Diyala Agricultural Sciences Journal (DASJ) aims to achieve the highest standards in Publication Ethics. Therefore, it is pertinent to remind all members of the publication process, including Authors, Reviewers and Editors of their responsibility to abide by all the principles of publication ethics, and to illustrate some important points below.

 

Allegations of Misconduct

DASJ is very sensitive to research misconduct and uses all means available to prevent publishing miscounted research. Though there is no standard definition of research misconduct, the Council of Editors defines research misconduct broadly in three categories of action and conducts. DASJ uses this definition of the misconduct in its dealing with the issue and follows strictly the COPE follow chart in dealing with research misconduct. In addition, for each component of the research misconduct, DASJ has many assurance policies as follows - Mistreatment of research subjects - Falsification and Fabrication of data - Piracy and Plagiarism.

1. Protection of Animal rights, DASJ does not publish manuscripts that do not declare a statement about the protection of animal rights. Normally, the journal requires that a statement is declared that research has been reviewed by an institutional review board either in the material and methods section of the manuscript or in the acknowledgment section of the manuscript. DASJ encourages authors to report the registry number of the council certification.
2. Falsification and Fabrication of data Fabrication is defined as making up of data without actually collecting or synthesizing scientific data. Falsification is defined as the manipulation of research material in order to reach a favorable result. Fabrication and falsification could happen at any stage of research (in the field) up to the publication of a manuscript where misuse of citation can happen (referencing a citation when the citation does not support the argument). DASJ tries to identify any kind of fabrication or falsification in all levels of manuscript processing, from initial screening to comprehensive evaluation of a revised manuscript and even after a manuscript has been published. Report of any fabrication and falsification is an ethical duty of our authors, co-authors, reviewers, editors, and readers. In any event of falsification or fabrication, DASJ keeps its right to retract or withdraw the fabricated or falsified article. DASJ strictly follows the COPE follow the chart in dealing with fabrication and falsification.
3. Plagiarism is defined as the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit. Another category of plagiarism is self-plagiarism when the author published his own idea, data, and text in different journals when no need for such duplication exists. DASJ uses all means to detect plagiarism. As a matter of quality assurance, a similarity of more than 20% in the text of a manuscript will be returned to the author to remove the similarities and reduce the chance of plagiarism. DASJ strictly follows the COPE follow the chart in dealing with plagiarized articles.

 

Authors’ duties

1. The Author(s) should be in compliance with the standards of research ethics and comply with the best practices in publication ethics, especially with regard to plagiarism, authorship, contributorship, competing interests.
2. The Author(s) should certify that the article is written by the stated Author(s).
3. The Author(s) should certify that the submitted manuscripts fall within the journal’s scope and is/are prepared according to the standards specified in the Instruction for Authors.
4. The Author(s) should certify that submitted manuscripts describe the originality of his/their research work. The Authors are responsible for the accuracy and precision of the content.
5. The Corresponding Author is responsible for providing all necessary information for all Authors of the manuscript. The Corresponding Author should ensure that all Authors agree on its submission and accept the order of their names as Authors.
6. The Authors should declare that the submitted manuscript is original and has not been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full).
7. The Authors should attest that any use of other studies is properly documented and referenced. To reproduce pictures and tables from other works, explicit written permission from the author of the original study is necessary.
8. The Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, the Authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer. Please note that the journal is not obliged to use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.
9. The Authors are required to accurately acknowledge the funding sources related to the submitted manuscript (written in the Acknowledgement section of the manuscript).
10. All Authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests during the submission of the article.
11. If any errors are found in a paper, the Authors should attempt to make necessary corrections and immediately inform the journal.
12. If Research and Publication Misconduct is detected at any stage of the publication process, the journal has the right to take legal action against violating Authors.

 

Editor-in-Chief and Editors’ duties

1. The Editor-in-Chief has the responsibility and authority to approve or reject the submitted manuscript. The Editor-in-Chief may delegate this responsibility to the Associate Editor.
2. The Editor-in-Chief and Editors are required to check all submitted manuscripts.
3. The Editor-in-Chief and Editors appoint reviewers based on their competence, scientific and professional experience, as well as ethical commitment.
4. The Editor-in-Chief and Editors should take care to avoid any conflict of interests in the reviewing process to exclude any personal, business, academic and financial relations which may bias the decision about the publication of the submitted manuscript.
5. The Editor-in-Chief accepts or rejects a manuscript after evaluating the revised manuscript based on reviewers' reports and decisions.
6. The Editor-in-Chief uses his/her judgment as to whether to accept or reject a manuscript with the Editorial Board members or Editors.
7. The Editor-in-Chief and Editors should keep all the information in the manuscript confidential and are not allowed to disclose its content to others. Before publication of the manuscript, the Editor-in-Chief and Editors are not allowed to use their own ideas for or against his own or other studies, or to criticize the author.
8. The Editor-in-Chief should seriously treat any allegations of Research and Publication Misconduct concerning a manuscript submitted to the journal at any stage of the review process or one that has already been published in the journal. The allegations should be initially assessed and the accused authors should be provided a chance to respond.
9. If Research and Publication Misconduct is found to be well documented the Editor-in-Chief should act to immediately stop the publication process or if the manuscript has already been published to remove it from open space, inform the readers and the data bases where the paper is indexed. The Editor-in-Chief is expected to start the legal procedure against author(s) who perpetrated the misconduct.
10. The Editors are responsible for checking if a submitted manuscript is prepared according to the Instructions for Authors.
11. The Editors are required to make sound editorial decisions within a reasonable period of time and communicate them in a clear and constructive manner.

 

Reviewer duties

1. Reviewer should not review a manuscript with which he/she has principal disagreement that may affect the fairness of his/her decision. A Reviewer should not accept reviewing manuscript(s) whenever there is a conflict of interests between the Reviewer and Author or institutions they represent or have personal relations. A Reviewer should not accept reviewing manuscript(s) to which he/she contributed either in writing, giving ideas, acquiring experimental evidence, analysis etc.
2. Reviews of the manuscript should be based on scientific argumentation, free from emotions and personal, racial, religious or other preferences. Reviewer is to point out strong and weak point(s) of the manuscript and suggest solutions for revision of the manuscript.
3. A Reviewer should keep all the information in the manuscript confidential and must not disclose its content to others. Before publication of the manuscript, the reviewer must not use its ideas for or against his own or other studies, or to criticize the author. After publication, the reviewer must not reveal his/her dispute with the author beyond what is presented in the journal.
4. Any case of Research and Publication Misconduct detected by a Reviewer should be immediately reported to the Editor-in-Chief and supported by sending the related documents.
5. A Reviewer is not allowed to commission his/her task to anyone such as his/her assistant or graduate student without written permission from the Editor-in-Chief. Anyone assisting in reviewing the article should be mentioned in the review report and the journal documents.
6. A Reviewer is not permitted to contact the author(s) of the reviewed paper unless it is made through the Editorial Office.