The articles submitted to the journal's system are initially evaluated for the title, structure, relevance of the topic, and originality. They are also assessed for plagiarism. Authors hold responsibility for the integrity of the article and for obtaining the agreement of their colleagues regarding their collaboration in preparing the article in a written document. Subsequently, the article is sent to specialized secretaries, who are scientific advisors to the editor-in-chief, for the selection of referees and scientific evaluation. The specialized secretaries and referees are chosen from among researchers who are experts in the same field. All parties involved in the production, review, and final approval of the articles are committed to adhering to the journal's ethical principles. The ethical commitments of each of these parties are specified below:
Commitments of Authors
The author of the article commits not to submit the complete research paper or any part of it to any other journal. The main commitment of the author is to provide a comprehensive version of their research, scientific work, or project, along with a realistic and scientific discussion of its importance. The submitted article must contain enough details and references to public sources of information that the author's scientific peers can use to replicate the research conducted or verify its accuracy. The author is obligated to assist the reader's understanding through timely access to prior works by providing sufficient references to published sources that have influenced the nature of the reported research. Information obtained privately through conversations, correspondence, or discussions with third parties should not be reported in the work unless explicit (written) permission from the original holder of the information has been obtained. The same applies to information obtained through the conduct of confidential services, such as refereeing articles or reviewing the granting of research funding. The submitted article must not contain any instances of plagiarism or fabricated data. Researchers who have conducted extensive research in a system or a set of interconnected systems should organize their papers so that each article encompasses a complete version of a specific aspect of the overall research. Submitting more than one manuscript to multiple journals from a single research study for initial publication is deemed unethical for authors. While critical reviews of published articles can sometimes be well-founded, personal criticism is never acceptable. To maintain the integrity of authorship, only those individuals who have made significant contributions and roles in the research or project and in the preparation of the article should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author certifies that all individuals noted as co-authors have seen the final version of the article and have confirmed their agreement to submit the article for publication. The names of deceased individuals who qualify as co-authors should also be mentioned, along with their date of death in a footnote. Listing fictitious names as co-authors is prohibited. The author submitting the article for publication bears responsibility for listing only individuals who are legitimately entitled and qualified in the article. Submitting the article with an obvious commercial intent is inappropriate.
Commitments of Referees
As reviewing and refereeing articles is an essential and unavoidable part of the publication process, all referees are required to play their fair role in evaluating and refereeing articles. Whenever a referee feels they are not adequately qualified to review an article or do not have enough time for a fair judgment of the submitted work, they must promptly return the article to the journal's office. The referee and the reviewer must assess the quality of the article based on its merits and qualifications in a realistic and objective manner while respecting the intellectual independence of the authors. Personal criticism is never acceptable. Reviewers must avoid conflicts of interest and the consequences arising from them. If an article submitted for review and refereeing presents any potential conflict of interest for the referee or if the referee feels biased about it, they are obligated to return the article without reviewing it and to inform the journal's office of the matter. Information, arguments, or unpublished interpretations contained in articles submitted for review and publication are considered confidential and should not be used in the referee's research or published in any other way unless with the author's explicit consent and with appropriate reference to the original author. If a reviewer receives an article for review that the authors may indirectly be identified, they must inform the editor-in-chief of this relationship. The reviewer must treat the received article for review as a confidential document and should not disclose its contents to anyone nor discuss it with anyone, except as necessary with individuals whose specialized opinions are essential for the review; in such cases, the identities of these individuals should be communicated to the editor-in-chief. Reviewers are required to provide sufficient explanation and justification for their reviews so that the authors can understand the basis of their opinions. Any assertive claim that observation, inference, or reasoning is already published must be supported by adequate references. The reviewer is also obliged to report any significant similarity between the article under review and any published or pending article in any other journal to the editor-in-chief. A reviewer is prohibited from using or disclosing unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in the article under review, unless with the original author's consent and with appropriate credit to the original author. If a reviewer is sufficiently convinced that the article under review contains plagiarized materials or fabricated data, they must communicate the matter to the editor-in-chief.
Commitments of the Editor-in-Chief and Specialized Secretaries
The primary responsibility of the editor-in-chief and specialized secretaries of the Water and Wastewater journal is to ensure efficiency and fairness in the process of reviewing and refereeing articles and to guarantee and uphold the highest standards of professional and specialized quality in the articles submitted for publication in the journal. Quality criteria include the originality of the research, its meaning or application, depth of insight, and relevance to the field of water and wastewater engineering. Each of the specialized secretaries must devote fair attention, free from bias, to all articles and base their judgment on the merits and advantages present in each article, regardless of any personal relationships or familiarity with the authors. The editor-in-chief, specialized secretaries, and editorial board are not permitted to disclose any information regarding the article under review to anyone except those whose specialized opinions are necessary regarding the publication of the article. The editor-in-chief and the editorial board are also not allowed to reveal the names of the referees. If the editor-in-chief or specialized secretaries are the authors of an article, they must not interfere in the review of that article. If an article is critiqued after publication in the journal, they must not exercise their responsibility regarding that article. The editor-in-chief is obligated to avoid conflicts of interest and any resulting consequences. They must not send an article to referees known for their personal bias for or against the author or the subject of the article. Information, arguments, or unpublished interpretations contained in articles submitted for review and publication are treated as confidential and should not be used in the research of the editor-in-chief or specialized secretaries, nor published in any way unless with the original author's consent and with appropriate reference to the original author. If the editor-in-chief is convinced by evidence that the content, conclusions, references, or other materials in an article published in the Water and Wastewater journal are erroneous or false, they are obligated to take immediate action to publish a correction or erratum in the journal after notifying the authors in writing and requesting their written response to the allegations. If possible, the editor-in-chief is required to arrange for the publication of comments or articles that clarify the intended errors.
Plagiarism and its Management in the Water and Wastewater Journal
The Water and Wastewater journal follows the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines in addressing plagiarism and duplicate publication, as illustrated in the following flowchart:
The ethical policy of the journal of water and wastewater is based on the Committee on Publication
Ethics (COPE) guidelines.
Readers, authors, reviewers and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with the journal of water and wastewater.
For information on this matter in publishing and ethical guidelines please visit http://publicationethics.org
All papers submitted to the journal are evaluated by a group of consulting editors to determine whether the topic is within the scope of the journal and to evaluate adherence to word limits and journal format. Papers also are assessed for originality, scientific quality, clarity of presentation, and conciseness. Before papers are sent for double blind peer review, they are screened for possible plagiarism, and authors must submit a Competing Financial Interests Declaration form on behalf of all authors. Papers selected for review are assigned to an Associate Editor, who identifies reviewers and makes recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief. Members of the Editorial Review Board serve as a pool of potential reviewers of papers. Both the Board of Associate Editors and the Editorial Review Board are composed of leading scientists from all segments of water and wastewater technology and management. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer.
Obligations of Editors
The primary responsibility of the journal editor and associate editors is to ensure an efficient and fair review process of manuscripts submitted for publication, and to establish and maintain high standards of technical and professional quality. Criteria of quality are: originality of approach, concept and/or application; profundity; and relevance to the water quality and management.
An editor shall give unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication, and shall judge each on its merits without regard to any personal relationship or familiarity with the author(s), or to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, professional association, or political philosophy of the author(s).
The editor and editorial staff shall disclose no information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than those from whom professional advice regarding the publication of the manuscript is sought. The names of reviewers shall not be released by the editors or editorial staff.
An editor who authors or coauthors a manuscript submitted for consideration to the journal with which that editor is affiliated, shall not review that work. If after publication, the editor-author's work merits ongoing scientific debate within the journal, the editor-author shall accept no editorial responsibility in connection therewith.
An editor shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof. An editor shall not send a manuscript to reviewers who are known to have personal bias in favor of or against the author or the subject matter of that manuscript.
Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the research of an editor or associate editor, or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
If an editor is presented with convincing evidence that the substance, conclusions, references or other material included in a manuscript published in the journal are erroneous, the editor, after notifying the author(s) and allowing them to respond in writing, shall facilitate immediate publication of an errata.
If possible, an editor shall also facilitate publication of appropriate comments and/or papers identifying those errors. If an editor is presented with convincing evidence that a manuscript or published paper contains plagiarized material or falsified research data, the editor shall forward such evidence to the Research Deputy in Iran Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.
Obligations of Authors
An author's central obligation is to present a concise account of the research, work, or project completed, together with an objective discussion of its significance.
A submitted manuscript shall contain detail and reference to public sources of information sufficient to permit the author's peers to repeat the work or otherwise verify its accuracy.
An author shall cite and give appropriate attribution to those publications influential in determining the nature of the reported work sufficient to guide the reader quickly to earlier work essential to an understanding of the present work. Information obtained by an author privately, from conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, shall not be used or reported in the author's work without explicit permission from the persons from whom the information was obtained. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, shall be treated in the same confidential manner.
The submitted manuscript shall not contain plagiarized material or falsified research data.
Fragmentation of research papers shall be avoided. An engineer or scientist who has done extensive work on a system or group of related systems shall organize publication so that each paper gives a complete account of a particular aspect of the general study.
It is inappropriate for an author to submit for review more than one paper describing essentially the same research or project to more than one journal of primary publication.
Scholarly criticism of a published paper may sometimes be justified; however, personal criticism is never appropriate.
To protect the integrity of authorship, only persons who have significantly contributed to the research or project and paper preparation shall be listed as coauthors. The corresponding author attests to the fact that any others named as coauthors have seen the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Deceased persons who meet the criterion for coauthorship shall be included, with a footnote reporting date of death. No fictitious name shall be given as an author or coauthor. An author who submits a manuscript for publication accepts responsibility for having properly included all, and only, qualified coauthors.
It is inappropriate to submit manuscripts with an obvious commercial intent.
It is inappropriate for an author to either write or coauthor a Discussion of his or her own paper; except in the case of a rebuttal or Closure to criticism or Discussion offered by others.
Obligations of Reviewers
Because qualified manuscript review is essential to the publication process, all engineers and scientists have an obligation to do their fair share of reviews.
If a reviewer feels inadequately qualified or lacks the time to fairly judge the work reported, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly to the editor.
A reviewer shall objectively judge the quality of a manuscript on its own merit and shall respect the intellectual independence of the author(s). Personal criticism is never appropriate.
A reviewer shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof. If a manuscript submitted for review presents a potential conflict of interest or the reviewer has a personal bias, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly without review, and so advise the editor.
Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the research of a reviewer, or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
If a reviewer receives for review a manuscript authored or coauthored by a person with whom the reviewer has a personal or professional relationship, the existence of this relationship shall be promptly brought to the attention of the editor.
A reviewer shall treat a manuscript received for review as a confidential document and shall neither disclose or discuss it with others except, as necessary, to persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted shall be disclosed to the editor.
Reviewers shall explain and support judgments adequately so that the editor and author(s) may understand the basis for their comments. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument has been previously reported shall be accompanied by the relevant citation.
A reviewer shall call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or any manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.
A reviewer shall not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments or interpretations contained in a manuscript under consideration, except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.
If a reviewer has convincing evidence that a manuscript contains plagiarized material or falsified research data, the reviewer shall notify the editor.
This Journal is a member of The Committee on Publication Ethics(COPE)
When faced with cases of suspected misconduct, Journal follows the instructions mentioned in this flowcharts:
ENGLISH [COPE flowcharts, PDF, 546KB]
These ethical standards were obtained and developed after investigation and review of " The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).