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Privacy & Ethics Policies

 | Post date: 2019/11/29 | 
The Iranian Journal of Toxicology (IJT) strongly believes in moral justice and ethical practices at all stages of its publication processes. Our privacy and ethics policies have been developed based on established guidelines from reputable sources, including: a) Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), b) International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), c) World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and a number of other publications in the field with a similar scope to that of IJT.
 
A. Privacy Policies
 
The following section describes our privacy policies and commitments toward the authors whose work are submitted to and published in IJT. The editorial board is aware of their role in the promotion and implementation of the Journal’s privacy and ethics policies. They may disclose information related to submitted manuscripts to reviewers and editorial advisers, depending on the need and stage of the review process. The journal takes the privacy and protection of data very seriously, and is committed to handling the personal information of all authors responsibly in a way that meets our moral and legal obligations. The editorial board shall take appropriate steps whenever it receives a provable report of misconduct by authors, such as plagiarism, and shall decide on the appropriate consequences to the manuscript, whether being under review or published.
 
Information We Collect: The journal will collect the following information in providing our services and products, and in dealing with authors and other customers. The types of information we may collect from our typical customers, such as academicians and professionals, include:
  • Contact details, such as full name, email address, postal address and telephone number.
  • Educational, nationality and professional background information.
  • Usernames and passwords used to sign on the journal’s website.
  • Comments, feedback and other contents submitted by authors.
  • Interests and communication preferences.
  • IP address information relating to your use of the journal’s website.
  • In case of sensitive personal information, we will ask for your consent.
 
Our Services: If you publish articles in IJT, your name and affiliation will be published to disseminate and promote your scholarly work, and if it is necessary, for our legitimate interests. On some occasions, IJT may use your photos and videos with your permission for our promotional purposes.
 
Communication: The journal may use your information upon your consent to send newsletters or other informative materials to you, and to advise you on our news, events and products that may be of interest to you. Also, you always have the opportunity to opt out of our future marketing email list and/or other forms of communication.  To change communication preferences, authors should notify the journal by E-mails, regular mail or phone calls.
 
Author Management: We may use authors’ personal information to update and improve our customer database and perform analysis of our products and services. This is also done to update our various services and develop new products, such as online websites, based on customer demands and IJT’s interests as a scientific publication. We may combine collected information with personal data through tracking technologies, in order to measure your online experiences and determine what products, promotions and services are likely to be of interest to authors.
 
Legal Obligations: To fulfill our legal obligations, we may need to screen customers and suppliers against national and international laws and regulations. In the event of any issues indicating that we cannot continue to work with certain customers or suppliers, they will always be informed regarding the facts.
 
Protection of Personal Information: Any personal information provided to IJT will be kept with utmost confidentiality, using one or more of the following measures:
  • Physical and technical measures to keep data safe and prevent unauthorized access or disclosure.
  • Electronic databases are stored on secure computer systems with access and user control.
  • Protection Policies: Our trained colleagues are required to follow established policies in handling personal information and data.
  • Secure the HTTPs website, where the protocols are encrypted via transport layer security.
  • International Access: Being an international journal, personal information may be accessed by our colleagues and third-party service providers from various countries with different data protection laws.  In these cases, we use appropriate guidelines to ensure that your personal data remain well protected.
  • Cookies: Cookies are small text files containing a user ID that are automatically placed on the user’s computer when visiting IJT’s website.
  • Links: From time to time, our website may contain links to other websites with their own privacy policies, to promote relevant services. In some cases, the links may control your information and, therefore, we will advise you in advance to read their privacy policy and use them at your discretion.
Sharing Information with Service Providers: To better provide you with scholarly products and services, we may share your information with the following types of third party: Email providers; web hosts; indexers and abstracters; peer-review experts; library services; and scholarly research repositories. In doing so, we only share your personal information with third parties to the extent it is necessary to provide you with your requested assistance.
 
Retention of Personal Information: We retain your information for as long as it is necessary and as permitted by applicable laws. The information will be securely destroyed when we no longer need them.
 
Authors’ Rights: All authors have the following rights that are fully honored by the journal:
  • Whether or not we can have your personal data. If so, we may obtain a copy of your personal information with your consent.
  • You can have your personal data corrected or erased.
  • You can request a restriction or suppression placed on your personal data. We will stop using them but we may continue to store them.
  • You can object to the use of your personal data by the journal.
 
Changes to Privacy Policies: In order to keep up with changing legislation, best practice and changes in how we process personal data, we may revise our privacy and ethics policies at any time and without notice by posting a revised version on this website. Checking back periodically will mean you are aware of any changes. The privacy and ethics policies should be reviewed in conjunction with the website’s terms that are also subject to changes.
B: Ethics Policies
 
Role of Editorial Board: The journal’s editorial board is responsible for safe guarding the submitted articles and overseeing the peer-review process. The reviewers evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors’ gender, religious belief, race or social and political views.
 
Institutional Review Board: A mandatory part of any research consisting of human subjects, medical records, anonymous human tissues or live animals, is the ethical aspects, which are set by universal declaration of Helsinki and other recognized standards. This aspect of conducting research is normally monitored and approved by a research ethics committee at various academic institutions, called Institutional Review Board (IRB). The approval of the IRB applications for the conducted research should be mentioned in the manuscripts and the details of patient consent and other related issues must be clearly defined under “Materials and Methods” section of the article.
 
Role of Authors: Based on universal standards and guidelines, such as COPE, ICMEJE and WAME, authors are responsible for the validity, integrity and correctness of all of the statements made in their publications, including those related to ethics.  In each article, the order of authors’ names, which appear after the title, should be based on the extent of their contributions to the study.  Also, the intellectual contribution of each author should be acknowledged at the end of manuscripts without bias.
 
Plagiarism: Authors are responsible regarding any claim made by individuals relating to their research. Therefore, they must avoid plagiarism, i.e., using other individuals’ ideas or statements, whether published or unpublished, in their articles. Apart from referencing and acknowledging relevant sources, the text should not contain the exact wording and sentences from other authors. Exceptions to this include stating common knowledge and the use of quotes.


Plagiarism

(Based on recommendations on publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals, prepared by the WAME Publication Ethics Committee

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).
  
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. This practice is widespread and sometimes unintentional, as there are only so many ways to say the same thing on many occasions, particularly when writing the Methods section of an article. Although this usually violates the copyright that has been assigned to the publisher, there is no consensus as to whether this is a form of scientific misconduct, or how many of one's own words one can use before it is truly "plagiarism." Probably for this reason self-plagiarism is not regarded in the same light as plagiarism of the ideas and words of other individuals.
 

Plagiarism Policy

All articles submitted will be checked using the iThenticate plagiarism detection software. A specific process is followed to manage a case of plagiarism. IJT follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)'s guidelines presented in the  following flowcharts: For other plagiarism issues and scientific misconduct, Negah journals apply the COPE Guidance on Plagiarism Cases.

Types of Plagiarism

We detect and consider the following types of plagiarism in the journal and ‎prevent them to be used:‎

Full Plagiarism: Previously published content without any changes to the text, idea, and grammar is considered as full plagiarism. It involves presenting exact text from a source as one’s own.

Partial Plagiarism: If content is a mixture from multiple different sources, where the author has extensively rephrased text, then it is known as partial plagiarism.

Self-Plagiarism: When an author reuses complete or portions of their pre-published research, then it is known as self-plagiarism. Complete self-plagiarism is a case when an author republishes their own previously published work in a new journal. (Read the COPE guidelines on text recycling)
 

Self-plagiarism or Text Recycling Guidelines

(Based on COPE's guideline: Text recycling guidelines for editors)

Self-plagiarism, also referred to as ‘text recycling’, is a topical issue and is currently generating much discussion among editors. Opinions are divided as to how much text overlap with an author’s own previous publications is acceptable, and editors often find it hard to judge when action is required.
 

How to deal with text recycling

Introduction

These guidelines are intended to guide editors in dealing with cases of text recycling. Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism, is when sections of the same text appear in more than one of an author’s own publications.
Editors should consider each case of text recycling on an individual basis as the most appropriate course of action will depend on a number of factors.

When should action be considered?

Text recycling can take many forms, and editors should consider which parts of the text have been recycled.
  • Duplication of data is likely to always be considered serious (and should be dealt with according to the COPE guidelines for duplicate publications [1,2].
  • Use of similar or identical phrases in methods sections where there are limited ways to describe a common method, however, is not uncommon. In such cases, an element of text recycling is likely to be unavoidable in further publications using the same method. Editors should use their discretion when deciding how much overlap of methods text is acceptable, considering factors such as whether authors have been transparent and stated that the methods have already been described in detail elsewhere and provided a citation.
  • Duplication of background ideas in the introduction may be considered less significant than duplication of the hypothesis, discussion, or conclusions.
When significant overlap is identified between two or more articles, editors should consider taking action. Several factors may need to be taken into account when deciding whether the overlap is considered significant.

Text recycling in a submitted manuscript

Text recycling may be identified in a submitted article by editors or reviewers, or by the use of plagiarism detection software, e.g. CrossCheck. Editors should consider the extent of the overlap when deciding how to act.
  • Where overlap is considered to be minor, authors may be asked to re-write overlapping sections, and cite their previous article(s).
  • More significant overlap may result in rejection of the manuscript.
  • Where the overlap includes data, Editors should handle cases according to the COPE flowchart for dealing with suspected redundant publication in a submitted manuscript [1].

Text recycling in a published article

If text recycling is discovered in a published article, it may be necessary to publish a correction to, or retraction of, the original article. This decision will depend on the degree and nature of the overlap, and several factors will need to be considered. As for text recycling in a submitted manuscript, editors should handle cases of overlap in data according to the COPE flowchart for dealing with suspected redundant publication in a published article [2].
Journal editors should consider publishing a correction article when:
  • Sections of the text, generally excluding methods, are identical or near identical to a previous publication by the same author(s);
  • The original publication is not referenced in the subsequent publication; but
  • There is still sufficient new material in the article to justify its publication.
The correction should amend the literature by adding the missing citation and clarifying what is new in the subsequent publication versus the original publication.
Journal editors should consider publishing a retraction article when:
  • There is significant overlap in the text, generally excluding methods, with sections that are identical or near identical to a previous publication by the same author(s);
  • The recycled text reports previously published data and there is insufficient new material in the article to justify its publication in light of the previous publication(s).
  • The recycled text forms the major part of the discussion or conclusion in the article.
  • The overlap breaches copyright.
The retraction should be issued in line with the COPE retraction guidelines [3].

How far back should this be applied?

Attitudes towards text recycling have changed over the past decade. Editors should consider this when deciding how to deal with individual cases of text recycling in published articles. Editors should judge each case in line with accepted practice at the time of publication.
In general, where overlap does not involve duplication of results, editors are advised to consider taking no corrective action for cases where the text recycling occurred earlier than 2004. Editors may wish to take corrective action in the case of duplication of data prior to this date and should follow the COPE flowchart for dealing with suspected redundant publication in a published article [2].

Opinion, Review and Commentary articles

Non-research article types such as Opinion, Review and Commentary articles should in principle adhere to the same guidelines as research articles. Due to the critical and opinion-based nature of some non-research article types, action should be considered when text is recycled from an earlier publication without any further novel development of previously published opinions or ideas or when they are presented as novel without any reference to previous publications.
 

References/further reading

1. COPE flowchart for suspected redundant publication in a submitted manuscript http://publicationethics.org/files/u2/01A_Redundant_Submitted.pdf

2. COPE flowchart for suspected redundant publication in a published article http://publicationethics.org/files/u2/01B_Redundant_Published.pdf

3. COPE guidelines for retracting articles https://publicationethics.org/files/retraction-guidelines.pdf

 
Conflicts of Interest: Authors are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias their research conclusions. It is recommended that authors state explicitly whether potential conflicts existed during their studies or not. Such a language is preferably placed at the end of the manuscript and in the cover letter addressed to journal editors.

Contact Us: To update or change personal information or preferences, authors are advised to send their new information to the Editor-in-Chief, using the following E-mail addresses:
For detailed information about the Iranian Journal of Toxicology and to review the archive or current issue, please visit the IJT’s website at: http://ijt.arakmu.ac.ir.  Authors are invited to send abstracts of their research to the IJT editor by Email or regular mail for review and consideration of publication at the address shown below:
  
Postal Address:
Iranian Journal of Toxicology, Arak University of Medical Sciences, Payambar Academic Complex, Basij Square, Arak, Iran.
Postal Code: 3848176341     Fax: +98-863-417-3509
 

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