Publication Ethics
All people involved in the publication of an article including: the author(s), Editor-in-Chief, reviewers, the executive director and the specialized secretaries of the Journal of Human Rights must be aware of and be committed to publication ethics. The ethical principles provided here are clearly defined, and in the case of any non-compliance with these principles, the Journal has the right to undertake appropriate actions. When authors submit a manuscript and reviewers accept to conduct a review, it is presumed that they know and adhere to publication ethics.
Ethical principles followed by the Journal of Human Rights are based on the principles of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also the specific views and internal rules of the Journal which have been updated. (for cope codes, visit: http://publicationethics.org)The Journal of Human Rights is a member of the International Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE). Therefore, all members of the journal and the authors of articles submitted to the journal are required and obligated to observe all the principles of publication ethics of this committee.
A) Ethical Principles of Manuscript Authorship
1. Submitted papers must be the direct result of the authors’ original research. The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism, in all its forms, from 'passing off' another's paper as the author's own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another's paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others, constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
2. Manuscripts which have been accepted or published in any inter/national journals or conference proceedings must not be submitted to the journal. Manuscripts, moreover, must not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration. The authors are committed not to send their article to other journals until they get the final review result of the Journal of Human Rights.
3- Authors must avoid sending multiple manuscripts to the Journal of Human Rights at a time. The journal will not take the other manuscripts into consideration unless the final review result of first one is announced.
4. Articles which are extracted from a dissertation and written by the cooperation of a supervisor can only be submitted if the name of the supervisor is included.
5. The authors of the articles should refrain from submitting similar articles (articles with slight changes to assumptions, explanations, arguments, data, and outcomes). If such articles are submitted, the Journal will remove the article from its review process, and the author’s other articles will not be accepted to be reviewed by the Journal.
6. Author(s) of submitted manuscripts should not refer to their names directly or indirectly in any part of the paper.
7. All authors must read the process of manuscript submission in this journal and act upon it.
8. All authors are obligated to sign an interest disclosure form and an authorship form and send them while the manuscript is submitted to the Journal through the online submission web site. The corresponding author is the one who is responsible for gathering the signatures of all authors included in the article.
9. The corresponding author should be clearly identified in the article and ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring the consent of all other authors of the paper and sending their consent (in the form of letter of commitment to the Editor-in-Chief).
10. Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscripts and provide the definite list of authors at the time of the original submission. Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider (at their discretion) the addition, deletion rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been submitted and the author must clearly flag any such request to the Editor.
11. The Journal of Human Rights takes plagiarism very seriously, and all authors should be aware that the manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Human Rights will be examined and analyzed by iThenticate systems.
12. Authors should bear in mind that if any type of plagiarism is noted and proven, the manuscript will be withdrawn from the publication process. Moreover, authors submitting plagiarized materials will enter a black list and the affiliated institutions will be notified of the plagiarism.
13. If any type of plagiarism is noted and proven, the manuscript will be withdrawn from the publication process. If the plagiarism is encountered after the article is published, an explanatory notification will be published about the case in the following Issue, and the article will be removed from the online archive of the Journal. Moreover, authors submitting plagiarized materials will enter a black list and the affiliated institutions will be notified of the plagiarism. Plagiarism is considered as one of the serious misconduct and undeniable publication ethics violation.
14. Instructions on how to deal with fabricated data are available here (one - two).
15. In case of redundant information these instructions (one - two) will be followed.
16. In cases of suspicion to undisclosed conflict of interest in an unpublished article (submitted or not) these instructions will be followed (one - two).
17. In case of any kind of mistake in an article, the author must inform the office of the Journal and collaborate with us to fix the mistake and correct the paper.
18. If claim of a plagiarism arises in social media or in an indirect way, these instructions will be followed (one - two).
19. Blind references (i.e. misplaced or invalid references), as well as unused resources should not be included in the article at all. The use of these references is considered to be a violation of publication ethics.
20. All authors are obligated to declare all financial sponsors of the article.
21. In the Journal of Human Rights, article withdrawal may only be possible if the article has been submitted within 7 days of business days. After the article has entered the process of reviewing, there is no possibility to withdraw. If the author wishes to withdraw the article after the time limitation, the Journal of Human Rights has the right to take decisions about the publication of the article. to withdraw an article, the author must write a clear and concise letter to the Editor-in-Chief as to why the manuscripts needs to be withdrawn.
22. Authors retain Copyright on any research paper in an open-access journal, but the online version of the authors’ work will be free to access for anyone, and they can copy, redistribute the material, or to make any adaptation upon the material provided that they give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. The Journal’s policy in this regard is based on CC By 4.0 More information on CC By 4.0 will be available here.
23. We have a policy of acquiring a sole and exclusive license for all published content, rather than ask, authors to transfer the ownership of their copyright. This policy balances the interests of our authors with our need to maintain the viability and reputation of the journal. An exclusive license enables the centralised and efficient management of permissions and licensing, ensuring the widest dissemination of the content through intermediaries. More over, exclusive rights enable the Center for Human Rights Studies of Mofid University to take measures on behalf of our authors against infringement, inappropriate use of an article, libel or plagiarism. Further more, by maintaining exclusive rights, in all media for all published content, we can monitor and uphold the integrity of an article once refereed and accepted for publication. Journal of Human rights follows international law of copyrights (CC by 4.0). While using the content of articles from this journal, reference should be made to the name of the journal and its issue as well as the name of the author(s) otherwise this will be a violation of the law.
24. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'. (We request all authors to sign the form). This agreement deals with the transfer or license of the copyright to the Journal of Human Rights and authors maintain significant rights to use and share their own published articles.
B) Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers
1. Reviewers should agree to review a manuscript only if the manuscript matches their expertise.
2- While reviewing articles, it is very important to respect point of views different from a review’s. Reviews should refrain from providing unfounded criticisms just because the manuscript expresses opposing ideas.
3- Until the articles are published, the reviewers should not disclose any information about the results of research reported in the manuscripts being reviewed.
4- Reviewers must inform the Editor-in-Chief of their conflicting and competing of interests in the article being reviewed.
5- Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts without regard to nationality, religious beliefs, and ethnic, cultural and economic origins of the author.
6- Reviewers should refrain from making derogatory and libelous comments about the author(s) of the article.
7- Reviewers must be fair and unbiased in the process of conducting a review.
B-1) Basic Principles for Reviewers on Being Approached to Review
1- Reviewers are committed to conduct the initial evaluation of a manuscript within the most reasonable time-frame, especially if they have no intention to or cannot undertake the review.
2- On being approached to review, reviewers should specify their areas of specialty and notify the Editor-in-Chief that whether the manuscript matches their expertise.
3- Reviewers should agree to review only if they are fairly certain that they can return the review to the Editor-in-Chief within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame.
4- At the very start of the review, reviewers must immediately notify the journal of any potentially conflicting or competing interests which might prevent them providing a fair and unbiased review.
5- At the very start of the review, reviewers should inform the Editor-in-Chief of any substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article so that rational decisions can be reached.
6- Reviewers must refuse to carry out a review if they have been involved with any part of the research reported in the manuscript or its reporting.
7- Reviewers must decline to review if they feel unable to provide a fair and unbiased review.
8- Reviewers should not accept to conduct a review just to gain sight of an article. They should make sure, in advance, that they have the subject expertise to carry out the review.
9- Reviewers should review manuscripts based on the special rules and regulations which are adopted by the Journal of Human Rights, and they should review afresh any manuscript they have previously reviewed in other journals.
10- If reviewers suspect the identity of author(s) of the article based on text of the article or any other possible ways, they must inform the Editor-in-Chief to take rational decisions and to prevent any conflict of interest to happen
11- Reviewers must refrain from conducting a review if they do not adhere to the rules and regulations of peer review adopted by this journal.
B-2) Basic Principles During Review
1. Reviewers must bear in mind that the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board members require a fair and unbiased assessment of the strengthens and weaknesses of the article so that it would help them make a decision. Therefore, the results of the review should not be reflected in general or inaccurate terms, without mentioning the cases.
2- Reviewers are required to examine and review the entire article and its supplementary data thoroughly and accurately. Therefore, examining and reviewing some parts of the article (usually abstract, introduction and conclusion) should be largely avoided.
3- Reviewers must review, assess and analyze manuscripts based on scientific documentation and clear, expressible and comparable reasoning. At the end of this process, all the documentations and reasoning must be available to the Editor-in-Chief, and in some cases to the author(s). Reviewing should be conducted in a fair way. Reviewers should make their views clear and reasonable, and criticisms should not be defamatory.
4- Reviewers should be specific in their criticisms, and provide evidence with appropriate references. They should provide clear and detailed explanations, along with examples on the margin of the text or on another paper. General statements such as ‘this work has been done before’, ‘it leaves a lot to be desired’, and ‘ the work in generally acceptable’ should be avoided to help editors in their evaluation and decisions and in fairness to the authors.
5- Reviewers should do a standard analysis on the article that enables them to present an exact report to support the Editor-in-Chief or the Editorial Board in the process of decision making.
6-Reviewers are required to check referencing of the manuscript for accuracy, adequacy and balance.
7. Reviewers should base their review on the merits of the work and not be influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations or by intellectual biases.
8- Given that the Journal of Human Rights pursues double blinded review policy, reviewers are required to inform the Editor-in-Chief immediately if the author of the article (in any way) tries to make any kind of contact with them.
9- The review of the article should be made by the reviewer appointed by the Journal. Reviewers are not allowed to involve another reviewer without coordinating with the Editor-in-Chief.
10. Reviewers are supposed to immediately inform the Editor-in-Chief of any kind of plagiarism which has occurred in the article.
11. Reviewers are required to treat all information confidentially, and to refrain from using the information obtained during the peer review process for any possible purpose.
12. In the case of detecting a data robbery by reviewers, necessary actions will be taken based on these rules.
13. Reviewers must finish reviewing and commenting on a manuscript within the agreed time frame and not prolong the review process without a good reason.
14. The model of peer reviewing in the Journal Human Rights is: post-publication, double blind; editor-in-chief mediates all interaction between reviewers and authors, peer reviews are not published, peer review is facilitated by the Journal and reviews are owned by the journal.