Editorial & Authorial Policy: rules of ethical publishing and review process
Note: Present editorial policy was compiled by using guidelines of the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit of Elsevier as well as guidelines of renowned Slovakian scientific journals such as Historický časopis, Človek a spoločnosť, the Forum Social Sciences Review, and was adopted to the practises and needs of the Eruditio – Educatio.
General Ethical Rules
–The Editorial Board is responsible for observance of the publication ethics. It ascertains that published contributions correspond to the internationally accepted ethical principles and academic norms.
–The Editorial Board monitors suspicions of incorrect behavior; it publishes information about plagiarism that has been uncovered, and informs the institution that employs the author responsible for plagiarism.
–The Editorial Board publishes and updates the Instructions for Authors as well as the Reviewer’s Assessment.
–The Editorial Board protects the confidentiality of personal data, the content of Reviewer’s Assessments, and the correspondence of editors with Authors and Reviewers during the whole process of assessments, publication, and afterwards.
Author’s Duties
–Any submitted paper is expected to be an original, so far unpublished text. In case the text is a reworked or supplemented manuscript, the Author must provide a clear information on the extent of rework or supplement as well as a clear statement where the original version was published.
–Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and plagiarism regarding citations and sources, is not acceptable. All parties involved should be aware that plagiarism is a very serious violation of the principles of the academic honour.
–The Author(s) is (are) obliged to actively cooperate with the editors throughout the whole edition and review process. The Author(s) is (are) responsible for ensuring that all the co-authors have seen and agreed to the final version of the text, and that all co-authors agreed to use of their names as co-authors. The Author(s) is (are) obliged to inform the editors of the journal of any serious faults and inaccuracies in the contribution, and to remove or correct these faults.
Review Process
Submitted papers are reviewed by the Editorial Board and members of the International Editorial Board. The whole review process includes:
• Checking the technical & format requirements
• Plagiarism checking
• Scientific peer-review
• English proofreading
Scientific peer-review
–The parties involved in the review process include: the Editorial Board, members of the International Editorial Board, and other outside experts if the Editorial Board finds it necessary.
–The Editorial Board does not publish unreviewed scientific studies; contributions of an informative character or reviews can be published without previous assessment.
–Scientific studies are anonymized and assessed by two Reviewers. If two Reviewers adopt two completely different assessments, the Editorial Board is in charge for making the final decision.
–Reviewers’ assessments are strictly anonymous and confidential. Reviewers do not know the identity of the Author, and the Author does not know the identity of the Reviewers (double blind peer review). Editors are obliged to ensure anonymity by removing from the text all information that could disclosed the identity of the Author(s) or Reviewers.
–Reviewers are required to clearly express their professional opinion about the manuscript, providing necessary arguments. Personal criticism of the Author is not appropriate.
–Since a scientific manuscript is a confidential material, the Reviewers can not share it with a third party before publication. The Editor in Chief of the journal can grant exceptions. The information or ideas gained from producing a review are also considered confidential, so Reviewers can not use them for their own personal advantage.
–Reviewers deliver a signed Reviewer’s Assessment either by post or personally to the address of the Editorial Board.
–As an anonymous and confidential document, the Reviewers’ Assessments can be given only to the Authors and the members of the Editorial Board as a basis for their final decision on the publication.
–Members both of the Editorial Board and International Editorial Board, when publishing in their own journal, do undergo a regular review process.
–The publisher takes care of preventing conflicts of interest between Authors, Reviewers and members of the Editorial Board. Problems should be solved in accordance with the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit created by the company Elsevier.
Acceptation – rejection
–After a completed review process, it is the Editorial Board, and personally the Editor in Chief, who decides on the publication. The decision can be: “recommended for publication”; or “recommended for publication with corrections”; or “recommended to reject the publication”.
–The Editorial Board has the full responsibility and right to accept or reject a manuscript.
–The Editorial Board rejects a manuscript if and when its theme does not correspond with the thematic orientation of the journal, or it clearly does not fulfil the requirements of an academic study.
–In case of a decision “recommended for publication with corrections” the Editorial Board may request the Author to make corrections, modifications, alterations, etc. in his/her text in accordance with the Reviewers’ Assessment; the management of the modification phase is fully in the discretion of the editors.
–The Author is entitled to appeal against the decision of the Reviewers. It is the duty and the responsibility of the Editorial Board of the Eruditio – Educatio to make the final decision.
Publishing
–The Editorial Board has the full right to consider the exact timing of publishing of a successfully reviewed contribution.
–The journal publishes some types of personal information such as name, professional status, institutional affiliation, contact address, as well as sources of financial support for the research, etc. as items of indispensable information.
–The Editorial Board enables publication of corrections, explanations or apologies concerning contributions or their parts. It also allows removal of a contribution if it is necessary and/or technically possible.
Copyright
–By publishing a paper in the Eruditio–Educatio, the Author acknowledges that the copyright thereafter belongs to the Editorial Board of the journal. Any further publishing of the paper requires a prior written consent of the Editorial Board, represented by its Editor in Chief.
