The Diyala Journal of Medicine (DJM) is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards in scholarly publishing. Its ethical guidelines are based on the standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Authors, editors, reviewers, readers, and the publisher must follow these principles.
Responsibilities of the Editor
1- Publication Decisions
The editor of DJM is in charge of deciding which of the submitted articles can be published. Our editor assesses articles without regard to the authors' religion, gender, ethnic origin, political philosophy, or citizenship. The editor decides based on the importance of the submitted article, its clarity and originality, the validity of the article, and its relevance to the scope of Diyala Journal of Medicine. The editor considers the reviewer's comments and notes to take the final decision about the submitted manuscript. Legal requirements concerning libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be taken into consideration.
2- Confidentiality
The editor of DJM or any staff member must not disclose any information concerning the submitted article to anyone other than the editorial advisers, corresponding author(s), reviewers, and the publisher in an inappropriate way.
3- Conflict of interest
The DJM editor or the staff cannot use unpublished contents disclosed in a submitted article for their personal research works without the written explicit author approval.
Responsibilities of the Reviewers
1- Contribution to Editorial Board Decision
The process of the DJM peer-review helps the journal editor and the editorial board make an informed decision about the submitted article. In addition, it helps the author (s) to improve their articles.
2- Promptness
The selected reviewer has the right to decline the contribution in the reviewing process if he/she feel that the paper does not fall within his/her area of expertise or for any other reason. The selected reviewer should directly indicate whether he/she accept or reject the assignment by sending a notification to the editor.
3- Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be considered confidential documents. These submitted articles must not be disclosed or discussed with anyone except the authorized editors.
4- Objectivity
Reviewers must write their opinions clearly, objectively, and without bias to provide supporting arguments. The author's personal criticism is forbidden.
5- Acknowledgment of sources
Reviewers should check the citation cases and the references of the submitted articles. They should identify whether the contents taken from other publications are related to the respective sources. Reviewers should notify the editor of any overlap or substantial similarity with the submitted manuscript and any other publications they know.
6- Conflict of interest
Ideas obtained or privileged information during reviewing must not be used for personal advantage and should be kept confidential. The editor does not deal with the reviewers who have conflicts of interest due to connections or relationships with any of the authors, institutions, or companies related to the manuscripts.
Responsibilities of the Authors
1- Standards of Reporting
Authors of novel articles should submit a truthful account of the research done, besides clarifying its significance. Data must be accurately written in the submitted article. The submitted article must include sufficient details and references to enable other researchers to build upon the work. Knowingly inaccurate or fraudulent statements are considered unacceptable, unethical conduct.
2- Retention and Data Access
Authors should be ready to submit the raw data of their work, accompanied by the submitted article, to the DJM editor. They should be prepared to make it publicly accessible if practicable. Generally, authors should guarantee the accessibility of their raw data to other researchers for at least ten years after publication (by a professional data center), protecting authors and their legal rights.
3- Originality, Plagiarism, and Acknowledgement of Sources
Authors should submit original works and should appropriately quote or cite the work and/or words of other researchers. Influential and most recent references of the submitted article should also be cited. The DJM has its own similarity checker, which is handled by the journal's editorial board. Additionally, DJM checks the plagiarism of submitted articles using Turnitin. Thus, the journal editor has the right to reject any article that he/she feels contains a high similarity ratio with other published work.
4- Concurrent, Multiple, or Redundant Publications
Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the same paper to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. Manuscripts that have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere cannot be submitted. In addition, manuscripts under review by the journal should not be resubmitted to copyrighted publications. However, by submitting a manuscript, the author (s) retain the rights to the published material. In case of publication, they permit the use of their work under a CC-BY license [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/], which allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the work as well as to adapt the work and to make commercial use of it.
5- Article Authorship
Authorship is limited to those who have made an essential contribution to the conception, planning, implementation, and/or discussion of the submitted work. All those actual participants must be included as co-authors. The corresponding author ensures that all contributing co-authors and no uninvolved persons are included in the author list. The corresponding author will also verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
6- Disclosure of the Conflict of Interest
All authors must write a statement disclosing any substantive or financial conflicts of interest that may influence the interpretation or results of their submitted work. All financial support sources for their submitted works must be disclosed.
7- Fundamental Errors in Published Work
When the author discovers a critical error or inaccuracy in his /her published work, he/she should immediately notify the editor to cooperate with the editor to withdraw the paper or correct the mistake.
Publisher Responsibilities
The publisher monitors the final editorial decisions to ensure they are made independently, without influence from commercial or political interests, and safeguards the integrity of the academic record and upholds ethical publishing standards. The publisher is responsible for monitoring the conduct of editors, reviewers, readers, and authors to ensure they adhere to ethical standards.