Publication Ethics

Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Biomacromolecular   Journal (BMMJ)

Preface

       The Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC) is a professional organization founded in   2002 with nearly 200 members in Iran and some other countries. ISOBC   encourages development and dissemination of knowledge in Biophysical   Chemistry through its bulletins, annual meetings, smaller discussion groups,   workshops and so on. Among of many activities, this society presents the   results of scientific research in BMMJ journal. Every editor, author and   reviewer of journal of this society has responsibility to obey the Ethical   guidelines of the Biomacromolecular Journal.     Although these ethical guidelines are obvious for scientists, we will   outline them in more detail in the following. 

Guidelines

A-   Ethical Obligations of Editors   of Scientific Journals

1-    An editor should give   impartial consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication regardless   to race, sex, seniority, religion, nationality, or institutional affiliation   of author(s).  An editor may take into account relationships of   manuscript immediately under consideration to others previously or   concurrently offered by the same author(s).

2-    An editor should   consider the submitted manuscript for publication with reasonable speed.

3-    Editor is the only   person who has responsibility to accept or reject a manuscript according to   reviewer’s recommendation. Editor must choose appropriate reviewers very   close to manuscript in order to reach the correct judgment. However,   manuscript can be rejected by editor without external review, if it is not   appropriate for the journal. Such rejection may be due to out of scope of the   journal, manuscript prepared very badly, results are not enough to prove the   issue in manuscript, unacceptable English, ethical violation by author, or   other reasons.

4-    The editor and members   of the editor’s staff should not disclose any information about a manuscript   under consideration to others than reviewers, except to whom to solicit (the   person selected by editor to judge between reviewer and author).

5-    An editor should respect   the intellectual independence of authors. Editor must quickly send the   manuscript to reviewers.

6-    If an editor is the   author of submitted a manuscript, editor-in-chief has responsibility to   choose other qualified editor for this manuscript.

7-    Any editor must not use   any unpublished information, argument or interpretations disclosed in any   submitted manuscript in editor’s own research, unless by written permission   by author. If it has happened, the editor should be ethically discontinued   the work. This editor has not qualification for editorial work.   Editor-in-chief must assign another editor for this manuscript.

8-    If some convincing   erroneous were found in published manuscript, the editor should facilitate   reporting the error by author or by the editor whom find the error.

9-    An author may ask the   editor not to send manuscript to certain reviewers. However, editor may   decide to use these reviewers to get important opinions in the fair   consideration of a manuscript.

B-   Ethical Obligations of Authors  

The ethical guidelines of the authors are as   follows:

1-    An author should present   accurate and complete accounts of the research performed, including the data   collected or used, as well as an objective discussion of the significance of   the research. The research and the reported data should contain sufficient   detail and reference to public sources of information for a trained   professional to reproduce the experimental observations.

2-    An author therefore has   an obligation to use the journal space wisely and economically because it is   a precious resource created at considerable cost.

3-    An author is responsible   to provide data, methods, and samples of unusual materials unavailable   elsewhere. Authors are encouraged to submit their data to a public database,   where available.

4-    An author is obligated to   perform a literature search to find earlier work that is essential for   understanding the present investigation, and then cite the original   publications. Except in a review, citation of work that will not be referred   to in the reported research should be minimized.

5-    Authors should identify   any unusual hazards inherent in the chemicals, equipment, or procedures used   in the investigation. Authors should inform the editor if a manuscript could   be considered to report research that can be reasonably expected to provide   knowledge, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied by   others to pose a threat to public health and safety, agricultural crops and   other plants, animals, the environment, or materiel.

6-    An author who has done   extensive work on a system or group of related systems should organize   publication so that each report gives a well-rounded account of a particular   aspect of the general study. Fragmentation should be avoided because it   consumes journal space and complicates literature searches. It is better to   publish the reports on related studies in the same journal, or in a small   number of journals.

7-    During the submission   process, an author should inform the editor of related manuscripts that the   author has under editorial consideration. Moreover, copies of related   manuscripts should be supplied to the editor.

8-    Submitting the   manuscript describing essentially the same research to more than one journal   is forbidden, unless it is a resubmission of a manuscript rejected for or   withdrawn from publication. It is generally permissible to submit a   manuscript for a full paper expanding a previously published brief   preliminary account (a “communication” or “letter”) of the same work.   However, at the time of submission, the author should inform the editor of   the earlier communication, and the preliminary communication should be cited   in the manuscript.

9-    The source of all   information, except that which is common knowledge, should be quoted or offered   by the author. Information obtained privately, as in conversation,   correspondence, or discussion with third parties, should not be used or   reported in the author’s work without explicit permission from the   investigator with whom the information originated.

10-  The co-authors of a paper are those   persons who have made significant scientific contributions to the work   reported and who share responsibility and accountability for the results.   Other contributions should be indicated in a footnote or an “Acknowledgments”   section. An administrative relationship to the investigation does not of   itself qualify a person for co-authorship. Deceased persons who meet the   criterion for inclusion as co-authors should be so included, with a footnote   reporting date of death. No fictitious name should be listed as an author or   coauthor. The author who submits a manuscript for publication accepts the   responsibility of having included as co-authors all persons appropriate and   none inappropriate.

11. The corresponding author must indicate   any potential and/or relevant competing financial or other interest (of all   authors) that might be affected by publication of the results contained in   the authors’ manuscript. The corresponding author must inform the editor at   the time of submission either that there is no conflict of interest to   declare, or should disclose potential conflicts of interest that will be   acknowledged in the published article.

12-  Plagiarism is not acceptable in Biomacromolecular   Journal (BMMJ). Authors should not engage in plagiarism - verbatim or   near-verbatim copying, or very close paraphrasing, of text or results from   another’s work. Authors should not engage in self-plagiarism (also known as   duplicate publication) - unacceptably close replication of the author’s own   previously published text or results without acknowledgement of the source.   If one or two identical sentences previously published by an author appear in   a subsequent work by the same author, this is unlikely to be regarded as   duplicate publication. Material quoted verbatim from the author’s previously   published work must be placed in quotation marks. In contrast, it is   unacceptable for an author to include significant verbatim or near-verbatim   portions of his/her own work, or to depict his/her previously published   results or methodology as new, without acknowledging the source.

C-   Ethical obligations of   Reviewers of Manuscripts

1-    Since the reviewing is   the essential step for publication process, any reviewer must only judge it   by scientific merit not by prejudice (race, sex, seniority, religion,   institutional affiliation of author(s), or nationality). 

2-    If reviewer feels that   he (she) is not enough qualified (or has not enough experiences in the field   of manuscript), the manuscript should be promptly returned to editor by   reviewer.

3-    A reviewer of a   manuscript should be qualified for complete (supporting data, experimental   and theoretical parts) or some parts of the manuscript. For example, if the   article is about quantum mechanical calculation on a drug, editor can assign   a reviewer for drug and a reviewer for quantum mechanical calculation. 

4-    A reviewer must respect   the intellectual independence of the authors; otherwise, editor must omit   that reviewer.

5-    A reviewer must not sign   or write his (her) name in his (her) comments. He (she) must avoid by no   means revealing his (her) name to author(s).  

6-    The manuscript is as a   confidential document, and a reviewer must not give or show it to others   without editor permission,

7-    If a reviewer feels this   work is resemble of his (her) personal current research after reading the   abstract, or if he (she) has a personal or professional connection with   author(s), he (she) must return promptly the manuscript to editor by pressing   on decline option.

8-    If a reviewer accepts or   rejects a manuscript, his (her) comment of judgment about observation,   derivation, or argument must be clear and scientifically understandable for   editor and author(s) according to enough reasoning and relevant citations.   Unsupported comments are not acceptable.

9-    A reviewer must be   sensitive for any part of the manuscript from other scientists with relevant   citation. Copying from other scientists or substantial similarity between the   present work and other works (even written by the present author(s) in other   publications) are absolutely forbidden, and reviewer must report it to editor   and author(s).

10-  A reviewer should check the   references as much as possible to for unnecessary citation or too much self-citation   or unnecessary self-citation, and report them to editor and author(s).

11- Reviewers must not disclose or publish   any part of manuscript under their consideration, unless by written   permission of authors.      If they do the editor   must discontinue their reviewing for that reviewer(s). If the reviewer action   makes loss for author, reviewer can be prosecutable in court by author and   journal.

12-  Reviewer must inform the editor   that the report in manuscript can provide a product or technologies that may   be misapplied by other to make harm for people, animal, plant, material or   environment.

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