The SDME is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) It means COPE’s flowcharts and instructions are provided to deal with any ethical misbehavior. SDME is also a member of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and pursues the guidelines.

Editorial responsibilities

• The Editors-in-Chief have the willingness for publishing corrections and clarifications.
• The Editors-in-Chief are responsible and authorized for rejection/acceptance of an article.
• Editors should have no conflicts of interests regarding manuscripts they accept / reject .
• In case of errors in a manuscript, editors promote publication of retractions or corrections.
• The reviewers’ anonymity is preserved.
• Email will be sent to all authors of the article to receive, accept or reject the article.

Ethical consideration for publishing/Ethical Oversight

• For publishing an original article in SDME journal, author(s) should receive the ethical permission (Ethical Approval Code) from their institute, according to which authors agree upon accepted ethical behavior.  Ethical considerations should be noted in second paragraph in the methods’ section.    
• The written informed consent received from all human adults or from the legal guardians of minors or parents should be noted. The name of the institutional review board that confirmed the research should be mentioned.
• All studied subjects should be aware of the research objectives as well as any potential side effects of the intervention.
• In the cover letter, please mention no publication or being considered for publication of the manuscript in other journals any discrepancy to this statement will result in the manuscript automatic withdrawal.
• All manuscripts are screened at submission and prior to publication by plagiarism checker software for verifying its originality.
• It is not possible to use verbatim texts from other sources with no acknowledgement. All manuscripts must be an original work by authors and plagiarism from other studies is prohibited. COPE’s instructions and flowcharts are approached in cases where plagiarism is found.
• An Assignment Form should be signed by authors an indicating the original work, which has not yet been published and also is not under consideration for publication in other journals in its final form in electronic or printed form. 
• Data falsification/fabrication: Falsification refers to altering or omitting research data, materials, or processes in a way that the research findings are no longer precisely reflected. Fabrication refers to inventing findings or data and reporting these data in the study. Such misconducts are fraudulent, which change the research integrity . Thus, manuscripts must be according to original data and using fabricated or falsified data is highly prohibited.
• All contents of the SDME Journal are protected considering global copyrights. SDME  Journal is  noncommercial use only. Modification, copying, distributing, transmitting, displaying, or publishing the materials of the Journal are possible after written permission of them or the copyright owner.
• Please mention financial support statement in the title page.
• In the SDME, authors are encouraged to send original figures and in accepted manuscripts, digital images will be assessed for inappropriate manipulation. No certain feature in an image may be obscured, enhanced, removed, moved, or introduced. Adjustments of color balance contrast, or brightness can be accepted when they are used to the entire image and such adjustments do not misrepresent any data in the original, including the background. You will be asked by editors to send the original data for comparing the manipulated figures when they are suspected of improper manipulation.
•  Author of the manuscripts containing any previous published text or image, should receive authorization from copyright holders and submit it as written original permission letters.

Ethical consideration for authorship

The SDME is a member of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and follows the guidelines. For authorship, all below four criteria must be met simultaneously:

• The author must effectively and significantly cooperate in at least one of the sub-categories of study design OR research idea OR analysis and interpretation of data OR data collection 
• The author must have cooperation in the manuscript draft preparation or in reviewing or revising it critically so that the manuscript is subject to evolution and change regarding scientific content. Necessary scientific competence is necessary for critical review according to scientific experience and work or educational experience.
• The final manuscript authors must be read and approved before publishing.
• The author should respond to all the aspects of performing the study resulting in the manuscript, such as the responsibility to follow general and specific instructions for research ethics in the conduct, design, and publication of the manuscript. The authors must either have done the different study different considering the technical, scientific, ethical and standards or must be assure of the integrity and scientific capability of those who have done the different phases of the study.
• Removing the name of the individual or individuals with the four above-mentioned criteria is not possible for authorship (Ghost author).
• You cannot add the name of an individual or individuals who do not meet these criteria for authorship (Guest author).
• All authors have legal and ethical responsibility to mention the names of persons whose names are among the manuscript authors with no mentioned criteria for authorship, or in spite of having these criteria for authorship, their names removed from the authors’ list.
• The requirement to have authorship criteria also is true for the research teams with multiple members, and only being a member of the research group or being present as a person in the research project does not create the needed criteria for authorship. Even if they are no longer working with that research team or center, they can participate as an author.
•  In the extracted manuscript from dissertations, the authors, including the advisors, supervisors, the relevant student, etc., must meet all these mentioned authorship criteria.
• Only cooperation in financing and preparing the research, offering consultations, like methodological and statistical consulting, providing or creating laboratory facilities, performing experimental procedures on research samples or patients, or introducing and referring patients to the researchers are not the criteria for authorship; even if the mentioned persons have not received a fee to provide such services.
• All individuals cooperating in executing, designing, supporting, or other phases of the research; however, they do not meet the all mentioned criteria for authorship must be acknowledged in the “Acknowledgment" section.
• Those who are the editor or translator of a manuscript do not have the authorship criteria. Such cases can be mentioned in the "Acknowledgments" section.

 Peer review/responsibility for the reviewers

• Judgments are needed to be objective.
• Reviewers should have no conflicts of interests regarding the authors, the research and/or the research funders.
• Reviewers should refer to related published work that have not yet been cited.
• Reviewed articles should be kept confidential.
• Editors are advised by reviewers; however, the Editors-in-Chief makes the final decision.
• Reviewers should offer constructive comments for improving the article quality.