Publication Ethics and Malpractice Prevention

The publication of a manuscript in a peer-reviewed work is expected to follow the standards of ethical behaviour for all parties involved in the act of publishing: authors, editors, and reviewers. Concerning the highest quality standards, the Editorial Board follows these publication ethics and malpractice prevention principles while upholding the standards of ethical behaviour and best practices that reflect core practices of the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).

 

Duties of Authors

• it is the author's responsibility that the work submitted for publication be entirely original;
• if previously published material is used in the piece of work, it must be cited appropriately;
• the author guarantees that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere;
• the author is responsible for citing all sources used in the preparation of the manuscript;
• detailed guidelines for authors can be found below in section Style sheet;
• no fees are charged for the manuscript submission, processing, and publication;
• the author will notify the editors, shall they be aware of any conflicts of interest.

 

Duties of the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor

• they are responsible for the evaluation of the submitted manuscripts and the decision about their publication;
• they guarantee that all the information about the submitted manuscripts will remain confidential;
• shall they be aware of any conflict of interest, they must notify the Editorial Board;
• they guarantee a fair review process for every manuscript submitted for publication.

 

Duties of the Reviewers

• to create a review;
• the reviewers must guarantee the confidentiality of all information concerning the manuscripts submitted for publication;
• shall the reviewers be aware of any conflict of interest, they must notify the editors;
• shall the reviewers be aware of any copyright infringement or plagiarism on the part of the author, they must notify the editor-in-chief;
• the reviewers are responsible for an objective evaluation of the submitted manuscript and must express their evaluation results clearly.

 

Identification, investigation and outcomes of unethical behaviour

• anyone can (and is encouraged to) report to the Editorial Board any suspicion of unethical behaviour at any time;
• the Editorial Board should be provided with sufficient information and evidence of reported misconduct to reach their conclusion;
• all reports of misconduct will be taken seriously and will lead to thorough scrutiny until a definite conclusion is reached;
• if the definite conclusion reached by the Editorial Board is that the ethical misconduct took place (concerning the gravity of the misconduct), the outcomes of this conclusion will be: informing the concerned parties about the nature of the misconduct, correction and if needed reporting the case and the outcome to a higher authority for further investigation or action.