Publication ethics of Journal of Hydraulics (JH) is completely based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and principles. These regulations i.e., ethical policies, must be obeyed by all editors, reviewers, authors, and readers of JH. In the following sections, publishing ethics (Editors, Reviewers, and Journal Staff Responsibilities, Authorship Criteria, Copyright policy, Conflicts of Interest, Allegations of Misconduct (falsification and fabrication of data, plagiarism, handling of complaints), and other key issues) are represented:
Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors of Journal of Hydraulics have various responsibilities. Editor is the only person who can decide which manuscript is eligible for further process and publication. The following section discusses the most important obligations and regulations related to position of Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors of Journal of Hydraulics.
- Publication decisions must be based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the Journal of Hydraulics' scope.
- The Journal of Hydraulics' editor will assess manuscripts without paying attention to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. In addition, current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism are considered as key factors and should not be understated by all editors, reviewers, editorial staff, authors, and readers.
- The Journal of Hydraulics' editor-in-chief and editorial board members should not disclose any information about the submitted manuscripts except for the corresponding author, reviewers, editors, and publisher.
- The Journal of Hydraulics' editor or editorial board members cannot use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper for their research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.
- The Journal of Hydraulics' editor shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof.
- An editor shall not send a manuscript to reviewers who are known to have personal bias in favor of or against the author or the subject matter of that manuscript.
- Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the research of the Journal of Hydraulics' editor or associate editor or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
- The names of reviewers shall not be released by the Journal of Hydraulics' editors or editorial staff.
- The Journal of Hydraulics' Editor-in-Chief takes important responsibilities such as considering complaints.
- An editor, who authors or coauthors of a manuscript submitted for consideration to the Journal of Hydraulics' with which that editor is affiliated, shall not review that work. If after publication, the editor-author's work merits ongoing scientific debate within the journal, the editor-author shall accept no editorial responsibility in connection therewith.
- If the Journal of Hydraulics' editor is presented with convincing evidence that the substance, conclusions, references or other material included in a manuscript published in the journal are erroneous, the editor, after notifying the author(s) and allowing them to respond in writing, shall facilitate immediate publication of an errata.
- If possible, the Journal of Hydraulics' editor shall also facilitate publication of appropriate comments and/or papers identifying those errors.
- If an editor is presented with convincing evidence that a manuscript or published paper contains plagiarized material or falsified research data, the editor shall forward such evidence to the Research Deputy in Iran Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology.
- Journal of Hydraulics' reviewer shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof. If a manuscript submitted for review presents a potential conflict of interest or if the reviewer has a personal bias, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly without review.
- If Journal of Hydraulics' reviewer feels inadequately qualified or lacks of time to fairly judge the work, the reviewer should return the manuscript promptly to the Journal's editor.
- Journal of Hydraulics' 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 acceptable.
- 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.
- If Journal of Hydraulics' reviewer receives a manuscript for review 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.
- Reviewing is essential to the publication process, hence all Journal of Hydraulics' authors have an obligation to do their fair share of reviews.
- A reviewer shall treat a manuscript received for review as a confidential document and shall neither disclose nor discuss it with others, except as necessary to a person from whom specific advice may be sought; in that case, the identities of those consulted shall be disclosed to the editor.
- Journal of Hydraulics' 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.
- Journal of Hydraulics' reviewers 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.
- 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.
- If a Journal of Hydraulics' reviewer has convincing evidence that proves a manuscript contains plagiarized material or fabricated research data, the reviewer shall notify the editor.
- In case a reviewer suspects fabricated data in a submitted manuscript must follow 'Suspected Fabricated Data in a Submitted Manuscript' policy on COPE website: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.2.3
The primary duty of author(s) is to present a concise account of the research based on necessary sections, which are presented in Guide for Authors Section in Journal of Hydraulics' website. In addition, other important issues are as follows:
- An author’s right to reuse and post their work published by Journal of Hydraulics' is defined by COPE Publishing’s copyright policy.
- A submitted manuscript should contain detail and reference to public sources of information sufficient to permit the author's peers to repeat the work or otherwise verify its accuracy.
- All authors should complete conflict of interest statement and copyright transfer documents prior to publishing.
- All authors or the corresponding author should include a statement disclosing any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
- An author shall cite and give appropriate attribution to those publications influential in determining the nature of the reported work sufficient to guide the reader quickly to earlier work essential to an understanding of the present work. Information obtained by an author privately, from conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, shall not be used or reported in the author's work without explicit permission from people whom the information was obtained. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, shall be treated in the same confidential manner.
- The submitted manuscript shall not contain plagiarized material or falsified research data.
- Fragmentation of research papers shall be avoided. A researcher who has done extensive work on a system or group of related systems shall organize publication so that each paper gives a complete account of a particular aspect of the general study.
- While Scholarly criticism of a published paper may sometimes be justified, personal criticism is never appropriate.
- To protect the integrity of authorship, only people who have significantly contributed to the research and preparation the manuscript must be listed as coauthors. The corresponding author attests to the fact that any others named as coauthors have seen the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Deceased people who meet the criterion for co-authorship shall be included, with a footnote reporting date of death. No fictitious name shall be given as an author or co-author. An author who submits a manuscript for publication accepts responsibility for having properly included all, and only, qualified coauthors.
- It is inappropriate for an author to either write or coauthor a Discussion of his or her own paper; except in the case of a rebuttal or Closure to criticism or Discussion offered by others.
- It is inappropriate to submit manuscripts with an obvious commercial intent.
- Manuscripts, which have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere, cannot be submitted. Consequently, manuscripts under review by Journal of Hydraulics' reviewers should not be resubmitted to other copyrighted publications.
- Submitting a manuscript to more than one journal should be avoided.
- 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 to cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper in the form of an erratum.
In spite of the fact that all Journal of Hydraulics' editors, reviewers, editorial staff, and authors must obey the aforementioned regulations and rules, there may be some situations that author(s) might want to complain. While Journal of Hydraulics' preference is for authors to resolve such matters amongst themselves, that is not always possible. However, in other cases, author(s) may want to complain about what editors, reviewers, or editorial staff do or how they react, for example, when a handling editor and her or his favorite reviewers request authors to cite the editor or reviewers’ works in revised submissions in case it is not scientifically necessary. A common case for complaints is “plagiarism”. It is committed when one author uses another work (typically the work of another author(s)) without permission, credit, or acknowledgment. Plagiarism takes different forms, from literal copying to paraphrasing the work of another. The complainant must be made aware that the matter cannot be investigated unless at some point the journal editor informs the corresponding (or complained-about) author. The first stage to take action must be a simple comparison of the relevant (two) texts. This can be a simple side-by-side comparison by the editor for the simpler forms of plagiarism or a more thoughtful analysis by the editor if paraphrasing or types of ‘self-plagiarism’ are alleged.
Other specific complaint form is authorship complaints. It is very important to Journal of Hydraulics that every author of a contribution be credited as such. It is equally as important that a person not be named as an author when he or she is not. It is worth mentioning that authorship is not a clearly defined concept. To be an “author” one must have responsibility for a particular aspect (that is not minimal) of the research or preparation of the work, that is, must have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study, and must have approved the final form of the work. Fundamentally, an author must be prepared and have the ability and responsibility to publicly defend the work. As it was mentioned earlier, Journal of Hydraulics' preference is for authors to resolve such matters amongst themselves. The complainant must be made aware that the matter cannot be investigated unless the journal editor informs the corresponding author or author about whom a complaint has been made and possibly the institution or company at which the research took place (the complainant may not wish to make the complaint at such a formal level). Other possible cases can be found on webpage: https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Case?classification=2773.
In general, Journal of Hydraulics' editor-in-chief, manager, and editorial beard, in addition to manager and the board of directors of the Iranian Hydraulic Association (IHA), as journal publisher, welcome to receive all complaints. Journal of Hydraulics' editor-in-chief, manager, and editorial board can assure all people that complaints will evaluate without any personal bias.
Journal of Hydraulics allows debate post publication either on its site, through letters to the editor, or on an external moderated site. All possible options including correcting, revising, or retracting articles after publication are available based on COPE policies (publicationethics.org).
Editors should consider retracting a publication if:
• They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (e.g., of data) or falsification (e.g., image manipulation)
• It constitutes plagiarism
• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication)
• It contains material or data without authorization for use
• Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (e.g., libel, privacy)
• It reports unethical research
• It has been published solely based on a compromised or manipulated peer review process
• The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a. conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.
It is recommended that all readers also visit the following websites:
https://publicationethics.org/