“This journal is following of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and complies with the highest ethical standards in accordance with ethical laws”.

These ethical considerations should be taken into account by the respected authors: 

1. The authors should not falsify or fabricate data, data sources, findings, claims, or credentials.

2. Academic honesty should be considered by authors. They should reference when they reported or utilized any materials or data verbatim no matter it is published, unpublished, or electronically available.

3. According to American Educational Research Association (AERA)’s codes of ethics, no manifestations of discrimination  in regard to race; ethnicity; culture; national origin; gender; sexual orientation; gender identity; age; religion; language; disability; health conditions; socioeconomic status; marital, domestic, or parental status should be found in the submitted manuscripts.

4. All the authors should get the informed consent of the participants of their studies. In consonant, protection of participants’ privacy and maintaining their anonymity should be meticulously considered in the manuscripts. 

Plagiarism and Literacy Theft

Allameh Tabataba’I University, as a pioneering humanities university in the country, has always valued original research and reliable scientific research. In this regard, the publishing deputy of Allameh Tabataba’I University has not shown any tolerance in the field of plagiarism and has always examined and studied all the articles registered in the journals of this university as carefully as possible to ensure that these works are free from plagiarism. It’s worth mentioning that due to the prevalence of plagiarism in the production of scientific works, Allameh Tabataba’I University publications use every possible method to combat this issue.

Publications of Allameh Tabataba’I University follow the definitions and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). For complete access to these guidelines, definitions, and rules you can visit www.publicationethics.org/resources.

In this context, all journals of Allameh Tabataba’I University follow the following definition in the field of plagiarism published by the American psychological association in the publication guidebook (6^th edition), this definition is:

Using ideas, words, or the entire product without citing the source, and using it as your ideas, words, or product as a new idea or product produced by someone other than the original authors.

As a general term, plagiarism includes different concepts:

• Word-for-word copying: word-for-word copying, in whole or in part, without using quotation marks or referring to the source.
• Superficial or inadequate interpretation: taking ideas from the source and changing its word structure in such a way that the prose style of the original author is still noticeable.
• Plagiarism of visual content: use of diagrams, photos, or tables, in whole or in part without reference.
• Interpretation without reference: taking ideas to form the source and then producing material with your prose without following the principles of reference or quotation.

It’s worth mentioning that Allameh Tabataba’I University publications, regardless of the source, consider any work without reference or citation to the source as plagiarism. Such works include authors whose works have been published or not, these and dissertations published or not, speeches, the author’s works, presentation files, educational video material, scientific journal articles, magazines, newspapers, etc.

Allameh Tabataba’I University publications carefully examine all submitted articles and deal with any plagiarism at any stage of publication:

• As soon as plagiarism is seen in the newly submitted articles, the editorial committee of the journal decides it. If plagiarism is seen as a mistake, the authors will be notified immediately and the possibility of correction will be provided for them. If intentional plagiarism is detected, the authors will be notified and they will be blacklisted by Allameh Tabataba’I University publications. Being blacklisted by Allameh Tabataba’I University publication will cause similar consequences in all scientific publications such as Allameh Tabataba’I University so the future works of these authors who are caught to have plagiarized articles will be banned from sending their works to Allameh Tabataba’I University publications for 5 years.
• In very rare cases where a work containing plagiarism is published, in addition to the consequences mentioned, the relevant work will be immediately removed from publications of Allameh Tabataba’I University and this will be officially announced through the publication’s website.

Allameh Tabataba’I University publications use similarity finder systems to check the percentage of similarity. These systems are connected to numerous data banks around the world and to confirm the originality and validity of the presented articles, they are examined many times in different ways with access to large sources of matched data. The acceptance percentage of Allameh Tabataba’I University publications is up to 15%.

Ethical responsibilities of authors

1. The final responsibility of the article rests with the author(s) of the article. Therefore, the authors are obliged to carefully interpret and analyze their views. Also, the article should include enough details and sources so that other researchers can access the same dataset in order to repeat the existence of the research.
2. The article should be a new and original work, that is, it should be the result of the author or authors’ own studies, experiences, and research. As a result, the article containing copying other people’s research (even if documented) or repetition of other people’s ideas is not acceptable.
3. The author should not send the article or part of it to another publication or present at a conference.
4. the author of the article must refrain from any kind of unethical research behavior in his/her research, such as: falsifying data, distorting data, taking advantage of others to conduct research and mentioning his/her name as the author, resubmitting the article or a part of it which have already been published.
5. The article must be free of any kind of plagiarism (from one’s own or others’ works, whether quoting a phrase or quoting the theme, or stealing other people’s ideas without citation), and the authors must be sure of the correctness of their work before submitting the article to the journal. (refer to the authors’ guide section).
6. The authors are obliged to raise any conflict of interest that may affect the results of the research or interpretation of their findings or may cause a possible conflict with the interests of other institutions or individuals. Financial sources supporting the research should also be mentioned. (to download the conflict of interest form, refer to the authors’ guide section).
7. If an author notices an important mistake of carelessness in his/her work, he/she is obliged to inform the editor of the journal as soon as possible and cooperate in the process of revising and correcting the article.
8. The responsible author must register the names and information of all co-authors in the system at the same time as the article is registered, and do not add another author’s name after that.
9. It is necessary to sign the letter of commitment form by all the authors of the article and send it along with the article. All authors are responsible for the correctness of the content of the article. (to get the form, refer to the authors’ guide section).
10. The article must be free of any kind of racial, ethnic, gender, or political discrimination.
11. In order to respect the confidentiality of the evaluation process, the authors should avoid providing any information in the article that would lead to their recognition.

Ethical responsibilities of reviewers

1. The reviewers should help the editor and members of the editorial board accept or reject the article by reviewing the content and quality of the article and contribute to improving the quality level of the article and journal by sending corrections to the authors.
2. The selected reviewers must immediately after reviewing the abstract of the article, inform the editor of the publication about his decision to accept or not accept the task (due to the fact that the subject of the article is not in the reviewer’s field of work, lack of time, etc.); and in case of acceptance of arbitration, review the article at the appointed time.
3. If the article is outside the reviewer’s area of expertise, he/she should refuse to evaluate it.
4. The reviewers must respect the confidentiality of the evaluation process and must not share information about the article before, during, or after the process.
5. The reviewer should evaluate the articles objectively, impartially, and fairly and avoid personal orientations in their recommendations and judgments. The judging of the article should be based on scientific documentation and sufficient reasoning and should be expressed clearly, and the involvement of ethnic, national, racial, political, religious, and gender issues in the judging should be avoided.
6. The reviewer is obliged to identify and review the sources referred to by the author any conclusions and discussions should be documented. Also, the reviewers are obliged to inform the editor if they see any similarity or overlap between the submitted work and another article.
7. Judges should not use the information or idea they obtained in the evaluation process for personal gain. It is also necessary to refuse to evaluate articles that, in their opinion, are subject to conflicts of interest, including financial, organizational, and personal interests or any other connection or links with companies, institutions, or people related to the articles.
8. If the reviewers know the author’s identity they should discuss it with him/her directly without the editor’s permission.
9. If the reviewers of the article find out that the article has been sent to another publication or that the article is taken from the published or unpublished works of others they should inform the editor.
10. Reviewers should avoid using offensive, harsh, and unscientific expressions in judging.
11. The reviewers should not entrust the judgment of the article to another person without informing the editor.

Ethical responsibilities of editors

1. The editor of the journal is responsible for making the final decision in accepting or rejecting the submitted article, and this is done with the help of the editorial board and in compliance with issues related to copyright, plagiarism, etc., as well as the discretion of the reviewers.
2. The editors should continuously strive to improve the quality level of the publication.
3. Editors should perform their editorial duties including accepting or rejecting articles, with freedom and authority and maintaining scientific independence, and in this regard, they should not be influenced by non-scientific and non-specialist factors.
4. The editor’s judgment about the articles should be based solely on scientific merit. Therefore, personal bias or consideration of nationality, gender, religion, ethnic, racial, and political issues should not be considered as criteria for rejecting or accepting articles.
5. The editor and editorial board should not disclose information about the article except to the reviewers, authors, and editors.
6. Those parts of the submitted articles that have not been published should not be used in personal research by the editor or the editorial board. Confidential information or ideas obtained through the evaluation of articles must be kept confidential and not used for personal gain.
7. Editors should always propose and implement strategies to improve the quality of articles.
8. Editors should try to respond to the needs of the audience and writers.
9. Editors should be diligent in teaching research ethics to authors and audiences.
10. Do not be overshadowed by financial needs in performing the editorial duties of ethical and rational standards.
11. The editors should respect the corrections suggested by the reviewers and, on the other hand, respect the reasoned and logical answers of the authors.
12. The editors are obliged to select competent reviewers for the articles according to the title of each article and according to the specialized field.
13. Editors should be careful that the article is not subject to copyright and plagiarism.