Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP) editorial policy is in accordance with code of conduct and best practices by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). RJP follows the declaration of Helsinki (2013) regarding researches involving humans. For animal or human studies, adequate statistics must be presented and the details of approvals of the research ethical committee including the code and date of approval should be indicated in the material and methods section. For research including animals, authors should clearly indicate whether the institutional and national/international guides for the care and use of laboratory animals have been followed during the research. For clinical trials the registration number (for Iranian authors the IRCT number) should be provided in ethical considerations subsection under material and methods.

 

Plagiarism

While preparing the manuscript by authors, every related literature should be cited properly and the manuscripts must be devoid of any kind of plagiarism;whilst, it is important to avoid excessive and inappropriate self-citation. The submitted manuscript will be checked for plagiarism by plagiarism check software.

 

Breaking a single work

Slicing the results of  a study with similar idea and methodology to smaller units is not acceptable and must be avoided. Such data should be published under a single frame work.

  

Research misconduct

Manipulating or inventing the data are unacceptable. Authors should present accurate results and omission or intentional manipulation of parts of the dataset to match the desired study’s hypotheses is not acceptable; also, authors should avoid dual submission which will not be tolerated by the journal. These misconducts will be considered as fraud. 

 

Reproducibility

Authors can provide their dataset as supplementary data files during manuscript submission

 

Erratum  

Significant error, inaccuracy of a published work should be promptly reported to the journal and the paper should be corrected or retraced in form of an erratum.

 

Ethical issues: RJP Action

In case of suspecting an ethical issue, conflict of interest or misconduct RJP should be informed at info@ pharmacognosy.ir or directly through the Editor-in-Chief at mhmoghadam@sbmu.ac.ir.

The Editor-in-Chief will investigate the issue with cooperation of the editorial board members. The Editor-in-Chief will be in contact with the relevant parties and they will be informed before any decision is made.

RJP will try to find the most proper solution. In case the paper has not been published yet, the publication will be delayed. If the evidence of ethical issues and malpractice is enough, the manuscript may be rejected. If the manuscript has already been published the decision will depend on the nature of the issue and might end in debates, publication of a corrigendum or addendum, publishing a manuscript regarding the issue (after passing the review process) or retracting the manuscript.

 

Submitted manuscripts will be subjected to peer-review process by experts in the related fields to evaluate the suitability for publication in RJP. After the review process, the manuscripts will be returned to the authors in case revisions are needed. This process might be repeated if the revision is not satisfactory.  By submitting a manuscript to RJP, the authors imply that they are representing an original work that has not been published before and is not considered for publication elsewhere or in any other language. The declarations statement should be signed by each author and uploaded by the corresponding author.

Preparing the cover letter, the authors should clearly mention the type of their manuscripts (original article, short communication,... ), state that the work has not been submitted elsewhere and mention if there is any conflict of interest;  also any conflict of interest should be stated before the reference section in the manuscript.

 Upon acceptance a declaration should be completed, signed and submitted to the journal.

 

Code of Publishing Ethics

Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP) as a publication of Iranian Society of Pharmacognosy, is committed to apply ethics of publication, based on the COPE’s Core Practices.

Introduction

Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP) aims to be a main channel of data communication, sharing of ideas and information to the scientific researching community. It is mandatory to follow certain code of ethics and adhere strictly to the following code of ethics, which will enhance the quality of the published works heavily. This currently written code of ethics is focusing to provide guidance on the proper behavior of editors, authors and reviewers in the process of scientific publication. 

Authors and Co-authors

Authors

Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP) is committed to follow and apply “International Standards for Authors” of Committee on Publication Ethics in designing and leading the Journal’s reviewing and publishing process and dealing with their issues. Authors should read the standard and apply it on their works, completely.

Authors submitting a paper confirm that the understanding that the manuscript has been read and approved by all authors and that all authors agree to the submission of the manuscript to the Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP). RJP adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (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.

It is a requirement that all authors have been accredited as appropriate upon submission of the manuscript. Contributors who do not qualify as authors should be mentioned under Acknowledgements. 

In addition, authors are advised to follow the following code of ethics strictly, submit manuscripts, which are their originals works or of the work, they are associated with during their tenure. 

Submitted manuscripts should contain original and new results, data, and their ideas, which are not submitted for publishing to other publications or published elsewhere. Fabrication of data and results, intellectual property theft and plagiarism are highly unacceptable, it is beyond the ethics of an author. Information obtained via various media should be provided in the manuscript only with prior permission from the owner of the source of information or data. 

They should properly cite the work they are referring; authors are advised to crosscheck the reference before submission of manuscript. 

They may not promote in any form via any media to get their works published. No article should have an author who is not directly involved in the work for any means or reasons.  

Authors and co-authors are requested to review and ensure the accuracy and validity of all the results prior to submission. Any potential conflict of interest should be informed to the editor in advance. Authors are bound by the Creative Commons licensing policy of publication. 

All authors are requested to submit the copyright transfer form without failure once they receive the acceptance of their article for publication. 

Editors 

Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP) is committed to follow and apply “International Standards for Editors” of Committee on Publication Ethics in designing and leading the Journal’s reviewing and publishing process and dealing with their issues. The journal's editors should read the standard and apply it in their editorial tasks and procedures, completely.

The term editor is a common terminology used to refer Chief Editor of any journal, Content editor, Section Editor (An expert who is the manager of reviewing process in a subject centered section), and Editorial board members. Editors of the Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP) are insisted to have full responsibility for editorial and technical decisions of the journal. Any editor or office bearer should not intervene or give comment on any editorial decisions taken on any manuscript by the concerned editor. Editors are requested to give unbiased considerations for the articles submitted. Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP) aims for rapid publication, editors are advised to process the manuscripts promptly and diligently. 

Editors are the sole responsible persons for the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript, it may be subjected to peer review but the final decision is bound to the concerned editor. 

Any decision taken or matter of concern about a submitted article should not be revealed to anyone by an editor. If one of the editors is willing to publish an article the article should be processed by another editor. 

Editor should refrain from using the information, data, theories, or interpretations of any submitted manuscript in her/his own work until that manuscript is in press. 

Reviewers  

Reviewers are the main members contributing for the benefit of the journal being a peer reviewed (double-blind review) journal they are insisted not to disclose their identity in any form.  

A reviewer should immediately decline to review an article submitted if he/she feels that the article is technically unqualified or if the timely review cannot be done by him/her or if the article has a conflict of interest. 

All submissions should be treated as confidential, editorial approval might be given for any outside person’s advice received. 

No reviewer should pass on the article submitted to him/her for review to another reviewer in his own concern, it should be declined immediately. 

Reviewers being the base of the whole quality process should ensure that the articles published should be of high quality and original work. He may inform the editor if he finds the article submitted to him for review is under consideration in any other publication to his/her knowledge. 

There are no hard and fast rules to analysis an article, this can be done on case-to-case basis considering the worthiness, quality, and originality of the article submitted. 

In general, cases the following may be checked in a review 

· Structure of the article submitted and its relevance to author guidelines 

· Purpose and Objective of the article 

· Method of using transitions in the article 

· Introduction given and the conclusion/ suggestions provided 

 · References provided to substantiate the content 

 · Grammar, punctuation and spelling · Plagiarism issues 

 · Suitability of the article to the need 

A reviewer’s comment decides the acceptance or rejection of an article and they are one major element in a peer review process. All reviewers are requested to go through the articles submitted to them for review in detail and give the review comments without any bias, which will increase the quality of the journal. 

 

Breach of Code 

Being an association dedicated for the researcher fraternity, we should ensure that the code of ethics formed is followed in all possible ways. Being a not-for-profit body it is the internal responsibility of a person whom should have to follow the codes, there is no enforcement to follow. 

Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP) is entitled to take action against an individual if they found to be violating the code. 

 

COPE’s Guidelines & Flowcharts

Research Journal of Pharmacognosy (RJP) is committed to follow and apply guidelines and flowcharts of Committee on Publication Ethics in its reviewing and publishing process and issues. For more information, please click here.