Authorship is a way of making explicit both credit and responsibility for the content of published papers. There are authorship criteria which apply to all print and electronic publications of words, data, and images. The contributors who have made substantive intellectual contributions to a manuscript, have responsibility, and are accountable for what is published are given credit as authors.

CRITERIA FOR AUTHORSHIP

An author is who has made substantial intellectual contributions to the research in which the manuscript is based. Performing technical services, translating text, identifying patients for study, supplying materials, and providing funding or administrative oversight over facilities where the study was done are not, in themselves, sufficient for authorship. However, these contributions can be acknowledged in the manuscript.
Generally, the corresponding author submits the manuscript, receives the reviewers’ comments, and is responsible for the integrity of the work as a whole. The final version of the manuscript should be approved by all authors.
Though it is preferable that all authors be familiar with all details of the work, it may be not available in modern researches which is often done in teams with complementary expertise. Therefore, some authors’ contributions may be limited to specific aspects of the study.

NUMBER OF AUTHORS

Generally, there is not a limit on the number of authors. In the case that there may be multiple authors in some kind of works, a subset of authors may be listed with the title, with the notation that they have prepares the manuscript on behalf of all contributors who are listed in the appendix of the published article. Alternatively, a corporate author which represents all authors in a study may be listed as long as one researcher takes responsibility for the work as a whole. In both cases, all individual listed authors should meet criteria for authorship whether or not they are explicitly listed on the byline. Editors can ask about the detailed description of each author’s contribution to the study if the number of authors are unusually large. If some do not meet the criteria for authorship, Editors can require to remove their names as condition for publication.

ORDER OF AUTHORSHIP

The authors themselves decide for the order of names to be listed in the manuscript. This decide may be based on the relative contribution to the work, alphabetical, or random order. Readers can not know the meaning of the order of the authors unless the authors want to include a description in the manuscript of how order was decided. Editors welcome this information and publishing it with the manuscript.

CHANGE OF AUTHORSHIP

Changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript. Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the corresponding author is required to send the completed signed change of authorship form (http://rpe.kntu.ac.ir/data/rpe/news/change_of_authorship_form_RPE.docx).

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Authors should sign and send the conflict of interest form (http://rpe.kntu.ac.ir/page_383.html ) in the submission process.

MANAGING CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Authors: If authors have any interest or association that could be seen to have influenced their decision-making process, they should ensure that it is declared in submission. Please fill and send the Conflict of interest form during the article submission even If you believe no conflicts exist.
Editors: Editor needs to be very aware of the risk of conflicts when handling a manuscript. It is not appropriate for an editor to handle a submitted manuscript, if he/she has recently coauthored with the author of the manuscript or shared an affiliation or employment history with the author(s). If the Editor believes a conflict exist, he/she should refuse to handle the manuscript.
Reviewers: Reviewer should ensure that he/she has no conflicts of interest that could be seen to prevent him/her from acting in an impartial manner. Reviewer should ensure that he/she has no recent association with the author and that he/she has not previously coauthored with them. Reviewer should also not have a recent shared employment history”

AUTHOR AGREEMENT

To publish the authors’ work, the journal needs publishing rights. The authors are required to complete and sign the Copyright form (http://rpe.kntu.ac.ir/data/rpe/news/Copyright-Form.pdf ) after the manuscript is accepted for publication. Please note that the accepted manuscript cannot be processed for publication until the journal has received this signed form.

USER LICENCE AGREEMENT

RPE provides access to the archived articles. All published articles are open access and will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. Reuse is permitted based on Creative Common Attribution (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode ).