Publication Ethics

Based on the guidelines and standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Religious Inquiries, a peer-reviewed open access journal, is committed to applying publication ethics throughout the entire publishing process (receiving, refereeing, editing, and publishing articles). Therefore, authors, publishers, editors, and reviewers must adhere to moral and behavioral guidelines. Here are some of the most crucial elements.

  1. Ethical principles for the editor:
  • The editor of the journal is responsible for making the final decision on accepting or rejecting the submitted manuscripts. This is done with the assistance of the editorial board, while also taking into account issues such as copyright, plagiarism, etc., as well as the reviewers’ discretion.
  • Editors should have the freedom and authority to carry out their editorial responsibilities, such as accepting or rejecting manuscripts, while retaining their scholarly independence. In doing so, they should not be swayed by nonacademic issues.
  • The sole basis for the editor’s assessment of the submitted manuscripts’ quality should be their scholarly merit. Therefore, nationality, gender, religion, ethnicity, racial identity, or political affiliations should not be used as criteria for accepting or rejecting manuscripts.
  • The editor and the editorial board should not disclose information about the manuscript except to the reviewers, authors, and editors.
  • According to the title of each manuscript and the specialized field, the editors are required to choose qualified referees.
  • The editors should respect the revisions suggested by the referees and also the authors’ logical responses.
  • Parts of submitted manuscripts that have not been published should not be used in the personal research of the editor or the editorial board. Confidential information or ideas obtained through the evaluation of articles must be kept confidential and not exploited for personal advantage.
  • Editors must take care to ensure that plagiarism and copyright violations do not exist in the submitted manuscript.
  • Editors should always suggest and implement strategies to improve the quality of articles, and also continuously strive to improve the quality level of the publication.
  1. Ethical principles for the peer reviewers:
  • The referees should help the editor and members of the editorial board in accepting or rejecting the article by reviewing the content and quality of the article and contributing to enhancement of the article and the journal by making corrections, and comments on the submitted manuscripts.
  • After reviewing the manuscript summary, the selected referee should immediately notify the editor of his/her decision to accept or reject the refereeing of the manuscript, and, if accepted, he/she must referee the manuscript at the appointed time.
  • Referees must maintain the confidentiality of the evaluation process by not disclosing information on the manuscript during, and after the process.
  • Reviewers must evaluate articles objectively, impartially, and fairly to avoid bias in their recommendations and decisions. The judging of the manuscripts should be based on scientific documentation and sufficient reasoning, and it should be expressed clearly and concisely, with no involvement of ethnic, national, racial, political, religious, or gender issues.
  • If the manuscript falls outside of the referee’s field of expertise, he/she should decline to evaluate it.
  • The referees must identify and evaluate the sources cited by the author. Any conclusions or discussions should be documented. Referees are also required to notify the editor if they notice any similarity or overlap between the submitted work and another article.
  • The referees should not use the information or ideas obtained in the evaluation process for personal advantages.
  • When the referees know the author’s identity, they should not be allowed to review the manuscript.
  • If the reviewers discover that the manuscript has been sent to another journal or that it is based on another published or unpublished work, they should notify the editor.
  • The referees should not entrust the refereeing of the manuscript to another person without informing the editor.
  • The Referees should avoid using offensive, harsh expressions, and should avoid making nonacademic comments.
  • If the referees cannot make a decision on the manuscript at the appointed time, they should inform the editor.
  1. Ethical principles for the authors:
  • The submitted manuscripts should be new and original, which means they should be the outcome of the author’s (or the authors’) studies, experiences, and research. As a result, manuscripts that replicate other people’s research or reuse other people’s ideas are not accepted.
  • The authors must refrain from any unethical research practices, such as resubmitting the entire article or a portion of it after it has been published in other journals, faking data, distorting data, plagiarism, and taking advantage of other ideas to do research.
  • If the authors notice an important mistake or carelessness in their work, they are obliged to inform the editor of the journal as soon as possible and cooperate in the process of revising and correcting the submitted manuscript.
  • To respect the confidentiality of the evaluation process, the authors should avoid providing any information in the manuscript, leading to their recognition.
  • While submitting the manuscript, the corresponding author must also register the names and information of all co-authors in the system, and after that no additional authors could be added.
  • The list of authors should contain the names of those who made a major contribution to the writing of the article.
  • The authors of the article are responsible for the article’s content. They must therefore carefully understand and evaluate their viewpoints. The article should also include sufficient sources and information so that other researchers can access the same data set and do a follow-up study.

The authors and referees can refer to the following link for more information about the rules and regulations of the International Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE):
https://publicationethics.org/core-practices.