Publication Ethics

The Journal of Geography and Sustainability of Environment's code of ethics is largely based on the principles laid out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Publication Ethics Charter of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology. 

1.  Obligations of the publisher

1.1. The Journal is committed to making decisions about submitted articles only on the basis of academic merit and professional judgment and avoiding the influence of personal interests.

1.2. The journal is committed to preserving academic and research records.

1.3. The journal monitors the adherence of the editor-in-chief, the academic editors, the editorial board, and the reviewers to ethical principles on a regular basis.

1.4. The journal is committed to making sure that revenues from advertisements, reprints, and other commercial activities would not affect the decisions of the editorial board in any way.

1.5. The Journal will do its utmost to promote adherence to ethical standards. Thus, specially in the case of young scholars, it will provide extensive training and counseling and in case a breach of ethical standards is confirmed it will deal with it in the appropriate manner.

Obligations of the Editor-in-chief and the academic editors

2.1. Review: The editor-in-chief must make sure that the review process is conducted in a fair, impartial, and timely manner. Research articles are typically reviewed by at least two independent reviewers, and if required, the editor-in-chief may ask more reviewers to assess the manuscripts. The editor-in-chief must seek reviewers who are competent experts in the relevant field and must avoid purposefully selecting reviewers who are for or against the authors.

2.2. Fair treatment: academic editors must judge the intellectual content of the submitted  articles regardless of the authors' race, gender, sexual orientationI, religious beliefs, ethnicity, citizenship, and political orientation. 

2.3. Journal's Criteria: The editor-in-chief does not have any rright to artificially increase the journal's indexes to improve its rank. In particular, the editor-in-chief must not oblige the authors to cite articles from the journal except for obvious scientific reasons.

2.4. confidentiality: The editor-in-chief is required to protect the confidentiality of all materials submitted to the journal and all communications with reviewers, unless the two sides (authors and reviewers) agree with the disclosure. In exceptional circumstances in which an article is suspected of having been plagiarized, the editor-in-chief may, in consultation with the publisher, share some limited information with the editor-in-chiefs of other journals. 

Reviewers' tasks

3.1. Reviewers' contribution to decision making: Reviewers are at the centerstage of the official academic community and are the beacons of the scientific method. Their sense of responsibility leads to the development of healthy scientific output. If the editors recognize that the review is poor in quality or timing of review, they are obliged to inform the editor-in-chief to reduce the reviewer’s weight in the review process.

3.2. confidentiality: Any article submitted for review must be treated as a confidential document. The reviewers should not share information about the article with others, or directly contact the authors without notifying the editor-in-chief. Reviewers are not  permitted to cite the unpublished material of the submitted manuscripts in their own works without the written consent  of the authors. The information and opinions obtained during the review process are also confidential and the reviewers cannot use them for personal gain.

3.3. Reporting violations of code of ethics: Reviewers must be vigilant about violations of ethical standards such as substantial similarity or overlap between the article under review and other published articles which the reviewer is aware of and report them to the editor-in-chief. Any observations, conclusions, or arguments which have previously been reported must be included in the report as well.

3.4. Standards of competitive goals and benefits: Review must be done objectively; the reviewers must be aware of personal biases that might creep into the articles and consider it while reviewing the articles. Personal criticism of the authors is not appropriate. The reviewers must support their opinions with logical reasoning.

If the reviewers detect that an article has the potential for conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, cooperative, or other relationships between the reviewer and authors, corporations, or institutions associated with the article, they have to consult with the editor-in-chief before accepting the article for review.

If a reviewer suggests that the authors cite the reviewer's or his/her associates' work, there must be sound academic grounds to support the suggestion and it must not have been motivated by a desire to increase the reviewer's citation number or viewing of his/her work.  

Authors' tasks

4.1. Reporting Standards: Authors of original research reports must produce a detailed report of the work done and also an objective discussion about the significance of the work. The points which were raised in the author's guide should be observed closely in the submitted articles. The article should contain enough details and references to enable others to replicate the work. Deceitful expressions or sentences which have purposefully been stated to mislead are regarded as instances of unethical and unacceptable behavior. Professional and review articles should also be accurate and objective and notable works of the "theory" must be fully identified.

4.2. Data accessibility and retention: Authors may want to submit research data for the review of the article and/or in compliance with journal's policy of open access to data. The authors are required to retain these data for several years after the publication of the article and be prepared to provide public access to these data. The authors could refer to the journal's author's guide for further details.

4.3. Originality and acknowledgement of the consulted references: The authors are required to ensure that they have made full use of all the original works and have properly cited or quoted them.

The article must always acknowledge the works of other authors. Authors of the article must acknowledge the works which have affected the reported study and put them into perspective in the context of a larger scientific background. Information such as conversations, correspondences, or discussions with third parties must not be used or reported in the article without the express and written permission of the source.

Submitting others' article as one's own work, copying or modifying substantial portions of others' articles without citing the authors, and using the results of other studies as one's own are obvious instances of plagiarism and all of them are regarded as unethical and inappropriate behavior.

4.4. Simultaneous, multiple or additional publication: In general, the authors must not submit their work to more than one journal. Simultaneous submission of a single article to more than one journal constitutes a violation of ethics and an inappropriate conduct. Generally, the authors must not submit an already published article for review in another journal except as abstracts, part of a published lecture, or electronic pre-prints of university theses.

4.5. Authors of the article: Authors of the article must be limited to the individuals who made a significant contribution to the conceptualization, design, implementation, or interpretation of the reported study. All the individuals who made significant contribution to the study must be included in the authors' list.

If some individuals assisted the authors in some aspects of the article preparation (such as editing the manuscript or writing up medial reports), their assistance should be appreciated in the acknowledgment section. The corresponding author should make sure that all contributors to the article have been mentioned in the authors' list and that there is not an extra name among the authors. All authors must view the final draft of the article, approve it, and state their agreement for its publication.

The authors are expected to check the authors' list and the order of the authors' names before submission,  and at the time of manuscript submission provide a definite  authors' list. Only in exceptional circumstances in which the authors provide their express and written agreement, the editor-in-chief (in his/her discretion) could add the name of an individual to authors' list, remove it from the list, or modify it. In such circumstances, all the authors must express their agreement with the addition of a name to the authors' list, its removal, its modification, or changes in the order of names in the authors' list.

All authors are responsible for their work. Each author is regarded responsible for the accuracy of all sections of the research report.

4.6. Human- and animal-related hazards and issues: If a researcher used chemicals, methods, or tools which presented unusual hazards to the user, the authors should clearly state this issue in the article.

If animals or humans were recruited to participate in a study, the authors must indicate in a statement that all methods were implemented in accordance to the applicable laws and organizational guidelines and that the relevant institutional review board verified them. The authors must state that they were familiar with experiments on human subjects. Individuals' privacy should always be respected.

The authors must ensure that they conduct the research in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Helsinki declaration) for experimenting with human subjects. All animal tests should accord with ARRIVE guideline and 1986 UK law Procedures for Scientific Research on Animals and EU's 2010/63/EU directive on protection of animals.

4.7. Reporting the fundamental errors: When the authors discover a major error or misrepresentation in their own published work, they have to inform the editor-in-chief or publisher of the journal at the earliest and cooperate with the editor-in-chief in removing or modifying the article. If the editor-in-chief or the publisher are informed through a third party about the errors in a published article, the authors are required to present the necessary documents to the editor-in-chief.

4.8. Image detection limits: In an image, the authors should not optimize, blur, replace, remove, or introduce a specific feature; however, if and as long as no information in the original image is lost or made unclear, they can adjust the brightness, contrast, or color balance of the image. Image manipulation for the improvement of image resolution is accepted, but manipulation for other purposes may be regarded as violations of academic ethics.