PUBLICATION ETHICS

Publication and Authorship:

•  References should be complied numerically according to the order of citation in the text in the Vancouver style. The numbers of references should not preferably exceed 40 for original articles, 15 for brief, and 5-10 for case reports. For the references credited to more than 6 authors please provide the name of the first six authors and represent the remaining authors by the phrase “et al.”

•  A statement should be included in the title page indicating any financial support the authors had received.

•  The authors are not allowed to utilize verbatim text of previously published papers or manuscripts submitted elsewhere.

•  Authors should sign an Assignment Form stating that the article is an original work, has not been published before and is not being considered for publication elsewhere in its final form either in printed or electronic form. The same research must not be published in more than one journal.

 

Author's Responsibilities:

•  Authors should actively participate in the peer-review process and provide suitable responses to the comments raised by peer reviewers on time.

•  All authors must have significantly contributed to the research and fulfill the authorship criteria.

•  Authors must state that all data in the article are real and authentic.

•  All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.

•  Copyright: If a manuscript contains any previous published image or text, it is the responsibility of the author to obtain authorization from copyright holders. The author is required to obtain and submit the written original permission letters for all copyrighted material used in his/her manuscripts.

 

Peer Review/Responsibility for the Reviewers:

•  Judgments should be objective.

•  Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders.

•  Reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited.

•  Reviewed articles should be treated confidentially.

•  Reviewers should advise editors, but the final decision on an article is made by the Editors-in-Chief.

•  Reviewers should provide constructive comments to improve the quality of the article.

 

Editorial Responsibilities:

•  The Editors-in-Chief have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.

•  Editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept.

•  When errors are found in a manuscript, the editors promote the publication of corrections or retractions.

•  The anonymity of reviewers is preserved.

 

Issues on Publishing Ethics:

•  The journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE’s flowcharts and guidelines are approached upon confronting any ethical misbehavior.

•  The IJI uses the COPE flowchart for the retraction of a published article.

•  All patients and participants of the research should be thoroughly informed about the aims of the study and any possible side effects of the drugs and intervention. Written informed consent from the participants or their legal guardians is necessary for any such studies. The Journal reserves the right to request the related documents.

•  The IJI precludes business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards.

•  The Editors-in-Chief are always willing to publish corrections, clarifications.

•  Plagiarism: Use of verbatim texts from other sources without acknowledgement is prohibited. The content of all articles must be the original work of authors and must not be plagiarized from other articles. COPE’s flowcharts and guidelines are approached in cases in which plagiarism is detected.

•  Data falsification/fabrication: Falsification is the practice of omitting or altering research materials, data, or processes so that the results of the research are no longer accurately reflected. Fabrication is the practice of inventing data or results and reporting them in the research. Both of these misconducts are fraudulent and seriously alter the integrity of research. Therefore, articles must be written based on original data and use of falsified or fabricated data is strongly prohibited.

•  Image manipulation: The IJI encourages authors to send their original images. All digital images in manuscripts accepted for publication will be checked for inappropriate manipulation. No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable as long as they are applied to the entire image and do not misrepresent any information present in the original, including the background. The editors will request the original data from the authors to compare the manipulated figures in cases suspected of inappropriate manipulation.