Ethical principles for article publication

Journal of Science and Technology Policy follows the principles and rules of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in research's ethical and legal aspects.

Ethical and legal duties of authors:

1. Authors are fully responsible for the manuscript's content.
2. Authors must not submit the manuscript fully or partially to another journal simultaneously or present it at conferences or other events. Otherwise, the manuscript will be removed from the review process while the authors are dealt with according to the regulations.
3. Authors must avoid unethical research behaviour (e.g., falsifying and distorting data, plagiarism, submitting research conducted by others, and resubmitting a manuscript fully or partially published in national or international publications).
4. The manuscript must be plagiarism-free (e.g., quoting words, themes, or ideas without referring to and self-plagiarism). Authors must ensure the manuscript's authenticity before submitting it to the journal. (review the Guide for Authors).
5. Authors must clearly state any conflict of interest that may affect the research findings' interpretation and results or possibly cause a conflict with the interests of other institutions or individuals.
6. Authors must present financial sponsors of the research if available.
7. Authors must inform the journal of any mistake at any stage immediately (before or after article publication).
8. The corresponding author must register the required information of all the authors while submitting the manuscript.

*** Change in the authors, their order, and the corresponding author is possible with their approval throughout the reviewing process of the manuscript, but not after its acceptance.

9. Authors must sign and submit the ethical statement with the manuscript as they are responsible for manuscript authenticity (Review the Guide for Authors).
10. The manuscript must be free of racial, ethnic, gender and political discrimination.
11. Authors should avoid providing personal information to ensure the confidentiality of the review process.
12. Using tables, images, charts, and questionnaires developed by others in a manuscript or research report requires citing the original source.
13. The cited sources must be reliable and scientifically valid.
14. Deciding to withdraw the manuscript from the journal at any stage before publication, Authors must submit a formal letter signed by all authors while reimbursing related expenses.
15. Authors can request to remove the manuscript after publication only if it has uncorrectable errors. The request, including the withdrawal justifications, must be submitted to the journal with the approval of all authors. Considering the justifications, the editorial board will decide whether to remove the manuscript. The editor will announce the justifications to the scientific community in the next issue if the manuscript is withdrawn.

Ethical and legal duties of reviewers:

1. Reviewers should help the editor and the editorial board members accept or reject the manuscript by reviewing its content and improving its quality through comments.
2. Reviewers must inform the editor about their decision to accept or reject reviewing the manuscript (according to their knowledge scope and timeline) immediately after reviewing the abstract. Accepting to review, they should review the manuscript and submit comments at the assigned time.
3. Reviewers should only review manuscripts within their knowledge and expertise scope.
4. Respecting the double-anonymized protocol, reviewers must not share information about the manuscript before, during, and after review.
5. Reviewers should objectively, impartially, and fairly evaluate manuscripts, avoiding personal bias in their judgments and comments.
6. Reviews should be based on scientific sources and sufficient reasoning, avoiding ethnic, national, racial, political, religious, and gender biases.
7. Reviewers should identify and review the sources cited by the authors.
8. Reviewers must inform the editor of any similarity or overlap between the submitted manuscript and other sources.
9. Reviewers should not use the information or ideas obtained in the review process for personal gain.
10. Reviewers should refuse to review manuscripts with conflict of interests (e.g., financial, organizational, personal interests, or any other association with firms, institutions, or individuals related to the manuscript).
11. Recognizing the authors' identity, reviewers should not directly communicate and discuss with them without the editor's permission.
12. Realizing the manuscript has been submitted elsewhere or extracted from research conducted by others, reviewers must inform the editor.
13. Reviewers should avoid offensive, harsh, and unscientific language in their comments.
14. Reviewers should not refer the review of a manuscript to a third party without informing the editor.

Ethical and legal duties of editors:

1. The journal's editor-in-chief is responsible for making the final decision on accepting or rejecting the submitted manuscripts with the help of the editorial board and reviewers and in compliance with ethical guidelines.
2. The editor should continuously strive to improve the journal's quality.
3. The editor should accept or reject manuscripts with authority and scientific independence, neglecting non-scientific factors.
4. The editor's judgments regarding the acceptance of manuscripts should be based solely on scientific merit, not considering personal, national, gender, religious, ethnic, racial, and political biases.
5. The editor and the editorial board should not disclose manuscript information except to authors and reviewers.
6. Submitted but not published manuscripts should not be used in the personal research of editors or the editorial board.
7. Information and ideas obtained through manuscript review are confidential and cannot be used for personal gain.
8. The editor should suggest and implement strategies to improve the quality of articles.
9. The editor should respond to the readers' and writers' questions, requests, and needs.
10. The editor should diligently teach authors and readers research ethics.
11. Financial needs should not overshadow ethical and rational standards in editorial duties.
12. The editor must respect the reviewers' comments and authors' justifications.
13. The editor should select reviewers according to their specialized field and manuscripts' titles.
14. The editor must check whether the manuscript is subject to plagiarism.

Scientific plagiarism

** According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), authors commit plagiarism if they use the contents of a published or unpublished material (e.g., article, thesis, and book) with or without its wording and writing style or presenting others' ideas without citing the original source.

*** In plagiarism, it does not matter whether the author represents his previously published material without citing the original work or the published or unpublished material of others. Either way, presenting other materials - without referring to them - is considered plagiarism.

*** As Journal of Science and Technology Policy condemns scientific plagiarism, it reviews manuscripts with plagiarism detection services before the review stage. Finding plagiarism in the manuscript leads to its rejection.

*** Plagiarism evidence after manuscript publication will lead to its removal from the journal's website and notifying the editorial board. Important note: Authors should submit ethical statements and conflict of interest forms alongside the manuscript, as those lacking are not a priority for review.