Ethical Charter of Journal of Aquatic Physiology and Biotechnology 

This charter is a letter of commitment that outlines some ethical limits and responsibilities related to carrying out scientific-research activities and publishing them in publications in order to prevent the occurrence of research violations knowingly or unknowingly by the authors of the articles.

- Scientific Journal of Aquatic Physiology and Biotechnology is a journal with open and free access to published articles. In open-access publications, access to the full-text file of the articles is free. (This is an Open Access Journal)

- Authors, reviewers, members of the editorial board and editors are required to know and commit to all the principles of research ethics and related responsibilities in the field of publishing. Submitting an article by the authors, reviewing the articles and deciding on the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript by the members of the editorial board and the editor means knowing and obeying these rights. If it is found that any of these people do not adhere to these principles and responsibilities, the journal considers any legal action as its right.

-Copyright

Journal of Aquatic Physiology and Biotechnology complies with Creative Commons international license rules. Based on this certificate, the journal allows sharing, adaptation and allocation of published articles. (Read more about this license) (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

-Authors retain the copyright of their articles without restriction, but give the first copyright to the publisher and also allow others to use their articles by citing the original source.

Moral policy

The ethical policies of the Scientific Journal of Aquatic Physiology and Biotechnology are voluntarily based on the principles of the International Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) as well as compliance with the ethical charter of publications of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and considers itself obliged to comply with the principles of professional ethics values. Authors, reviewers, scientific secretaries and editors must observe these ethical principles in cooperation with this publication.

Authors' Responsibilities: The responsibility for the contents of the article rests with the author or authors responsible for the article. The manuscripts submitted for publication in this journal must not have been previously published in other domestic or foreign journals or submitted for publication in other journals at the same time. Also, the submitted manuscripts should be in the specialized field of the journal and should be prepared scientifically and coherently, according to the standard of the journal.

• Authors are not allowed to "Overlapping Publication". The meaning of overlapping publication is to print the data and findings of previous articles with a little change in new articles.
• If the author/authors need to use other people's materials, they must cite them accurately and, if necessary, after obtaining written and explicit permission, use the required sources. When the same writings of another researcher are used, direct quotation methods and signs, such as putting it inside quotation marks (" "), should be used.
• The corresponding author of the article should make sure that there are names and information of all authors (after obtaining confirmation from the mentioned ones) and that there are no names other than the researchers involved in the research and preparation of the article.

Unethical publishing and research behavior

The author/authors are obliged to avoid "Research and Publication Misconduct". If in any of the stages of submitting, refereeing, editing, or publishing an article in a journal or after that, the occurrence of one of the following cases is confirmed, it is considered unethical publishing and research behavior and the journal has the right to deal with it legally.

• Data falsification (Fabrication): It means reporting untrue content and presenting fictitious data or results as laboratory results, experimental studies and personal findings. Unreal recording of what did not happen or misplacing the results of different studies are examples of this violation.
• Data distortion (Falsification): Data distortion means the manipulation of materials, tools and research process or the change and deletion of data in a way that causes the research results to be different from the real results.
• Plagiarism: Plagiarism is unintentional, knowing, or careless use of words, ideas, phrases, claims or citations of others without proper acknowledgment and explanation and citation to the work, the owner of the work or the speaker of the idea.
• Scientific rent: It means that the author/authors employ another person to do the research and after the research is finished, they publish it in their own name with little interference.
• Unreal attribution: It means the unreal attribution of the author/authors to an institution, center or educational or research group that did not have a role in the original research.

Reviewers' Responsibilities

Reviewers should consider the following points in reviewing the articles:

• Quality, content and scientific review of manuscripts in order to improve, improve the quality and content of manuscripts.
• Informing the editor of the publication about accepting or not accepting the referee (in terms of not being related to the subject area of the manuscript with the referee's expertise) and introducing a substitute referee in case of accepting the referee.
• The necessity of not accepting manuscripts in which the interests of certain individuals, institutions and companies are obtained or personal relationships are observed in it, as well as articles in which he participated in doing, analyzing or writing.
• Reviewing of manuscripts should be done on the basis of scientific documentation and sufficient reasoning, and the application of taste, personal, trade, racial, religious, etc. opinions in the judging of articles should be avoided.
• Accurately evaluating the manuscript and announcing the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript in a constructive, clear and educational manner.
• Responsibility, accountability, punctuality, interest and adherence to professional ethics and respecting the rights of others.
• Not correcting and rewriting the manuscript based on personal taste.
• Ensuring that the manuscript is fully referenced to all research, topics, and quotations used in the article, as well as recalling those not referenced in related published research.
• Refrain from retelling the information and details in the manuscripts to others.
• The reviewer has no right to use its data or new concepts in favor of or against his or others' research or to criticize or discredit the authors before publishing the manuscript. Also, after the publication of the article, the reviewer has no right to publish details beyond what has been published by the journal.
• The referee has no right to entrust the refereeing of the manuscript to another person, including his faculty colleagues or graduate students, except with the permission of the journal editor. The name of anyone who helped in the refereeing of the manuscript should be mentioned in the refereeing report to the editor and recorded in the journal documents.
• The referee is not allowed to contact the authors directly regarding the manuscripts under review. Any contact with the authors of the manuscripts will be done only through the journal office.
• Trying to submit a report on "publishing and research unethical behavior" and sending relevant documents to the editor of the journal.

 

Duties of the editor and members of the editorial board (Editorial Board Responsibilities)

• The editor and the members of the editorial board of the journal should keep the publication and improve its quality as their main goal. 
• The editor and members of the editorial board should try to introduce the publication as much as possible in the academic and international communities and prioritize the publication of articles from other universities and international forums.
• The editor and members of the editorial board should not have a sense of favoritism and exaggeration in publishing their articles.
• The authority and responsibility of selecting referees and accepting or rejecting an article after obtaining the opinion of the referees is the responsibility of the editor and the members of the editorial board of the journal.
• The editor and the members of the editorial board of the journal must be professional experts, experts and have numerous publications, as well as have the spirit of responsibility, accountability, truth-seeking, fairness and impartiality, adhere to professional ethics and respect the rights of others, and seriously and contribute responsibly in order to achieve the goals of the magazine and its continuous improvement.
• The editor and members of the editorial board are expected to prepare a database of suitable referees for the journal and update it regularly based on the performance of the referees.
• The editor and the members of the editorial board should be diligent in selecting competent referees according to their specialized field, excellence, scientific and work experience, and ethical commitment.
• The editor of the journal should welcome in-depth and well-reasoned reviews, avoid superficial and weak reviews, and deal with biased, baseless or humiliating reviews.
• The editor and the members of the editorial board of the journal must take the necessary measures to register and archive the refereed documents of the articles as scientific documents and to keep the names of the referees of each article confidential.
• The editor and the members of the editorial board of the journal are obliged to quickly announce the result of the final decision on the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript to the corresponding author.
• The editor and the members of the editorial board of the journal should consider all the information contained in the articles as confidential and refrain from making it available to others and discussing its details with others.
• The editor and the members of the editorial board of the journal are obliged to avoid conflicts of interest in the refereeing process, considering any personal, commercial, academic and financial relationships that may potentially affect the acceptance and publication of the submitted manuscripts.
• The editor of the journal is obliged to carefully and seriously examine the works accused of deviating from publishing and research ethics, which are reported by the referees or in any other way, and take action in this regard if necessary.
• The editor of the journal is obliged to quickly remove the published articles in which it is found that "unethical publishing and research behavior" has occurred and to provide clear information to the readers and relevant indexing authorities.
• The editor and the members of the editorial board of the journal are obliged to check and print the correction quickly and inform the readers clearly about the printed articles in which errors have been found.
• The editor and members of the editorial board of the journal should continuously ask for the opinions of the authors, readers, and reviewers of the journal regarding the improvement of publishing policies and the quality of the form and content of the journal.

References:

1-Charter and standards of research ethics approved by the Deputy of Research and Technology of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology

2- Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE Code of Conduct, www.publicationethics.org