Publishing in a peer-reviewed journal is an essential part of any researcher’s career. Having a quality program in the journal adds value to the manuscripts submitted to it by providing quality control and by improving content and presentation, publishing, and archiving. The benefits to authors, readers, and the scientific community as a whole are numerous. Thus, a number of guidelines and best practices have been developed for all journal stakeholders, including editors, reviewers, authors, and readers.
The Committee of Publications Ethics (COPE) provides ethical guidelines and codes of conduct for publishers, journal editors, and reviewers. At the Mathematical Culture and Thought, we follow the COPE Core Practices and the Guidelines for Ethical Publishing. COPE has 10 Core Practices, expanding on the ethical items listed in the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. These policies and practices are necessary for journals and publishers to reach the highest standards in publication ethics. These guidelines promote integrity in scholarly research and its publication. As an author, you should understand and follow them. There are also ethical guidelines for journal editors and peer reviewers.
Below are the major ethical issues for authors, reviewers, and editors. Also, some major ethical concerns will be given below. We will follow the guidance and workflows recommended by COPE in handling these cases.
Ethical Guidelines for Authors
Authorship Policy. All authors listed on any article submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. Our qualifying criteria for authorship are: substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; final approval of the version to be published.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Corresponding Author. The corresponding author serves as primary correspondent for all co-authors. If the manuscript is accepted, the corresponding author is responsible for: ensuring accuracy of the manuscript, author byline, funding statement, conflict of interest statement, etc.; reviewing the edited manuscript/proof, consulting co-authors as needed to compile one set of changes; serving as the primary correspondent on any post-publication communications, including corrections.
Order of Authorship. Authors are often listed in alphabetical order. Any changes in authorship (order, addition, deletion) should be discussed among and approved by all authors. Any requests for such changes after initial manuscript submission should be explained in writing to the Editor-in-Chief in a letter signed by all authors or an email with copy to all authors.
Requests to change the corresponding author after submission will be subject to scrutiny and a formal process, as with any authorship change. This applies to both pre- and post-publication of the article. In the event of a dispute or change request, at any stage of the publishing process, this journal will be guided by the relevant COPE flowchart in deciding the appropriate action(s).
Affiliations. All affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated. Knowingly providing false or fraudulent affiliation information is a form of misconduct, and may lead to article retraction.
Use of Artificial Intelligence. AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship because they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements.
Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.
Acknowledgement of Sources. It is recommended that the following contribution to be recognized in the acknowledgements: general advice, review, guidance, supervision; data collection or analysis; research or technical assistance; writing, editorial, or bibliographic assistance; clerical assistance or manuscript preparation; and financial, material, and grant support.Authorial Integrity Policy. Plagiarism and duplicate publication (or self-plagiarism) are considered violations of authorial integrity and are not tolerated. Plagiarism is broadly defined as “the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.” This can include verbatim or near-verbatim copying, or very close paraphrasing, of text, figures, images, tables, graphs, or results from another’s work. Duplicate publication involves unacceptably close replication of the author’s own previously published text, figures, images, tables, graphs, or results without acknowledgment of the source. We apply a "reasonable person" standard when deciding whether a submission constitutes duplicate publication. We reserve the right to check all submissions through appropriate plagiarism checking tools. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or part, will be rejected. We expect our readers, reviewers, and editors to raise any suspicions of plagiarism, either by contacting the relevant editor or by emailing the Editor-in-Chief. If plagiarism is discovered post-publication, we will follow our guidance outlined in the Policy on Corrections and Retractions below.
When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication.
Any manuscript based on a thesis should be a reworking of the material in the thesis and written to conform to this journal’s style guide. When quoting from the thesis or reusing figures, authors should avoid self-plagiarism by citing and referencing any extracts copied or adapted from the thesis appropriately. If a thesis was published by a publisher and is publicly accessible, permission may be required from the thesis publisher before submitting to a journal. The relevant editor should be informed that the manuscript draws on a thesis.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest. All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other significant conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Anyone who suspects an undisclosed competing interest regarding a work published or under consideration in this journal should inform the Editor-in-Chief.
Fundamental Errors in Published Work. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to notify the Editor-in-Chief promptly and to work with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
Ethical Guidelines for Editors
The editor of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s Editorial Board and may be constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
Journal editors may reject a submitted manuscript without formal peer review if they consider it to be inappropriate for the journal and outside its scope. Editors are responsible for the timely refereeing of articles and must judge articles by the state of knowledge at the time of submission. Editors should accept a paper for publication only if they are reasonably certain the paper is correct.
Confidentiality. The contents of submitted manuscript should be regarded by editors as privileged information, unless these materials have previously been made public. If the contents of a paper become known in advance of publication solely as a result of its submission to a journal, and if a later paper based on knowledge of the privileged information is received anywhere, then any editor aware of the facts should refuse or delay publication of the later paper until after publication of the first. Editors must preserve the anonymity of referees unless there is a credible allegation of misuse. In this case, they have a duty to investigate the matter with Editor-in-Chief.
Objectivity and Impartiality. Journal editors should give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted for publication. An editor will at any time evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or institutional affiliation of the author(s).
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest. Journal editors should delegate the peer review of any original self-authored article to a member of the editorial board as appropriate.
Any substantial part of submitted manuscript should not be used in a journal editor’s own article without the consent of the author.
Editors are responsible for declaring any competing interests, whether they apply to individual articles or to their position as an editor of this journal, and recusing themselves as appropriate.
Post-publication Corrections. If a journal editor receives convincing evidence that the main conclusions of an article published in the journal are incorrect, then, in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief, the journal editor should ensure the publication of an appropriate notice of correction.
Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers
Impartiality. Reviewers must give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted. They should judge each manuscript on its own merits, without regard to the race, religion, nationality, gender, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s).
Disclosure and Conflict of Interest. Reviewers must declare any conflict of interest before agreeing to review a manuscript. This includes any relationship with the author(s) that may bias their review. Reviewers are expected to declare any competing interests arising at any point during the peer review process. The editor will review the competing interest and work with the reviewer to mitigate the competing interest. If a reviewer’s competing interest is too significant to mitigate, the reviewer should recuse themselves from reviewing.
Confidentiality. Reviewers must keep the confidentiality of the peer review process. They must not share information or correspondence about a manuscript with anyone outside of the peer review process without the explicit permission of the editor.
They must not enter unpublished manuscript files, images or information into databases or tools that do not guarantee confidentiality, are publicly accessible and/or may store or use this information for their own purposes (for example, generative AI tools such as ChatGPT).
Standards of Objectivity. Reviewers should provide a constructive, comprehensive, evidenced, and appropriately substantial peer review report. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Reviewers must avoid making statements in their report which might be interpreted as questioning any person’s reputation. They must also not impersonate others during the review process.
Promptness. Reviewers should make all reasonable effort to submit their report and recommendation on time. They should inform the editor if this is not possible.
Peer Review Integrity Policy. Reviewers must prepare their report by themselves, unless they have permission from the journal to involve another person. Reviewers must not use artificial intelligence tools to generate manuscript review reports, including LLM based tools like ChatGPT. Reviewers are responsible for ensuring any references included within their report are accurate and verifiable.
Reviewers should call to the journal editor’s attention any significant similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or submitted manuscripts of which they are aware.
Policy on Common Ethical Concerns
In general, ethical concerns are hadled by the Editor-in-Chief after an impartial and confidential investigation of each case, based on the COPE flowcharts. Issues may include, but are not limited to: allegations of misconduct; conflicts of interest/competing interests; data and reproducibility; ethical oversight; intellectual property; journal management; post-publication; plagiarism; fabrication; falsification; citation manipulation; peer review manipulation; authorship misconduct.
Authorship disputes. Authorship disputes are one of the most common complaints received by journals. Therefore, guidelines to help define authorship are essential. Authors of journal articles must name as co-authors all persons who have a reasonable claim to authorship. A “co-author” is defined as any person who has made a significant scholarly contribution to the work reported and shares responsibility and accountability for the results.
When two or more authors have prepared an article, we require a designated Corresponding Author. In signing a Publishing Agreement, the Corresponding Author warrants that all named co-authors have authorized her or him to act as an agent on their behalf, sign the Publishing Assignment on their behalf, and agreed on the order of names given in the article.
All named co-authors must have made a significant contribution to the work reported, including research conception or design of the study, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting, writing, and revising the article, approving the final version of the article before submission, and accepting responsibility if the article is found to be unsafe, in error, fraudulent, or in breach of warranties made. All named co-authors also agree to empower the Corresponding Author to act on their behalf with respect to communication with the journal’s Editorial Office during the submission, peer review, production, and publication processes.
The Corresponding Author must ensure all address, email, and telephone data are correct for all named co-authors.
Authorial Misconduct. The editorial board members` subject-specific knowledge is an invaluable source in assessing the novelty in suspect manuscripts. They can conduct further evaluation of the paper and allegations when required. After investigation, if the allegations appear to be true, the COPE guidelines suggest contacting the author(s) of the paper to request an explanation of the overlapping material.
Based on the investigation and reply from the author(s), we can decide how to proceed. There are some key options we consider: if a paper is still in peer review, our decision is sent to the author for revising the article. We request that they address the issues through appropriate citation, use of quote marks to identify direct quotes, or re-writing; if the similarity between the manuscripts is too extensive for revision, or if the paper is already published, we reject or retract the article.
Plagiarism. Plagiarism is a form of authorial misconduct that can take many forms and vary in ease of identification. The most straightforward form of plagiarism involves verbatim or near-verbatim copying, or very close paraphrasing, of text, figures, images, tables, graphs, or results from another's work. The least clear-cut form of plagiarism is an inadequacy of relevant citations, i.e., insufficient acknowledgement of the work of other authors.
We may receive complaints or allegations of plagiarism from a variety of sources. When discovered in the review process, it is often a referee or editor who first hears of allegations. The initial notification should be sent via email, detailing the concerns or allegations. Information required to substantiate these claims may include a detailed description of the alleged violation(s), citations to the material in question, and any other relevant information that would help resolve the issue.
Once a complaint or allegation is received and sufficient information is provided, the Editor-in-Chief will examine the allegations with the editorial board. Results will be communicated via e-mail to both parties (the person who filed the complaint and the author alleged to have committed plagiarism). Further consequences may include notification of institutional authorities and possible loss of publishing privileges.
Competing interests. Conflicts of interest are situations that have the potential to influence people’s judgments. A competing interest, also known as a ‘conflict of interest,’ describes a situation in which an author or author group have potential competing interests, be it professional or financial, in the submission and publication of their paper and its research. This is to the extent that it might skew or corrupt their manuscript, or the results of their research.
During a manuscript submission, the author can declare any interests affecting their paper. They can do this in their cover letter, or by answering a competing interest question on the peer review system's submission form. By volunteering this information and ensuring complete transparency, the author significantly contributes to diffusing any potential concerns regarding competing interests. This will help to maintain the integrity of their research.
If an author declares a competing interest, it doesn’t necessarily imply that the research is problematic. If we find that the results are based on sound research and they reached their conclusions independent of any competing interests, we allow the manuscript to progress to peer review. For full disclosure, we publish any competing interests alongside the article. This will uphold the integrity of both the research and the journal. However, if the competing interest significantly affects the interpretation of the results, we may consider a rejection.
If an author doesn’t declare any competing interests until after a manuscript is accepted or published, we consider this misconduct on their part.
Policies on Suspected Ethical Breaches
We follow the guidelines set forth by COPE, which provide a framework for handling suspected ethical breaches in the publication process such as breaches of confidentiality, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or misuse of privileged information.. In general, when a suspected ethical breach is reported, the journal will conduct an investigation to determine the validity of the allegations. This may involve contacting the authors, reviewers, or editors involved and gathering evidence to support or refute the allegations. If the investigation finds that an ethical breach has occurred, the journal may take a range of actions, including issuing a correction or retraction, imposing sanctions on the authors or reviewers involved, or reporting the misconduct to the relevant authorities.
Appeals and complaints of editorial decisions will only be considered if they refer to a specific manuscript and must be based on evidence that either an editor or reviewer made a significant factual error or major misunderstanding of a manuscript, or the integrity of the editorial decision-making process was compromised. In general, only one appeal per manuscript per decision stage will be considered.
Policy for Corrections and Retractions
Corrections. Articles are electronically published individually after proof is returned from authors and before appearing in a print issue. Once an article is individually published on the website, changes cannot be made to the article. Minor changes such as those which would likely occur during copyediting, typesetting or proofreading may be made on accepted manuscripts, but will not normally be made to electronically published or First Online View unless they affect the interpretation of the article.
If the journal is found to have made an error, an Erratum will be used. Once an article is electronically published, corrections of critical errors may be made to the paper by submitting a Corrigendum to the Editor-in-Chief. The Corrigendum will be published electronically, will appear in a future print issue, and will link back and forth on the web with the original article.
Author-related information, such as affiliation, current address, and email address, is not kept up to date after a paper is initially electronically published.
Retractions. This journal follows the COPE’s Retraction Guidelines and will consider retractions accordingly. The Editor-in-Chief may retract a publication for any reason that irreversibly undermines the article’s validity or integrity. Retractions are usually reserved for articles that are so seriously flawed that their findings or conclusions should not be relied upon, or that contain substantial plagiarism or life-endangering content or report unethical research.
Expressions of concern. Occasionally, when the reliability or integrity of a publication is of concern, but where an investigation will take an unusually long time, or where an investigation is not possible, the Editor-in-Chief may decide to publish an Expression of Concern on the article to warn readers to interpret the article's content with caution.
Policy on Copyright
Authors must grant the Iranian Mathematical Society (IMS) specific permission to publish their work through a formal Publishing Agreement. Authors are encouraged, but not required, to transfer copyright in their work to the IMS. By doing so, authors are able to retain rights to use their work for their own purposes, and the IMS is able to maintain the integrity of the work’s original publication by administrating legal rights and permissions processes on the behalf of the author. For authors of papers accepted for publication in this journal, a Publishing Agreement Form must be completed prior to publication.
Articles published in this journal are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-SA. An author’s draft version of the work, either before or after peer review, may be reproduced for educational and scientific purposes by the author(s) under a license no less restrictive than the CC BY-NC-ND Creative Commons license. This means that the pre-publication draft of the work may be posted on the author’s personal website, contributed to the author’s institutional repository, or posted on pre-print servers such as arXiv.org, provided that no commercial use of the material is made and no derivative works are included.