Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases- Publication Ethics
Publication Ethics

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Publications Ethics

Codes of ethics are rules and guidelines for responsible conduct of research. They are created in response to actual or anticipated ethical conflicts and ambiguities. This Code of Ethics of Publications has been designed to obtain the purpose of confidence in checking and publishing process of the Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (JoMMID). In this code, the policies of publications are expressed to guarantee the ethical behavior of all participants in the mentioned process. This code has been designed in twelve parts for authors, editors and reviewers who are asked to study precisely to ask the editor of the publication any queries with the help of the JoMMID website.
 
1. The Code of Ethics for Authors
Originality
Authors should express their primary ideas and tasks explicitly even they have been revised and quoted objectively. If precise sentences or paragraphs are seen in a research paper which seems it is an extract from an essay or the citation from another author, this sentence should be put in quotation marks. The essay ought to specify the origin of each applied datum and also all data. If specific data collection is applied by another author or this author, it should inform the other published or unpublished tasks.
Authors should not submit the article which has been previously submitted to this journal, assessed and finally disapproved by the editor. If the first version was disapproved and the author is willing to submit a modified version for assessment, the essay resubmission justification should be clearly explained for the author or the editor. The permission for essay resubmission for the second time is possible in a particular situation.
 
Plagiarism
The article registration will inform all authors by sending an email in the website of the Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (JoMMID). It is evident that inserting the author's name in the article is considered as his / her main role in writing the essay if the essay authors have no role to write the essay and their name has not been mentioned. It is necessary to inform the received information by email immediately. All the authors of the article are responsible for the origin of the work. All assessment rights for the plagiarism in the journal are reserved.
Plagiarism has a variety of forms:
  1. To insert the authors and researchers' names who have no role in the article;
  2. To copy or repeat the most significant part of another article (even the copied article is related to the author of a new essay);
  3. To show the outcome and results of the others' researches to his own;
  4. To express false results, in contrast with scientific findings or distort the outcomes of the research;
  5. Continuous publishing by a single author in some journals;
  6. To apply unreliable data or manipulate research data.
Plagiarism items will be studied by the journal editors for preserving the validity and the efforts of researchers without any overlook or indulgence based on the level of plagiarism then legally pursued as follows:
  1. The article will be disapproved and in case of publishing, it will be disappeared on the site;
  2. The name of the authors will be inserted in the blacklist journals of the publisher;
  3. It will be prosecuted by qualified legal and judicial references;
  4. By writing an official letter, the plagiarism file is shared with other related domestic and foreign journals;
  5. By writing an official letter to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, databases, universities, institutes, and journals or wherever the author has used the printing rate of this paper, they are informed of the procedure.
 
Conflict of Interest
The author should express the resources of the financial scheme in the text of paper then applies to submit it. Each of the mentioned resources should be printed with the article. If the type of situation which shows the contrast is doubtful, it should be clarified, any item in the field of conflict of benefits should inform the editor or the publishing office. The responsible author can recommend the probable reviewer for the paper at the time of submitting the essay to the Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Authors ought to avoid any probable contrasts or its action in selecting the editors and reviewers. This kind of conflict of benefits is not only applied for the responsible author but also includes all the authors' colleagues in the paper.
The examples of possible Conflict of Benefits are as following:
  1. One of the authors in the very institution or the organization who is reviewer or mentioned editor;
  2. One of the authors, member of the thesis committee who has been reviewer or editor and vice versa;
  3. One of the authors, editors or reviewers who are the coauthor in another article or, had been coauthor of an article in the past two years.
Authors should not introduce or name the people whom they know that they have studied the previous article and have put forward their hypothesis because this movement is in contrary with the hidden assessment process of the article automatically.
Manuscripts submitted by authors from our institution or from our reviewers' board should be reviewed by referees from outside. Papers submitted by reviewers and the Editorial Committee for review or revision and resubmission by the author if necessary.
 
Double-blind peer-review
The journal follows a Double-Blind peer review in which the authors do not know the reviewers and vice versa. The authors should respect the confidentiality of the assessment process and do not reveal their identity to reviewers and vice versa. For instance, article should not include any information like self-revelation in a way that the reviewer can identify the author.
Authors should not publish their submitted papers on sites (either articles or first versions) because authors can be identified easily by reviewers in websites. Authors should not mention the people as editor or reviewer where their previous article or previous copy has been studied and suggested his recommendations because this awareness or knowledge is in contrary with the Double-Blind peer review process.
 
Precision
Authors are finally responsible for the whole content of the submitted paper to the journal. Authors are in charge of representing a precise perspective of the done research as well as an objective debate especially for the research importance.
Authors should report their findings thoroughly, not to eliminate data relevant to the text or structure of research questions. Regardless of supporting the expected outcomes or being in contrast, results should be reported. Authors should present the features or relevant characteristics of their research, their findings and interpretation precisely. Fundamental suggestions, theories, methods, indexed and research schemes relevant with findings and their interpretations should be revealed and subjected.
The article should contain ample details and resources in a way that researchers access to the same data collection to repeat the research. If an author discovers a mistake or an important carelessness , he / she is responsible for informing the editor and the procedure immediately to cooperate with the article modification or revision . If the author or publication, by a third person or party, understands that the published paper is suffering from a monumental error, the author is responsible for applying the article modification or revision as well as providing the evidence for the editor based on the precision and correction of the main article.
 
Authorship
All the mentioned authors should work seriously in research paper to be responsible for the results. The authorship should be shared in proportion with different supporting. Authors should accept the responsibility and validity of the task which includes the authorship validity or compilation, only for the task which they have done practically or they have helped. Authors should typically list the name of the student as the main coauthor in the paper with multiple authors which has adapted from the student's thesis or dissertation. The responsible author who submits the paper to the journal should send one sheet or one version of the article to all shared coauthors to satisfy them by paper submission and publishing.
 
Human rights
Authors are in charge of preserving and supporting privacy, human munificence, human freedom and welfare as well as research participants. The papers which are involved in human affairs (field studies, simulations, interviews), should be done in accordance with human rights regulation necessities.
 
Being up to date
Authors should act quickly and appropriately to revise and modify the articles. If an author cannot act before deadline (maximum one month), should contact the editor for extension or refusal from the assessment process at once.
 
2. Code of Ethics for Editors
Independence
Editors should preserve their pen and paper independence to work and make sure if authors are free to write. The editors are responsible for accepting or refusing the articles which typically depend on the idea and recommendations of reviewers, by the way, the articles which are inappropriate in the point of view of editors are probably refused without reviewers' assessment.
 
No biases
Editors should improve their position score and circumstances confidentially, constructively unbiased. Editors carry the essay review duty only based on scientific merits. Editors should act unbiased, without personal or ideological advocacy.
 
Conflict of Benefits
Editors should avoid any action which increases conflicts of benefits with its unreasonable aspect. For instance, to avoid potential conflict of benefits, the editor is not allowed to publish the article which is not clearly identified, reviewed or partly reviewed. Liability, writing authority and editing each article by the editor, submitted to the journal, should be submitted by the editor to another qualified person like previous editor or one of the members of the editorial boards. Editors should avoid any paper study which is in contrast with their real or potential conflict of benefits. The contrast which is due to competitive, partnership, financial or other relations with any other companies, organizations or institutes related to article. The examples related to the relations which show conflicts of benefits of the editor or author are:
  1. Both the author and editor have been employed by one institute;
  2. The editor has been one member of thesis committee of author or vice versa;
  3. The editor and the author are currently coworkers and coauthors in another article or have been coauthors in an article in past two years.
 
Double-Blind Peer-Review
Publication follows a Double-Blind peer review in which authors do not know reviewers and vice versa. The articles of the magazine seem not to be assessed mutually and stealthily. Assessment standard should be expressed crystal clear.
 
Confidentiality
Editors and their editorial boards are not allowed to reveal relevant information of the article to anyone but reviewers and authors. Official and formal procedures should be determined to preserve the confidentiality of assessment process. Editors are expected to make sure the confidentiality of the Double-Blind peer review process and lack of information revelation which may reveal the authors' identity to reviewers and vice versa. Reviewers' anonymity can be breached only when reviewers permit editors to reveal their identity. Editors should make sure that their editorial boards are compatible and coordinated with them. Some parts of a submitted article which has not been published, are not allowed to be used in a personal research of an editor without the author's written permission. Confidential ideas or information which has been got by article assessment should be preserved privately not to be used toward private benefits.
 
Assessment quality
Typically, two reviewers are invited to express their idea about an article. The editor should evaluate all assessments qualitatively. The editor may rarely edit an assessed article before submitting to the author (for example, for eliminating an expression which reveal the reviewer's identity or does not send the assessed article in case it is not constructive or appropriate. Rankings and scores of assessment quality as well as other functional features are assessed periodically by the editor to make sure of optimized operation of the journal. These scores and rankings should help decision makings in the field of reappointment of reviewing team and continuous requests. Individual operation data should be accessible for editors and kept confidentially.
 
Being up to date
To guarantee the articles assessment and quick response to the authors' requests about assessment status in a determined deadline (maximum one week after receiving the article) editors should apply primary assessment and reviewer selection.
 
Quality of decision
Editors are responsible for describing the decisions of the editorial boards for authors and their articles. Editors should write high quality letters where these letters represent the combination of the reviewers' recommendations and extra suggestions for another author. Editors should not attach the result of the decision in the letter format without explanation to the advice and suggestions of the reviewer.
 
Precision
As the editor receives convincing evidence from reviewer based on false concept or results of an unpublished article, should inform procedure to the author. If similar evidence about an article were published, the editor should apply an emergency modified publishing, return previous one, and express relevant matters with other notes appropriately.
 
Authority
The Editor is responsible for final authority and responsibility of the journal. They should respect the journal formation (such as readers, authors, reviewers, editors, staff of the editorial boards) and try his / her best for the truthful and honest content of the journal as well as continuous improvement. The Editor should select members of the editorial boards based on written assessment board, determine their responsibilities and evaluate their actions regularly.
 
Operation
The Editor should design the operation index of journal. The journal is going to be published based on annual auditing related to admission level, publishing intervals, submitted articles percentage for revision and foreign revision as well as the operation data. Operation indexes ought to improve the journal operation for assessing the revolution of articles along with publishing processes.
 
3. Code of Ethics for Reviewers
Reciprocal communication
Evaluation and studying are professional activities for journals which have valued the whole profession to be encouraged. It is usually expected that the researchers who submit their articles in a journal accept the journal's invitation for their article assessment.
 
Right to refuse and rejection
Abstaining or rejection of an article assessment based on time or status is essential. For example, a reviewer who is not qualified enough to review a research paper should abstain from assessing the article. By potential conflicts of benefits, reviewers should abstain from their assessment. If the reviewers are asked to assess an article which has been previously assessed, they should inform the editor of primary evaluation details unless they are asked to reassess.
 
Double-Blind peer-review
Publication has a process of Double-Blind peer review. Reviewers should abstain from assessing the articles which they have previously provided written suggestions in first version. If a reviewer is aware of the author's identity or coauthor's identity, is involved naturally in assessing the article. Reviewers are also responsible for avoiding writing, telling and doing whatever reveals their identity for the author.
 
Conflict of Interest
Generally, reviewers should abstain from assessing the articles which they think they are involved in conflicts of benefits such as shared financial, organizational and personal benefits or any connections with other companies, institutes or related individuals with essay, the reviewers who may have conflicts of benefits in the field of a special article. This conflict should be clarified for the editor to determine the appropriate level of assessment. For instance, there is a situation where the reviewer is editing and evaluating a similar article in that journal or another along with a similar research paper, keep in mind that under the process of Double-Blind peer review, as reviewers do not know the authors, it is unlikely that reviewers are aware of the involved conflicts of benefits among authors. Thus, they are not limited through these conflicts. If reviewers become aware of such conflicts, they should inform the editor of the journal.
 
No biases
Reviewers should assess articles objectively, fairly and professionally. They are recommended to avoid any personal bias in their reviews.
 
Confidentiality
Reviewers should respect the confidentiality of the assessment process. It is important to recognize whether this article is confidential or not. Reviewers should not discuss anyone except the editor about article and they are not allowed to transfer the essay information to someone else. If reviewers are suspected to wrong deed should inform editor confidentially, not expressing their worries to other departments till official announcement.
 
Precision
To assess the article and say recommendations to author (authors), reviewers should always know that assessment influence practical review. Reviewers should be honest with authors about their relevant article worries. Reviewers ought to define and support their scientific review sufficiently and, it means they should provide details and ample information for the editor to justify their advice to author. Reviewers cannot be bipolar, for instance, on the one hand, very friendly and intimate assessments facing with author and on the other hand, very bitter assessment in person discussion with the editor.
 
Punctuality
Reviewers should act quickly in their assessing and reviewing. If a reviewer cannot review his task in a determined deadline (maximum one month) he/she ought to connect with the editor for extending the reviewing time or new reviewer selection.
 
4. COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practices
1. Editors
Chief Editors is accountable for everything published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. This means the editors
1.1 strive to meet the needs of readers and authors;
1.2 strive to constantly improve their journal;
1.3 have processes in place to assure the quality of the material they publish;
1.4 champion freedom of expression;
1.5 maintain the integrity of the academic record.
1.6 preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
1.7 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;
  • ensuring that any press releases issued by their journal reflect the message of the reported article and put it into context.
2. Readers
2.1 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;
  • ensuring that non-peer-reviewed sections of their journal are clearly identified;
  • 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).
3. 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.
4. Relations with authors
4.1 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.
4.2 Editors should not reverse decisions to accept submissions unless serious problems are identified with the submission.
4.3 New editors should not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous editor unless serious problems are identified.
4.4 A description of peer review processes should be published, and editors should be ready to justify any important deviation from the described processes.
4.5 Journals should have a declared mechanism for authors to appeal against editorial decisions.
4.6 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.
4.7 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.
5. Relations with reviewers
5.1 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.
5.2 Editors should require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.
5.3 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;
  • ensuring that the reviewer database reflects the community for their journal and adding new reviewers as needed;
  • using a wide range of sources (not just personal contacts) to identify potential new reviewers (e.g., author suggestions, bibliographic databases); and
  • following the COPE flowchart in cases of suspected reviewer misconduct.
6. Relations with editorial board members
6.1 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 commissions to write editorials, reviews and commentaries on papers in their specialist area;
  • attending and contributing to editorial board meetings; and
  • 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 the journal policies and identifying future challenge.
7. Relations with the Pasteur Institute of Iran
7.1 The relationship of editors to the Pasteur Institute of Iran and the owner is based firmly on the principle of editorial independence.
7.2 Editors should make decisions on which articles to publish based on quality and suitability for the journal and without interference from the Pasteur Institute of Iran.
7.3 Editors have a written contract(s) setting out their relationship with the Pasteur Institute of Iran.
7.4 The terms of this contract is in line with the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors.
Best practice for editors would include:
8. Editorial and peer review processes
8.1 Editors should strive to ensure that peer review at their journal is fair, unbiased and timely
8.2 Editors should have systems to ensure that material submitted to their journal remains confidential while under review.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • ensuring that people involved with the editorial process (including themselves) receive adequate training and keep abreast of the latest guidelines, recommendations and evidence about peer review and the journal management;
  • keeping informed about research into peer review and technological advances;
  • adopting peer review methods best suited for their journal and the research community it serves;
  • reviewing peer review practices periodically to see if improvement is possible;
  • referring troubling cases to COPE, especially when questions arise that are not addressed by the COPE flowcharts, or new types of publication misconduct are suspected;
  • considering the appointment of an ombudsperson to adjudicate in complaints that cannot be resolved internally.
9. Quality assurance
9.1 Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognizing that journals and sections within journals will have different aims and standards.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • having systems in place to detect falsified data (e.g., inappropriately manipulated photographic images or plagiarized text) either for routine use or when suspicions are raised;
  • basing decisions about the journal house style on relevant evidence of factors that raise the quality of reporting (e.g., adopting structured abstracts, applying guidance) rather than simply on aesthetic grounds or personal preference.
10. Protecting individual data
10.1 Editors must obey laws on confidentiality in their own jurisdiction. Regardless of local statutes, however, they should always protect the confidentiality of individual information obtained in the course of research or professional interactions. It is therefore almost always necessary to obtain written informed consent for publication from people who might recognize themselves or be identified by others (e.g., from case reports or photographs). It may be possible to publish individual information without explicit consent if public interest considerations outweigh possible harms, it is impossible to obtain consent and a reasonable individual would be unlikely to object to publication.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • publishing their policy on publishing individual data (e.g., identifiable personal details or images) and explaining this clearly to authors
Note that consent to take part in research or undergo treatment is not the same as consent to publish personal details, images or quotations.
11. Encouraging ethical research (e.g., research involving humans or animals)
11.1 Editors should endeavor to ensure that research they publish was carried out according to the relevant internationally Declaration of Helsinki for clinical research, and the AERA and BERA guidelines for educational research.
11.2 Editors should seek assurances that all research has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g., research ethics committee, institutional review board) where one exists. However, editors should recognize that such approval does not guarantee that the research is ethical.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • being prepared to request evidence of ethical research approval and to question authors about ethical aspects (such as how research participant consent was obtained or what methods were employed to minimize animal suffering) if concerns are raised or clarifications are needed;
  • ensuring that reports of clinical trials cite compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki, Good Clinical Practice;
  • appointing a journal ethics advisor or panel to advise on specific cases and review the journal policies periodically.
12. Dealing with possible misconduct
12.1 Editors have a duty to act if they suspect misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is brought to them. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers.
12.2 Editors should not simply reject papers that raise concerns about possible misconduct. They are ethically obliged to pursue alleged cases.
12.3 Editors should follow the COPE flowcharts where applicable.
12.4 Editors should first seek a response from those suspected of misconduct. If they are not satisfied with the response, they should ask the relevant employers, or institution, or some appropriate body (perhaps a regulatory body or national research integrity organization) to investigate.
12.5 Editors should make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation into alleged misconduct is conducted; if this does not happen, editors should make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem. This is an onerous but important duty.
13. Ensuring the integrity of the academic record
13.1 Errors, inaccurate or misleading statements must be corrected promptly and with due prominence.
13.2 Editors should follow the COPE guidelines on retractions.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • taking steps to reduce covert redundant publication (e.g., by requiring all clinical trials to be registered);
  • ensuring that published material is securely archived (e.g., via online permanent repositories, such as PubMed Central);
  • having systems in place to give authors the opportunity to make original research articles freely available.
14. Intellectual property
14.1 Editors should be alert to intellectual property issues and work with the Pasteur Institute of Iran to handle potential breaches of intellectual property laws and conventions.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • adopting systems for detecting plagiarism (e.g., software, searching for similar titles) in submitted items (either routinely or when suspicions are raised);
  • supporting authors whose copyright has been breached or who have been the victims of plagiarism;
  • being prepared to work with the Pasteur Institute of Iran to defend authors’ rights and pursue offenders (e.g., by requesting retractions or removal of material from websites) irrespective of whether the journal holds the copyright.
15. Encouraging debate
15.1 Editors should encourage and be willing to consider cogent criticisms of work published in their journal.
15.2 Authors of criticized material should be given the opportunity to respond.
15.3 Studies reporting negative results should not be excluded.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • being open to research that challenges previous work published in the journal.
16. Complaints
16.1 Editors should respond promptly to complaints and should ensure there is a way for dissatisfied complainants to take complaints further. This mechanism should be made clear in the journal and should include information on how to refer unresolved matters to COPE.
16.2 Editors should follow the procedure set out in the COPE flowchart on complaints.
17. Commercial considerations
17.1 Journals should have policies and systems in place to ensure that commercial considerations do not affect editorial decisions (e.g., advertising departments should operate independently from editorial departments).
17.2 Editors should have declared policies on advertising in relation to the content of the journal and on processes for publishing sponsored supplements.
17.3 Reprints should be published as they appear in the journal unless a correction needs to be included in which case it should be clearly identified.
Best practice for editors would include:
  • publishing a general description of their journal’s income sources (e.g., the proportions received from display advertising, reprint sales, sponsored supplements, page charges, etc.);
  • ensuring that the peer review process for sponsored supplements is the same as that used for the main journal;
  • ensuring that items in sponsored supplements are accepted solely on the basis of academic merit and interest to readers and decisions about such supplements are not influenced by commercial considerations.
 
Complaints and appeals
Editors should follow the procedure set out in the COPE flowchart. Editors should respond promptly to complaints and should ensure there is a way for dissatisfied complainants to take complaints further.
 
5. Copyright and License:
All articles are published under a Creative Commons License. Therefore, the copyright of articles accepted for publication rests with the author(s). All authors will be presented with the option to make articles available under the terms of the  Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Copyright in any article published by the Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases under the CC BY-NC-ND license is retained by the author(s). The Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND) permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Author retains copyright. License of copyright to all users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the work, provided the author is attributed and the use is non-commercial, i.e., not ‘primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.
 
6. Informed Consent:
All participants in human subjects' articles have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, etc., should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participants (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent in this situation requires that an identifiable participant be shown the manuscript and provide consent prior to publication. Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication. Participants consent should be written and archived either with the Journal, the authors, or both, as dictated by local regulations or laws.
 
7. Plagiarism Policy:
The Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (JoMMID) adheres to the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publication ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
We accept all terms and conditions of COPE about plagiarism and in case, any attempt of plagiarism is brought to our attention accompanied by convincing evidence, we act based on flowcharts and workflows determined in COPE.
The Editorial Boards of the Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (JoMMID) takes the necessary measures to examine the incoming papers on their originality, reliability of contained information and correct use of citations. The Editorial Board of the JoMMID acknowledges that plagiarism is unacceptable and therefore establishes the following policies that state-specific actions (penalties) if plagiarism is identified in a manuscript submitted for publication in the journal.
Authors should ensure that they submit only entirely original works. If they have used the work and/or statements of others, this must be appropriately cited or referenced. Plagiarism in any forms, including quotations or paraphrasing of substantial parts of another’s article (without attribution), “passing off” another’s article as the author’s own or claiming results from research conducted by others, constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Manuscripts that are a compilation of previously published materials of other authors (without their own creative and authoring interpretation) are not accepted for publication.
It is inadmissible to use unfair text borrowing and assigning research results not belonging to the authors of the submitted manuscript.
The authors must ensure that the submitted manuscript:
- describes completely the original work;
- is not plagiarism;
- has not been published before in any language;
- the information used or words from other publications are appropriately indicated by reference or indicated in the text.
Existing copyright laws and conventions must be observed. Materials protected by copyright (for example, tables, figures or large quotations) should only be reproduced with the permission of their owner.
The Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (JoMMID) takes responsibility to assist a scientific community in all aspects of publication ethics policy, particularly in the case of multiple submission/publication and plagiarism. The editors reserve the right to check the received manuscripts for plagiarism.
The manuscript submitted to the journal must have similarity level less than 10%. Similarity per each detected references also must be maximum 1%. Textual similarity in the amount of more than 10% is unacceptable.
 
The Policy of Screening for Plagiarism
All manuscripts must be free from plagiarism contents. All authors are suggested to use plagiarism detection software to do the similarity checking. Editors check the plagiarism detection of manuscripts in this journal by using Grammarly detection software (www.grammarly.com) and using iThenticate since September 2019. The journal will immediately reject papers leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism.
The journal adheres to international practices of preventing plagiarism. Thus, all authors that submit their manuscripts to the journal must check that their academic work respects the copyrights of other scholars and avoids any and all plagiarism. Once the manuscript is submitted to the journal, the editorial board will assign a group of anti-plagiarism members to check the manuscript through various tools. If proof of plagiarism is found, the manuscript will be rejected immediately, and the Editorial Board will communicate with the author to demand an explanation and the amendment of the plagiarized content. If the author does not respond within a reasonable length of time or does not make the necessary adjustments, they will not be able to submit manuscripts to the journal for a period of five (5) years. If the Editorial Board has reason to believe that the manuscript was not drafted or researched in an ethical manner, the journal’s implemented code of ethics (Committee on Publication Ethics [Code of Conduct and Best Practices Guidelines for Journals Editors]) will be reviewed and act accordingly.
 
Definition of Plagiarism:
"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). Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and should be addressed as such. 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. If journals have developed a policy on this matter, it should be clearly stated for authors." (WAME, 2020).
Direct plagiarism is the plagiarism of the text. Mosaic plagiarism is the borrowing of ideas and opinions from an original source and a few verbatim words or phrases without crediting the author. Plagiarism is committed when one author uses another work (typically the work of another author) without permission, credit, or acknowledgment. Plagiarism takes different forms, from literal copying to paraphrasing the work of another.
Authors can adhere to the following steps to report plagiarism:
  • Inform the editor of the journal where a plagiarized paper is published.
  • Send original and plagiarized papers with plagiarized part highlighted.
  • If evidence of plagiarism is convincing, the editor should arrange for a disciplinary meeting.
  • The editor of the journal where the plagiarized paper should communicate with the editor of the journal containing the original paper to rectify the matter.
  • The plagiarist should be asked to provide an explanation.
  • In case of nonresponse in the stipulated time or an unsatisfactory explanation, the paper should be permanently retracted.
  • Author should be blacklisted and debarred for submitted a paper to a particular journal for at least 5 years.
  • The concerned head of the institution has to be notified.
The author bears the responsibility for checking whether material submitted is subject to copyright or ownership rights, e.g., figures, tables, photographs, illustrations, trade literature and data. The author will need to obtain permission to reproduce any such items and include these permissions with their final submission. Where use is so restricted, the editorial office and Publisher must be informed with the final submission of the material. Please add any necessary acknowledgments to the typescript, preferably in the form of an Acknowledgments section at the end of the paper. Credit the source and copyright of photographs, figures, illustrations etc. in the supplementary captions.
Plagiarism is an act intentionally or unintentionally in obtaining or trying to obtain credit or value for scientific work, by quoting part or all of the work and/or scientific work of other parties that are recognized as scientific works, without expressing the source appropriately and adequately. Therefore, manuscripts must be original, never published, and not in the process of waiting for publication elsewhere. Material taken verbally from other sources needs to be clearly identified so that it is different from the original text.
If plagiarism is identified, the Editor-in-Chief is responsible for reviewing the manuscript and will approve the action in accordance with the level of plagiarism detected, with the following guidelines:
 
Plagiarism Level
1. Tracing a portion of a short sentence from another paper without mentioning the source.
Action: Authors are given warnings and requests to change the text and quote correctly.
2. Tracing most of the other papers without the right quote and not mentioning the source.
Actions: The submitted manuscript is rejected for publication in the Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (JoMMID) and the Author can be sanctioned for not being allowed to publish in the journal.
3. All manuscript writers are responsible for the content of manuscripts they submit to the journal. If the manuscript is classified as plagiarism, then all authors will be subject to the same action.
4. If the author is proven to submit the manuscript to the journal by simultaneously sending it to another journal, and this overlap is found during the reviewer process or after publication, then the action according to point 2 above is given.
5. If plagiarism is found outside the rules above, the editor of the journal has the right to give sanctions according to the editor's team policy.
6. In the case of multiple borrowing Editorial Board acts according to the rules of COPE.
 
There are several indicators of plagiarism that all authors must be aware of:
1. The most easily identifiable plagiarism is that of repeated content when an author copies another author's work by reciting words, sentences, or paragraphs without citing original sources. This plagiarism model can be easily identified by our plagiarism checker software.
2. The second type of plagiarism occurs when an author reproduces the substantial part of another writer's work, without citing him/her. The term "reproducing substance" here can be understood as copying another's ideas, both in terms of quantity and quality, which potentially eliminates the original author's rights, in the context of intellectual property.
3. The third type of plagiarism when an author takes ideas, words, or phrases in paraphrased sentences or paragraphs, without citing the original source. This type of plagiarism often cannot be checked through plagiarism software, as it is idea-based. Yet, this practice becomes unethical when the author does not cite, nor acknowledge the original source from the original writer.
 
8. Responding to Allegations of Possible Misconduct
Definitions of Misconduct
Deception may be deliberate, by reckless disregard of possible consequences, or by ignorance. Since the underlying goal of misconduct is to deliberately deceive others as to the truth, the journal's preliminary investigation of potential misconduct must take into account not only the particular act or omission, but also the apparent intention (as best it can be determined) of the person involved. Misconduct does not include unintentional error. The most common forms of scientific misconduct include:
  • Falsification of data: ranges from fabrication to deceptive selective reporting of findings and omission of conflicting data, or willful suppression and/or distortion of data.
  • Plagiarism: The appropriation of the language, ideas, or thoughts of another without crediting their true source, and representation of them as one's own original work (see prior section).
  • Improprieties of authorship: Improper assignment of credit, such as excluding others, misrepresentation of the same material as original in more than one publication, inclusion of individuals as authors who have not made a contribution to the work published; or submission of multi-authored publications without the concurrence of all authors.
  • Misappropriation of the ideas of others: an important aspect of scholarly activity is the exchange of ideas among colleagues. Scholars can acquire novel ideas from others during the process of reviewing grant applications and manuscripts. However, improper use of such information can constitute fraud. Wholesale appropriation of such material constitutes misconduct.
  • Violation of generally accepted research practices: Serious deviation from accepted practices in proposing or carrying out research, improper manipulation of experiments to obtain biased results, deceptive statistical or analytical manipulations, or improper reporting of results.
  • Material failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements affecting research: Including but not limited to serious or substantial, repeated, willful violations of applicable local regulations and law involving the use of funds, care of animals, human subjects, investigational drugs, recombinant products, new devices, or radioactive, biologic, or chemical materials.
  • Inappropriate behavior in relation to misconduct: this includes unfounded or knowingly false accusations of misconduct, failure to report known or suspected misconduct, withholding or destruction of information relevant to a claim of misconduct and retaliation against persons involved in the allegation or investigation. This includes qualifications, experience, or research accomplishments to advance the research program, to obtain external funding, or for other professional advancement.
 
9. Responses to Possible Misconduct
A committee consisting of the editor-in-chief and editorial board members, as determined by the editor-in-chief, who have specific expertise in the area being investigated, will investigate misconduct allegations. The suitable actions were taken based on the recommendations of Committee on Publication ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
 
10. Open Access Policy
The Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (JoMMID) provides immediate open access to its content. Our publisher, the Pasteur Institute of Iran, abides by the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of Open Access:
“By “open access” to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its free availability on the public Internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.”
Researchers engage in discovery for the public good, yet because of cost barriers or use restrictions imposed by other publishers, research results are not available to the full community of potential users. It is our mission to support a greater global exchange of knowledge by making the research published in this journal open to the public and reusable under the terms of a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
Furthermore, we encourage authors to post their pre-publication manuscript in institutional repositories or on their web sites prior to and during the submission process, and to post the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version after publication. These practices benefit authors with productive exchanges as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
This journal is a fully open-access journal, which means that all articles are available on the Internet to all users immediately upon publication. Non-commercial and commercial use and distribution in any medium is permitted, provided the author and the journal are properly credited.
Benefits of open access for authors, include:
- Authors retain copyright to their work.
- Free access for all users worldwide.
- Increased visibility and readership.
- No spatial constraints.
- Rapid publication.
 
Other benefits of open access for authors:
- Fast Publishing: Minimize authors’ long waiting aspect as open-access publishes accepted papers immediately online. All research articles published in this journal journals are immediately freely available to read, download and share.
- High Availability: Manuscripts are available on all search engines and indexing databases, especially Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, Microsoft Academic, etc.
- High Publicity: Authors get the publicity, acceptance and recognition in scientific world.
- Maximize the Citation: Authors’ researches get frequent citation in others’ papers.
- Minimizing the Cost: It allows only one-time payment for processing of accepted manuscripts and ensure life time online availability.
- Recognition and Acceptance of Research work: Authors’ researches get full recognition among intellectual community without any constraints.
 
11. Data Sharing Policy
The Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (JoMMID) uses the Basic Data Sharing Policy. The journal is committed to a more open research landscape, facilitating faster and more effective research discovery by enabling reproducibility and verification of data, methodology and reporting standards. The journal encourages authors to cite and share their research data including, but not limited to: raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, methods, materials. Authors are encouraged to share or make open the data supporting the results or analyses presented in their article where this does not violate the protection of human subjects or other valid privacy or security concerns.
The journal encourages authors to share the data and other artifacts supporting the results in the article by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors should include a Data Accessibility Statement, including a link to the repository they have used, in order that this statement can be published alongside their paper.
The journal requires authors of Original Investigation, Case Report, and Special Paper articles to (1) place the de-identified data associated with the manuscript in a repository; and (2) include a Data Availability Statement in the manuscript describing where and how the data can be accessed.
The journal defines data as the digital materials underlying the results described in the manuscript, including but not limited to spreadsheets, text files, interview recordings or transcripts, images, videos, output from statistical software, and computer code or scripts. Authors are expected to deposit at least the minimum amount of data needed to reproduce the results described in the manuscript.
Data can be placed in any repository that makes data publicly available and provides a unique persistent identifier, including institutional repositories, general repositories (e.g., Figshare, Open Science Framework, Zenodo, Dryad, Harvard Dataverse, OpenICPSR), or discipline-specific repositories.
The Data Availability Statement should be placed in the manuscript at the end of the main text before the references. This statement must include (1) an indication of the location of the data; (2) a unique identifier, such as a digital object identifier (DOI), accession number, or persistent uniform resource locator (URL); and (3) any instructions for accessing the data, if applicable.
At the point of submission, you will be asked if there is a data set associated with the paper. If you reply yes, you will be asked to provide the DOI, pre-registered DOI, hyperlink, or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s). If you have selected to provide a pre-registered DOI, please be prepared to share the reviewer URL associated with your data deposit, upon request by reviewers.
Where one or multiple data sets are associated with a manuscript, these are not formally peer reviewed as a part of the journal submission process. It is the author’s responsibility to ensure the soundness of data. Any errors in the data rest solely with the producers of the data set(s).
Please note: As you are submitting your manuscript to the journal where submissions are double-blind peer reviewed, the main text file should not include any information that might identify the authors (i.e., Author Name, Address, Conflict of Interest and fund related information). As a data availability statement could reveal your identity, we recommend that you remove this from the anonymized version of the manuscript.
Exceptions to this policy will be made in rare cases in which de-identified data cannot be shared due to their proprietary nature or participant privacy concerns. Exceptions to policy and restrictions on data availability are granted for reasons associated with the protection of human privacy, issues such as biosafety, and/or to respect terms of use for data obtained under license from third parties. Confidential data, e.g., human subject or patient data, should always be anonymized, or permission to share should be obtained in advance. If in doubt, authors should seek counsel from their institution’s ethics committee.
Authors should include a data accessibility statement, including a link to the repository they have used, in order that this statement can be published alongside their paper. Below a few examples:
Data Availability Statement:
1. Data associated with this article are available in the Open Science Framework at .
2. The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at http://doi.org/[doi], reference number [reference number].
3. The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at [URL], reference number [reference number].
4. The data that support the findings of this study are available in [repository name] at [URL/DOI], reference number [reference number]. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: [list resources and URLs]
 
Benefits of Sharing Data:
There are several benefits to sharing data:
  • Data deposition supports the preservation of data long term.
  • Depositing data in a repository that mints a permanent identifier such as a DOI, allows authors and others to cite the data set, allowing researchers to get appropriate credit for their work.
  • Sharing data can lead to re-use and discovery, with greater opportunities for carrying out meta-analyses and the extraction of new knowledge.
  • Sharing data publicly improves the robustness of the research process, supporting validation, research transparency, reproducibility and replicability of results. This can in turn, advance discovery and knowledge.
  • Wider public availability of research data supports the translation of research into practice. 
The Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (JoMMID) offers the following standardized data sharing policies across our journals:
  • Basic – Journal encourages authors to share and make data open where this does not violate protection of human subjects or other valid subject privacy concerns. Authors are further encouraged to cite data and provide a data availability statement.
  • Share upon reasonable request – Authors agree to make their data available upon reasonable request. It’s up to the author to determine whether a request is reasonable.
  • Publicly available – Authors make their data freely available to the public, under a license of their choice.
  • Open data – Authors must make their data freely available to the public, under a license allowing re-use by any third party for any lawful purpose. Data shall be findable and fully accessible.
  • Open and fully FAIR (Findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable) – Authors must make their data freely available to the public, under a license allowing re-use by any third party for any lawful purpose. Additionally, data shall meet with FAIR standards as established in the relevant subject area.
 
12. Data Citation
Data should be cited in the same way as article, book, and web citations and authors are required to include data citations as part of their reference list. Data citation is appropriate for data held within institutional, subject focused, or more general data repositories. It is not intended to take the place of community standards such as in-line citation of GenBank accession codes. When citing or making claims based on data, authors must refer to the data at the relevant place in the manuscript text and in addition provide a formal citation in the reference list. The Journal follows the format proposed by the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles:
Authors; Year; Dataset title; Data repository or archive; Version (if any); Persistent identifier (e.g., DOI)”.
  
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Topic URL in Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases website:
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