Iranian Journal of Biomedical Engineering (IJBME)

This journal is following of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and complies with the highest ethical standards in accordance with ethical laws (IJBME is not a Member of Cope) 

Authors, reviewers, editorial board, editor, executive staff, and even the audience of this journal are required to have full knowledge and awareness of all the principles of research ethics and related responsibilities in the field of publishing scientific materials, and must follow and be committed to these principles and rules. Submission of articles by authors, review of articles by reviewers, decision-making on articles, and supervision of all activities of the journal by the editorial board and editor, as well as reading and using the journal's materials by the audience, constitute awareness and compliance with these rights and laws. If any of these individuals are found not to adhere to these principles and responsibilities, the journal reserves the right to take any legal action. The MSRT Research Ethics and the COPE rules and principles, must be the basis for the work of authors, reviewers, and those involved in the journal. It should be noted that any non-commercial use of the contents of this journal is permitted only with accurate reference to the source, and all commercial use of this material is illegal.

The topic of publication and research ethics is very important, extensive, and has many complex aspects and details that require hours of study and training to master. This journal has attempted to present important information in this field in a clear and concise manner. Also, a number of the most authoritative sources in the field of publication and research ethics are available for download at the beginning of this page. All the content presented on this page has been directly or indirectly adapted from these sources. Therefore, all rights related to the material on this page and the resources belong to the authors of these sources.

• Plagiarism: The use of previously published content, opinions, sentences, terms, phrases, data, results, images, graphs, photographs, figures, tables, etc. is permitted only if the author and source of the work are accurately and standardly referenced.
• Informed Consent: Participants who are asked to help the researcher during the research process for tasks such as interviews, completing questionnaires, participating in focus groups, conducting clinical trials, etc. must enter the research with full and informed consent. Before starting the research, participants must be informed about its dimensions and aspects, such as what the research is about, their role, and the results that this research can have for them.
• Privacy and Confidentiality: Participants have full control over how they participate or their data is used in research, as well as how the researcher communicates and interacts with them. Attempting to obtain data that participants have not consented to share, or using individuals' personal data for purposes other than those stated in the informed consent agreement between the researcher and participant, violates informed consent and the privacy of individuals.
• Caution and Prevention of Harm: The researcher must prevent any harm to the participants. Participants must be protected from any kind of physical, psychological, financial, social, occupational, etc. harm during and after the research.
• Data Fabrication: The researcher is not allowed to falsify data and publish it as data obtained through scientific methods. Presenting fictitious data or results, reporting untrue information, presenting the results of modeling and experiments that were not conducted, completing questionnaires by the researcher himself, presenting reports of interviews that were not conducted, focus groups that were not formed, and field observations that were not conducted are clear examples of data fabrication.
• Data Falsification: Recording and presenting research results in a way that manipulates the details of the research implementation or data collection process, or deletes or changes data, or magnifies some small results to hide more important facts (Juicy Quotes) so that the research results are pursued in line with specific goals or the presented results are not questioned.
• Citation Manipulation: Citation for unethical purposes, including unnecessary citation, irrelevant citation, excessive self-citation, citation to persuade editors/reviewers, citation collusion between authors, citation collusion between journals, citation blackmail, paid citation, fake citation, citation of a work that the author has not seen, citation of unreliable works, and distorted citation.
• Duplicate Publication: This means that a researcher republishes all or a major part of their previously published work elsewhere without notifying the previous publication.
• Salami Slicing Publication: The data and results of a single study that could be published in the form of a single article are divided into two or more parts, each of which is published separately in separate articles.
• Multiple/Dual Submission: The author submits their article to one or more other journals while it is under review in one journal.
• Ghostwriting: This means that a person produces content on behalf of others without being named as the author of that content, even if they have not received any benefit for this work.
• Guest Author: This means that a person did not contribute to the article or their contribution was not sufficient to be considered as an author, but for whatever reason, the person's name is mentioned as one of the authors.
• Unfair Arrangement of the Order of Author Names: This means that the order of author names is determined by unscientific and unethical criteria.
• Unreal Attribution: This means that the author is attributed to an institution, center, or educational or research group that had no role in conducting the research.
• Conflict of Interest: The researcher's personal interests (financial, professional, political, racial, etc.) may influence scientific judgment and duties, and consequently scientific objectivity. For a conflict of interest situation to arise, it is not necessary for personal interests to have influenced scientific judgment (actual conflict of interest), but rather as soon as such a possibility exists (potential conflict of interest) or appears to exist (conflict of interest from the perspective of an outsider), a conflict of interest situation has been formed. Conflict of interest is not a scientific misconduct in itself, but rather a situation in which the likelihood of misconduct increases. Therefore, it is essential that potential conflicts of interest are expressed and disclosed in specific forms and that this situation is managed properly by individuals.

• Non-judgmental correspondence between the journal editor and the corresponding author to provide clarification and review the author's explanations.
• Referring the matter to the editorial board for review and decision on placing the author on the blacklist, if the author's explanations are unacceptable and ethical misconduct is proven.
• Sending a letter to the author by the editor (in consultation with the editorial board) to announce the author's scientific misconduct.
• Removing the article from the journal's website, informing the audience about the issue, and apologizing to the audience (if the article has already been published)
• Send a warning message to the author and reject all articles under review by the author.
• Removing the author from the editorial board and preventing him/her from working as a reviewer in the journal (if the author is a member of the editorial board or a reviewer).
• Sending a warning message to the organization associated with the author and banning the author from submitting articles for 5 years (in important and serious cases)

• Submitted articles must be in the journal's scope, have a scientific and engineering aspect, and be prepared in accordance with the "Article Template" specific to this journal.
• Submitted articles must be the result of original research by the authors themselves. The research must be conducted carefully and objectively, and the data must be reported accurately.
• The authors are responsible for the accuracy and precision of the content of the articles, and they are required to ensure the accuracy and precision of the content of the articles. Publication of an article does not mean endorsement of its contents by the journal.
• The article should have sufficient detail and reliable references to allow others to replicate it. False and inaccurate statements are unethical and unacceptable.
• Authors are not allowed to submit duplicate, double or multiple submissions of an article. The article or part of it must not have been previously published or under review in any other journal, domestically or internationally.
• Authors are not allowed to translate and submit an article that has already been published somewhere in another language.
• Authors are not allowed to do overlapping publications. Overlapping publication means using data and findings from your previous papers, making slight changes, and submitting it as a new article.
• Authors are required to cite the materials, data, and results of others accurately and in a standard manner, and to use the required sources after obtaining explicit written permission, if necessary. When using the exact writings of another researcher, direct quotation methods and symbols, such as quotation marks " ", should be used.
• Authors must disclose any conflicts of interest at the time of submission. Submitting an article means that the authors have obtained the consent of all financial or location sponsors of the article, have introduced all of them, and have mentioned them in the article if necessary.
• If authors notice a scientific or writing error in their article at any time, they must immediately notify the editor of the journal and take steps to correct it.
• Any potential risks (life, financial, etc.) that may be posed to humans, animals, or the environment by the authors' research must be clearly stated in the article.
• Authors are expected to retain samples and raw data used in preparing the article for at least one year after publication in the journal to respond to criticisms and possible questions from the journal's audience.

• The corresponding author guarantees the accuracy and validity of the article and is also responsible for all legal aspects of the article.
• The corresponding author must be a faculty member of a recognized and registered scientific organization (such as a university, research institute, etc.) and his/her email address must belong to the same organization.
• The corresponding author must ensure that the names of all co-authors are included, the order of co-authors' names is correct, and that no names other than those of researchers involved in conducting the research and preparing the article are included, as well as the approval and consent of all authors regarding these matters.
• The corresponding author must ensure and commit that all authors of the article have viewed, read, and approved the final version of the article and are fully satisfied with the submission of the article to the journal.

• Reviewers should assist the journal’s editor in making decisions about the article by reviewing the quality, content, and scientific aspects of the articles, and communicate with the author through the journal to help the author improve and enhance the quality and scientific aspects of the article.
• Reviewers are not allowed to contact authors directly about articles under review. Any contact with authors of articles must be made exclusively through the journal.
• After reviewing the article’s abstract, the reviewer must immediately notify the editor of the journal of his /her decision to accept or reject the article for review. In the event of rejection, the reviewer is expected to assist the editor in selecting a replacement reviewer.
• The reviewer must convey his/her recommendation to accept, reject, or revise the article to the journal editor, and the final decision in this regard rests with the journal editor.
• The reviewer must be a professional and scientific expert in the field of ​​the article and must avoid accepting reviewing for articles outside of his/her field of expertise.
• It is recommended that the reviewer avoid accepting articles with which he/she has a fundamental disagreement and may not be able to conduct a fair review.
• The reviewer should not accept review of articles that he or she has participated in conducting, or writing.
• The reviewer should not receive any benefit from any person, organization, company, or institution in exchange for reviewing a specific article.
• The reviewer must be fair and impartial in the reviewing process and must clearly communicate his/her expert and corrective opinions regarding innovation, scientific and technical content, writing style, figures, tables, references, and other parts of the article to the editor with scientific arguments within the specified time, and must refrain from expressing personal, racial, sexual, religious, etc. opinions.
• The reviewer is not allowed to delegate the review of an article to another person, including his/her fellow faculty members or graduate students, at his/her discretion. The name of any person who assisted the reviewer in reviewing the article must be announced to the editor in the review report and recorded in the journal documents.
• The information in the article under review must be considered strictly confidential and the reviewer must not make it available to others, discuss or consult its details with others, or use it in his/her own research.
• The reviewer is not allowed to use the data or new concepts in favor of or against his/her own research or that of others, or to criticize or discredit the authors, before the article is published. Also, after the article is published, the reviewer is not allowed to publish details beyond what has been published by the journal.
• The reviewer should thoroughly review all references in the article and ensure their accuracy, validity, and necessity. It is also recommended that the reviewer introduce to the authors any relevant sources that have not been referenced in the article.
• If the reviewer observes any unethical publication or research behavior, he/she must report the matter to the editor of the journal, providing the necessary and sufficient documentation.

• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members must be professionally and scientifically knowledgeable, specialized, and have numerous publications, as well as a spirit of responsibility, accountability, truth-seeking, fairness, impartiality, adherence to professional ethics, and respect for the rights of others, and must seriously contribute to achieving the journal's goals and its continuous improvement.
• The responsibility for selecting reviewers and accepting or rejecting an article based on the reviewers' opinions lies with the editor-in-chief and members of the journal's editorial board.
• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members should select the best reviewers based on their expertise, academic and professional qualifications and experience, and commitment to the principles of publication and research ethics. It is also recommended that, if possible, authors' reasonable requests not to have their articles reviewed by specific reviewers be respected.
• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members should encourage reviewers to provide accurate feedback on the originality and absence of publication and research violations in submitted articles. Also, accurate and reasoned reviews should be welcomed, superficial and weak reviews should be avoided, and biased, unfounded, or derogatory reviews should be dealt with.
• Decisions on accepting or rejecting articles should be made based on the evaluation of the reviewers' expert opinions, their accuracy, scientific documentation, and sufficient reasoning, and should not involve the application of personal, professional, racial, religious, etc. opinions.
• Decisions on acceptance or rejection of articles should be made based on the evaluation of the reviewers' opinions and scientific documentation, and should not involve the personal, racial, religious, etc. opinions.
• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members must notify the corresponding author of the final decision on acceptance or rejection of the article as soon as possible.
• If any problem or violation is discovered in an article, the editor-in-chief and editorial board members must immediately remove the article from the journal's website and promptly and clearly inform the journal's readers and audience, as well as the citation databases indexing the journal, of the issue.
• The editor-in-chief is required to carefully review documentation related to publication and research violations reported by reviewers or in any other way and, if necessary, take action based on the laws related to dealing with unethical publication and research behavior.
• The editor-in-chief should not consider the matter closed by rejecting articles that are accused of misconduct or articles that have been proven to be in violation, but should pursue the matter to the final stage. At the same time, an appropriate platform should be provided for the accountability of authors accused of unethical behavior.
• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members must take the necessary steps to record and maintain the reviewing documents of articles as scientific documents and to keep the names of the reviewers of each article confidential.
• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members should not disclose any information about the article except to the corresponding author, reviewers, editor, layout designer, and publisher prior to potential publication.
• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members are not allowed to use the data or new concepts in favor of or against their own or others' research, or to criticize or discredit the authors, before the article is published. They are also not allowed to publish details beyond what is published in the journal after the article is published. The only exception to this is to investigate cases of unethical publication and research behavior by the authors, if there are acceptable reasons.
• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members are not authorized to use the content and information of unpublished submitted articles unless they have received written permission from the authors to use them.
• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members are required to avoid conflicts of interest in the reviewing process, with respect to any personal, business, academic, financial, etc. relationships that may potentially affect the acceptance and publication of articles.
• The editor-in-chief and editorial board members should continuously seek the opinions of authors, readers, and reviewers regarding improving the publication policies and the formal and content quality of the journal.

• The secretariat is responsible for editing and page designing of accepted articles and publishing the printed and electronic versions of the journal.
• The secretariat is responsible for determining and clearly announcing the journal's general policies, especially regarding the independence of the editorial board's decision-making, principles of publication and research ethics, protection of intellectual property and copyright, conflict of interest, duties of authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members, the review and decision-making process, appeals and complaints, preservation of scientific documents of the decision-making process, preservation of information of authors and reviewers, correction or deletion of accepted articles, and resolution of disputes between complainants and those accused of unethical publishing and research behavior.
• The secretariat is obligated to protect the personal information of authors and the contents and details of articles except for what is published after the acceptance of articles in the journal, during the review and after the decision on the articles is made. The only exception in this regard is the investigation of cases related to unethical publication and research behavior by authors, if there are acceptable reasons.
• The secretariat is responsible for providing educational materials on the latest laws and standards in the field of scientific publication, as well as providing guidance and accountability to authors, reviewers, readers, etc.