Journal of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences

• Publication Ethics

            Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Ethics play the most crucial role in the academic investigation. Due to the significance of adherence to ethical behavior, JRUMS has established some ethical codes for all related parties. Following these codes is mandatory for all parties, including the author, the peer reviewer, and the editors.
Publication and Authorship

• All articles submitted to JRUMS go through a strict peer-review process.
• The review is done by at least two expert reviewers.
• Pertinence, authenticity, readability, validity, and language are the elements considered while reviewing a submitted manuscript.
• Acceptance, minor revision, major revision, and rejection are the decisions possibly made for a manuscript
• JRUMS will not re-consider its rejected manuscripts.
• Plagiarism and duplication are carefully checked, and appropriate action is taken in the case of suspecting and detecting the aforementioned cases.

Authors

• The submitted manuscripts must be original works with new results, data, and ideas.
• They must not be submitted for publication or published elsewhere and in any languages.
• All the research processes should be exactly described, including data collection, data analysis, results, discussion, and conclusion.
•  References should be cited and listed in accordance with the JRUMS’ stated principles.
• Authors are requested to precisely check the validity and accuracy of the results prior to submission.
• Plagiarism, fraudulent data (data fabrication and manipulation) must be seriously avoided.
• All works and words of other researchers should be stated with appropriate citation.
• Studies conducted on humans, animals, cell lines, field sampling, and potential biosafety implications require approval from the relevant institution.
•  Human subjects must be given consent forms.
• The financial support sources for the research should be mentioned.
• There is an obligation for the authors to submit an error free version of the paper.
• The editor in chief should be informed regarding any potential conflict of interest in advance.
• In the case of detecting any problem in the published work, the authors must notify the editor.
  
  

Reviewers

• Reviewers are considered the major party in the process of peer review and their comments have a determining role in the acceptance and rejection of a submitted article. Therefore, they are requested to judge objectively and in an unbiased manner.
• They are expected to report their views clearly.
• All reviews should be treated as confidential.
• The reviewer should decline the review process in the case of feeling that he/she is not qualified enough to review the article submitted or not being able to perform the timely review, or noticing any case of conflict of interest.
• The reviewer has to report any case of plagiarism and fraudulent data.

 
Editors

• Editors are completely responsible for announcing the acceptance or rejection of any article submitted.
• They should make this decision based on the manuscripts’ significance, authenticity, clarity, and pertinence to the JRUMS’ aim and scope.
• Editors and the editorial staff should guarantee the confidentiality of the articles.
• Editors should behave in an unbiased manner.
• They should not reveal any decision made with respect to the articles to anyone else.
• There should be no conflict of interest in regard to the accepted or rejected papers.
• In the peer-review process, double-blind review should be regarded. 
• Editors should preserve the anonymity of the reviewers.
•  Editors have to avoid applying the data, theories, or interpretations of any submitted manuscript.
• Editors’ rejection should not be done based on suspicions; there should be reasonable proofs for rejecting the article.
• Editors have to do their best to detect the cases of misconduct in the received manuscript and take appropriate action when finding potential cases.

Publication Ethics

• All kinds of plagiarism (full, partial, and self-plagiarism) and fraudulent data are seriously banned.
• Data duplication, fabrication, and manipulation must be seriously avoided.
• Plagiarism is checked using the Paper Plagiarism Checker software of the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education at the following link: https://ppc.research.ac.ir.
• To manage a case of plagiarism, JRUMS follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)'s guidelines presented in the following flowcharts:

•   Suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript (PDF)
•   Suspected plagiarism in a published manuscript (PDF)

• All editorial members, reviewers, and authors must follow the rules defined by COPE.

• The corresponding author as the main owner of the article can withdraw the article in the case of being incomplete (before entering the review process or while being asked for a revision).
• No major change in the articles is permitted after acceptance without a serious reason.