. Free and open access to articles

License: This Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). That means readers are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.

Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Open Access Policy

This is an open access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without requiring prior permission from the publisher or author.

This journal provides immediate open access to its content based on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Copyright: Authors retain unrestricted copyrights and publishing rights.

Also, the statement of Budapest Open Access Initiative is accepted and follows it.

2. Ethical principles for editors, reviewers, and authors

This journal follows of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and complies with the highest ethical standards in accordance with ethical laws. publication is based on COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, Authors and Reviewers.

Detailed Principles of the International Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (view)

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) chart (view)

In this regard, the following are the ethical standards for the journal's trustees, including the editor, advisors, and reviewers, as well as the journal's audience (including the main and co-authors, advisors or colleagues whose names are mentioned in the acknowledgements and thanks section, readers, and other researchers):

· The journal welcomes the receipt of original and credible research articles that contain new, innovative, and non-adapted scientific content and points, especially articles taken from student theses and dissertations, and is not permitted to publish articles based on compilation or translation.

· The journal reserves the right to publish an article after its acceptance.

· The journal is free to accept, reject, revise, and edit the received articles.

· The journal welcomes original research and analytical articles that present innovative, new, and non-adapted specialized material or theory, especially articles derived from theses that present a novel idea, and is not responsible for publishing articles based on compilations or translations.

· Only articles that have not been published or presented in domestic or foreign journals are published in this journal.

· After acceptance, the copyright of the article is reserved for the journal, and the author of the article is not authorized to publish it in other journals.

· Publication of submitted works does not necessarily mean agreement with the authors, and the journal bears no responsibility in this regard.

3- Ethical principles for the editor

· The editor-in-chief respects the intellectual independence of the authors.

· The editor-in-chief views all articles submitted to the journal without bias and evaluates the articles received based on the competence of the articles and without considering the race, religion, nationality, gender, position and organizational affiliation of the author(s).

· The editor-in-chief reviews all received articles within a reasonable period of time.

· The final response to reject or accept an article is based on the opinions received from the reviewers and members of the journal's editorial board. An article may be rejected due to plagiarism or inconsistency with the subject area of ​​the journal in the initial review and without going through the review process.

· The editor reserves the right to reject articles that appear to not comply with the ethical principles.

· The editor-in-chief has full authority to appoint the reviewers for each article. In this case, the editor-in-chief may seek opinions from the journal's editorial board members or even the authors of the articles themselves.

· The editor or internal manager of the journal (as representative) is responsible for obtaining copyright release forms, inquiry about the originality of the article, potential conflicts of interest, and a pledge not to send the original or a similar copy of the article to other journals, even in other formats. A pledge from the responsible author to refrain from plagiarism will also be obtained.

· Since reviewing articles written by the editor for publication in the journal would be a type of conflict of interest, reviewing such articles will be delegated to another member of the journal's editorial board.

· Unpublished information, statements, and interpretations contained in articles submitted by the editor will not be used in articles by the editor without the permission of the original author.

· The editor welcomes reports of possible errors in articles published in the journal. If confirmed, the discovered errors will be communicated to the journal's audience as soon as possible.

4- Ethical principles for article reviewers

· Since peer review is one of the essential steps in accepting an article, if the referee feels that the submitted article is not in his/her field of expertise for any reason, he/she should immediately return the article to the editor.

· As the referee respects the intellectual independence of the author of the article, he/she should impartially evaluate the quality of the article.

· The referee should feel responsible for the principle of no conflict of interest when reviewing an article that is similar to one of his/her own articles that have been published or are in the process of being published, and should immediately return the article to the editor and inform him/her of any conflict of interest or possible bias.

· The referee should treat the article received for review as a confidential document. The referee should not share the article with others or discuss it with others, except in cases where he/she wants to use the opinions of others in the review process.

· The referee should attach the necessary explanations for his/her practical opinions.

· The reviewer should consider the authors' negligence in citing similar work.

· Delays in reviewing the article are considered normal, however, reviewers should inform the editor of the possible delay and set a new time for reviewing.

· Reviewers are not allowed to use unpublished information, discussions, and interpretations of others submitted to this journal in their own work without permission from the author(s).

· Reviewers should inform the editor of cases where it is suspected that the received research report may be directly misused in some way.

5- Ethical principles for authors

· The most basic ethical responsibility of an author is to present a true and complete article or report of the research conducted and to try not to commit plagiarism in any way, including word-for-word or close to the content, similar quotation of the text or results of other people's research, etc.

· The author is obliged, if necessary, to provide the editorial board of the journal with information including the article data, supplementary graphs or diagrams, the design or used tools (if any), as well as a report on how the research results were obtained, in order to provide the necessary evidence about the submitted article and the research conducted.

· Correct citation of all sources used, whether directly or indirectly, is mandatory.

· If the article has previously been rejected (in this journal or other journals) or withdrawn from the printing process, the author must inform the editor and explain the possible reasons for rejection or withdrawal from the publication cycle or possible corrections made.

· All original and co-authors whose titles are listed in the authors section of an article must have at least scientific participation in the preparation of the article. Other collaborators must be listed in the acknowledgements section. The names of eligible deceased collaborators can be listed in the authors section. The corresponding author is responsible for sending a copy of the article submitted to the journal to other co-authors and obtaining their consent to mention the title as co-author.

· Articles derived from doctoral and master's theses must be submitted to the journal by the supervisor. The names of the consulting professors (if any) should be listed in the co-authors row.

· The responsibility for reporting potential conflicts of interest and research sponsors lies with the corresponding author.

· The authors of the article are expected to briefly state the sponsor of their research who participated in the implementation and preparation of the research process. Accordingly, if the article is the result of a study and research that has credibility and financial support, it is necessary to acknowledge and thank them in the article. The authors of the article include an acknowledgement by mentioning the name of the research sponsor, which can include individuals, institutions, or organizations that provided financial support for the research.

6- plagiarism

· According to the definition of the International Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), plagiarism is the unintentional, knowing, or reckless use of words, ideas, phrases, claims, or citations of others without proper acknowledgement, explanation, or citation of the work, author, or speaker of the idea. Therefore, authors of scientific works are expected to carefully record the use of others' works in their work and to make this use known to the audience in an appropriate manner, in order to maintain honesty and to be protected from accusations of fraud, negligence, and plagiarism.

 The following are examples of plagiarism:

· Registering another article under your own name

· Including the names of authors and researchers who did not play a role in the article

· Copying or repeating significant parts of another article (even if the copied article without reference is related to one of the authors of the new article)

· Presenting the results of other people's research under your own name

· Duplicate printing of an article by one author in several journals

· Expressing incorrect results that contradict scientific findings or distorting the results of the research

· Using invalid data or manipulating research data

All authors of the article will be notified of the registration of the article in the journal system by sending an email; obviously, including the authors' names in the article is a sign of their essential role in compiling the article. If the authors of the article did not play a role in compiling the article and their names have been misused, it is necessary to immediately notify the matter via the email received.

All authors of the article are responsible for the originality of the work. All articles submitted to the journal system must be checked through similarity-finding systems before entering the refereeing process. In this regard, authors are advised to use similarity-finding systems, including the  Irandoc system, to ensure the absence of violations. It is worth noting that the journal reserves the right to evaluate and prosecute cases of plagiarism.

Access to Irandoc

 7- Dealing with plagiarism

Cases of plagiarism will be investigated by the journal's officials. In addition, to protect the reputation and efforts of other researchers, legal action will be taken without any tolerance or oversight, depending on the extent of plagiarism, as follows:

·The article will be rejected and, if published, it will be removed from the sites.

·The plagiarism case will be shared with other universities and related domestic and foreign publications through an official letter.

·The Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, the Islamic World Science Citation Database (ISC), universities, institutions, publications, and any place where the authors have used the privilege of publishing this article will be informed through an official letter.

8- Publication and Archive:

The Journal of Cultural Studies & Communication is published quarterly and online, and all articles are accessible from beginning to end on the journal's dedicated platform. Additionally, the journal's archive is available on the ISC website.