Publishing Ethics
PHJ follows International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)‘s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Therefore, we genuinely recommend authors read these recommendations prior to the submission of their manuscript. If research misconduct, fraud or plagiarism is suspected, PHJ will follow the COPE guidelines and reserve the rights to inform authors or their institutions
Conflict-of-Interest Statement
According to ICMJE, conflict of interest occurred when a financial or personal relationship exist between any participant in the peer review and publication process – authors, reviewers, editors, or editorial boardmembers of journals – and might bias or be seen to bias fulfilling their role.
Any conflict of interest in a given manuscript should be reported by submitting ICMJE form for Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest to PHJ when submitting the manuscript. Then, we utilize COPE workflow to transparently handle it.
Regulation for Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement Section A: Publication and authorship
1- All articles submitted to PHJ are subjected to strict peer-review process by at least two expert reviewers that are selected by the special editor of each article.
2- Relevance, originality, readability, statisticalvalidity and language are factors that are taken into account when reviewing an article.
3- The possible decisions include acceptance, minor revisions, major revision and 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-considered.
The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
No research can be included in more than one publication, whether within the same journal or in anotherjournal
Section B: Duties of Authors
1- Authors must certify that their manuscript is their original work.
2- Authors must certify that the manuscript has not been previously published elsewhere, or evensubmitted to and being reviewed in another journal.
Note: Publication of some kinds of articles (e.g. clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. Further detail on acceptable forms of secondary publication can be found from the ICMJE.[M1]
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.
6- Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
7- Authors must notify the editorial office 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 editorial office.
10- Authors must state that informed consent was obtained from all human adult participants andfrom the parents or legal guardians of minors. Include the name of the appropriate institutionalreview board that approved the project.
Authors are recommended to conform to the Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments(ARRIVE) guidelines for reporting animal studies.
Section C: Duties of reviewers
1- Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents.
2- Reviewers must not share the review or information about the paper with anyone or contact the authors directly without permission from the editor.
3- Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author. No self-knowledge of the author(s) must affect their comments and decision.
4- Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments in 500 to 1000 words.
5- Reviewers may suggest relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
6- Reviewers should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
7- Reviewers should not review the manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting fromcompetitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, orinstitutions connected to the papers.
Section D: Duties of editors
1- Editors (Deputy 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 on the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance.
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
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) unlessthey have a serious reason.
Section E: Publishing Ethics Issues
1- All editorial members, reviewers and authors must confirm and obey rules defined by ICMJE.
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.
Sanctions
In case the basis for the submitted manuscript is the authors published works of the authors, or works currently under review, the previous articles must be cited, and the authors should indicate how their submitted manuscript differs from their previous work. Reusing the authors’ words outside the Methods should be attributed or quoted in the text. Reusing the authors’ figures or substantial amounts of wording may need permission from the copyright holder, and the authors are accountable for obtaining this.
phj will consider extended versions of articles published at conferences provided this is acknowledged in the cover letter; the previous version is cited and discussed; and crucial new content and any necessary permissions are obtained.
Redundant publication, the inappropriate division of study outcomes into more than one article (also known as salami slicing), may result in rejection or a call for merging submitted manuscripts and the correction of published articles. Duplicated publication of the same, or a very similar, article may result in the retraction of the later article, and the authors may incur sanctions.
Sanctions
If PHJ becomes aware of breaches of your publication ethics policies, the following sanctions may be applied :
• Rejection of the manuscript and any other manuscripts submitted by the author(s).
• Not allowing new submissions for 2 years.
• Prohibition from acting as an editor or reviewer.
PHJ may apply additional sanctions for severe ethical violations.