This journal follows and strongly adheres to Committee on Publication Ethics  (COPE) available at: publicationethics.org and complies with the highest ethical standards in accordance with ethical laws. We follow guidance from the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE) in our pursuit to support the ethical publishing principles. Its guidelines are applied to the journal editors, authors, and peer-reviewers. The journal will follow the COPE flowcharts regarding any potential acts of misconduct.

Sources

http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct

http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts

http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines

All the authors in order to ensure that all the ethical guidelines are observed in the manuscripts submitted to the journal are required to include Author’s Statement confirming that all the ethical guidelines have been followed in their research.

Authorship and contributorship
Authors should observe high standards concerning the Ethical policy for the authors of the journal as set out by the COPE. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and shall be dealt with by adhering to the COPE guidelines.

Authors should present an accurate account of the performed work. Details and references must be sufficient enough to permit others to replicate the work. Research results should be interpreted correctly so that to avoid damage to the trust in the journal.

Authors are responsible for assuring that data, results, quotes, citations, images and/or other materials in the manuscript are cited accordingly, and not fabricated or manipulated. Proper acknowledgement of the work(s) of others must always be given.

The journal publishes only original works which have neither been published elsewhere nor are under review elsewhere. Exceptions are granted only for new works which significantly expand previous publications. Authors are required to provide information on the reuse of the material. Unethical publishing behaviour extends to the cases when a single study is deliberately split up into several parts with the objective to increase the number of published works.

Significant contribution must have been made by each and every researcher included in the list of the authors in preparing the manuscript; authors share collective responsibility and accountability for the results. Anyone who has made a significant contribution must be included in the list of the authors. After the acceptance of a manuscript, changes of authorship or the order of the authors are no longer possible.

We ask authors to provide information about the financial support for the research or paper in the Acknowledgements section at the end of the paper. If the funding source(s) had no involvement, then this should be stated.

Ethical principles of article publication

1- This publication respects the rules of ethics in publications and is subject to the rules of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follows the executive regulations of the law on preventing and dealing with fraud in scientific works.

2- All articles are checked at: http://www.samimnoor.ir before evaluation, and if they are copies, they will be removed from the evaluation stage.

Ethical principles of article publication

Authors, reviewers, editors and editorial board of “Theology Journal” are required to observe the principles of professional ethics.

The meaning of plagiarism

• It should be noted that according to the International Ethics Committee of Publication (COOP), the meaning of plagiarism is that the author has mentioned the contents of a published or unpublished work such as articles, books, thesis literally or with changes in phrases but with the preservation of the writing style of the first author, or with a different phrase and style, or the idea of others without citing the original source. It makes no difference in plagiarism whether the author reprints his previously published contents without citing the original work or the printed or unpublished contents of others.

In any case, using the works of others without referring to them and considering it as one's own work is considered plagiarism.

• The journal of “Theology Journal” tries to prevent any kind of scientific plagiarism in articles. Therefore, all the articles are matched before the initial review by the editor and again before printing, through the software of Samim Noor (for Farsi articles). If it is found that plagiarism has been done in the article, the article will be rejected at any stage. If it is determined after the publication of the article that an author has committed plagiarism; The article has been removed from the magazine's website and the editorial board is informed.

If it is found that the author intentionally committed academic plagiarism, the degree of plagiarism will be reported to the relevant officials of the university and legal action will be taken against him and if it is found that the author has inadvertently committed plagiarism, in addition to the fact that the author does not have the right to use this article for promotion or annual promotion, the journal will no longer accept the author's articles.

Ethical duties and responsibilities of authors:

1. The final responsibility and duty for the content of the article rests with the author (or authors) of the article. Therefore, the authors are obliged to carefully interpret and analyze their views. The article must also contain enough details and sources so that other researchers can access the same data set in order to repeat the research.
2. The article must be a new and original work which means that it is the result of studies, experiences and researches of the author or authors. As a result, the article containing the copying of other people's research (even if it is documented) or the repetition of other people's ideas is not acceptable.
3. The author must not send the article or part of it to another publication at the same time or to present at the conference.
4. The author of the article must refrain and avoid from any kind of unethical research behavior in his research such as: falsifying data (data fabrication), distorting data, plagiarism, taking advantage of others to conduct research and mentioning his/her/their name(s) as the author(s), re-sending the article or a part of his/her/their article that is in domestic or foreign publications have been published.
5. The article must be without any kind of plagiarism (from one's own or others' works, whether quoting a phrase or quoting the theme or stealing other people's ideas without citation) and the authors are required to be sure of the correctness of their work before submitting the article to the journal. (See the authors guide section which articles are reviewed in the Samim-Noor system before being evaluated).
6. The authors are obliged to raise any conflict of interest that may affect the results of the research or the interpretation of their findings, or may cause a possible conflict with the interests of other institutions or individuals. Financial sources supporting the research must also be mentioned. (See authors’ guide section to receive the non-conflict of interest form).
7. If an author notices an important mistake or carelessness in his work, he/she/they is/are obliged to inform the editor of the journal as soon as possible and cooperate in the process of reviewing and correcting the article.
8. The corresponding author must register the names and information of all co-authors in the system at the same time as the article is registered, and not to add another author's name after that.
9. It is necessary to sign the commitment form by all the authors of the article and send it along with the article. The correctness of the content of the article is the responsibility of all authors. (See the authors guide section to get the form).
10. The article must be free of any kind of racial, ethnic, gender and political discrimination.
11. The authors must avoid providing any information in the article that would lead to their recognition in order to respect the confidentiality of the evaluation process.

Ethical duties of reviewers:

1. The reviewers must help the editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board by reviewing the content and quality of the article in accepting or rejecting the article and contribute to improving the quality level of the article and journal by sending corrections to the authors.
2. The selected referee must immediately after reviewing the summary of the article, inform the editor-in-chief of the publication about his decision to accept or not accept the refereeing (because the subject of the article is not in the field of the referee's work, lack of time, etc.) and reviewers the article at the appointed time in case of accepting the referee.
3. The referee must refuse to evaluate the article, if the article is outside the referee's field of expertise.
4. The reviewers must respect the confidentiality of the evaluation process and must not share information about the article before, during and after the refereeing.
5. The reviewers must evaluate the articles objectively, impartially and fairly and avoid personal orientations in their recommendations and judgments. The refereeing of the articles must be based on scientific documentation and sufficient reasoning and must be expressed clearly and the involvement of ethnic, national, racial, political, religious and gender issues in the refereeing must be avoided.
6. The reviewers are obliged to identify and review the sources referred to by the author. Any conclusions and discussions must be documented. The reviewers are also obliged to inform the editor-in-chief if they see any similarity or overlap between the submitted work and another article.
7. The reviewers must not use the information or ideas that they have obtained in the evaluation process for personal gain. It is also necessary to refuse to evaluate articles that they consider to be subject to conflict of interest, including financial, organizational, personal shared interests, or any other connections or links with companies, institutions, or people related to the articles.
8. The reviewers must not directly discuss with the author without the editor-in-chief’s permission, if the reviewers know the author's identity.
9. If the reviewers of the article noticed that the article has been sent to another publication or that the article is taken from the published or unpublished works of others, they must inform the editor.
10. Reviewers must avoid using offensive, harsh and unscientific expressions in refereeing.
11. The reviewers must not entrust the refereeing of the article to another person without informing the editor-in-chief.

Ethical duties of editors-in-chief:

1. The editor-in-chief of the journal is responsible for making the final decision in accepting or rejecting the submitted articles and this is done with the help of the editorial board and in compliance with issues related to copyright, plagiarism, etc., as well as the discretion of the reviewers.
2. Editors-in-chief must continuously strive to improve the quality level of the publication.
3. Editors-in-chief must perform their editorial duties, including accepting or rejecting articles with freedom and authority and maintaining scientific independence and they must not be influenced by non-scientific and non-specialist factors in this regard.
4. The editor's judgment about the articles must be based solely on scientific merit. Therefore, personal bias or consideration of nationality, gender, religion and ethnic, racial and political issues must not be considered as criteria for rejecting and accepting articles.
5. The editor-in-chief and the editorial board must not release the information about the article except to the reviewers, authors and editors.
6. Those parts of the submitted articles that have not been published should must be used in the personal research of the editor or the editorial board. Confidential information or ideas obtained through the evaluation of articles must be kept confidential and not used for personal gain and use.
7. Editors-in-chief must always propose and implement strategies to improve the quality of articles.
8. Editors-in-chief must try to respond to the needs of the audience and writers.
9. Editors-in-chief must be diligent in teaching research ethics to authors and audiences.
10. The ethical and rational standards in performing editorial duties must not be affected by financial needs.

11. The editors-in-chief must respect the revisions suggested by the reviewers as well as the reasoned and logical answers of the authors.
12. The editors-in-chief are obliged to select competent reviewers for the articles according to the title of each article and according to the specialized field.
13. The editors-in-chief must be careful that the article is not copyrighted or plagiarized (so the result of Samim-Noor’s evaluation by the executive secretary of the journal for the editor-in-chief must be attached to the article).

Journal policy on plagiarism

Plagiarism, according to the Committee on Publication Ethics (Cope), means that the author of the contents of a published or unpublished work [article, book, thesis, etc..] mentions [exactly or with changes in phrases, but with retention of the first author’s writing style, either with a different phrase and style], or the ideas of others without citing the original source, in his/her/their article.

It does not matter in plagiarism, if the author republishes his previously published material without citing the original work or the printed or unpublished material of others. In any case, using the works of others without referring to them and considering it as one's own work is considered plagiarism.

The journal of Theology Journal tries to prevent any kind of plagiarism in articles. Therefore, all articles are compared through SamimNoor software before the review stage. The article will be rejected, if it is determined that plagiarism has taken place in the article.

The author will be dealt with according to the rules, if it is found that an author after the publication of the article has committed plagiarism.

Plagiarism Policy

Close adaptation of the thoughts and expressions of other authors, copying in the expression of ideas, structural similarities in the text or attributing the ideas and results of others without proper reference, or introducing it as genuine scientific research, is considered "plagiarism" and the policy of this journal is "The fight against plagiarism". For this purpose, similarity is done through the Samimnoor system

Plagiarism

Simply means:

To use someone else work without crediting them, or to present the existing idea of someone else as new and original.

All the following are considered plagiarism:

1. Making someone else's work as your own
2. Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
3. Giving incorrect information about the source
4. Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
5. Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not.

Images and Figures: Using an image, figures and graphs in your work without receiving proper permission and providing appropriate citation is plagiarism. Authors must take written permission from the owner of the work if necessary for using any of the image, figures etc.

Similarity checks by Samim Noor system.

The policy of the biannually Journal of Theology Journal is "fighting academic plagiarism". For this purpose, matching is done through the Samim Noor system.

Policy and Action for Plagiarism

The Journals perform similarity check on each manuscript before the peer-review process and the following steps are taken based on the similarity content:

1. If the manuscript is found to have less similarity, it will be returned to the author for revision. The author can resubmit the manuscript after removing all similarity and reworking on the content. After revision, more scrutiny will be done on the resubmitted manuscript to avoid any possible plagiarism and copying of any published data.
2. If the similarity content is very high, the manuscript will be rejected and cannot consider for revision and publication.

In cases if plagiarism is detected at a later stage, all the actions pertaining to the offense of plagiarism will be taken. If the extent of plagiarism detected too high after publication, the paper will be removed. Recommendation for Authors

1. Always properly cite references and acknowledging ideas.
2. All references must contain full bibliographic information.
3. All sources cited in the text must be listed in the bibliography and vice versa.
4. Wherever more than 6 consecutive words are copied, quotation marks should be used.
5. Must have taken permission from other authors/publishers to reuse copyright-protected content.

Steps to deal with unethical publishing and research behavior

- Receiving a written letter of accusation from an organization or a natural person by the journal office

 

- Holding a meeting of the editorial board of the journal with the presence of a representative of the university publishing center and preliminary investigation of the accusation

- Collecting documents and evaluating them, if necessary, and preparing the proceedings indicating whether or not the charge was correct

- Sending charges to the accused authors and requesting a response within the specified time

- Examining the answer of the defendants in the meeting of the editorial board of the journal with the presence of the representative of the university publishing center and making the final decision

- Sending the decision to the plaintiff and the accused along with punitive proposals if the accusation is recognized

- Informing the highest research authority of the organization where offenders operate