Editorial Policy : Part One : “General Editorial Rules”

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, Forum Social Sciences Review, and they were adopted to the practices and needs of the Eruditio – Educatio (EE). At the same time, our Editorial Policy is obliged to comply with the general publication and ethical policy of the Faculty of Education as an integral part of the J. Selye University.

In order to reach high standards in publishing integrity, the Editorial Board is determined to maintain ethical principles of scholarly publishing as they are expressed in the Principles by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, WAME. Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing – English. [https//doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.12] 2022 COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, WAME.

EE is committed to ensuring high standards in publishing integrity in order to publish research in the most ethical way possible. In order to reach high standards in publishing integrity, the Editorial Board and the International Editorial Board have stated clear rules of our modus operandi, stated in:

  • Requirements for Authors (included in ‘For Authors’ section of the website)
  • Management of the Peer Review Process (included in ‘For Authors’ section of the website)
  • Ethical rules and dealing with ethical breaches (included in ‘Editorial Policy’ section of the website)
  • Copyright (included in ‘About the Journal’ section of the website) 

Editorial Policy : Part Two “Management of the Peer Review Process”

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Any submitted paper is expected to be an original, so far unpublished text.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 fact and 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 editorial and review process. The Author(s) is (are) responsible for ensuring that all co-authors had seen and agreed to the final version of the text, and that all co-authors had agreed to the 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/or inaccuracies in the contribution, and to remove or correct these faults.

Management of the Peer 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

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 such as essays, reviews, etc. 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 (e.g. outside expert, acceptation, rejection).

Reviewers’ assessments are anonymous and confidential. Reviewers do not know the identity of the Author, and the Author does not know the identity of the Reviewers. 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. Reviewers deliver a signed Reviewer’s Assessment sheet either by post or personally to the address of the Editor-in-Chief. As an anonymous and confidential document, the Reviewers’ Assessments can be given only to the Author(s) and/or the members of the Editorial Board as a basis for their final decision on the publication. Personal criticism of the Author is not appropriate.

Since a scientific manuscript is a confidential material, Reviewers can not share it with a third party before publication. The Editor-in-Chief of the journal can grant exceptions. Any information or idea gained from a review process are considered confidential, so Reviewers can not use them for their own personal advantage.

Members both of the Editorial Board and International Editorial Board, when publishing in their own journal, do undergo a regular review process.

The Editorial Board 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 let it remake, 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, either formally or meritually.

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 Editor-in-Chief.

The Author is entitled to appeal against the decision of the Reviewers. Author’s written complaint should be ddressed to the Designated Ethical Officer of the International Editorial Board. 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 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.

Statement on the use of Generative AI

The Editorial Board has been closely watching the increasing opportunities and challenges represented by the use of rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence in scholarly writing. Since currently neither the J. Selye University nor the Faculty of Education do not have a consistent policy on this issue, the Editorial Board, along with the expertise of the members of the International Editorial Board, use all available tools, human and digital, to identify and trace any use of Generative Artificial Intelligence that can be considered as malpractice or that explicitly breaches the standard and fair norms of scholarly writing. In general, Eruditio – Educatio adheres the norms of the Elsevier regarding the generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the review process. [https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/the-use-of-generative-ai-and-ai-assisted-technologies-in-writing-for-elsevier]

Editorial Policy : Part Three “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 publishes and updates the Requirements for Authors as well as the Reviewer’s Assessment sheet.

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.

Dealing with ethical breaches

The Editorial Board regularly monitors suspicions of incorrect behavior in publishing. Suspected ethical breaches should be reported to the Journal Manager and/or to the Designated Ethical Officer of the International Editorial Board.

Suspected ethical breaches may include:

  • unfair communication between members of the Editorial Board and Author(s);
  • suspected conflict of interest;
  • suspected review misconduct;
  • allegations of research, publication, funding or other kind of misconduct.

Members of the Editorial Board as well as members of the International Editorial Board are explicitly and regularly called on to help identifying possible ethical concerns in the EE. Potential ethical breaches are dealt with by involving the Editorial Board and the Designated Ethical Officer of the International Editorial Board. From such issues records/minutes are written. The official response of the Eruditio – Educatio to suspected ethical breaches is communicated to all parties involved. The Editorial Board publishes information about any ethical breach that has been uncovered, and informs institution that employs the Author responsible for the specific breach.

Eruditio – Educatio has regularly evaluated its own professional and ethical policy since its foundation in 2006. From these meetings of the Publishing Council of the Faculty a written report is given to the Dean of the Faculty of Education as the legal Publisher of the Eruditio – Educatio who publishes it as part of the Annual Report on the Faculty each year.