Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The ethical policy of Space Science, Technology and Applications (JSSTA) is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and complies with International Committee of journal Editorial Board codes of conduct. Readers, authors, reviewers and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with journal. The ethical policy of journal is liable to determine which of the typical research papers or articles submitted to the journal should be published in the concerned issue. The publishing decision is based on the suggestion of the journal's reviewers and editorial board members. The ethical policy insisted the Editor-in-Chief, may confer with other editors or reviewers in making the decision. The reviewers are necessary to evaluate the research papers based on the submitted content in confidential manner.  The reviewers also suggest the authors to improve the quality of research paper by their reviewing comments.  Authors should ensure that their submitted research work is original and has not been published elsewhere in any language. Applicable copyright laws and conventions should be followed by the authors.  Any kind of plagiarism constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.  For information on this matter in publishing and ethical guidelines please visit http://publicationethics.org.

 


Publisher responsibilities
  • publisher should ensure that editorial decisions on manuscript submissions are final and are only made based on professional judgment and will not be affected by any commercial interests.
  • publisher should monitor the ethics of Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Editorial Board Members, Reviewers, Authors, and Readers.
  • publisher is always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, and retractions involving its publications as and when needed.
Editorial responsibilities

(https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_1.pdf)

  • The editorial team should have the full authority to reject/accept a manuscript.
  • The editorial team should maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts under review or until they are published.
  • The editorial team should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
  • The editorial team should disclose and try to avoid any conflict of interest.
  • The editorial team should be willing to investigate plagiarism and fraudulent data issues and willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
  • The editorial team (editor, managing director and editorial board) has full authority to reject or accept any article.
  • The editorial team must maintain the confidentiality of the content of the submitted articles until their publication.
  • The editor makes the final decision on whether or not to accept articles based on the opinions of the judges and editorial board members.
  • Due to the journal's review policy (Double-Blind), the anonymity of the judges and authors should be maintained.
  • The editorial team should report any conflict of interest and prevent it from occurring.
  • The editorial team should always monitor the issues of ethics in publishing, plagiarism and scientific violations and provide the necessary explanations if necessary.
  • The editorial team should not disclose the information and content of the articles to anyone other than the lead author, the reviewers and, if necessary, other editorial staff.
reviewers’ responsibilities  

(https://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Peer%20review%20guidelines.pdf)

  •  Confidentiality of article information must be observed in all areas. The article review process is to be done anonymously.
  • Reviewers should judge articles at the appropriate time and assist the editorial team in deciding whether or not to accept the article.
  • The referees' suggestions regarding the published articles should be submitted in the form of judging forms and in the comment section for the author and editor.
  • Reviewers should refrain from judging articles with conflict of interest and report any conflict of interest as soon as possible.
  • Reviewers' judgments about the quality and content of articles should be based on professional and objective opinions.
Authors’ responsibilities

(https://publicationethics.org/files/u7141/1999pdf13.pdf)

  • It is necessary to observe the basic principles of writing and research in writing articles, and articles should be written and arranged according to the format of the journal.
  • Before submitting an article, all authors should read the authors' guide and the terms and conditions of submitting an article in this journal.
  • The corresponding author must confirm and submit the consent and knowledge of other co-authors of the article in this publication through the authors' commitment form.
  • All authors whose names are mentioned in the article and in the letter of commitment form must participate in writing and compiling the article.
  • Appreciation and organizational affiliation of authors should be mentioned in the article and any conflicts of interest between authors or organizations should be mentioned.
  • For the sustainability and development of the specialized review process, qualified authors are invited to participate in the review process of other articles in this journal.
  • Authors should clearly report the sponsor of the research (if any).
  • Authors have a duty to notify the editor as soon as possible if they find a mistake or incorrection in their published article to correct or revoke the article.
  • All authors should be aware that articles submitted to this journal are reviewed by a similarity check software to prevent scientific misconduct.
  • Authors should cite correctly and appropriately all the sources they have used, both directly and indirectly.

Authorship Criteria

 To ensure authorship for the submitted manuscripts, the contributors should meet the following three conditions:

  • Conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data has been done by the author.
  • Either drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content has been done by the author.
  • The final approval of the version to be published has been given by the author. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to be allowed to take public responsibility for suitable portions of the content.
 Authorship and Author’s Responsibility
  • During the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, the corresponding author is typically responsible for communicating with the journal and ensuring that all of the journal's administrative requirements, such as authorship details, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and conflict of interest statements, are properly completed. Throughout the submission and peer review process, the corresponding author should promptly respond to editorial queries and cooperate with any requests from the journal after publication.
  • After an article has been accepted for publication in the SSTA , no additional authors or changes to the first or corresponding authors are allowed. If an author wishes to be removed from the byline, he or she must submit a letter signed by the author and all other authors indicating their wish to be removed from the list of authors. Any change in the authors' order in the byline requires a letter signed by all authors indicating their agreement.
 Human and animal studies

All manuscripts reporting the results of experimental investigations involving human subjects should include a statement confirming the informed consent was obtained from each subject or subject’s guardian. All animal or human studies should be used after approval of the experimental protocol by a local ethics committee.


Possible Misconducts

  • Data Fabrication and Falsification

Data fabrication and falsification means the researcher did not really carry out the study, but made-up data or results and had recorded or reported the fabricated information. Data falsification means the researcher did the experiment, but manipulated, changed, or omitted data or results from the research findings.

  • Duplicate Publication

Duplicate publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross referencing, share essentially the same hypotheses, data, discussion points, and conclusions. 

  • Citation Manipulation

Excessive citations in a submitted manuscript that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article and were included solely to increase citations to a given author's work or articles published in a particular journal are referred to as citation manipulation. This is a form of scientific misconduct since it misrepresents the importance of the specific work and publication in which it appears.

  • Simultaneous Submission:

Simultaneous submission occurs when a manuscript (or substantial sections from a manuscript) is submitted to a journal when it is already under consideration by another journal.

  • Redundant Publications:

Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles, most often consequent to the desire to plump academic vitae.

  • Improper Author Contribution or Attribution: 

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. Don’t forget to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.

  • Plagiarism

Plagiarism is intentionally using someone else’s ideas or other original material as if they are one's own. Copying even one sentence from someone else’s manuscript, or even one of your own that has previously been published, without proper citation is considered by SSTA Journal as plagiarism. All manuscripts under review or published with SSTA are subject to screening using plagiarism prevention software (Hamyab). Thus, plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics. The authors are expected to check their manuscript for plagiarism before submission.

If plagiarism is detected during peer review, the submission can be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication we reserve the right, as necessary, to issue a correction or retract the article. We reserve the right to notify the institutions of authors about the plagiarism that was found before or after publication.

 


The Principles of Transparency

  • Study design and ethical approval

Good research should be well justified, well planned, appropriately designed, and ethically approved. To conduct research to a lower standard may constitute misconduct. The authors are responsible for the whole scientific content as well as the accuracy of the bibliographic information (https://creativecommons.org/choose/).

  • Data analysis

Data should be appropriately analyzed, but inappropriate analysis does not necessarily amount to misconduct. Fabrication and falsification of data do constitute misconduct.

  • Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial. “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and company support for staff.

  • Peer-review

This journal uses Double-blind peer review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give their identity. Authors have the right to communicate to the editor if they do not wish their manuscript to be reviewed by a particular reviewer because of potential conflicts of interest. No article is rejected unless negative comments are received from at least two reviewers. This process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, is clearly described on the journal’s Web site (http://journal.isrc.ac.ir/journal/process?lang=en).

  • Archiving
    • The plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to journal's content (http://journal.isrc.ac.ir/) is clearly indicated. This policy sets out the ways in which the authors of SSTA can archive copies of their work on their own web pages, corporate web pages, and various other subject repositories. 
    • SSTA is an open access license, articles can be made available immediately according to the terms of their specific Creative Common license. If an author has published an article under an Open Access license, SSTA would encourage author to share the Version of Record on publication as opposed to the Accepted Manuscript.
    • Authors may also reuse the Abstract and Citation information (e.g. Title, Author name, Publication dates) of their article anywhere at any time including social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs and Twitter, providing that where possible a link is included back to the article on the SSTA site. Preferably the link should be, or include, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) which can be found in the Citation information about the article online. The accepted version may be placed on: the author's personal website and/or the author's company/institutional repository or archive. Self-archiving of the submitted version is not subject to an embargo period.
    • SSTA is now formally archived at the National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI).
  • Publishing schedule

SSTA is published two issues per year. All the content from the beginning to the end will be available for ever on SSTA exclusive website (http://journal.isrc.ac.ir/?lang=en). 

  • Privacy and Confidentiality

All manuscripts must be reviewed with the utmost regard for the authors' confidentiality. Authors entrust editors with the results of their scientific work and creative effort when they submit manuscripts for review, and their reputation and career may be at stake. Disclosure of confidential details during the review of an author's manuscript may be a violation of their rights. Reviewers have the right to confidentiality, which the editor must respect. If there is a suspicion of dishonesty or fraud, confidentiality may have to be breached, but it must be honored otherwise. Besides the authors and reviewers, editors are prohibited from disclosing information about manuscripts (including their receipt, content, status in the reviewing process, reviewer criticism, or ultimate fate). Requests to use the materials in legal proceedings are included in this category.

Editors must clarify to reviewers that manuscripts sent for review are privileged communications and the authors' private property. As a result, reviewers and editorial staff must respect the authors' rights by refraining from publicly discussing or appropriating the authors' work before the manuscript is published. Reviewers should not be allowed to make copies of the manuscript for their files, and they should not be allowed to share it with others except if the editor permits them. After submitting reviews, reviewers should return or destroy copies of the manuscripts. Editors should not keep copies of manuscripts that have been rejected. Without the permission of the reviewer, author, and editor, reviewer comments should not be published or otherwise made public.

  • Ownership and management

Iranian Space Research Institute

  • Governing Body

Journal of Space Science, Technology and Applications (SSTA) has very strong editorial board, whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors is provided on the journal’s Web site (http://journal.isrc.ac.ir/journal/editorial.board?lang=en).

  • Editorial team/Contact information

Journal of Space Science, Technology and Applications (SSTA) is provided the contact information for the editorial office of journal (http://journal.isrc.ac.ir/journal/about).

  • Copyright and Licensing

On the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge, this journal provides immediate open access to its content.

All journal papers are released under the  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits use, sharing, adaption, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as the original author(s) and source are properly credited. Under open access license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content, but allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the content as long as the original authors and source are cited properly.

Authors have the right to:

    • Share their article in accordance with the "Personal Use Rights"** as long as it contains the end user license and a DOI link to the version of record in this journal.
    • Retain intellectual-property-rights protection (including research data).
    • Proper credit and attribution for the published work.

** Personal use rights

Authors can use their articles for scholarly purposes in whole or in part, such as:

    • An author's use in classroom teaching (including distribution of copies, paper or electronic).
    • Distribution of copies (including through e-mail) to known research colleagues for their personal use.
    • Inclusion in a thesis or dissertation.
    • Use in a subsequent compilation of the author’s works.
    • Extending the article to book-length form.
  • Advertising

The policy of the journal is not to have advertising.

  • Corrections and retractions

To maintain the integrity of academic record, journal may have to publish correction or retraction of paper published in journal. According to agreed academic community norms, corrections or corrections of published articles are made by publishing an Erratum or Retraction article, without altering the original article in any other way than by adding a prominent connection to the Erratum / Retraction article. The original article remains in the public domain and should be commonly indexed to the subsequent Erratum or Retraction. We may have to delete the material from our website and archive sites in the exceptional event the material is considered to infringe those rights or is defamatory. It may be necessary for the original author(s) to make minor corrections to published articles by making a comment on the published Article. It will only be acceptable if the modifications do not affect the article's results or conclusions.

  • Corrections

Changes to published articles that affect the article's meaning and conclusion but do not invalidate the article in its entirety may be corrected, at the discretion of the editor(s), by publishing an Erratum indexed and linked to the original article. Changes in authorship of published articles are corrected through an Erratum.

  •  Retractions

If the scientific information in an article is significantly compromised on rare occasions it may be appropriate to retract published articles. In these cases, Journal must comply with the COPE guidelines. Retracted papers are indexed and the original article is referred to.


Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct

Editor-in-Chief takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others.

  • The first action of the journal Editor is to inform the Editorial Office of SSTA by supplying copies of the relevant material and a draft letter to the corresponding author asking for an explanation in a nonjudgmental manner.
  • If the author’s explanation is unacceptable and it seems that serious unethical conduct has taken place, the matter is referred to the Publication Committee via Editorial Office.  After deliberation, the Committee will decide whether the case is sufficiently serious to warrant a ban on future submissions. 
  • If the infraction is less severe, the Editor, upon the advice of the Publication Committee, sends the author a letter of reprimand and reminds the author of SSTA publication policies; if the manuscript has been published, the Editor may request the author to publish an apology in the journal to correct the record.
  • Notification will be sent to corresponding author and any work by the author responsible for the violation or any work these persons coauthored that is under review by SSTA journal will be rejected immediately.
  • The authors are prohibited from serving on SSTA editorial board and serving as a reviewer for SSTA Journal. SSTA reserves the right to take more actions.
  • In serious cases of fraud that result in retraction of the article, a retraction notice will be published in the journal and will be linked to the article in the online version. The online version will also be marked “retracted” with the retraction date.

 

Complaints and Appeals Proccess 

We welcome genuine appeals to editor decisions. However, you will need to provide strong evidence or new data/information in response to the editor’s and reviewers’ comments. Editors don’t expect frequent appeals and they rarely reverse their original decisions. Therefore, if you receive a decision to reject your manuscript, you are strongly advised to submit to another journal. The final decisions of the Editorial Board are based on the opinions of the reviewers and their unbiased judgment and are therefore usually irrevocable. However, if you have a complaint about the final decision of the publication and think that there is a case for appeal, follow the following process:

  • Provide your reasonable and acceptable reasons and explain why you do not agree with this decision.
  • Provide any information or new data that you want to be considered in the review process to the editors of the publication.
  • If you believe that the reviewers made a mistake in evaluating your paper, provide reasons and acceptable documentation.
  • If you think there was a conflict of interest in the arbitration process, provide your evidence.

The editors accept only one appeal per article. After receiving the appeal, the editors may involve the referees and editors who have evaluated the manuscript. The decisions of the editors and editorial board regarding appeals are final and may include rejection of the manuscript, request for further peer review, or request to submit a revised version of the manuscript.


COPE’s Guidelines & Flowcharts 

SSTA is committed to follow and apply guidelines and flowcharts of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in its reviewing and publishing process and issues. For more information on COPE’s Guidelines & Flowcharts please see: (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts-new/translations). 

 

COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practices for Editors

(https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf), (https://publicationethics.org/files/2008%20Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf)

  • Everything published in the journal is the responsibility of the editor-in-chief. This means that the editors must:
  • Strive to meet the needs of readers and authors;
  • Strive to constantly improve their journal;
  • Have processes in place to assure the quality of the material they publish;
  • Champion freedom of expression;
  • Maintain the integrity of the academic record;
  • Preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
  • Always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
Best Practice for Editors would include:
  • Actively seeking the views of authors, readers, reviewers and editorial board members about ways of improving their journal’s processes.
  • Encouraging and being aware of research into peer review and publishing and reassessing their journal’s processes in the light of new findings.
  • Supporting initiatives designed to reduce research and publication misconduct.
  • Supporting initiatives to educate researchers about publication ethics.
  • Assessing the effects of their journal policies on author and reviewer behavior and revising policies, as required, to encourage responsible behavior and discourage misconduct.

Relations with Readers
  • Readers should be informed about who has funded research or other scholarly work and whether the funders had any role in the research and its publication and, if so, what this was.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • Ensuring that all published reports and reviews of research have been reviewed by suitably qualified reviewers including statistical review.
  • Adopting processes that encourage accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting including technical editing and the use of appropriate guidelines and checklists.
  • Considering developing a transparency policy to encourage maximum disclosure about the provenance of non-research articles.
  • Adopting authorship or contributorship systems that promote good practice (i.e. so that listings accurately reflect who did the work) and discourage misconduct (e.g. ghost and guest authors).
  • Informing readers about steps taken to ensure that submissions from members of the journal’s staff or editorial board receive an objective and unbiased evaluation.

Relations with authors
  • Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the remit of the journal.
  • Editors should not reverse decisions to accept submissions unless serious problems are identified with the submission.
  • New editors should not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous editor unless serious problems are identified.
  • Journals should have a declared mechanism for authors to appeal against editorial decisions.
  • Editors should publish guidance to authors on everything that is expected of them. This guidance should be regularly updated and should refer or link to this code.
  • Editors should provide guidance about criteria for authorship and/or who should be listed as a contributor following the standards within the relevant field.
Best practice for editors would include
  • Reviewing author instructions regularly and providing links to relevant guidelines.
  • Publishing relevant competing interests for all contributors and publishing corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication.
  • Ensuring that appropriate reviewers are selected for submissions (i.e. individuals who are able to judge the work and are free from disqualifying competing interests).
  • Respecting requests from authors that an individual should not review their submission, if these are well-reasoned and practicable.
  • Publishing details of how they handle cases of suspected misconduct.
  • Publishing submission and acceptance dates for articles.

Relations with reviewers
  • Editors should provide guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them including the need to handle submitted material in confidence. This guidance should be regularly updated and should refer or link to this code.
  • Editors should require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.
  • Editors should have systems to ensure that peer reviewers’ identities are protected unless they use an open review system that is declared to authors and reviewers.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • Encouraging reviewers to comment on ethical questions and possible research and publication misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, insufficient detail on patient consent or protection of research subjects (including animals), inappropriate data manipulation and presentation)
  • Encouraging reviewers to comment on the originality of submissions and to be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism
  • Considering providing reviewers with tools to detect related publications (e.g. links to cited references and bibliographic searches)
  • Sending reviewers’ comments to authors in their entirety unless they contain offensive or libelous remarks
  • Seeking to acknowledge the contribution of reviewers to the journal
  • Encouraging academic institutions to recognize peer review activities as part of the scholarly process.
  • Monitoring the performance of peer reviewers and taking steps to ensure this is of high standard.
  • Developing and maintaining a database of suitable reviewers and updating this on the basis of reviewer performance.
  • Ceasing to use reviewers who consistently produce discourteous, poor quality or late reviews.
  • Using a wide range of sources (not just personal contacts) to identify potential new reviewers (e.g., author suggestions, bibliographic databases).
  • Following the COPE flowchart in cases of suspected reviewer misconduct.

Relations with editorial board members
  • Editors should provide new editorial board members with guidelines on everything that is expected of them and should keep existing members updated on new policies and developments.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • Having policies in place for handling submissions from editorial board members to ensure unbiased review
  • Identifying suitably qualified editorial board members who can actively contribute to the development and good management of the journal regularly reviewing the composition of the editorial board.
  • Providing clear guidance to editorial board members about their expected functions and duties, which might include:
  • Acting as ambassadors for the journal.
  • Supporting and promoting the journal.
  • Seeking out the best authors and best work (e.g., from meeting abstracts) and actively encouraging submissions.
  • Reviewing submissions to the journal
  • Accepting to write editorials, reviews and commentaries on papers in their specialist area
  • Attending and contributing to editorial board meetings
  • Consulting editorial board members periodically (e.g., once a year) to gauge their opinions about the running of the journal, informing them of any changes to journal policies and identifying future challenge.

 
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