Publication Ethics
The ethical policies and principles of this journal are developed based on the "Charter and Standards of Ethics in Research" of the Research and Technology directorate of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, the principles of the international Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and the practices of this journal along with other scientific journals. The authors, reviewers, editorial board, editor-in-chief and executive manager and the publisher of the journal must adhere to these ethical principles when collaborating with the journal.
Responsibilities and Obligations of the Authors
- Submitted manuscripts should be in the scope of the journal and must be result of a research carried out by the author(s). The research should be sound, scientific and prepared according to the journal guide.
- Research topics should be original and have scientific validity and lead to the production of new knowledge or seek solutions to existing problems.
- Author(s) should represent the work of other researchers accurately in citations and quotations. New findings should be clear and unambiguous.
- The research report should contain new insights, processes, arguments, inferences and achievements or ideas, and it should avoid rewriting work of others, redundancy, generalization and dogmatism.
- Papers from master’s thesis, doctoral dissertations, and research projects belong to the university or organization where the dissertation or research project was conducted. Therefore, all articles from dissertations and research projects should be published under the name of the relevant university or organization and the approval of that institution or organization should be submitted to the journal.
- Authors should refrain from any research misconduct. Examples of these misconducts are:
- Data fabrication which is the intentional misrepresentation of research results by construction and/or addition of data, observations, or findings that never occurred such as reporting fake results as the output of a software or survey or changing the results of one survey with another.
- Data falsification which means recording and presenting research findings by manipulation of research materials, equipment, or process of data collection or omitting or changing data, with the intention of giving a false impression.
- Plagiarism which is the representation of another author's thoughts, ideas, processes, results or words as one's own original work without giving appropriate credit, or translating all or part of others' research without permission and presenting it as an original scientific research.
- Ghost authorship which occurs when the researcher does not make a substantial contribution to the research or writing of the report, and instead hires individuals to conduct the research and/or prepare the manuscript, and despite little to no actual involvement of the author, he/she publishes the article without acknowledgment of their contribution.
- Authors should properly cite the work of other researchers, whether they are referring to them directly or indirectly. This must also be taken into account when rewriting. It means when writing about information or ideas from a source using their own words, the author must cite the original source, as well.
- Authors are required to use reliable sources and should not use or cite unreliable sources.
- The authors should refrain from appointing an honorary author (a person who has not made any scientific contribution to the research) and removing the real author (a person who has significantly contributed to the research).
- Changes in authorship: the editor- in-chief or executive manager of the journal receives and investigates requests for changes in authorship. Authors can make change in authorship if they provide valid reasons and all authors agree to this change. Journal approval is also required for this change.
- All authors must take responsibility for the content of the article in terms of accuracy as well as compliance with the ethical principles of the publication.
- The corresponding author is responsible for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process regarding any ambiguities about the article, as well as communicating with the other authors about the key feedbacks and correspondence.
- Names of all the individuals who provided assistance to the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be mentioned in the acknowledgment and their contributions should be specified.
- The corresponding author should report possible conflicts of interest and financial sponsors of the research. Conflicts include:
- If the researcher publishes an article in the name of the supervisor or the head of the research group without informing them, the researcher bears full responsibility. After which the supervisor or head of the research group must take legal action and inform the journal about the result.
- Authors are not allowed to submit an article to more than one publication -either print or electronic journals- simultaneously.
- Resubmitting a published article to another print or electronic journal is prohibited.
- Authors are not allowed to publish their previous data with a slight change in the text in another article with a new title.
- If the results of a research can be published in one article, authors are not allowed to publish their results in several separate articles.
- All authors are required to sign the Ethical Statement Letter and the Requesting Article Review Form -which introduces the order of the authors along with the corresponding author- and submit them to the publication office.
- According to the open access license of the Journal of Architecture and Urban Planning, the authors keep ownership and copyright for their article, but allow others to download, reuse, print, and distribute the content of the article. This use is provided that the original source is properly cited.
- To publish articles, it is necessary to submit a certificate that shows the article has no issues of plagiarism.
Dealing with the misconduct of authors
- Rejection of the article in the review process and removal of the article from the site if it is published.
- Sharing authors' misconduct by an official letter with other related publications.
- Referral of authors` misconduct to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, universities, and everywhere that authors have used the privilege of this article.
Responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Board and the Executive Manager
- The decision regarding the selection of reviewers and acceptance or rejection of the articles after reviewing is made by the Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board of the journal.
- The editor-in-chief has the right to reject articles suspected of not complying with ethical principles.
- The editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board of the journal should continuously ask for the opinions of the authors, readers, and reviewers of the journal regarding the improvement of the publication policies and the quality of the form and content of the journal.
- The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board should select competent reviewers based on their expertise, academic and professional experience, and their moral obligation.
- The Editor-in-Chief, the editorial board, and the executive manager of the journal should ensure that the authors and the reviewers remain anonymous throughout the review process.
- The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board must ensure that the review process is conducted in an accurate, precise and fair manner.
- The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board should conduct their assessment based on the logical content of the articles and without any bias.
- The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board should carefully investigate any research misconduct by themselves or the reviewers (or reporting possible received misconduct) and take the necessary measures.
- The Editor-in-Chief, the editorial board, and the executive manager are obliged to inform the authors promptly if the submitted manuscript does not fall within the aims and scope of the journal or if it is not possible for the journal to conduct a review of the paper.
- The editor-in-chief and the editorial board of the journal must take measures to register and archive the reviewed documents of the articles as scientific and confidential documents, as well as to keep the names of the reviewers of each article.
- The editor-in-chief, editorial board, and other collaborators in the publication should not use their position to publish their articles.
- The executive manager of the journal is obliged to promptly inform the corresponding author about the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of the article.
- The editor-in-chief or executive manager of the journal (on behalf) is responsible for obtaining conflict of interest forms and letters to the editor-in-chief in order to ensure that the original or similar copy of the article is not sent to other journals, even in other formats.
Responsibilities of the Reviewers
-It is necessary to adhere to the reviewers’ principles of the journal. (http://aup.journal.art.ac.ir/journal/process).
The reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of the submitted articles and must not use their information for their own personal use.
- The reviewers must inform the publication office (using the journal reviewing form) about their decision about acceptance or rejection of an article within the specified timeframe.
- The reviewers must promptly notify the publication office if the article is not within their area of expertise or they are unable to conduct a review in a timely manner.
- If the reviewers identify the authors of an anonymous manuscript, in order to avoid prejudice and conflict of interest, it is necessary to inform the publication office.
- Articles should be reviewed in an unbiased, fair, honest and impartial manner, based on the scientific documentation and logical arguments. The reviewers should provide written, transparent and accurate feedback together with the documented basis for their opinion to the publication office, so that the editorial board and the Editor-in-Chief can make an informed decision about the article.
- Reviewers are required to report any research misconduct to the publication office with the provision of relevant documentation (e.g. the similarity of the reviewed manuscript with any published papers in other journals, or cases of plagiarism or falsification of data).
Responsibilities of the publisher
- The publisher must consider the editorial board's decisions regarding the articles as final.
- The publisher undertakes to record the personal, academic, and research records of the authors.
- The publisher undertakes to monitor the ethical principles of the editor-in-chief and editorial board, reviewers, assistants, authors, and readers.
-The publisher undertakes the journal monitors plagiarism and scientific issues related to information data deception in the received articles.