The journal publication's ethics policy is based on the international principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Authorship issues and responsibilities
Authorship criteria: According to ICMJE authorship criteria definition, the authorship criteria are based on the following conditions: (a) considerable contributions to the conception and design of experiments, or the acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data; (b) writing the article or revising it critically; (c) the final approval of the paper for publication and (d) agreement to take the responsibility for all aspects of the work.
Originality: The authors should declare that the submitted manuscript is original and has not been published previously, except in the form of abstract or as a part of academic thesis, and is not currently in the published process elsewhere, and if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere electronically in English or any other language. If it is revealed that an original research report has been published already, the Editor has the right to terminate the publication process.
Changes of Authorship: The list and order of authors must be approved by all authors before submitting their manuscript. Any addition, deletion, or change in the order of authors' names must be justified by the corresponding author and approved by other authors before the final acceptance, and will only be accepted if approved by the journal editor.
Clinical ethics: in the case of papers dealing with clinical experiments, the authors are encouraged to state that, the study they are submitting was approved by the relevant research ethics committee or institutional review board. In cases where a clinical trial registration number were available, it must be included.
Expression of concern: Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the editors.
Copyright: No article can be published unless accompanied by a signed publication agreement, which serves a transfer of copyright from author to publisher. The publication agreement letter must be signed and submitted before publication in Polyolefins Journal.
The author is responsible for obtaining written permission to publish (figures, tables, etc.) that have been published in another publication. A copy of that agreement, executed and signed by the author, is required with each manuscript submission (if the article is a "work made for hire," the agreement must be signed by the employer). Papers which present new analyses of the data from already published papers should make reference to the main data source.
To protect intellectual properties, Polyolefins Journal is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA-4.0). The users are free to share (copy and redistribute) the material in any medium (until they are appropriately referenced) or format or adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) for noncommercial purposes.
Conflicts of interest: Authors must notify the editors of any conflicts of interest. The authors are asked to fill a conflict of interest statement form for this purpose. The existence of a conflict of interest (for example, employment with a research funder) does not prevent someone from being listed as an author if they qualify for authorship.
Editors’ policy and responsibilities
Editors are responsible to create publication strategies in order to support publication ethics. Also, they are responsible to guarantee a fair, unbiased, and timely review.
Publication decisions: Editors are completely responsible for and have the authority to reject/accept articles. If agreement cannot be reached among reviewers, editors consider inviting comments from additional peer reviewer(s). However, the journal has the authority to take the final decision.
Priority of publication is most likely in accordance with the time of acceptance in the accepted papers. But, the timing of publication may also be influenced by the variability in the subjects.
Peer review system: The Polyolefins Journal has commitment to peer review. POJ uses the single-blinded, multiple reviewers peer-review system for all articles. The editors’ responsibility is to ensure timely peer review and publication of the received manuscript, especially where the results may have significant implications.
Editors consider monitoring the performance of peer reviewers/editorial board members. Peer reviewers who produce poor, late, rude or unconstructive reviews are not used again.
Confidentiality: All discussions among author, editor, and peer reviewer including any information about a submitted manuscript are confidential.
Reviewer selection: The reviewers are selected based on their expertise on the subjects from all over the world. Editors may invite or not invite reviewers suggested by authors. In case of authors’ request that their paper not be reviewed by an individual, editors should consider this issue in choosing peer reviewer.
Editorial independence: Editorial independence is respected. Journal owners (both learned societies and publishers) do not interfere with editorial decisions. Editorial decisions are not influenced by commercial, academic, personal or political factors. The Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute, which bears the expenses of publishing is not allowed to influence the selection or editing of submissions.
Editors or board members certainly should not be involved in editorial decisions about their own papers.
Accuracy: Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the articles. POJ encourages authors and readers to inform editors if they discover faults in published work.
The Journal publishes corrections (errata) when errors could interrupt the analysis of data. Corrections are linked to the original article wherever possible. Similarly, the Journal will publish ‘retractions’ if the work is confirmed to be fraudulent.
Conflict of interest: Editors seek disclosure statements from all authors and peer reviewers to explain about the types of conflicts of interest. All manuscripts for articles, original research reports, editorials, comments, reviews, book reviews, and letters that are submitted to the journal must be accompanied by the conflict of interest statement that they do not have any conflicts of interest to declare.
Reviewers’ responsibility
Peer reviewers should indicate if they have a conflict of interest in the material that they are being requested to review. They are asked to decline invitations for peer review where any situations might prevent them producing fair peer review.
Peer reviewers are responsible to review the manuscript within the time specified by the editors.
Peer reviewers sometimes reveal suspicion of misconduct. If peer reviewers were suspicious of a serious misconduct (for example, data fabrication, falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, or plagiarism), they must inform the editors immediately.
Peer reviewers are encouraged to consider ethical issues raised by the research they are reviewing.
Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments, with no personal criticism of the authors.
The identification of peer reviewers is concealed from the authors. Peer reviewers are needed to treat submitted material in confidence until it has been published. POJ asks peer reviewers to delete submitted manuscripts after they have reviewed them.
For more information please read the 'COPE- peer reviewers' guidelines.
Plagiarism
All articles published by Polyolefins Journal are devoted to publishing original material which must not be under review elsewhere. Online plagiarism checker software, iThenticate, is used to detect similarities between the submitted manuscripts and other published works. Based on the observed similarities, the editors of POJ are authorized to reject the submission to prevent plagiarism.
Open Access policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
References
https://publicationethics.org/
Graf C, Wager E, Bowman A, Fiack S, Scott-Lichter D, Robinson A. Best Practice Guidelines on Publication Ethics: A Publisher's Perspective. Int J Clin Pract. 2007 Jan; 61(s152): 1–26
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html
https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/editors/publishing-ethics-for-journals/4176?token=prtst0416p
https://www.elsevier.com/journals/polymer/0032-3861?generatepdf=true