Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The ethical policy of Diyala Journal of Engineering Sciences (DJES) is based on the guidelines and standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and complies with the code of conduct of the DJES Editorial Board. Readers, authors, reviewers, editors, and all parties involved in the publication process are expected to follow these ethical principles when engaging with DJES.

The ethical policy of DJES guides the editorial decision-making process and helps ensure the integrity, transparency, fairness, and reliability of the scholarly record. The journal is committed to preventing plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, citation manipulation, authorship misconduct, and any other unethical publication practices.

For further information on publication ethics and related guidelines, please visit: https://publicationethics.org.

 

Editors’ Responsibilities

Publication Decisions

The editor is responsible for deciding which manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published. Editorial decisions are based on the manuscript’s importance, originality, clarity, scientific validity, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, and relevance to the journal’s aims and scope.

The editor evaluates manuscripts without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, political philosophy, institutional affiliation, or personal background. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, plagiarism, research misconduct, and publication ethics should also be considered where applicable.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate. All submitted manuscripts and related editorial communications must be treated as confidential documents.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by the editor or members of the Editorial Board for their own research purposes without the author’s explicit written consent.

Editors must not handle manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, personal, financial, institutional, or other relationships with any of the authors, institutions, companies, or organizations connected to the manuscript. Where a conflict of interest exists, the manuscript should be assigned to an independent editor.

Fairness and Editorial Integrity

The editor should ensure that all manuscripts are handled fairly and according to the journal’s editorial policies. Manuscripts should be evaluated on their scholarly merit and relevance to the journal’s scope. The editor should take appropriate action when ethical concerns, possible misconduct, or significant errors are identified before or after publication.

 

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

The peer-review process assists the editor and the Editorial Board in making editorial decisions and may also help authors improve their manuscripts. Reviewers are expected to provide constructive, objective, and timely assessments of the manuscripts assigned to them.

Promptness

Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript, has a conflict of interest, or knows that a prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and withdraw from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscript received for review must be treated as a confidential document. It must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor. Reviewers must not use any unpublished information, data, ideas, or interpretations obtained through peer review for personal advantage or for the advantage of others.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively and professionally. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly and support their comments with appropriate evidence, reasoning, and scholarly arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors where appropriate. They should also indicate whether observations, arguments, data, or interpretations derived from other publications are properly accompanied by the respective source. Reviewers should notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published or submitted work of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and must not be used for personal advantage. Reviewers should decline to review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, personal, financial, institutional, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, organizations, or institutions associated with the manuscript.

 

Authors’ Responsibilities

Reporting Standards

Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed, as well as an objective discussion of its significance. The manuscript should contain sufficient detail, data, explanation, and references to permit others to understand, evaluate, and, where applicable, reproduce the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data, materials, software, codes, models, protocols, or other supporting information related to their study for editorial review or peer-review purposes where appropriate. Authors should be prepared to provide access to such materials when reasonably requested, provided that confidentiality, privacy, ethical considerations, legal obligations, institutional requirements, proprietary rights, and data protection restrictions do not prevent such access.

Authors are encouraged to preserve the data and materials supporting their published work for a reasonable period after publication, in accordance with applicable institutional, funder, legal, ethical, or disciplinary requirements. Where possible, authors are encouraged to deposit research data in a recognized institutional, subject-specific, or general-purpose repository and to provide relevant links, DOI numbers, or accession numbers in accordance with the journal’s Data Availability Policy.

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works. If authors have used the work, words, data, figures, tables, ideas, or interpretations of others, these must be appropriately cited, quoted, or acknowledged. Plagiarism in any form constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication

In general, manuscripts describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Manuscripts that have been published elsewhere as copyrighted material cannot be submitted to DJES. In addition, manuscripts under review by DJES should not be submitted elsewhere until a final decision has been issued or formal withdrawal has been approved by the journal.

Upon publication in DJES, the author(s) retain copyright to the published article. By publishing in DJES, authors permit the use of their work under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which allows others to copy, distribute, transmit, adapt, and make commercial use of the work, provided that proper attribution is given to the original author(s) and the journal.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature, direction, methodology, or interpretation of the reported work. Authors must avoid citation manipulation, inappropriate self-citation, irrelevant citation, or excessive citation that does not contribute meaningfully to the manuscript.

Authorship of the Manuscript

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant scholarly contribution to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, analysis, interpretation, drafting, or critical revision of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all eligible co-authors, and no uninvolved persons, are included in the author list. The corresponding author must also verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Any request to add, remove, or rearrange author names after submission must follow the journal’s Change of Authorship procedures and must be supported by a clear justification and written agreement from all authors.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose any financial, personal, professional, institutional, or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the results, interpretation, or presentation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support, sponsorship, grants, or institutional funding related to the project should be disclosed.

If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should include a statement declaring that no conflict of interest exists.

Ethical Approval and Consent

Research involving human participants, animals, personal data, clinical information, identifiable images, surveys, interviews, or sensitive data must include an appropriate ethical approval statement, informed consent statement where applicable, and the name of the approving body. If ethical approval was not required, authors should state the reason clearly in the manuscript.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all research has been conducted in accordance with applicable ethical standards, institutional requirements, legal regulations, and the journal’s publication ethics policies.

Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools

Any use of artificial intelligence tools in manuscript preparation, data processing, image processing, analysis, interpretation, or reporting must comply with the journal’s Artificial Intelligence Use Policy. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, validity, and integrity of all content submitted to DJES, including any content generated, edited, or assisted by AI tools.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to correct, clarify, or retract the published work, as appropriate.

 

Publisher’s Responsibilities

Handling of Unethical Publishing Behavior

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication, plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or other unethical publication behavior, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take appropriate measures to clarify the situation and amend the article in question.

This may include the publication of a correction, clarification, expression of concern, or, in the most severe cases, retraction of the affected work. The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of manuscripts in which research misconduct has occurred and shall under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow it to take place.

Access to Journal Content

The publisher is committed to the continued availability and preservation of scholarly research published in DJES. The journal supports access to its published content through the Iraqi Academic Scientific Journals platform and the journal’s own digital archive.

Integrity of the Scholarly Record

The publisher and editors are committed to preserving the integrity of the scholarly record. Published articles will not be removed or altered without an appropriate editorial notice, except in exceptional circumstances required by legal, ethical, or safety considerations. Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions will be clearly linked to the affected article where applicable.