Editorial Policies

Al-Nahrain Journal of Science (ANJS) takes all misconduct allegations (pre- or post-publication allegations) seriously. All allegations must be directed to the Editor-in-Chief of the ANJS. The managing editor and the section editor (editor of the scientific section) shall handle ethics issues, review allegations, and initiate impartial and confidential investigations of cases.

The publication of a manuscript in a journal shows the relationship of trust between an author and publisher. The authors are expected to be aware of research misconduct. ANJS uses this definition of misconduct in dealing with the issue and strictly follows the publication ethics acknowledged by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism are the primary concerns in avoiding research misconduct. Any divergence from these norms undermines the integrity of research.

For complete definition of the following terms, the authors must read the “instructions for authors” carefully. The journal policy on these issues follows the guidelines approved by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Authorship: is the state or definition given to those who contribute substantially to creating the scientific material included in the work to be published. Al-Nahrain Journal of Science will take issues related to authorship seriously. All authors must sign the cover letter form as a mandatory requirement for complete submission of a manuscript to ANJS.

Conflict of Interest: Authors of the work submitted to Al-Nahrain Journal of Science must clarify any situation in which certain concerns of other parties may exist in relation to the work submitted. The handling editors and the reviewers are also obliged to declare any personal or institutional concerns (competing interests) that may affect their roles concerning the work submitted.

Data sharing and reproducibility: Data sharing refers to making data accessible to other research sponsors including other investigators the broader public. Al-Nahrain Journal of Science adopts a continuous approach to motivating researchers to share the results of their research in a transparent and complete manner. This directly supports the spread of researchers’ reputation among research groups and supports research collaboration.

Intellectual property: Al-Nahrain Journal of Science works hard to maintain all rights related to intellectual property. Authors must sign the journal publishing agreement form before their work is published. The journal also defines clearly the terms of use of the published data through the creative commons attribution license, the CCBY4.0 license.

Falsification and Fabrication of data : Fabrication is defined as making up data without actually collecting or synthesizing scientific data. Falsification is defined as the manipulation of research material to reach a favourable result. Fabrication and falsification could happen at any research stage (in the field) up to the publication of a manuscript, where misuse of citation can occur (referencing a citation when the citation does not support the argument). ANJS tries to identify any kind of fabrication or falsification in all levels of manuscript processing, from initial screening to comprehensive evaluation of a revised manuscript and even after a manuscript has been published. Reporting any fabrication and falsification is an ethical duty of our authors, co-authors, reviewers, editors, and readers. In any event of falsification or fabrication, ANJS keeps its right to retract or withdraw the fabricated or falsified article.

Plagiarism: In academia, plagiarism is considered academic misconduct and a major ethical concern. Plagiarism is deliberately using someone else’s intellectual property or data as one’s own without acknowledgement, such as citing the sources of the data (East 2010). Often, it is viewed as “a form of intellectual theft” (Ashworth et al. 1997, p. 200). Another category of plagiarism is self-plagiarism, which is when the author publishes his own idea, data, and text in different journals when no need for such duplication exists. ANJS uses all means to detect plagiarism. As a matter of quality assurance, a similarity of more than 20% in the text of a manuscript will be returned to the author to remove the similarities and reduce the chance of plagiarism.   

Citation: Authors must cite relevant articles and literature in their manuscript. Inappropriate citation or citation manipulation (such as excessive self-citation and prearranged mutual citation among researchers) are considered a form of misconduct.

Retraction of articles: Retraction of an article is considered if  major error in the article is reported and verified after careful investigation. These error include falsification of data, miscalculations, deliberate omission or sale of authorship, compromised peer-review and breach of issues related publishing agreement. ANJS follows COPE guidelines regarding this issue.   

Post-publication corrections: Correction of already-published articles in ANJS is permitted after careful consideration by the section editor. The necessary corrections are published under the title “Correction Notice” and are linked to the original articles. The corrections aim to correct  errors or provide additional information that may affect the interpretation of the work published. Editors of the ANJS shall be guided by the COPE guidelines of post-publication critiques.  

Article Removal: In rare cases an already published article may be removed. Article removal is issued in the following cases: inclusion of harmful data, violation of rights of participants, infringement of legal rights and court order.

In line with the publication ethics approved by COPE, the ANJS disapproves of all unethical practices such as plagiarism, fabrication, duplication, data manipulation/falsification, and efforts to influence the review process (such as gifting authorship, inappropriate acknowledgements, and references).