Iranian Journal of Fuzzy Systems (IJFS) is an international journal published by University of Sistan and Baluchestan founded in 2003 and supported by Iranian Fuzzy System Society.

Iranian Journal of Fuzzy Systems (IJFS) aims to provide an international forum for refereed original research works in the theory and applications of fuzzy sets and systems in the areas of foundations, pure mathematics, artificial intelligence, control, robotics, data analysis, data mining, decision making, finance and management, information systems, operations research, pattern recognition and image processing, soft computing and uncertainty modeling. Manuscripts submitted to the IJFS must be original unpublished work and should not be in consideration for publication elsewhere.

Aims and Scope

Publishing the original research works in the theory and applications of fuzzy sets and systems in the areas of foundations, pure mathematics, artificial intelligence, control, robotics, data analysis, data mining, decision making, finance and management, information systems, operations research, pattern recognition and image processing, soft computing and uncertainty modeling.

Statement

Iranian Journal of Fuzzy Systems (IJFS) is a two monthly journal is peer reviewed electronic and printed online. IJFS is an open access publication, which publishes of original research papers and review papers.

IJFS is the member of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 

Core Value

IJFS has the core values as:

- Scientific integrity

- Quality

- Originality

- Clarity

- Innovation

- Knowledge dissemination.

Publishing Schedule

IJFS is a two monthly publication releasing six seasonal issues each year.  Exact schedule of publication for each issue is as the following:

1. February
2. April
3. June
4. August
5. October
6. December

Governing Body

IJFS has a very strong editorial board, whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors are provided on the journal’s Web site (https://ijfs.usb.ac.ir/journal/editorial.board).

Editor Roles and Responsibilities

Editors of scientific journals have responsibilities toward the authors who provide the contents of the journals, the peer reviewers who comment on the suitability of manuscripts for publication, the journal’s readers and the scientific community, the publishers of the journals, and the public as a whole (https://ijfs.usb.ac.ir/journal/process?ethics).

Editorial Board Participation

The editor-in-chief should define the terms and roles of the editors and editorial board that are appointed by and report to him or her.  The editor-in-chief or principal editor should ensure that the journal’s editors and editorial board are identified in the journal masthead; receive the necessary training and oversight to adequately perform editorial functions; and actively perform their responsibilities, such as assigning reviewers or reviewing manuscripts and advising on policy considerations.

Editorial Freedom

The IJFS adopts the editor freedom, which holds that Editors-in-Chief have full authority over the entire content of the selected articles, which are to be published in IJFS. Some of the privileges are as follows.

• Editors-in-Chief owners should have the power of evaluation, selection, scheduling, or editing of individual articles either directly or by creating an environment that strongly influences decisions.
• Editors should base editorial decisions on the validity of the work and its importance to the journal’s readers, not on the commercial implications for the journal.
• Editors-in-chief should have the responsibility to establish an independent editorial advisory board to help the editor establish and maintain editorial policy.
• Editors should seek input as needed from a broad array of advisers, such as reviewers, editorial staff, an editorial board, and readers, to support editorial decisions and potentially controversial expressions of opinion
• If legal problems arise, the editor should inform their legal adviser and their owner and/or publisher as soon as possible.
• Editors should defend the confidentiality of authors and peer-reviewers (names and reviewer comments) in accordance with IJFS policy.
• To secure editorial freedom in practice, the editor should have direct access to the highest level of ownership, not to a delegated manager or administrative officer.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts submitted to journals are privileged communications that are authors’ private, confidential property, and authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of a manuscript’s details.

• Editors therefore must not share information about manuscripts, including whether they have been received and are under review, their content and status in the review process, criticism by reviewers, and their ultimate fate, to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. IJFS has some policies on confidentiality as follows.
• Editors and the publication staff should keep all information about a submitted manuscript confidential, sharing it only with those involved in the evaluation, review, and publication processes.
• Editors should consider adding a confidentiality notice to all correspondence, including reviewer forms, to serve as a reminder to authors, editors, and reviewers.
• Journals should have a mechanism such as safely store, archive, and/or destroy paper and electronic manuscript review files and related content. Records and retention schedules, such as how long to keep published manuscripts and associated correspondence or rejected manuscripts and associated correspondence, should be documented in writing and reviewed on a regular basis.
• Confidential information should not be used for an editor’s own purposes, and editors should take reasonable steps to ensure that such information is not used inappropriately for the advantage of others. In cases of breach of confidentiality by those involved in the peer-review process, editors should contact the involved parties and follow up on such cases until they are satisfactorily resolved.
• Requests from third parties to use manuscripts and reviews for legal proceedings should be politely refused, and editors should do their best not to provide such confidential material should it be subpoenaed.
• Editors should not publish or publicize peer reviewers’ comments without permission of the reviewer and author.
• Confidentiality may have to be breached if dishonesty or fraud is alleged, but editors should notify authors or reviewers if they intend to do so and confidentiality must otherwise be honored.

Integrity

Editorial decisions should be based on the relevance of a manuscript to the journal and on the manuscript’s originality, quality, and contribution to evidence about important questions. Those decisions should not be influenced by commercial interests, personal relationships or agendas, or findings that are negative or that credibly challenge accepted wisdom. The IJFS has very strong ethical policy, which is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and complies with International Committee of IJFS Editorial Board codes of conduct. Readers, authors, reviewers and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with IJFS (https://ijfs.usb.ac.ir/journal/process?ethics).

Peer Review

IJFS publishes original research papers and review papers. The publication exercises peer review process in order to quality control by qualified specialists is covered by the database. The Editorial Board will select publications with excellence in content, preferably researchers output not in commercial target.

Responsibility of Peer- Review Process

Articles submitted to the IJFS Journal are allowed through peer-review process under various levels, as follows.

Authors: Authors should abide by all principles of authorship.

Editors: The editors should abide by all principles of Confidentiality, Timeliness, Peer Review and Integrity.

Reviewers: Manuscripts submitted to journals are privileged communications that are authors’ private, confidential property, and authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of a manuscript’s details. Hence, reviewers should abide by all principles of Responsibilities of Reviewers (https://ijfs.usb.ac.ir/journal/process?ethics).

Authorship

All contributing authors should qualify for authorship. The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the coauthors. Sufficient participation in the work is of utmost importance (https://ijfs.usb.ac.ir/journal/process?ethics).

Style of file

To simplify the transformation process between your documents and the final layout, we provide the Style file of the IJFS. It can be downloaded from the web page https://ijfs.usb.ac.ir/. Authors are responsible for the proper formatting of accepted manuscripts by using the Style file of the IJFS (Word files (*.doc) are not accepted).

Conflict of interest

All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work.

Submission declaration and verification

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere), that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright holder.

Changes to authorship

Please be advised that, as per journal policy, we are unable to make changes to the author list and corresponding author once a paper has been accepted for publication. Please ensure that the authorship of your paper is correct when submitting your manuscript to IJFS, as no amendments can be made after acceptance.

Copyright

All corresponding authors of each manuscript should be download "COPYRIGHT RELEASE FORM" from this page, then complete and sign this form by all authors or just corresponding author and submit this form with all mandatory files which mentioned in bellow. By signing this form, copyright transfer to IJFS.

Similarity check

It should also be noted that this journal uses the system of matching scientific articles in (irandoc.ac.ir) Irandoc to confirm the absence of plagiarism in the submitted articles. Articles will also be reviewed with Plagiarism Detection Software before acceptance.

Proofs and Reprints

Page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author to be checked for type setting and editing. There are no page charges.