Qom University of Medical Sciences Journal

• The paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior are unacceptable.
• If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.
• Ethical considerations must be addressed in the “Materials & Methods” section.
• If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) (i.e., institutional review board or ethics review committee) has approved them.
• For those investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed.
• Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that the written informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. Please state that written informed consent was obtained from all human adult participants and from the parents or legal guardians of minors. Also, please state the manner in which a written informed consent was obtained from the study participants.
• The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.
• Editors may request that authors provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for oversight of the study.
• 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.
• When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

Note: The Journal requirements are in accordance with the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals, drawn up by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (URL: http://icmje.org).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Manuscripts that contain the results of human and/or animal studies should contain a statement indicating that

the study has been carried out with ethical committee approval.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

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.
8. In the journal, the time from the date of receipt to the acceptance of the article is 3 months. 
    

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.

Section C: Peer review/responsibility for the reviewers
Because qualified manuscript review is essential to the publication process, all engineers and scientists have an obligation to do their fair share of reviews.
1.    If a reviewer feels inadequately qualified or lacks the time to fairly judge the work reported, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly to the editor.
2.    A reviewer shall objectively judge the quality of a manuscript on its own merit and shall respect the intellectual independence of the author(s). Personal criticism is never appropriate.
3.    A reviewer shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof. If a manuscript submitted for review presents a potential conflict of interest or the reviewer has a personal bias, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly without review, and so advice the editor.
4.    Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the research of a reviewer or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
5.    If a reviewer receives for review a manuscript authored or coauthored by a person with whom the reviewer has a personal or professional relationship, the existence of this relationship shall be promptly brought to the attention of the editor.
6.    A reviewer shall treat a manuscript received for review as a confidential document and shall either disclose or discuss it with others except, as necessary, to persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted shall be disclosed to the editor.
7.    Reviewers shall explain and support 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.
8.    A reviewer shall call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper and any manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.
9.    A reviewer shall not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments or interpretations contained in a manuscript under consideration, except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
10.    If a reviewer has convincing evidence that a manuscript contains plagiarized material or falsified research dat.

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.
5. Any notes of plagiarism, fraudulent data or any other kinds of fraud must be reported completely to COPE.