PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT
• Peer Review/Responsibility for the Reviewers
• Permissions and Transfer of Copyright
Section A: Publication and Authorship
1. 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.
2. The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, originality, readability, statistical validity and language.
3. The possible decisions include acceptance, minor revisions, major revision or rejection.
4. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
5. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
6. The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
7. No research can be included in more than one publication, whether within the same journal or in another journal.
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Section B: Authors' Responsibilities
1. Authors must certify that their manuscript is their original work.
2. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere, or even submitted and been in reviewed in another journal.
3. Authors must participate in the peer review process and follow the comments.
4. Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
5. 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.
6. Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
7. Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
8. Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
9. Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.
10. Authors must not use irrelevant sources that may help other researches/journals.
11. Authors cannot withdraw their articles within the review process or after submission, or they must pay the penalty defined by the publisher.
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Section C: Peer Review/Responsibility for the Reviewers
1. Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
2. 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.
3. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments in 500 to 1000 words.
4. Reviewers may identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
5. 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.
6. 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.
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Section D: Editorial Responsibilities
1. Editors (Associate Editors or Editor in Chief) have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
2. Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
3. Editors should always consider the needs of the authors and the readers when attempting to improve the publication.
4. Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
5. Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
6. Editors should have a clear picture of a research's funding sources.
7. Editors should base their decisions solely one the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope.
8. Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason.
9. Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers (in half blind peer review journals).
10. Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to international accepted ethical guidelines.
11. Editors should only accept a paper when reasonably certain.
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 reject papers based on suspicions; they should have proof of misconduct.
14. Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members.
15. Editors must not change their decision after submitting a decision (especially after reject or accept) unless they have a serious reason.
Section E: Publishing Ethics Issues
1. All editorial members, reviewers and authors must confirm and obey rules defined by COPE.
2. 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).
3. Authors cannot make major changes in the article after acceptance without a serious reason.
4. All editorial members and authors must will to publish any kind of corrections honestly and completely.
Section F: Human and Animal Rights
The studies on human or animal subjects must be followed the ethical guidelines. For humans’ studies, all experiments must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). The studies which carry a risk of harm to human subjects must include a statement that all subjects understanding the process of research was conducted and completed the consent form, all authors must provide the Ethical Committee code that has approved the experiments. The clinical trial studies must register the trials in IRCT and provide the clinical trial registration number and name of the trial in their manuscript.
For animal experiments, all manuscripts must describe the details of the anesthetic or surgical procedure used, in accordance with the rule of Helsinki to avoid animal suffering at each stage of the experiment and obtained ethics committee approval.
The clinical trial studies must register the trials in IRCT and provide the clinical trial registration number and name of the trial in their manuscript.
As stated in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, credit for authorship requires substantial contributions to: 1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND 2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND 3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND 4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. All authors must sign authorship form attesting that they fulfill the authorship criteria. Your submitted manuscript will not be processed unless this form is sent. There should be a statement in the manuscript explaining contribution of each author to the work. Those contributors who did not fulfill authorship criteria should be listed in acknowledgments. Any change in authorship after submission must be approved in writing by all authors. All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the co-authors. Assurance that all authors of the paper have fulfilled these criteria for authorship should be given in the cover letter.
Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, (b) written confirmation (E-mail or letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed. After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Submitted papers will be examined for evidence of plagiarism using PlagScan automated plagiarism detection service. The authors are responsible for plagiarism checks. It is very important for the editorial board of the Journal of Oral Health & Oral Epidemiology and the manuscript may be rejected, even if it has been accepted by reviewers. The duplication should not be more than 10%.
Authors will be asked to transfer copyright Permission and send the signed form by all authors to the Journal of Oral Health and Oral Epidemiology. This will protect your original material, and stop others from using your work without your permission.
By signing the Copyright form all authors declare that: