The ethical policy of JRCE is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and complies with International Committee of JRCE Editorial Board codes of conduct. Readers, authors, reviewers and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with JRCE. The ethical policy of JRCE is liable to determine which of the typical research papers or articles submitted to the journal should be published in the concerned issue. For information on this matter in publishing and ethical guidelines please visit:

http://publicationethics.org

 

1. 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.

 

Plagiarism

The article registration will inform all authors by sending an email in the site of Journal of Rehabilitation in Civil Engineering. 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 following: 

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
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

The examples of possible Conflict of Benefits are as following: 

1. One of the authors in the very institution or the organization who is reviewer or mentioned editor
2. One of the authors, member of the thesis committee who has been reviewer or editor and vice versa
3. One of the authors, editors or reviewers who are the coauthor in another article or, had been coauthor 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.

 

Authorship

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.

 

2. 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 Benefits

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

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.

 

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 the reviewers' identities following by the single-blind peer-review process, which may reveal the authors' identity to reviewers.

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.

 

Quality of decision

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.

 

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.

 

3. Code of Ethics for Reviewers

Reciprocal communication

Evaluation and studying are professional activities for journals which have valued the whole profession to be encouraged. It is usually expected that the researchers who submit their articles in a journal accept the journal invitation for their article assessment.

 

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.

 

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 single-blind peer review, as reviewers may know the authors, it is likely that reviewers are aware of the involved conflicts of benefits among authors. Thus, they are limited through these conflicts. If reviewers become aware of such conflicts, they must inform the editor of the 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 the article and they are not allowed to transfer the essay information to someone else. If reviewers are suspected to the wrong deed should inform editor confidentially, not expressing their worries to other departments till the 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.

 

 4. Copyright and License

All Journal of Rehabilitation in Civil Engineering articles are published under a Creative Commons License. All authors will be presented with the option to make articles available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY). Copyright in any article published by Journal of Rehabilitation in Civil Engineering Open Access journal under the CC BY license is retained by the author(s). The Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (CC BY) permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

 

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY)

Author retains copyright

License of copyright to all users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the work, provided the author is attributed and the use is non-commercial, ie not ‘primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or private monetary compensation

 

5. Plagiarism Policy

We accept all terms and conditions of COPE about plagiarism and in case, any attempt of plagiarism is brought to our attention accompanied by convincing evidence, we act based on flowcharts and workflows determined in COPE.

Authors should ensure that they submit only entirely original works. If they have used the work and/or statements of others, this must be appropriately cited or referenced. Plagiarism in any forms, including quotations or paraphrasing of substantial parts of another’s article (without attribution), “passing off” another’s article as the author’s own or claiming results from research conducted by others, constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Manuscripts that are a compilation of previously published materials of other authors (without their own creative and authoring interpretation) are not accepted for publication.

It is inadmissible to use unfair text borrowing and assigning research results not belonging to the authors of the submitted manuscript.

The authors must ensure that the submitted manuscript:

- describes completely the original work;

- is not plagiarism;

- has not been published before in any language;

- The information used or words from other publications are appropriately indicated by reference or indicated in the text.

 

Existing copyright laws and conventions must be observed. Materials protected by copyright (for example, tables, figures or large quotations) should only be reproduced with the permission of their owner.

The manuscript submitted to the Journal must have a similarity level less than 10%. Similarity per each detected references also must be a maximum 1%. Textual similarity in the amount of more than 10% is unacceptable.

 

The Policy of Screening for Plagiarism

All manuscripts must be free from plagiarism contents. All authors are suggested to use plagiarism detection software to do the similarity checking. Editors check the plagiarism detection of manuscripts in this Journal by iThenticate. The Journal will immediately reject papers leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism.

 

Definition of Plagiarism:

"Plagiarism is the use of others' published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the plagiarizer. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, Institutional Review Board applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format (print or electronic). Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and should be addressed as such. Self-plagiarism refers to the practice of an author using portions of their previous writings on the same topic in another of their publications, without specifically citing it formally in quotes.

 

Authors can adhere to the following steps to report plagiarism: 

• Inform the editor of the Journal where a plagiarized paper is published.
• Send original and plagiarized papers with plagiarized part highlighted.
• If evidence of plagiarism is convincing, editor should arrange for a disciplinary meeting.
• Editor of the Journal where the plagiarized paper should communicate with the editor of the Journal containing the original paper to rectify the matter.
• The plagiarist should be asked to provide an explanation.
• In case of nonresponse in the stipulated time or an unsatisfactory explanation, the paper should be permanently retracted.
• Author should be blacklisted and debarred for submitted a paper to a particular journal for at least 5 years.
• The concerned head of the institution has to be notified.

If plagiarism is identified, the Editor-in-Chief is responsible for reviewing the manuscript and will approve the action in accordance with the level of plagiarism detected, with the following guidelines:

 

Plagiarism Level

1. Tracing a portion of a short sentence from another paper without mentioning the source.

Action: Authors are given warnings and requests to change the text and quote correctly.

2. Tracing most of the other papers without the right quote and not mentioning the source.

Actions: The submitted manuscript is rejected for publication in the Journal and the Author can be sanctioned for not being allowed to publish in the Journal.

3. All manuscript writers are responsible for the content of manuscripts they submit to the Journal. If the manuscript is classified as plagiarism, then all authors will be subject to the same action.

4. If the author is proven to submit the manuscript to the Journal by simultaneously sending it to another journal, and this overlap is found during the reviewer process or after publication, then the action according to point 2 above is given.

5. If plagiarism is found outside the rules above, the editor of the Journal has the right to give sanctions according to the editor's team policy.

6. In the case of multiple borrowing Editorial Board acts according to the rules of COPE.

There are several indicators of plagiarism that all authors must be aware of:

1. The most easily identifiable plagiarism is that of repeated content when an author copies another author's work by reciting words, sentences, or paragraphs without citing original sources. This plagiarism model can be easily identified by our plagiarism checker software.

2. The second type of plagiarism occurs when an author reproduces the substantial part of another writer's work, without citing him/her. The term "reproducing substance" here can be understood as copying another's ideas, both in terms of quantity and quality, which potentially eliminates the original author's rights, in the context of intellectual property.

3. The third type of plagiarism when an author takes ideas, words, or phrases in paraphrased sentences or paragraphs, without citing the original source. This type of plagiarism often cannot be checked through plagiarism software, as it is idea-based. Yet, this practice becomes unethical when the author does not cite, nor acknowledge the original source from the original writer.

 

8. Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content. Our publisher, the Semnan University, abides by the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of Open Access:

This journal is a fully open-access journal, which means that all articles are available on the Internet to all users immediately upon publication. Non-commercial and commercial use and distribution in any medium is permitted, provided the author and the journal are properly credited.