Advertising Policy

The International Journal of Horticultural Science and Technology is an independent journal and does not accept advertising in any kind at any time.

Deposit Policy

The International Journal of Horticultural Science and Technology (Int. J. Hortic. Sci. Technol.) believes in open access research and it offers the research community a free, immediate and unlimited access to the information they need.

With digital archiving we have the opportunity to share our data freely with the scientific and academic societies and the whole world. This removes the barriers for those interested in research. To contribute to the promotion of knowledge and science in the world, Int. J. Hortic. Sci. Technol. offers a free access to all its data.

Publisher

International Journal of Horticultural Science and Technology (Int. J. Hortic. Sci. Technol.) is a peer-reviewed open access journal that is published jointly by University of Tehran (UT) and Iranian Society of Horticultural Science (IRSHS).

Sources of Support

The financial source of the journal is supported by University of Tehran and the publication charge is requested only from Iranian authors. To urge international authors to publish their research and review papers in the Int. J. Hortic. Sci. Technol., their accepted manuscript would be published by Int. J. Hortic. Sci. Technol. free of any charges.

Reuse Policy

The material published in this journal can be remixed, transformed and built upon even for commercial purposes, as long as the new creations are credited and licensed under the identical terms (as indicated by “CC BY 4.0” in the license title.

Rheumatol Res allows authors to self-archive and reuse their work subject to the journal’s Copyright Policies on this Website, considering all the matters concerning a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)|.

 

Publication Ethics

International Journal of Horticultural Science and Technology is committed to delivering high-quality research results in the field of horticulture and related sciences to the world and therefore all submissions will be peer reviewed. Int. J. Hortic. Sci. Technol. adopts the following statement for guidelines on publication ethics.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you find that any work published with Int. J. Hortic. Sci. Technol. potentially violates the publication ethics:ijhst@ut.ac.it 

Our publication ethics statement is mainly based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2011).

1.Research Misconduct

Fabrication, Falsification and Plagiarism whether are done knowingly or not are against our ethical codes and would not be ignored. Here is what we believe research misconduct is: Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the Research Record.

1-1-Fabrication:

Making up data or results and recording or reporting them while pretending they are original.

1-2-Falsification:

Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the Research Record.

1-3-Plagiarism

Deliberate Interference which may intentionally cause material harm to the research or scholarly work of others, and may include damaging or destroying the property of others, such as research equipment or supplies; disrupting active experiments; or altering or deleting products of research, including data. Avoidance of revealing the side effects of clinical trials.

1-3-1-Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit. It ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ published and unpublished ideas, including research grant applications to submission under “new” authorship of a complete paper, sometimes in a different language. It may occur at any stage of planning, research, writing, or publication: it applies to print and electronic versions.

1-3-2-Plagiarism can occur when texts are being cut and pasted without appropriate attribution.

1-3-3-Using others’ published ideas is allowed if: Appropriate attribution and citation should be considered while using figures, charts, questionnaires or texts. In case of using or paraphrasing texts or ideas, citation is necessary.

NOTE: Self-plagiarism should be avoided due to the copyrights issue of the original publication.

1-4-All researchers have the responsibility to report any conduct that they believe in good faith, is a misconduct to the relevant institutional authority.

1-5-Editors-in-chief have to check manuscripts for any kind of misconduct.

2. Duplicate and Redundant Publication

2-1-If a paper is already submitted and is under review, cannot be submitted elsewhere. It will be considered as duplication and is against the publication ethics.

Notice: If the author(s) decide to submit a paper which is already submitted, they must cancel the first submission and then submit the manuscript elsewhere. This ought to be done before the paper is accepted.

2-2-If part of a contribution that an author wishes to submit has appeared or will appear elsewhere, the author must specify the details in the covering letter accompanying the submission.  

Notice: Using some parts of the methodology is allowed due to citation.

2-3-Simoltaneus submitting of the translated version of a manuscript that is already submitted in another journal is allowed if the editors in chief are aware of the situation.

 3. Conflict of Interests

3-1-For the purposes of this policy, conflict of interests is defined as financial and non-financial interests that could directly undermine, or be perceived to undermine the objectivity, integrity and value of a publication, through a potential influence on the judgments and actions of authors with regard to objective data presentation, analysis and interpretation.

3-2-Any conflict of interests must be declared in the text or as a footnote.

This journal use the ICMJE form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest to generate a disclosure statement for your manuscript.

NOTE: No financial contract should ban researchers from declaring the conflict of interests.

3-3-Author(s) should announce their financial resources.

 4. Confidentiality

4-1-The identity and personal information of cases of research, employee of research lab or other people involved must be kept confidential. Memoires, pictures and family genograms must not be in the manuscript, unless a formal copyright clearance is obtained to publish.

Notice: In the biomedical sciences, editors should consider only publishing information and images from individual participants where the authors have obtained the individual’s free prior informed consent. Notice: In case obtaining a written consent is not possible, the local committee of publication ethics should decide whether or not to publish the confidential information.

NOTE: To publish the general records, no permission is needed.

4-2-Editors, authors and reviewers are required to keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted manuscripts. Unless otherwise declared as a part of open peer review, the peer review process is confidential and conducted anonymously; identities of reviewers are not released. Reviewers must maintain confidentiality of manuscripts.

5- The Duties

All parties involved in publication process (authors, editors and reviewers) have a duty:

5-1-Authors:

5-1-1- Authorship

Authorship is based on the following four criteria:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;  

Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

Final approval of the version to be published;

Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

We include only one corresponding author per article and the order in which the names of authors are represented in the publishing paper is an exact match to the one presented by the authors in their copyright form.

The individuals who conduct the work are responsible for identifying who meets these criteria and ideally should do so when planning the work, making modifications as appropriate as the work progresses.

When a large multi-author group has conducted the work, the group ideally should decide who will be an author before the work is started and confirm who is an author before submitting the manuscript for publication. All members of the group named as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, including approval of the final manuscript, and they should be able to take public responsibility for the work and should have full confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the work of other group authors.

Authorship disputes if they cannot be resolved amongst authors should be brought up to the relevant institutional authority. 

Any further contribution details (e.g., equal contribution) must be included in the contributors or acknowledgement sections at the end of the article.

The corresponding author is the one who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors.

To name the institutions or organizations not contributing in the process of the research is against the publication ethics.

When the journal gets suspicious whether there is a ghost writer or not, documents must be asked from the corresponding author. The corresponding author must provide the documents needed and if he or she fails, not only the manuscript will not be published or if published will be retracted, but also the matter will be brought up to the authorities.

5-1-2-Duties:

5-1-2-1- Reporting Standards

Reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

5-1-2-2- Data Access and Retention

Authors may be asked to provide the research data supporting their paper for editorial review and/or to comply with the open data requirements of the journal. Authors should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable number of years after publication. Authors may refer to their journal’s Guide for Authors for further details.

5-1-2-3- Notification of Fundamental Errors

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 retract or correct the paper if deemed necessary by the editor. If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains an error, it is the obligation of the author to cooperate with the editor, including providing evidence to the editor where requested.

5-1-2-4- Image Integrity

It is not acceptable to enhance, obscure, move, remove, or introduce a specific feature within an image. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Manipulating images for improved clarity is accepted, but manipulation for other purposes could be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly.

5-2- Editors

5-2-1- Publication Decisions

The editor of a peer-reviewed journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published, often working in conjunction with the relevant society (for society-owned or sponsored journals). The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers (or society officers) in making this decision.

5-2-2- Peer review

The editor shall ensure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. Research articles must typically be reviewed by at least two external and independent reviewers, and where necessary the editor should seek additional opinions.

The editor shall select reviewers who have suitable expertise in the relevant field and shall follow best practice in avoiding the selection of fraudulent peer reviewers. The editor shall review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and suggestions for self-citation made by reviewers in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias.

5-2-3- Fair play

An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

5-2-4- Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript, the corresponding author, reviewers and potential reviewers.

5-2-5- Conflicts of Interest

Any potential editorial conflicts of interest should be declared to the publisher in writing prior to the appointment of the editor, and then updated if and when new conflicts arise. The publisher may publish such declarations in the journal.

The editor must not be involved in decisions about papers which s/he has written him/herself or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Further, any such submission must be subject to all of the journal’s usual procedures, peer review must be handled independently of the relevant author/editor and their research groups, and there must be a clear statement to this effect on any such paper that is published.

5-2-6- Involvement and Cooperation in Investigations

An editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher (or society). Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if the complaint is upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

5-2-7- Vigilance over the Published record

The editor should work to safeguard the integrity of the published record by reviewing and assessing reported or suspected misconduct (research, publication, reviewer and editorial), in conjunction with the publisher (or society).

5-3- Reviewers

5-3-1- Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication, and lies at the heart of the scientific method.

5-3-2- Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

5-3-3- Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

5-3-4- Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

6-CC BY

To grow the commons of free knowledge and free culture, all users are required to grant broad permissions to the general public to re-distribute and re-use their contributions freely. Therefore, for any text, figures, or other work in any medium you hold the copyright to, by submitting it, you agree to license it under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

7-Page charges

The journal of International Journal of Horticultural Science and Technology charges only Iranian authors regarding the publication of their articles.

8-Copyright without Restrictions

The journal allows the author(s) to hold the copyright without restrictions and will retain publishing rights without restrictions.

The submitted papers are assumed to contain no proprietary material unprotected by patent or patent application; responsibility for technical content and for protection of proprietary material rests solely with the author(s) and their organizations and is not the responsibility of the International Journal of Horticultural Science and Technology journal or its Editorial Staff. The main (first/corresponding) author is responsible for ensuring that the article has been seen and approved by all the other authors. It is the responsibility of the author to obtain all necessary copyright release permissions for the use of any copyrighted materials in the manuscript prior to the submission.

After Acceptance

Upon acceptance of your article you, it will be sent for editing and page design. While the first version of the paper is ready the corresponding author will be asked to study it within 48 hr and confirm what is going to be published.

Plagiarism Policy

We check for plagiarism by iThenticate and never tolerate plagiarism, forged data, and falsified data presentation from authors who will be blacklisted from publishing articles in Int J Hortic Sci Technol.

Int J Hortic Sci Technolrespects intellectual property and aims at protecting and promoting original work of its authors. Manuscripts containing plagiarized material are against the standards of quality, research and innovation. Hence, all authors submitting articles to Int J Hortic Sci Technolare expected to abide ethical standards and abstain from plagiarism, in any form. In case, an author is found to be suspected of plagiarism in a submitted or published manuscript then, Int J Hortic Sci Technol shall contact the author (s) to submit his / her (their) explanation within two weeks, which may be forwarded to the Fact Finding Committee (FFC) constituted for the purpose, for further course of action. If Int J Hortic Sci Technoldoes not receive any response from the author within the stipulated time period, then the Director / Dean / Head of the concerned College, Institution or Organization or the Vice Chancellor of the University to which the author is affiliated shall be contacted to take strict action against the concerned author.

Int J Hortic Sci Technolshall take serious action against published manuscripts found to contain plagiarism and shall completely remove them from our websites and other third party websites where the paper is listed and indexed. The moment, any article published in Int J Hortic Sci Technoldatabase is reported to be plagiarized, Int J Hortic Sci Technolwill constitute a Fact Finding Committee (FFC) to investigate the same. Upon having established that the manuscript is plagiarized from some previously published work, Int J Hortic Sci Technolshall support the original author and manuscript irrespective of the publisher and may take any or all of the following immediate actions or follow the additional course of actions as recommended by the committee:

A) Int J Hortic Sci Technoleditorial office shall immediately contact the Director / Dean / Head of the concerned College, Institution or Organization or the Vice Chancellor of the University to which the author(s) is (are) affiliated to take strict action against the concerned author.

B) Int J Hortic Sci Technolshall remove the PDF copy of the published manuscript from the website and disable all links to full text article. The term Plagiarized Manuscript shall be appended to the published manuscript title.

C) Int J Hortic Sci Technolshall disable the author account with the journal and reject all future submissions from the author for a period of 03 / 05 / 10 years or even ban the authors permanently.

D) Any other course of action, as recommended by the Committee or as deemed fit for the instant case or as decided by the Editorial Board, from time to time

9-Correction & Retraction Policy

9-1- Article withdrawal

Authors are free to withdraw articles or their publications from being published from our journal group through written statement duly signed by author(s) before it is published online or being allotted with Volume, Issue numbers, DOI and article ID. If an article is withdrawn by us in the events such as, but not limited to, multiple submission, fraudulent use of data, bogus claim of authorship, unreliable findings and unethical research practices, Int J Hortic Sci Technolis not bound to inform the author(s) on the reason for withdrawal. Any such withdrawn articles are removed from the online databases in all formats irrespective of the citation or impact factor. Instead, a short note will be displayed stating that the article has been withdrawn

9-2- Corrections

As a responsible journal committed to the scientific world, we take utmost care to ensure the published works are error-free. However if there are any unintentional errors found by the readers, journal is ready to publish the refutations from the readers only after being checked and peer-reviewed for the prominent evidence that claims that there is a major error in the original paper. Though criticisms will not be discussed with the authors, the editor-in-chief is the final decision authority to approve or reject a refutation from publishing. Int J Hortic Sci Technol is open to receive such corrections to all the types of articles published except research highlights.

9-3- Errata

Significant typographical errors, units, data, errors in figures-table numbers, legends, proofing errors and errors that are not inclusive of editing sections are published with the information on the article. However negligible errors are not published but not in the case of apparent simple errors that are significant. The decision of editor-in-chief is final.

9-4- Corrigenda

Corrigenda submitted by the original authors are published if the scientific accuracy or re-producibility of the original paper is compromised. Post publication of the papers if the authors found errors that are unavoidable, they can contact the editor-in-chief with the required information. Readers who find such errors are requested to write ‘Letter to the editor’ stating the complete information such as article title, name of the authors, volume, issue, page number, section head and the error with the correction. The decision of editor-in-chief is final though most corrigenda are approved by the editors and peer-reviewers provided there is a justification.

9-5- Addenda

After peer-reviewing, addenda are added if the editors feel that the additional information is required mandatorily so that the readers can easily understand. This is usually in response to readers' request for clarification. Addenda are rarely published with the omitted information significant for the understanding of the manuscript.

9-6- Article Retractions

The editor-in-chief when receives a request from a third party or from the author(s) to retract their article because of the scientific misconduct or outdated information such as the main conclusion of the paper being outdated, the same will be thoroughly analyzed with neutral editors, peer-reviewers, all the authors and institutions. Once found with eligible and reliable information about the misconduct/outdated information, the editor-in-chief decides the article to be retracted either in partial or in-full prior to which the author(s) are requested an explanation/justification though this doesn’t affect the decision. This is followed by informing the readers about the article retraction with the note stating that the article has been retracted. If one or more author(s) do not want their article to be retracted, they may send ‘Letter to the editor’ stating the corrections/justifications carried out with Statement of Proof. Final decision on the retracted articles is with Editor-in-Chief.

9-7- Article Removal

Though removing an article occurs during rare instances, this is mandated if the journal article clearly has defamatory content, copyright or any such legal issues etc., In such circumstances, though the article is removed with a note that ‘article has been removed for legal reasons, the bibliographic information (title and authors) are retained and unchanged. Final decision on the removed articles is with Editor-in-Chief.

10-Article Replacement

As mentioned in the article retraction, if author(s) respond to Editor-in-Chief with the false / inaccurate / misguided information / plagiarized content along with the corrections carried out by them, the editor-in-chief may consider to replace the article from its online version.

11-Supplementary Information

Rare case of authors' corrections to Supplementary Information (SI) are published only if it makes much difference to the article results such as (major errors that compromise the conclusion of the study). Authors have no option to update or change the SI during or after a publication since it is a part of publication unless a change made for technical reasons.

12-Privacy Statement 

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

13-Non-Discrimination

The editors and reviewers evaluate manuscripts for intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.