As a member of Committee on Publication Ethics  (COPE), JALDA is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and to supporting ethical research practices.

Ethics Statement

Authorship

The authors’ central obligation is to present a concise, accurate account of the research performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to public sources of information.

The results of research should be recorded and maintained in a form that allows analysis and review, both by collaborators before publication and by other scholars for a reasonable period after publication.

Fabrication of data is an egregious departure from the expected norms of scholarly conduct, as is the selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive, as well as the theft of data or research results from others.

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others used in a research project must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, should not be used or reported without explicit permission from the investigator with whom the information originated. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, cannot be used without permission of the author of the work being used.

Authors must obtain permission for use of any previously published materials from the original publisher. Proof of permission must be provided before manuscripts containing previously published material can be published. Proper credit lines for all previously published material must be included in the manuscript.

Plagiarism constitutes unethical scholarly behavior and is never acceptable.

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the research study. All those who have made significant contributions should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as authors.

All collaborators share some degree of responsibility for any paper they co-author. Every co-author should have the opportunity to review the manuscript before it is submitted for publication. Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a paper should not be a co-author.

It is unethical for an author to publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently is unethical and unacceptable.

When an error is discovered in a published work, it is the obligation of all authors to promptly retract the paper or correct the results.

JALDA’s Authorship Criteria

 Planning for Authorship

JALDA considers an author as an individual who has made a considerable intellectual or practical contribution to the manuscript and who agrees to be accountable for that contribution. The author is a person who  has made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the manuscript or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND/OR  drafted the work or reviewed/ revised it critically for important intellectual content.

Anyone listed as an author on the manuscript should approve the final version of the paper and accept responsibility for ensuring that he or she is familiar with its contents and can identify his or her contribution to it. Usually the corresponding author is assumed to communicate with the journal and incorporate the revisions and re-submit the article for further review if needed.

JALDA expects the individuals who contributed to the work, but whose contributions were not of sufficient magnitude to be listed as authors be properly acknowledged in the acknowledgements section.

JALDA’s Commitment Form

JALDA's Commitment Form for Publication Ethics Observance, Assignment of the Financial Rights, Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and Introduction of Authors can be downloaded in MS Word Format or PDF Format here. The form includes the following 4 sections:

1. Commitment to scholarly publication ethics and introduction of the corresponding author
2. Assignment of the financial rights to publish an article 
3. Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
4. Introducing the authors, their order of appearance, and their contribution 

Please read the terms of this agreement, use the Word file or PDF file of the Commitment Form, fill in and sign it, and send the document as one of the required files upon submission. 

At submission, EVERY AUTHOR listed in the manuscript must READ and COMPLETE the following statements on: (A) Authorship Responsibility, (B) Authorship Criteria, (C) Authorship Contribution, and (D) Contributor Disclosures/Acknowledgments.

In the Commitment Form, the author/s certify that ALL of the following statements are correct.

□  The manuscript represents valid work; neither this manuscript nor one with substantially similar content under this authorship has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere (except as described in the manuscript submission); and copies of any closely related manuscripts are enclosed in the manuscript submission;

□  For manuscripts with more than one author, the authors agree to allow the corresponding author to serve as the primary correspondent with the editorial office and to review and sign off on the final proofs prior to publication;

□  The author/s certify that all persons who have made substantial contributions to this manuscript but who do not fulfill the authorship criteria are listed with their specific contributions in the Acknowledgments section in the manuscript, and that all persons named in the Acknowledgments section have given the corresponding author written permission to be named in the manuscript.

 It is essential that any institutional, private and corporate financial support for the work within the manuscript be fully acknowledged, and any potential conflicts of interest noted.

□ The authors certify that no funding has been received for the conduct of this study and/or preparation of this manuscript; OR

□ The authors certify that all financial and material support for the conduct of this study and/or preparation of this manuscript is clearly described in the Compliance with Ethical Standards section of the manuscript.

Every author MUST complete one of the options as appropriate below.

   □ The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare; OR

   □ The authors MUST write a suitable statement in the related section of the form with regards to conflicts of interest and financial support for conduct of the study and/or preparation of the submitted manuscript.

Declaration The author/s certify that they have fully read and fully understood this form, and that the information presented here is accurate and complete to the best of their knowledge. 

JALDA’s Author Complaint Process

 If authors perceive any misconduct in any applicable policies and ethical guidelines of JALDA, they can raise their complaints by submitting a letter to the Editor-in-Chief or Dr. Ahad Mehrvand, the Director-in-Charge of the journal (ahadmeh@yahoo.com). These complaints could entail issues like plagiarism, copyright violation, bias in review process, illogical delays in reviewing process, unsatisfactory peer-review comments, and authorship issues. JALDA’s policy for dealing with these complaints includes sending an acknowledgement of the complaint and ensuring that the appropriate action will be taken within five working days. The Editor-in Chief will hold a meeting to investigate it fully and provide a complete report on the complaint. The author will receive the outcome of the complaint.

JALDA considers complaints as an opportunity to identify the author’s enquiries, which will assist us to enhance our existing Manuscript Processing System. All complaints will be treated in fair, polite, and timely manner.

JALDA’s Handling an Allegation of Misconduct

What steps are you expected to take if an ethics issues arises with work submitted to or published in JALDA? What if an author had plagiarized another paper or has already published it elsewhere?  How about the reviewer’s or the editor’s misconduct?

If the misconduct happens out of an honest mistake, the Editor-in-Chief will investigate it fully by consulting the COPE guidelines, by hearing from the author about this issue, by discussing the institution of the author if it is necessary, by recording all communications with the author in a safe place in the journal’s site, and by educating them not to break the ethical codes. The Editor-in-Chief it will notify the misconduct to the author, maintaining confidentiality. The paper will be immediately rejected even though the reviews were favorable. However, an author has simply made an honest mistake in their work.

At times, there could be misconduct on the side of the reviewer of the manuscript or the editor. If the author of a manuscript complains that the quality of the review was poor, or unhelpful or insulting, and if it is proven to be credible, the Editor-in Chief will extend his apology to the author and will exclude the reviewer from future reviewing. The author’s manuscript will be sent to another reviewer to collect his/her comments.

In serious cases that involves the editorial team, the next step is to notify Dr. Ahad Mehrvand, the Director-in-Charge of the journal (ahadmhe@yahoo.com) so that he can ensure the author the allegation has been taken seriously by transferring it to the Research Office for further investigation. The Director-in-Charge finds himself responsible to provide the author with appropriate feedback.

                               Prepared by Dr. Davoud Amini and Dr. Ahad Mehrvand on Tuesday, June 09, 2021.