Publication Ethics

Code of Ethics for Research and Scientific Publications of the Payame Noor University (PNU).

The ethical policy of  Practical Rhetoric & Rhetorical Criticism is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and complies with International Committee of journal Editorial Board codes of conduct. Readers, authors, reviewers and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with journal. To achieve such goal, the surveying process and research papers publishing should be done accurately fairly. To make all beneficiaries rely on serving justice in the checking and publishing process of journals results in reliability and popularity of the journals and publications. Thus, the code of Ethics of publications has been designed to obtain the purpose of confidence in checking and publishing process of journals.

 In this code, the policies of publications are expressed to guarantee the ethical behavior of all participants in the mentioned process. This code of ethics is applied for all submitted papers to the publications of Payame Noor University (PNU) from 1^st of March 2018 which may be revised and modified by the publication’s authorities. This code has been set up in three parts for authors, editors and reviewers who are asked to study precisely to ask the editor of the publication any queries with the help of Management papers site.  

The Code of Ethics for the Authors

Originality

• As an author begins submitting an article, the article should be a novel and original task.
• The author is not allowed to submit an article whose part is being studied somewhere else. He/ she cannot submit the article whose part is being studied and assessed to another journal as well.
• The submitted journal either part of it or the whole in Persian or any other languages is not allowed to be accepted which has been published previously or is going to be published in the future.
• Authors should express their primary ideas and tasks explicitly even they have been revised and quoted objectively.
• If precise sentences or paragraphs are seen in a research paper which seems it is an extract from an essay or the citation from another author, this sentence should be put in quotation mark. The essay ought to specify the origin of each applied datum and also all data.
• If specific data collection is applied by another author or this author, it should inform the other published or unpublished tasks.
• Authors should not submit the article which has been previously submitted to this journal, assessed and finally disapproved by the editor. If the first version was disapproved and the author is willing to submit a modified version for assessment, the essay resubmission justification should be clearly explained for the author or the editor.
• The permission for essay resubmission for the second time is possible in a particular situation.

Plagiarism and Possible Misconducts

The article registration will inform all authors by sending an email in the site of PNU journals. It is evident that inserting the author `s name in the article is considered as his / her main role in writing the essay if the essay authors have no role to write the essay and their name has not been mentioned. It is necessary to inform the received information by email immediately. All the authors of the article are responsible for the origin of the work. All assessment rights for the plagiarism in the journal are reserved.

Plagiarism has a variety of forms:

1. To insert the authors and researchers ` names who have no role in the article
2. To copy or repeat the most significant part of another article ( even the copied article is related to the author of  new essay )
3. To show the outcome and results of the others researches to his own
4. To express false results, in contrast with scientific findings or distort the outcomes of the research
5. Continuous publishing by a single author in some journals.
6. To apply unreliable data or manipulate research data

Plagiarism items will be studied by the journal editors for preserving the validity and the efforts of researchers without any overlook or indulgence based on the level of plagiarism then legally pursued as follows:

1. Journal will be disapproved and in case of publishing, it will be disappeared on the site
2. The name of the authors will be inserted in the blacklist journals of the Payame Noor University.
3. It will be prosecuted by qualified legal and judicial references
4. By writing an official letter, the plagiarism file is shared with other related domestic and foreign journals
5. By writing an official letter to the Ministry of Science and Information Technology, ISC, universities, institutes, journals or wherever the author has used the printing rate of this paper, they are informed the procedure

Conflict of Interest considerations (for Authors)

• The author should express the resources of financial scheme in the text of paper then applies to submit it. 
• Each of the mentioned resources should be printed with the article.
• If the type of situation which shows the contrast is doubtful, it should be clarified, any item in the field of conflict of benefits should inform the editor or the publishing office.
• The responsible author can recommend the probable reviewer for the paper at the time of submitting the essay to the journal.
• Authors ought to avoid any probable contrasts or its action in selecting the editors and reviewers. This kind of conflict of benefits is not only applied for the responsible author but also includes all the authors ` colleagues in the paper.

The examples of possible Conflict of Benefits are as following:

1. One of the authors in the very institution or the organization who is a reviewer or mentioned editor
2. One of the authors, member of the thesis committee who has been a reviewer or editor and vice versa
3. One of the authors, editors or reviewers who are the co-author in another article or, had been a co-author of an article in the past two years.

Authors should not introduce or name the people whom they know that they have studied the previous article and have put forward their hypothesis because this movement is in contrary with the hidden assessment process of the article automatically.

Manuscripts submitted by authors from our institution or from our reviewers' board should be reviewed by referees from outside. papers submitted by reviewers and the Editorial Committee for review or revision and resubmission by the author if necessary.

Double-blind peer review policy and authors responsibility

Journal follows a Double-Blind peer review in which the authors do not know the reviewers and vice versa. The authors should respect the confidentiality of the assessment process and don’t reveal their identity to reviewers and vice versa. For instance, an article should not include any information like self-revelation in a way that the reviewer can identify the author.

Authors should not publish their submitted papers on sites (either articles or first versions) because authors can be identified easily by reviewers in websites.

Authors should not mention the people as editor or reviewer where their previous article or previous copy has been studied and suggested his recommendations because this awareness or knowledge is in contrary with Double-Blind peer review process.

Precision

• Authors are finally responsible for the whole content of the submitted paper to the journal.
• Authors are in charge of representing a precise perspective of the done research as well as an objective debate, especially for the research importance.
• Authors should report their findings thoroughly, not to eliminate data relevant to the text or structure of research questions.
• Regardless of supporting the expected outcomes or being in contrast, results should be reported.
• Authors should present the features or relevant characteristics of their research, their findings and interpretation precisely.
• Fundamental suggestions, theories, methods, indexed and research schemes relevant with findings and their interpretations should be revealed and subjected.
• The article should contain ample details and resources in a way that researchers access to the same data collection to repeat the research.
• If an author discovers a mistake or an important carelessness, he/she is responsible for informing the editor and the procedure immediately to cooperate with the article modification or revision.
• If the author or publication, by a third person or party, understands that the published paper is suffering from a monumental error, the author is responsible for applying the article modification or revision as well as providing the evidence for editor based on the precision and correction of the main article.

Authorship Criteria

• All the mentioned authors should work seriously in research paper to be responsible for the results.
• The authorship or compilation should be shared in proportion with different supporting.
• Authors should accept the responsibility and validity of the task which include the authorship validity or compilation, only for the task which they have done practically or they have helped.
• Authors should typically list the name of the student as the main coauthor in the paper with multiple authors which has adapted from the student`s thesis or dissertation.
• The responsible author who submits the paper to journal should send one sheet or one version of article to all shared coauthors to satisfy them by paper submission and publishing.

Human rights

Authors are in charge of preserving and supporting privacy, human munificence, human freedom and welfare as well as research participants. The papers which are involved in human affairs (field studies, simulations, interviews), should be done in accordance with human rights regulation necessities in the university author.

Being up to date             

Authors should act quickly and appropriately to revise and modify the articles. If an author cannot act before deadline (maximum one month), should contact with the editor for extension or refusal from assessment process at once.

Code of Ethics for Editors

Independence

• Editors should preserve their pen and paper independence to work and make sure if authors are free to write.
• The editors are responsible for accepting or refusing the articles which typically depend on the idea and recommendations of reviewers, by the way, the articles which are inappropriate in the point of view of editors are probably refused without reviewers` assessment.

No biases

• Editors should improve their position score and circumstances confidentially, constructively unbiased.
• Editors carry the essay review duty only based on scientific merits. Editors should act unbiased, without personal or ideological advocacy.

Conflict of Interests

Editors should avoid any action which increases conflicts of Interests with its unreasonable aspect.

For instance:

• To avoid potential conflicts of Interests, editor is not allowed to publish the article which is not clearly identified, reviewed or partly reviewed. Liability, writing authority and editing each article by editor, submitted to the journal, should be submitted by editor to another qualified person like previous editor or one of the members of board of editorial.
• To apply written considerations in article by the author or editor in any form is not acceptable.
• Editors should avoid any paper study which is in contrast with their real or potential conflicts of Interests.
• The contrast which is due to competitive, partnership, financial or other relations with any other companies, organizations or institutes related to article.

The examples related to the relations which show conflicts of benefits of the editor or author are:

1. Both the author and editor have been employed by one institute
2. Editor has been one member of thesis committee of author or vice versa
3. The editor and the author are currently coworkers and coauthors in another article or have been coauthors in an article in past two years.

Double-Blind peer review policy and editors responsibility

• Publication follows a Double-Blind peer review in which authors do not know reviewers and vice versa.
• The articles of the magazine seem not to be assessed mutually and stealthily. Assessment standard should be expressed crystal clear.

Confidentiality

• Editors and their board of editorials are not allowed to reveal relevant information of the article to anyone but reviewers and authors.
• Official and formal procedures should be determined to preserve the confidentiality of assessment process.
• Editors are expected to make sure the confidentiality of Double-Blind peer review process and lack of information revelation which may reveal the authors` identity to reviewers and vice versa. Reviewers` anonymity can be breached only when reviewers permit editors to reveal their identity.
• Editors should make sure that their board of editorials are compatible and coordinated with them.
• Some parts of a submitted article which has not been published, are not allowed to be used in a personal research of an editor without the author `s written permission. Confidential ideas or information which has been got by article assessment should be preserved privately not to be used toward private benefits.

Assessment quality

• Typically, two reviewers are invited to express their idea about an article.
• Editor should evaluate all assessments qualitatively.
• Editor may rarely edit an assessed article before submitting to the author (for example, for eliminating an expression which reveal the reviewer`s identity or does not send the assessed article in case it is not constructive or appropriate.
• Rankings and scores of assessment quality as well as other functional features assessed periodically by the editor to make sure of optimized operation of journal.
• These scores and rankings should help decision makings in the field of reappointment of reviewing team and continuous requests.
• Individual operation data should be accessible for editors and kept confidentially.

Being up to date             

To guarantee the articles assessment and quick response to the authors ` requests about assessment status in a determined deadline (maximum one week after receiving the article) editors should apply primary assessment and reviewer selection.

Quality assurance

• Editors are responsible for describing the decisions of the board of editorials for authors and their articles.
• Editors should write high quality letters where these letters represent the combination of the reviewers` recommendations and extra suggestions for another author.
• Editors should not attach the result of the decision in the letter format without explanation to the advice and suggestions of the reviewer.
• Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish.

 Precision

As the editor receives convincing evidence from reviewer based on false concept or results of an unpublished article, should inform procedure to the author. If similar evidence about an article were published, editor should apply an emergency modified publishing, return previous one, and express relevant matters with other notes appropriately.

Authority

• Editor is responsible for final authority and responsibility of the journal.
• They should respect journal formation (such as readers, authors, reviewers, editors, staff of the board of editorial) and try his / her best for the truthful and honest content of the journal as well as continuous improvement.
• Editor should select members of the board of editorial based on written assessment board, determine their responsibilities and evaluate their actions regularly.

Operation

• Editor should design the operation index of journal.
• Journal is going to be published based on annual auditing related to admission level, publishing intervals, submitted articles percentage for revision and foreign revision as well as the operation data.
• Operation indexes ought to improve the journal operation for assessing the revolution of articles along with publishing processes.

Code of Ethics for Reviewers

Right to refuse and rejection

• Abstaining or rejection of an article assessment based on time or status is essential. For example, a reviewer who is not qualified enough to review a research paper should abstain from assessing the article.
• By potential conflicts of benefits, reviewers should abstain from their assessment.
• If the reviewers are asked to assess an article which has been previously assessed, they should inform the editor of primary evaluation details unless they are asked to reassess.

Double-Blind peer review policy and reviewers responsibility 

• Publication has a process of a Double-Blind peer review.
• Reviewers should abstain from assessing the articles which they have previously provided written suggestions in first version.
• If a reviewer is aware of the author`s identity or coauthor`s identity, is involved naturally in assessing the article.
• Reviewers are also responsible for avoiding writing, telling and doing whatever reveals their identity for the author.

Conflict of Interest

Generally, reviewers should abstain from assessing the articles which they think they are involved in conflicts of benefits such as shared financial, organizational and personal benefits or any connections with other companies, institutes or related individuals with essay, the reviewers who may have conflicts of benefits in the field of a special article. This conflict should be clarified for the editor to determine the appropriate level of assessment. For instance, there is a situation where the reviewer is editing and evaluating a similar article in that journal or another along with a similar research paper, keep in mind that under the process of Double-Blind peer review, as reviewers do not know the authors, it is unlikely that reviewers are aware of the involved conflicts of benefits among authors. Thus, they are not limited through these conflicts. If reviewers become aware of such conflicts, they should inform the editor of journal.  

 No biases

Reviewers should assess articles objectively, fairly and professionally. They are recommended to avoid any personal bias in their reviews.

Confidentiality

• Reviewers should respect the confidentiality of the assessment process.
• It is important to recognize whether this article is confidential or not.
• Reviewers should not discuss anyone except editor about article and they are not allowed to transfer the essay information to someone else.
• If reviewers are suspected to wrong deed should inform editor confidentially, not expressing their worries to other departments till official announcement.

Precision

• To assess the article and say recommendations to author (authors), reviewers should always know that assessment influence practical review.
• Reviewers should be honest with authors about their relevant article worries.
• Reviewers ought to define and support their scientific review sufficiently and, it means they should provide details and ample information for editor to justify their advice to author.
• Reviewers cannot be bipolar, for instance, on the one hand, very friendly and intimate assessments facing with author and on the other hand, very bitter assessment in person discussion with editor.  

Punctuality

• Reviewers should act quickly in their assessing and reviewing.
• If a reviewer cannot review his task in a determined deadline (maximum one month) he/she ought to connect with editor for extending the reviewing time or new reviewer selection.

The Principles of Transparency and Journal Policies 

• Plagiarism

  • Plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics. The authors are expected to check their manuscript for plagiarism before submission.
  • Plagiarism is intentionally using someone else’s ideas or other original material as if they are one's own.
  • Copying even one sentence from someone else’s manuscript, or even one of your own that has previously been published, without proper citation is considered by PRRC Journal as plagiarism.
  • All manuscripts under review or published with PRRC are subject to screening using plagiarism prevention software (Hamyab).
  • If plagiarism is detected during peer review, the submission can be rejected.
  • If plagiarism is detected after publication we reserve the right, as necessary, to issue a correction or retract the article. We reserve the right to notify the institutions of authors about the plagiarism that was found before or after publication.

• Archiving

  • The plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to journal's content (https://prl.journals.pnu.ac.ir/?lang=en) is clearly indicated. This policy sets out the ways in which the authors of PRRC can archive copies of their work on their own web pages, corporate web pages, and various other subject repositories. 
  • PRRC is an open access license, articles can be made available immediately according to the terms of their specific Creative Common license. If an author has published an article under an Open Access license, PRRC would encourage author to share the Version of Record on publication as opposed to the Accepted Manuscript.
  • Authors may also reuse the Abstract and Citation information (e.g. Title, Author name, Publication dates) of their article anywhere at any time including social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs and Twitter, providing that where possible a link is included back to the article on the PRRC site. Preferably the link should be, or include, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) which can be found in the Citation information about the article online.
  • The accepted version may be placed on: the author's personal website and/or the author's company/institutional repository or archive. Self-archiving of the submitted version is not subject to an embargo period.
  • PRRC is now formally archived at the National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI).

• Publishing schedule

PRRC is  a Semiannual  publication and is published 2 issues per year. All the content from the beginning to the end will be available for ever on PRRC exclusive website (https://prl.journals.pnu.ac.ir/?lang=en). 

• Copyright and Licensing

On the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge, this journal provides immediate open access to its content.

All journal papers are released under the  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits use, sharing, adaption, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as the original author(s) and source are properly credited. Under open access license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content, but allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the content as long as the original authors and source are cited properly.

Authors have the right to:

• • • Share their article in accordance with the "Personal Use Rights"** as long as it contains the end user license and a DOI link to the version of record in this journal.
    • Retain intellectual-property-rights protection (including research data).
    • Proper credit and attribution for the published work.

** Personal use rights

Authors can use their articles for scholarly purposes in whole or in part, such as:

• • • An author's use in classroom teaching (including distribution of copies, paper or electronic).
    • Distribution of copies (including through e-mail) to known research colleagues for their personal use.
    • Inclusion in a thesis or dissertation.
    • Use in a subsequent compilation of the author’s works.
    • Extending the article to book-length form.

• copyright holder

The authors are the copyright holder in this journal. 

• Advertising

The policy of the journal is not to have advertising.

• Appeals and Complaints Process 

We encourage reasonable challenges to editor judgments. However, in order to address the editor's and reviewers' concerns, you will need to offer solid support or fresh data/information. The editor undertakes to deal with the authors' Appeals based on the COPE’s Guidelines & Flowcharts  . However, if you disagree with the publication's final judgment and believe you have grounds for an appeal, proceed as follows:

1. 1. Explain your reasonable objections and why you do not concur with this decision.
   2. Provide the publication's editors any new information or data that you would like taken into account during the review process.
   3. If you believe the reviewers erred in their assessment of your paper, explain why and include appropriate proof.
   4. For each article, the editors only consider one appeal.
   5. The editors may consult the referees and editors who reviewed the article after receiving the appeal.

• Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct

Editor-in-Chief takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. 

1. 1. The first action of the journal Editor is to inform the Editorial Office of journal. They may ask the authors for an explanation.
   2. If the author’s explanation is unacceptable and it seems that serious unethical conduct has taken place, the matter is referred to the Publication Committee via Editorial Office.  After deliberation, the Committee will decide whether the case is sufficiently serious to warrant a ban on future submissions. 
   3. If the infraction is less severe, the Editor, upon the advice of the Publication Committee, sends the author a letter of reprimand and reminds the author publication policies.
   4. If the manuscript has been published, the Editor may request the author to publish an apology in the journal to correct the record.
   5. In serious cases of fraud that result in retraction of the article, a retraction notice will be published in the journal and will be linked to the article in the online version. The online version will also be marked “retracted” with the retraction date.

COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practices

PRRC is committed to follow and apply guidelines and flowcharts of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in its reviewing and publishing process and issues.

For more information on COPE’s Guidelines & Flowcharts please see: 

(https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts-new/translations). 

(https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf),

(https://publicationethics.org/files/2008%20Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf)