Code of Ethics for Research and Scientific Publishing

Al-Qal'aa Journal for Scientific Publishing is committed to the highest standards of quality, integrity, and transparency. It applies strict policies to ensure scientific ethics across all stages of publication. The journal's scientific research ethics are summarized in the following points:

1. Standards of Scientific Integrity and Originality

  • Originality and Innovation: The research must be original, not previously published in whole or in part, and must represent a genuine scientific contribution.

  • Avoiding Scientific Misconduct: The journal strictly prohibits all forms of misconduct, such as data fabrication, falsification, or concealing conflicts of interest.

  • Field Research: The researcher is obligated to obtain the necessary approvals for studies involving human participants or animals.

2. Anti-Plagiarism Policy

  • The journal considers plagiarism an unacceptable practice and utilizes Turnitin software to detect text similarity.

  • Permissible Limit: The total similarity index must not exceed 30%, provided that all sources are correctly cited.

  • Rejected Forms of Plagiarism: These include verbatim copying without citation, improper paraphrasing, using the ideas or illustrations of others without citing the source, and self-plagiarism (republishing a previous work by the author without reference).

3. Authorship Standards and Researchers' Responsibilities

  • Authorship Entitlement: Each author must have played a substantial role in conceptualizing the research, collecting and analyzing data, or making a direct intellectual contribution, alongside approving the final version.

  • Shared Responsibility: All authors bear shared responsibility for the accuracy of the information, the integrity of the results, and responding to scientific inquiries.

  • Transparency: All contributions that do not meet the criteria for authorship must be disclosed in the "Acknowledgments" section.

4. Conflict of Interest Policy

  • All parties (authors, reviewers, and editorial board members) must fully disclose any financial, personal, or academic relationships that could affect the objectivity of the research or its evaluation.

  • If a reviewer has a conflict of interest, they must recuse themselves from the review process to ensure impartiality.

5. Peer Review and Editorial Ethics

  • Objectivity and Impartiality: Research is evaluated solely based on its scientific content and quality, free from any bias regarding the author's race, gender, or political or religious affiliations.

  • Strict Confidentiality: The journal adheres to a Double-Blind peer review system, where the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers and vice versa, while maintaining the confidentiality of the research data under evaluation.

  • Independence: The editorial board makes its decisions with complete independence, without interference from any external party.

6. Data Transparency and Sharing

  • The journal encourages researchers to share raw data to promote research openness and enable others to verify the results.

  • The data availability status must be clearly stated in a dedicated section at the end of the article, providing an explanation if it cannot be published for legal or ethical reasons.

7. Procedures for Ethical Violations

If malpractice or plagiarism is proven, the journal reserves the right to take firm actions, including:

  • Immediate rejection of the research prior to publication.

  • Formal retraction of the article even after publication.

  • Notifying the author's affiliated institution in severe cases.

  • Banning the involved authors from future publications for a specified period of time.