Publishing an article or research in a peer-reviewed journal is an essential model for our "Egyptian Journal of Mass Communication Research (EJMCR)".

It is necessary to agree upon standards of ethical behavior expected of all parties involved in the publishing process: the author, journal editor, peer reviewer and publisher.

Our ethic statements are based on Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Falsification or fabrication of data, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors’ own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of the work are all unacceptable practices. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

By submitting an article or research to this journal, each author explicitly asserts that the manuscript meets the highest ethical standards of its authors and co-authors including appropriate statistical investigations and comprehensive ethical reviews by the data-holding organizations.

"Egyptian Journal of Mass Communication Research (EJMCR)", is an Open Access Journal that utilizes a funding model that does not charge readers or their organizations for access. "Open Access" enable users and authors to freely" download, read, distribute, copy, search, print, or link to the full e-journal version of the issue and their full-text articles which is compulsory to include a journal in the Open Access Journals Directory.

Research Results:

The results of research should be properly collected, through analysis of primary or secondary data recorded and maintained accurately in a flow that allows verification and re-analysis by authors and co-authors. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances to maintain privacy and ownership.

All sources and methods used to obtain and analyzed data, including any electronic pre-processing, should be fully disclosed; detailed explanations should be provided for any exclusions. Methods of analysis must be explained in detail, and referenced, if they are not in common use. The discussion section should indicate in any paper what bias issues have been discussed and explain how they were addressed in the design and interpretation of the study.

Data theft, theft of research results from one's own, fabrication of data and plagiarism are unacceptable departure from scientific rules of conduct. Selective highlighting, dissemination of specific data or reporting certain data with the intent to mislead or deliver inappropriate message is discouraged and condoned. Any third party, authors, co-authors or collaborators who may be dissatisfied with the publication process and its results have the right to ask the original authors to defend the presentation of their data, data analysis, research findings and discussions. The error should be corrected on behalf of the authors if it is determined immediately by the authors to the extent of retracting the article or research. Submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously, is ethically unacceptable and the researcher is considered to be responsible for this misconduct as agreed in the Author Copy Right Form.

Editorial Responsibilities:

Publication decisions

The editor is responsible for determining which articles submitted to the journal should be published.

The editor may be guided by the policies of the editorial board and be bound by the legal requirements that apply in respect of defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may consult with other editors in making this decision. Any confusion between local editors can be referred to the International Editors, which is helpful in obtaining their judgment. Conflict of interest including personal, commercial, political, academic or financial ones must be avoided in the interest of the journal.

Fair judging

The editor should pay quick and unbiased attention to all manuscripts offered for publication, each judging its quality and advantages. This must be independent and regardless of gender, religious belief, race, nationality, work organizations, ethnic origin, citizenship, political orientation of authors, and respect for authors' intellectual independence.

Confidentiality

The editor or any of editorial board should not disclose any information about the article under consideration to others rather than reviewers, corresponding author, other editorial advisers, potential reviewers and the publisher. In case of detecting convincing evidence that a manuscript or the conclusions of a published paper are wrong, the editors are enforced to publish a correction or the entire paper retraction. Editors have separate authority for the same authors to more rigorously examination of future manuscripts or withholding the possibility of further publication in this journal for the period of next two years.

Disclosure and conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors, must be declared to editors by researchers, authors, and reviewers. That conflict may include the case of unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript which must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

Reviewers' Responsibilities:

Reviewing authors' submitted manuscripts and papers significantly contributed 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.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review should be treated independently and confidentially that must be kept as private documents. They should not be displayed or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Promptness

Any selected peer reviewer must notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process of any manuscript which he feels unqualified to review it or knows that his prompt review will be impossible. Whenever the reviewers' knowledge does not cover the area of manuscript; the reviewer should disclose the information with the editors in purpose of sending it to another reviewer of higher specialty or obtaining a consensus in that particular conflict area. 

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Reviewers should independently judge the quality of the research manuscript and respect its' authors.  There is no place for author's personal criticism as long as it is ethically inappropriate. Reviewers must express their views clearly with supporting arguments that editors and authors may clearly understand and positively comprehended. If reviewers suspect misconduct, they should write in confidence to the editor.

Acknowledgment of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published works that were not cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. The reviewer should also bring to the attention of the editor any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper with personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal gain. Reviewers must disclose conflicts of interest resulting from direct competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, and avoid cases in which such conflicts leads to a judgmental and an objective evaluation of a manuscript.

Authors' Responsibilities:

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed significantly to the study, either from its conception, design, implementation, analysis or interpretation. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. When others have been involved in some technical aspects of the research project, they should be recognized or listed as contributors, neither authors nor co-authors.

Editing standards

The authors are obligated to provide a rigorous, sound and ethical methodological process, and a robust analysis of data on research already conducted. It should also include a brief summary of the research objectives, and a brief discussion of the results in sufficient detail to understand the importance of the results. The basic data should be accurately represented in the paper. The paper should contain sufficient details and references to allow others to repeat the work and understand it. Informed fraudulent or inaccurate statements constitute unethical and unacceptable behavior.

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors use the works and / or words of others, they are cited or quoted appropriately.

Access and retain data

Authors are required to provide raw data in relation to a paper for editorial review and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if possible, and should in any case be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Author must always provide the correct recognition of the work of others. Authors should cite publications that have influenced the nature of the work reported.

The corresponding author must ensure that all appropriate co-authors are included and that there are no inappropriate co-authors on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen, approved and agreed to submit the final version of the paper for publication.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

In general, the author should not publish manuscripts that essentially describe the same research in more than one major journal or publication..  Presenting the same manuscript to more than one journal is at the same time unethical and unacceptable publishing behavior.

Fundamental errors in published works

When the author discovers a major error or inaccuracy in his/her published work, the author's obligation is to promptly notify the editor of the journal or publisher and cooperate with the editor to withdraw or correct the paper.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any conflict of financial or other interests that may be interpreted to influence the results or interpretation of this manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed also.

Collaborations

All collaborators share the responsibility for any paper they co-author as collaborators.

The corresponding author who submitted the paper on behalf of the other collaborators for publication should ensure that all authors have seen the final version of the paper, collectively agree to review it and conclusively agree to its final submission for publication. Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a manuscript should not be a co-author. The authors' fault is also the fault of the designated collaborators and their respective institutions.