Ethics in publishing guidelines
The publication's ethics policy is based on the international principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Authorship issues
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; and (c) the final approval of the paper for publication.
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as a part of academic thesis, and is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere; and if accepted it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in English or in any other language.
To verify originality, the article is checked by iThenticate. 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 rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made and explained by reasons given by the corresponding author and confirmed by all other authors before the manuscript has been accepted and only 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.
Where a clinical trial registration number is available, this should 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 form must be submitted before publication in Polyolefins Journal. This form requires signature from the corresponding author to warranty that the article is an original work, has not been published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere in its final form either in printed or electronic form.
It is the author's responsibility to obtain written permission to reproduce material that has appeared 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 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 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. Authors’ conflicts of interest should be published whenever these are directly or indirectly relevant to the content being published and whenever they are significant.
Funding source
Sources of funding for conducting research or publication should be disclosed. Authors should include information about research funding in their manuscript. Other sources of support for publications should be clearly identified in the manuscript, usually in an acknowledgment.
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 peer 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
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 and 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 are 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.
Plagiarism
All articles published by Polyolefins Journal are devoted to publishing original material and must not be under review elsewhere. Online plagiarism checker softwares are 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
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