Authorship explicitly acknowledges both credit and responsibility for the content of published work two aspects that are inseparable. Authorship decisions should reflect an honest and accurate account of the work performed. Authorship criteria apply to all intellectual outputs, including printed and electronic publications of text, data, and images.
Authorship entails accountability for the integrity of the published work. Individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions are credited as authors and must also accept responsibility for the published content. Because authorship alone does not specify each contributor’s role, editors are encouraged to establish contributor ship policies and identify those responsible for the overall integrity of the work. Such policies reduce ambiguity regarding contributions, though they may not fully define the level or quality of contribution required for authorship.
Copy Right Policy:
The Iraqi Journal of Civil Engineering (IJCE) retains responsibility for ensuring proper citation and acknowledgment of published work. All articles are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Criteria for Authorship:
Authorship is limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the study upon which the article is based. Such contributions may include involvement in formulating research questions, study design, data collection and analysis, interpretation of results, or drafting and revising the manuscript. Only those who have made significant intellectual input should be listed as authors.
Contributions such as performing technical services, translating text, identifying participants, providing materials, financial support, or administrative supervision of facilities are valuable but, by themselves, do not justify authorship. These contributions should instead be appropriately acknowledged in the manuscript.
One author, designated as the guarantor, must assume overall responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the work as a whole. This responsibility is often undertaken by the corresponding author, who submits the manuscript and communicates with the journal, but may be assigned to another author.
All authors are required to approve the final version of the manuscript before submission. Ideally, each author should be familiar with all aspects of the research. However, given the collaborative and multidisciplinary nature of modern research, it is recognized that individual authors may have specialized expertise and contribute to specific components of the study.
Number of Authors:
Editors should not impose arbitrary limits on the number of authors for a manuscript. Certain types of research such as multi-center studies, large-scale collaborations, or randomized controlled trials may legitimately involve multiple authors. In such cases, a designated subset of authors may be listed on the title page, accompanied by a statement indicating that the manuscript was prepared on behalf of all contributors, whose names may be included in an appendix.
Alternatively, a collective or corporate author (for example, a “Group” name) may be used to represent all contributors in a named study, provided that at least one investigator assumes overall responsibility for the integrity of the work. In either scenario, every individual listed as an author, whether explicitly named or represented collectively, must meet the established criteria for authorship.
If editors determine that the number of listed authors appears disproportionately large relative to the study’s scope or complexity, they may request a detailed statement describing each author’s specific contributions. Should it become evident that some contributors do not meet the authorship criteria, editors reserve the right to require removal of those names as a condition of publication.
Order of Authorship:
The order of authorship should be determined collectively by the authors. No one other than the authors themselves can accurately assess their respective contributions or the agreements they have reached. Readers should not assume any specific meaning or hierarchy in the order of authorship unless the authors explicitly describe the method used to determine it.
Authorship Disputes:
Disputes regarding authorship should be resolved at the institutional or research group level before the manuscript is submitted for journal review. Editors may, at their discretion, assist in addressing authorship disputes; however, such involvement should be exceptional. Any change in authorship whether the addition, removal, or reordering of authors at any stage of the review, revision, or publication process must be accompanied by a written request and explanation endorsed by all original authors.
User License Agreement:
The Iraqi Journal of Civil Engineering (IJCE) provides open access to all published articles through its online archives. All content is immediately and permanently free for anyone to read and download. Permitted reuse is governed by the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which allows users to share and adapt the material for non-commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original authors and source.
Conflict of Interest:
Authors are required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest that could influence, or be perceived to influence, the outcomes or interpretation of their research. Each author must complete and sign a Conflict-of-Interest Declaration confirming whether any such conflicts exist or not. This declaration should be included within the main manuscript at the time of submission.
Responsibilities on Conflicts of Interest:
Public trust in the scientific process and the credibility of published research depend largely on the transparent management of conflicts of interest throughout all stages of scholarly work, including the planning, execution, writing, peer review, editing, and publication processes.
Financial relationships such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, and paid expert testimony are among the most easily identifiable and potentially problematic sources of conflict. These relationships can compromise, or appear to compromise, the integrity of the journal, the authors, or the scientific record itself. Conflicts may also arise from personal relationships, academic competition, intellectual bias, or other non-financial factors.
All individuals involved in the publication process must adhere to the journal’s Conflict of Interest Policy. Authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members share a collective responsibility to disclose any relationships or circumstances that could be perceived as influencing their objectivity.
Authors: When submitting a manuscript, authors are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that could bias, or be perceived to bias, their work. A Conflict-of-Interest Declaration must be completed and submitted with the manuscript.
Reviewers: Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could influence their judgment of a manuscript. If a potential bias exists, reviewers should decline to participate in the review process. Reviewers must not use any information obtained through peer review for personal advantage or to further their own research interests prior to publication.
Editors: Editors responsible for final editorial decisions must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest or relationships that could affect their impartiality. Editorial staff members involved in decision-making must maintain up-to-date disclosures of any financial or personal interests that may relate to editorial judgments and must also withdraw from decisions where a conflict exists.
Reporting Conflicts of Interest:
All published articles must include clear statements supported by documentation where necessary declaring the following:
To reinforce transparency, editors may require authors of studies funded by sponsors with proprietary or financial interests in the research outcomes to sign a formal statement, such as: “I had full access to all of the data in this study and take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.”