The DORA Declaration
The name DORA is an abbreviation for San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment which was introduced by a group of editors and publishers during a meeting in San Francisco on December 16 th 2012.
ATRAS Journal has recently signed the DORA Declaration (Declaration on Research Assessment), showing its interest in useful ways to assess and evaluate research. Link to the signature:
https://sfdora.org/signers/?_signers_keyword=Atras%20Journal
By signing this declaration, Atras will follow DORA’s recommendations and guidelines to improve the quality of publication.
The journal also insists on including primary sources and original published works in the submitted manuscripts to ensure improvement in the quality of research.
Statement
This statement sheds light on the ethical behavior of all parties involved in the publication of a research paper, including the author, the editor, the executive editors, the editorial board, the international advisory board, the reviewers, and the publisher. All the involved parties should understand this ethical policy. It frowns at and will not tolerate any form of copyright abuse or publishing malpractice. This statement is based on COPE’s Core Practices.
Publication Policy
Atras Journal is committed to following a high standard of ethical considerations and pays attention to the principles and best practices in publishing published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The papers submitted to the journal must be in cope with the journal’s aim and scope. The journal accepts only papers that are not published or accepted for publication or under evaluation in any other journal.
Changing the name of the corresponding author or the order of the authors (omission, change, or addition) requires signed permission by all the authors of the paper.
The journal does not accept plagiarized papers or any other form of academic misconduct; including duplication, fraud authors, and data fabrication, breaching copyright and prevailing conflict of interest. All the submitted manuscripts should be in accordance with accepted ethical considerations. Any paper that violates these standards will be removed from the publication. Authors are also responsible for any falsification or fabrication attempt.
Publication Decision
Atras Journal’s editor is responsible for deciding whether to publish a paper or decline it.
The validation of the work and its importance to researchers and readers should be put at the centre of the editor’s deliberation. The editor should be guided by the policies of the journal and the editorial board and should be in force regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism. To ensure the quality of the published papers, all manuscripts will run through a plagiarism checker charge by the assigned journal editor.
Confidentiality
The editor and editorial board must not disclose any information about submitted papers to anyone other than the executive editors, the editorial board, and reviewers.
Editorial Policies and Responsibilities
Editor/ Executive Editors conduct the first review before the papers are sent to reviewers without prejudices of sex, race, gender, religious differences, and all other predilections of the authors. As stated in the publication policy, the manuscript is scanned in terms of plagiarism. If the percentage is below 10%, the editorial team checks if the paper fits the journal’s scope and is suitable for peer review. The paper will be assigned to two reviewers who are selected by the editorial team according to their research interests, specialities, and availability to ensure the quality of the review. The review process will take two to four weeks. Based on the review report, the editor will make recommendations for acceptance, minor revisions, major revisions, or decline.
Editors’ responsibilities are summarized as follows:
– Editors have complete responsibility and authority to accept or reject a manuscript.
– Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the papers.
– Editors should always consider the needs of the author when he/she wants to improve his/ her paper.
– Editors should guarantee the quality of the research paper and the integrity of the academic record.
– Editors’ decisions should be based on the quality of the paper, its originality, and its relevance to the scope of the journal.
– Editors should preserve the autonomy of reviewers.
– Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to international ethical standards and guidelines.
– Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between, the journal’s staff, authors, reviewers, and board members.
Responsibilities of the Reviewers
– Reviewers assist the editorial board in making decisions and through the editorial communication with the author; they can assist authors in improving their papers before publication.
– Reviewers should respect the deadline to submit their review reports and should notify the editor and excuse him from the review process.
– Reviewers must treat the reviewed papers as confidential documents. They must not discuss the content with others except the editorial board.
– Reviewers should be objective in their decisions and their views should be supported by arguments.
– Reviewers should identify relevant published works that are not cited by the author and signal any inappropriate citation of sources or any similarity between the manuscript under review and other published papers.
Responsibilities of the Authors
– Authors should be sure that they submit original papers free of plagiarism.
– Authors should be sure that all the included sources to support their arguments are appropriately cited and quoted.
– Authors must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal.
– Authorship of the paper should be limited only to those who made significant contributions to the work. People who contributed to the success of the work should be just acknowledged and not included as co-authors.
– If the author discovers any error in the paper after publication, he/she should notify the editor to retract or correct the paper.
Retraction Policy
If the paper contains any intellectual theft or any type of manipulation after publication, it will be retracted and the author will be blacklisted. The author will take the whole responsibility. A letter containing the retraction reasons will be sent to the author and his/ her institution.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
The editor, executive editors, and editorial board should not use any unpublished materials of the unpublished manuscripts in their own research without the express written consent of the author.
The editor should not be involved in decisions regarding any paper submitted by him/herself or any other member of the editorial board. As all papers submitted to the journal, such a paper should follow all the usual procedures of the journal (plagiarism checking, reviewing, and editing). The editor should follow ICMJE guidelines on disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by authors and reviewers.
Reviewers must keep the information or any ideas obtained through the peer review confidential and not used for personal benefit. They avoid any conflict of interest with authors in making decisions concerning accepting or rejecting a paper.
Authors should disclose any financial or other conflicts of interest that may influence the results and interpretation of the manuscript. All financial support should be acknowledged by the authors.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered into the journal system will be used for the stated purposes of the journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
Informed Consent Policy
before starting research, the researcher should obtain the approval of his/ her institution. data and information of people who participated in data collection must be handled with high levels of confidence. Therefore, researchers should obtain written informed consent from authors before data collection procedures, unless the study is conducted in fields that do not require the informed consent policy like literature. It should contain a clear and concise description of the research. The following information should appear in the informed consent:
- The main aim of the study
- The expected results
- The target population
- The significance of the result
- Instructions that the participants must follow
- Any risk or discomfort that may affect the participants.
– The decision to participate is voluntary and the participants have the right to refuse or withdraw from the experiment without losing any benefits from the consent form.
– an approximate number of participants actively involved in the research
Advertising Policy
The publisher and the editorial board of Atras Journal prohibit any time of commercial advertisements. This policy remains in its current status until the editorial board revises the journal’s policy.
Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Submission/Publication
Authors should not publish a paper that describes the same research in more than one journal. Besides, submitting the same paper to more than one journal constitutes an unethical publishing practice. An author also has yet to submit a paper for publication that was previously published in another journal.
Plagiarism Detection
ATRAS strictly adheres to international plagiarism policies. The editorial team takes comprehensive measures to prevent plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct. To ensure the originality of submitted manuscripts, the plagiarism detection software Plagiarism Checker X is employed. Every manuscript undergoes a plagiarism screening prior to the peer review process. A designated secretary is responsible for conducting these initial checks. Additionally, the final versions of accepted papers are reviewed once more for plagiarism to ensure compliance.
The Use of AI in Writing
By September 2024, Atras will introduce a new policy about the use of AI content generators. The aim of the journal behind introducing this new policy is to enhance transparency and provide guidance to all those involved in the creation process, including authors, editors, reviewers, readers, and contributors.
The use of AI is only restricted to enhancing the language and readability of authors’ works. To disclose the use of generative AI in the writing process, authors must add a statement to the end of the paper under a new section called “Declaration of AI use”, and before the list of references.
ATRAS will continue to adapt and refine its policy on the use of AI tools in writing. According to COPE position statement on the response to AI tools:
ATRAS’ editor reserves the right to reject or withdraw the manuscript directly if the use of AI tools in the manuscript is concealed.
AI tools can not be listed as authors or co-authors of papers. Because they cannot be held responsible for the submissions and cannot manage copyright and licensing agreements.
Authors who use AI tools in their submissions (including but not limited to: during the writing of the article or when collecting and analysing data) must be transparent in disclosing in the Methods or acknowledgements section of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used.
Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, including but not limited to: sections produced by an AI tool or data analysed using AI tools in the research process.
For Editors and Reviewers
Editors and reviewers are forbidden to include an unpublished manuscript for review in an AI-generated system because it may pose a risk to confidentiality, proprietary rights and data, including personally identifiable information. Therefore, editors and peer reviewers must not upload files, images or information from unpublished manuscripts into Generative AI tools. Generative AI may only be utilised to assist with improving review language. Reviewers will at all times remain responsible for ensuring the accuracy and integrity of their reviews.