. Papers selected for review are assigned to an Associate Editor, who identifies suitable reviewers and makes recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief. Members of the Editorial Review Board serve as a pool of potential reviewers. The Board of Associate Editors and the Editorial Review Board are composed of leading scientists from across the various fields of rescue and relief. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore essential to establish clear and agreed standards of ethical conduct for all parties involved in the publishing process: authors, journal editors, and peer reviewers.
Obligations of Editors
The primary responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors is to ensure an efficient and fair review process for submitted manuscripts and to maintain high standards of technical and professional quality. Relevant criteria include originality of approach, concept, or application; depth of scholarship; and relevance to rescue and relief issues.
An editor shall give unbiased consideration to all manuscripts submitted for publication and shall judge each manuscript on its academic merits, without regard to any personal relationship or familiarity with the author(s), or to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, professional association, or political philosophy of the author(s).
The editor and editorial staff shall disclose no information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than those from whom professional advice regarding the manuscript is sought. The identities of reviewers shall not be disclosed by the editors or editorial staff.
An editor who authors or coauthors a manuscript submitted to the journal with which that editor is affiliated shall take no part in the editorial handling or review of that manuscript; the manuscript shall instead be assigned to another qualified editor for independent evaluation. Following publication, the editor-author shall not assume any editorial responsibility in connection with subsequent scientific debate, correction, or discussion relating to that work.
An editor shall avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance thereof. An editor shall not assign a manuscript to reviewers known to hold a personal bias for or against the author(s) or the subject matter of that manuscript.
Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the editor's or an associate editor's own research, nor otherwise disseminated, except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
If an editor receives convincing evidence that the substance, conclusions, references, or other material in a manuscript published in the journal are erroneous, the editor shall notify the author(s), afford them a reasonable opportunity to respond in writing, and thereafter facilitate the prompt publication of an erratum or other appropriate correction.
Where appropriate, the editor shall also facilitate the publication of comments or papers that identify and discuss such errors. If an editor receives convincing evidence that a manuscript or published paper contains plagiarized material, fabricated data, or falsified research data, the editor shall handle the matter in accordance with the procedure set out under Handling Cases of Misconduct below, which may, where warranted by the seriousness of the case, include notification of the relevant institutional, funding, or regulatory authority responsible for oversight of the author(s).
The primary responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors is to ensure an efficient and fair review process for submitted manuscripts and to maintain high standards of technical and professional quality. Relevant criteria include originality of approach, concept, or application; depth of scholarship; and relevance to rescue and relief issues.
An editor shall give unbiased consideration to all manuscripts submitted for publication and shall judge each manuscript on its academic merits, without regard to any personal relationship or familiarity with the author(s), or to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, professional association, or political philosophy of the author(s).
The editor and editorial staff shall disclose no information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than those from whom professional advice regarding the manuscript is sought. The identities of reviewers shall not be disclosed by the editors or editorial staff.
An editor who authors or coauthors a manuscript submitted to the journal with which that editor is affiliated shall take no part in the editorial handling or review of that manuscript; the manuscript shall instead be assigned to another qualified editor for independent evaluation. Following publication, the editor-author shall not assume any editorial responsibility in connection with subsequent scientific debate, correction, or discussion relating to that work.
An editor shall avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance thereof. An editor shall not assign a manuscript to reviewers known to hold a personal bias for or against the author(s) or the subject matter of that manuscript.
Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the editor's or an associate editor's own research, nor otherwise disseminated, except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
If an editor receives convincing evidence that the substance, conclusions, references, or other material in a manuscript published in the journal are erroneous, the editor shall notify the author(s), afford them a reasonable opportunity to respond in writing, and thereafter facilitate the prompt publication of an erratum or other appropriate correction.
Where appropriate, the editor shall also facilitate the publication of comments or papers that identify and discuss such errors. If an editor receives convincing evidence that a manuscript or published paper contains plagiarized material, fabricated data, or falsified research data, the editor shall handle the matter in accordance with the procedure set out under Handling Cases of Misconduct below, which may, where warranted by the seriousness of the case, include notification of the relevant institutional, funding, or regulatory authority responsible for oversight of the author(s).
Obligations of Authors
An author's central obligation is to present a concise and accurate account of the research, work, or project undertaken, together with an objective discussion of its significance.
A submitted manuscript shall contain sufficient detail and reference to publicly available sources of information to permit the author's peers to verify its accuracy or, where applicable, to repeat the work.
An author shall cite and give appropriate attribution to publications that have materially influenced the reported work, sufficient to guide the reader to earlier work essential to an understanding of the present study. Information obtained privately, through conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, shall not be used or reported in the author's work without the explicit permission of the persons from whom the information was obtained. Information obtained in the course of confidential professional activities, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, shall likewise be treated as confidential.
The submitted manuscript shall not contain plagiarized material or fabricated or falsified research data.
Fragmentation of research findings into multiple manuscripts shall be avoided. An author who has conducted extensive work on a system or group of related systems shall organize publication so that each paper presents a complete and substantively distinct account of a particular aspect of the general study, with appropriate disclosure and cross-reference to related work.
It is inappropriate for an author to submit the same manuscript, or a manuscript describing essentially the same research or project, for review to more than one journal at the same time.
Scholarly criticism of a published paper may be justified when it is objective and evidence-based; personal criticism is never appropriate.
To protect the integrity of authorship, only persons who have made significant contributions to the research and/or the preparation of the manuscript shall be listed as authors. The corresponding author attests that all listed coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication. Deceased persons who meet the applicable criteria for authorship shall be included as coauthors, with a footnote indicating the date of death. No fictitious name shall be given as an author or coauthor. An author who submits a manuscript for publication accepts responsibility for ensuring that all, and only, qualified individuals are listed as coauthors.
It is inappropriate to submit a manuscript with an evident commercial intent.
An author shall not write or coauthor a Discussion of his or her own published paper, except in the case of a rebuttal or Closure responding to criticism or Discussion offered by others.
Authors shall disclose all relevant conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, that could reasonably be perceived to influence the interpretation of the reported work.
Obligations of Reviewers
Because qualified manuscript review is essential to the publication process, engineers and scientists working in the relevant fields are expected to contribute a fair share of reviews when able to do so.
If a reviewer feels inadequately qualified, or lacks the time to fairly evaluate the manuscript, the reviewer shall promptly decline the invitation and return the manuscript to the editor.
A reviewer shall objectively judge the quality of a manuscript on its own merits and shall respect the intellectual independence of the author(s). Personal criticism is never appropriate.
A reviewer shall avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance thereof. If a manuscript submitted for review presents a potential conflict of interest, or if the reviewer holds a personal bias, the reviewer shall promptly return the manuscript without review and so advise the editor.
Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the reviewer's own research, nor otherwise disseminated, except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
If a reviewer receives for review a manuscript authored or coauthored by a person with whom the reviewer has a personal or professional relationship that could affect impartiality, the reviewer shall promptly disclose this relationship to the editor and, where appropriate, decline the review.
A reviewer shall treat a manuscript received for review as a confidential document and shall not disclose or discuss it with others, except as necessary to obtain specific advice; in such cases, the identities of those consulted shall be disclosed to the editor.
Reviewers shall explain and support their judgments adequately, so that the editor and author(s) may understand the basis for their comments. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument has been previously reported shall be accompanied by the relevant citation.
A reviewer shall bring to the editor's attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper, as well as any manuscript known to be under simultaneous consideration by another journal.
A reviewer shall not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a manuscript under review, except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
If a reviewer has convincing evidence that a manuscript contains plagiarized material or falsified research data, the reviewer shall promptly notify the editor.
Principles of Transparency
- Peer review process: JORAR is a double-blind, peer-reviewed electronic quarterly publication covering all aspects of Rescue & Relief. The peer-review process, and all related policies, are clearly described on the journal's website: https://jorar.ir/page/136/Peer-review-process
- Governing body: JORAR maintains a strong Editorial Board whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas within the journal's scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal's editors are provided on the journal's website: https://jorar.ir/page/13/Editorial-Board
- Contact information: Contact information for the Editorial Office of JORAR is provided on the journal's website: https://jorar.ir/page/12/About-the-Journal
- Author fees / access: The journal is fully open access, and the full text of published articles is available to all readers free of charge. Authors are not charged any fees for submission, processing, or publication.
- Copyright: Authors retain copyright in their published papers, which are published under a CC BY 4.0 license.
- Identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct: The Editor-in-Chief takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of manuscripts involving research misconduct, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification or fabrication, in accordance with the procedure described under Handling Cases of Misconduct below.
- Website: The journal's website (https://jorar.ir/) reflects the care taken to maintain high ethical and professional standards.
- Name of journal: The name Journal of RESCUE & RELIEF (JORAR) is distinctive and is not readily confused with another journal.
- Conflicts of interest: Authors are required to disclose whether any conflicts of interest exist at the time of submission, through the Conflict-of-Interest Disclosure Form.
- Publishing schedule: The journal's periodicity is clearly indicated at: https://jorar.ir/page/12/About-the-Journal
- Archiving: The journal's plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to its content is clearly indicated at: https://jorar.ir/browse.php?&slct_pg_id=17&sid=1&slc_lang=en
(See also: Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Principles_of_Transparency_and_Best_Practice_in_Scholarly_Publishing.pdf)
Violations of Publication Ethics
1. Plagiarism. Plagiarism is the intentional use of another person's ideas, words, or original material as if they were one's own. Copying even a single sentence from another person's manuscript — or from one's own previously published work — without proper citation, is considered by JORAR to constitute plagiarism. All manuscripts under review or published by JORAR may be screened using plagiarism-detection software (e.g., CrossCheck). Plagiarism is treated as a serious violation of publication ethics.
2. Data Fabrication and Falsification. Data fabrication occurs when a researcher did not actually conduct the study but instead invented data or results and reported this fabricated information as genuine. Data falsification occurs when a researcher conducted the study but manipulated, altered, or selectively omitted data or results in the reported findings.
3. Simultaneous Submission. Simultaneous submission occurs when a manuscript, or substantial sections of it, is submitted to JORAR while it is already under consideration by another journal.
4. Duplicate Publication. Duplicate publication occurs when two or more papers share essentially the same hypotheses, data, discussion, and conclusions, without full cross-referencing and disclosure to the editors.
5. Redundant Publication. Redundant publication refers to the inappropriate division of a single study's findings into multiple manuscripts, most often for the purpose of increasing the number of publications, rather than to present genuinely distinct scholarly contributions. This is to be distinguished from legitimate fragmentation (see Obligations of Authors), in which each resulting paper makes a substantively different and complete contribution.
6. Improper Author Contribution or Attribution. All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research and manuscript and must have approved its content and submission. Authors must not omit any individual who has made a significant contribution, including students and laboratory or field personnel who meet the applicable authorship criteria.
7. Citation Manipulation. Citation manipulation refers to the inclusion of excessive or irrelevant citations that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the manuscript and are included solely to increase citations to a given author's work, or to articles published in a particular journal. This misrepresents the significance of the work and constitutes a form of scientific misconduct.
Sanctions
Where a violation of the policies set out above is confirmed following the procedure described under Handling Cases of Misconduct, JORAR shall apply sanctions that are proportionate to the nature and severity of the violation, and that take into account whether the conduct was a first offense, whether it was intentional, and whether it affected the manuscript under review, a published article, or other work by the same author(s). Possible sanctions include, individually or in combination:
(i) rejection of the manuscript in which the violation was identified;
(ii) rejection of other manuscripts by the same author(s) currently under review at JORAR, where the nature of the violation reasonably calls the integrity of that other work into question;
(iii) correction, expression of concern, or retraction of a published article, as warranted;
(iv) a formal letter of reprimand, with or without a requirement to publish a correction or apology;
(v) in serious or repeated cases, a period of prohibition — proportionate to the severity of the case, and ordinarily not exceeding 36 months — against new submissions to JORAR by the author(s) responsible, individually or in combination with the coauthors of the infringing manuscript;
(vi) prohibition against the author(s) responsible from serving on JORAR's Editorial Board or as reviewers for JORAR; and
(vii) in extreme or serious cases of confirmed fraud, notification of the author's institutional or funding authority.
Any coauthor of an infringing manuscript who can demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the Publication Committee, that they had no knowledge of and no reasonable means of detecting the violation, shall not be subject to sanctions under items (v) and (vi) above.
Authors subject to a sanction under this section may request reconsideration by the Publication Committee by submitting a written appeal, with supporting evidence, within 30 days of notification. The Committee's decision on appeal shall be final.
Handling Cases of Misconduct
Once JORAR receives an allegation, or otherwise becomes aware of possible evidence, of a violation of its publication ethics policy, the journal follows the procedure summarized below, applied in a manner proportionate to the apparent seriousness of the case:
Violations of Publication Ethics
1. Plagiarism. Plagiarism is the intentional use of another person's ideas, words, or original material as if they were one's own. Copying even a single sentence from another person's manuscript — or from one's own previously published work — without proper citation, is considered by JORAR to constitute plagiarism. All manuscripts under review or published by JORAR may be screened using plagiarism-detection software (e.g., CrossCheck). Plagiarism is treated as a serious violation of publication ethics.
2. Data Fabrication and Falsification. Data fabrication occurs when a researcher did not actually conduct the study but instead invented data or results and reported this fabricated information as genuine. Data falsification occurs when a researcher conducted the study but manipulated, altered, or selectively omitted data or results in the reported findings.
3. Simultaneous Submission. Simultaneous submission occurs when a manuscript, or substantial sections of it, is submitted to JORAR while it is already under consideration by another journal.
4. Duplicate Publication. Duplicate publication occurs when two or more papers share essentially the same hypotheses, data, discussion, and conclusions, without full cross-referencing and disclosure to the editors.
5. Redundant Publication. Redundant publication refers to the inappropriate division of a single study's findings into multiple manuscripts, most often for the purpose of increasing the number of publications, rather than to present genuinely distinct scholarly contributions. This is to be distinguished from legitimate fragmentation (see Obligations of Authors), in which each resulting paper makes a substantively different and complete contribution.
6. Improper Author Contribution or Attribution. All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research and manuscript and must have approved its content and submission. Authors must not omit any individual who has made a significant contribution, including students and laboratory or field personnel who meet the applicable authorship criteria.
7. Citation Manipulation. Citation manipulation refers to the inclusion of excessive or irrelevant citations that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the manuscript and are included solely to increase citations to a given author's work, or to articles published in a particular journal. This misrepresents the significance of the work and constitutes a form of scientific misconduct.
Sanctions
Where a violation of the policies set out above is confirmed following the procedure described under Handling Cases of Misconduct, JORAR shall apply sanctions that are proportionate to the nature and severity of the violation, and that take into account whether the conduct was a first offense, whether it was intentional, and whether it affected the manuscript under review, a published article, or other work by the same author(s). Possible sanctions include, individually or in combination:
(i) rejection of the manuscript in which the violation was identified;
(ii) rejection of other manuscripts by the same author(s) currently under review at JORAR, where the nature of the violation reasonably calls the integrity of that other work into question;
(iii) correction, expression of concern, or retraction of a published article, as warranted;
(iv) a formal letter of reprimand, with or without a requirement to publish a correction or apology;
(v) in serious or repeated cases, a period of prohibition — proportionate to the severity of the case, and ordinarily not exceeding 36 months — against new submissions to JORAR by the author(s) responsible, individually or in combination with the coauthors of the infringing manuscript;
(vi) prohibition against the author(s) responsible from serving on JORAR's Editorial Board or as reviewers for JORAR; and
(vii) in extreme or serious cases of confirmed fraud, notification of the author's institutional or funding authority.
Any coauthor of an infringing manuscript who can demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the Publication Committee, that they had no knowledge of and no reasonable means of detecting the violation, shall not be subject to sanctions under items (v) and (vi) above.
Authors subject to a sanction under this section may request reconsideration by the Publication Committee by submitting a written appeal, with supporting evidence, within 30 days of notification. The Committee's decision on appeal shall be final.
Handling Cases of Misconduct
Once JORAR receives an allegation, or otherwise becomes aware of possible evidence, of a violation of its publication ethics policy, the journal follows the procedure summarized below, applied in a manner proportionate to the apparent seriousness of the case:
- The handling editor first informs the Editorial Office of JORAR, supplying copies of the relevant material together with a draft letter to the corresponding author requesting an explanation, in a clear and nonjudgmental manner. The author is given a reasonable opportunity to respond in writing before any further action is taken.
- The editor and the Editorial Office assess the author's response together with the available evidence. A case is treated as substantiated only where the evidence — including the manuscript, any relevant correspondence, similarity reports, data, and the author's response — is judged sufficient by the Editorial Office, or where necessary the Publication Committee, to establish, on the balance of the available evidence, that a violation occurred.
- If the author's explanation is unsatisfactory and the matter appears to constitute a serious violation, the case is referred to the Publication Committee via the Editorial Office for deliberation. The Committee determines whether the case is sufficiently serious to warrant sanctions under the Sanctions section above, including any restriction on future submissions.
- If the violation is judged less severe, the Editor, on the advice of the Publication Committee, sends the author a letter of reprimand reminding them of JORAR's publication policies. If the manuscript has already been published, the Editor may request the author to publish an apology or correction in the journal.
- The corresponding author is notified in writing of the outcome. Any other manuscript by the author responsible for the violation, or coauthored by that author, that is under review by JORAR at the time is assessed individually in light of the nature of the violation, rather than rejected automatically, unless the Publication Committee determines that the integrity of that other work is also reasonably in question.
- Where a violation is confirmed, the author(s) responsible are barred from serving on the JORAR Editorial Board and as JORAR reviewers. JORAR reserves the right to take any further action described under Sanctions.
- In extreme or repeated cases, notification is sent to the author's institutional or funding authority, and the author(s) are prohibited from submitting new work to JORAR for a period proportionate to the severity of the case, ordinarily not exceeding 36 months.
- In serious, confirmed cases of research misconduct affecting a published article, a retraction notice is published in the journal and linked to the article in its online version. The online version is marked "Retracted," together with the date of retraction.
- Throughout this process, JORAR maintains confidentiality regarding the identity of the author(s) under investigation, to the extent consistent with the proper handling of the case, and affords the author(s) a fair opportunity to respond at each stage, including the right of appeal described under Sanctions.
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