Ethical considerations and plagiarism

The journal uses Samim Noor plagiarism software to safeguard other scholars' rights and to avoid the copying of intellectual works. It adheres to publishing ethical standards by complying with, but not limited to, the Iranian Law on Preventing and Combating Fraud in Scientific Works and the Committee on Publication Ethics' regulations (COPE).

Authors of manuscripts that clearly demonstrate scientific misconduct (including but not limited to plagiarism), after notifying all authors and providing them with a one-time defense opportunity, will be included in the Journal's Black List. As a result, any subsequent submissions by any of those authors will be ignored. Additionally, the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT) will be notified of the situation. Authors of manuscripts that demonstrate scientific misconduct to a lesser extent will be added to the Journal's Gray List while receiving a warning and a one-time defense opportunity. These cases should be justified as "unawareness" or "ignorance," and the severity and breadth of the ethics violation should be minimal. The subsequent works by these authors will be scrutinized for compliance with research and publication ethics. If the authors' research ethics are breached again, they will be removed from the Gray List and placed on the Black List.

Peer Review Process

The following describes the procedure for accepting articles for publication in the Quarterly Journal of Science and Technology Policy Letters:

1. Submitting a manuscript by the authors;

2. Reviewing the manuscript for compliance with the journal's aims and scopes, plagiarism and publication ethics by the editor-in-chief;

3. Sending the manuscript to reviewers (double blind review), if not rejected in the previous step;

4. Notifying the authors of the reviewers' remarks;

5. Submitting the revised version of the manuscript by the authors;

6. Reviewing the revised version by the the editor-in-chief to decide whether to reject it, resend it to the authors, or accept it;

7-1. Sending the manuscript to the authors if the editor-in-chief decides to have another round of review, thus repeating the above steps;

7-2. Notifying authors of the acceptance decision and submitting the paper for proofreading, early online view, and then final publication if the manuscript is accepted by the editor-in-chief

7-3. Notifying authors of the rejection decision if the manuscript is rejected by the editor-in-chief

Additionally, the JSTPL does not charge writers for submitting articles, and publication in this quarterly is entirely free. If the author (s) decides to remove the paper after the journal has announced its final acceptance, he or she must pay the publication's acceptance expenses.