Publishing Rules

Ethical Guidelines for Authors

• Authors must appropriately cite all relevant publications, and must ensure that they have the relevant intellectual property rights to publish the material contained in their submissions and have not copied someone else's work without the relevant permissions and attribution. The concerned author should ensure that all named co-authors consent to publication and to being named as a co-author. All persons who have made significant scientific or literary contributions to the work reported should be named as co-authors.
• Authors must ensure that the manuscript has not been published previously, in part or in whole, in Arabic, English, French, or in any other language, and that the manuscript has not and will not be submitted to any other journal while still under review in this journal. The manuscript should be an authentic work that is never submitted for publication by another party, and that it is not a part of any published book nor derived from a Master or a Doctorate dissertation. If accepted, the manuscript shall not be published elsewhere in any form without prior written consent of the Publisher.
• All authors named on the paper are equally held accountable for the content of a submitted manuscript or a published paper. Authors must avoid making defamatory statements in submitted articles which could be construed as impugning any person's reputation. They must declare any potential conflict of interest, be it professional or financial, which could be held to arise with respect to the article.

Ethical Guidelines for Peer reviewers

• Peer reviewers should respond in a reasonable time-frame, especially if they are not be able to carry out the review, and without intentional delay. They must declare if they do not have the scientific expertise required for carrying out the review, or if they are able to evaluate only part of the manuscript, outlining clearly the areas for which they have the relevant expertise.
• Peer reviewers should make the editors aware of any potential conflict of interest that may affect the paper under review. They should not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origin of a manuscript, by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by any commercial considerations.
• Peer reviewers should maintain confidentiality about the existence and substance of the manuscript. It is inappropriate to share the manuscript or to discuss it in detail with others before publication. Reviewers should not contact the authors directly without the permission of the journal, and they should not retain the manuscript for their personal use.
• Peer reviewers should give specific comments and suggestions, including layout, format, title, abstract, introduction, methodology, statistical errors, results, conclusion, discussion, language, references, any shortcomings and/or strengths of a study. They are also required to observe ethical violations, including suspected duplicate publication, fraud, and plagiarism.

Ethical Guidelines for Peer Editors

• Editors must ensure the quality of the materials which are going to be published in the journal and that all published articles are reviewed by appropriately qualified reviewers.
• The editorial board must respect any request from the researcher to exclude a certain reviewer from the evaluation of his research when it is satisfied with the reasons and justifications provided, and the editorial board should ask all reviewers to disclose any conflict of interest they have before agreeing to accept the evaluation and start its procedures.
• The editorial board must exercise its powers honestly, objectively and fairly and not discriminate based on illegal considerations. The editorial board should give researchers a reasonable opportunity to answer any observation raised towards them and to respond to any complaints.
• Manuscripts submitted to the journal will be checked for originality using anti-plagiarism software. If the author (s) is found guilty of plagiarism, the journal reserves the right to reject/retract or withdraw the paper and to decline further submissions from the offending authors for a period of up to five years by informing all the interested parties, including journal editors and the head of the author's department or institution.
• Article withdrawal: withdrawal request received before initiating the peer-review process (normally within 3 days of submission) will be considered immediately without asking any reason. However, after the evaluation process gets initiated, the author may request withdrawal of the manuscript by providing an essential ethical reason, and accordingly he will bear the evaluation costs. A request to withdraw an article that has been accepted for publication will not be accepted.