Ethical Considerations
Publishing Ethics
JEHSD follow the rule of committee on publication ethics (COPE) on how to deal with acts of misconduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and see the COPE website: www.publicationethics.org
Authors’ contribution
JEHSD requests its authors to comply with authorship criteria as defined by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The contributions of each author should be revealed clearly and will be published in the article.
ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- Final approval of the version to be published; AND
- 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.
For further information on the authorship criteria see ICMJE website: www.icmje.org
Research Involving Human Subjects
When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/policies-post), revised in 2008. According to point 23 of this declaration, an approval from an ethics committee should have been obtained before undertaking the research.
Research Involving Animal Subjects
The editors will require that the benefits potentially derived from any research causing harm to animals are significant in relation to any cost endured by animals, and that procedures followed are unlikely to cause offense to the majority of readers. Authors should particularly ensure that their research complies with the commonly-accepted '3Rs':
- Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible,
- Reduction in number of animals used, and
- Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize the harm to animals.
Any experimental work must also have been conducted in accordance with relevant national legislation on the use of animals for research.
Manuscripts containing original descriptions of research conducted in experimental animals must contain details of approval by a properly constituted research ethics committee.
Declaration of interest
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work.
Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership and grants or other funding. If there are no conflicts of interest then please state this: I/we have no competing interests.
Role of the funding source
You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor, if any, in study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report and in the decision to submit the article for publication. if the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a" Copyright form" (for more information on this see jehsd.ssu.ac.ir). An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript.
Open Access (OA)
JEHSD is a non-for-profit journal. As an open access journal, JEHSD makes all publications immediately available to any reader, any where. There is no publication fees and submission fees. All articles will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download upon publication. Permitted (re) use is defined by Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0): allows users to read, copy, distribute and make derivative works for non-commercial purposes from the material, as long as the author of the original work is cited properly.
Confidentiality of Manuscripts
Confidentiality of manuscripts in the Journal of Environmental Health and Sustainable Development journal (JEHSD) is essential to protect the content and data submitted by authors during the peer-review process. JEHSD typically has strict policies in place, including non-disclosure agreements for reviewers and editors, and author consent for manuscript processing. Confidentiality extends to personal or sensitive data and is crucial for maintaining the integrity of the peer review process, ensuring trust in the scientific community, and avoiding conflicts of interest. It is a professional ethical requirement that JEHSD and its staff handle manuscripts and reviewer comments with utmost confidentiality, following relevant laws and regulations.
Misconduct
Scientific misconduct includes fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism with the intent to deceive the authors. Honest errors or differences in interpretation are not considered misconduct. Breaches of publication ethics include but are not limited to failure to reveal financial conflicts of interest; omitting a deserving author or adding a noncontributing author; misrepresenting publication status in the reference list; self-plagiarism without attribution; duplicate or redundant publication; and inclusion of one or more sentences verbatim from another source without citing the original source and putting the sentence(s) in quotation marks.
JEHSD's policies against misconducts
JEHSD takes seriously its responsibility to ensure scientific integrity and will pursue any allegations of misconduct. The JEHSD editors adhere to the COPE Code of Conduct, which can be found at http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct. Charges of academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, duplicate, and redundant publication will be managed according to COPE guidelines. JEHSD uses “iThenticate: Plagiarism Detection Software” to verify the originality of written works.
Sponsorship and Partnership
As part of our commitment to transparency and accountability in scientific research, authors submitting manuscripts to JEHSD are required to provide information on Sponsorship and Partnership. This includes details on funding sources, conflict of interest disclosures, and acknowledgments of collaborative relationships associated with the research reported in the manuscript. By including this information, authors contribute to the transparency and integrity of their research findings. This ensures that potential conflicts of interest, funding sources, and collaborative efforts are disclosed, and helps maintain the credibility and trustworthiness of the scientific literature.
Data Sharing
At JEHSD, we value the importance of open and transparent research practices. As part of our commitment to advancing scientific knowledge, we strongly encourage authors to share their research data. This may include raw data, processed data, or supplementary data that support the findings of their manuscript. Data sharing promotes reproducibility, allows for further analysis, and fosters collaboration among researchers.
Authors are encouraged to provide details on how and where their research data can be accessed in a dedicated Data Sharing section of their manuscript. If data cannot be shared due to ethical, legal, or other reasons, authors should provide a clear rationale for non-disclosure. By sharing research data, authors contribute to the scientific community's ability to validate and build upon their research findings, promoting transparency and rigor in scientific research.
This procedure applies to complaints about the publishing policies, procedures and actions of publishing and editorial staff and Editors-in-Chief of journals from JEHSD.
We infer that the complainant is not simply disagreeing with a decision we have made or something we have published (which happens every day) but thinks that there has been a failure of process - for example, a long delay or a rude response - or a severe misjudgment.
We welcome complaints as they provide an opportunity and a spur for improvement, and we aim to respond quickly, courteously, and constructively. Please write your complaint with journal title, vol. no., issue no., paper title and page no.
How to register a complaint
Complaints may be made by phone, email or letter. Informing us in writing by email is advised as it provides the most reliable audit trail. The complaint should be directed initially to the person the complainant is already in contact with over the relevant matter. If that is not appropriate please email the Associate Publisher or Managing Editor of the journal named on the ‘Contact us’ page of that journal’s website.
All complaints will be acknowledged within three working days.
If possible a full response will be made within four weeks. If this is not possible an interim response will be given within four weeks. Further interim responses will be provided until the complaint is resolved.
As a follower of the COPE, JEHSD subscribes to the “Code of Conduct” the “Best Practice Guidelines” and "Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing".
Withdrawal
Withdrawing a manuscript is an action that takes the manuscript out of the review process and puts it back into the author's dashboard. As it wastes valuable manuscript processing time, money and effort invested by the publisher, we generally do not recommend article withdrawal.
Withdrawal Steps
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Pre-Review is a period during which an author(s) submit(s) her/his article until it is sent for review.
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Peer-Review is a period the manuscript is submitted completely to the website and included in the review process.
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Final Decision is a period from the acceptance of an article until it is sent for publication if the article meets the journal standards.
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Pre-Publication: when a paper is accepted for publication or published as an “ahead of print (In Press)” paper but has no volume/issue/page number.
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Post-Publication: when a paper is published and placed in a volume/issue with the page number.
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Pre-Review: The author (s) may withdraw their paper at this stage without providing compelling reasons.
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Peer-Review, Final Decision, and Pre-Publication: Authors should have compelling reasons to withdraw their papers.
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Post-Publication: Withdrawal is not possible at this stage.
See COPE Cases for details.
Correction
The JEHSD will consider the publishing a correction if an error could compromise an article's conclusions or contains incorrect information about the article's metadata such as authorship, affiliations, title, and so on, but does not affect its validity.
Redundant publication
Double submission is when the same paper (or data) is submitted to different journals simultaneously. In this case we will follow the COPE guidelines.
Retraction
In keeping with COPE's Retraction Guidelines, a retraction will be considered by our editors if:
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It has clear evidence that the results are unreliable, either because of major errors (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error, data fabrication, image manipulation, ...)
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There is plagiarism.
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The results have been previously published elsewhere without proper citation of previous sources, permission to reproduce or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication).
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There is copyright infringement or other legal issues
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It reports unethical research
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Has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or rigged peer review process
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The author(s) have failed to declare a significant conflict of interest
Advertising policy
The journal does not accept advertising, neither print nor online.
