Publishing Ethics

The periodical Digital Presentation and Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on publication ethics and complies with the international standards for publication ethics. It is of immense importance for the editorial board/program committee to conform to the widely accepted principles, norms and good practices for ethical behavior in publishing.

The ethical issues refer to all participants in the publication process: authors, reviewers and editors.

 

Authors’ obligations:

Originality and plagiarism. The submitted manuscripts must be the original work of the author(s). If the author uses parts of his own or someone else’s works, s/he should use citation. Plagiarism in all forms is unacceptable.

Multiple or simultaneous publication. It is unethical and unacceptable behavior to submit already published articles. Only unpublished manuscripts should be submitted. The manuscripts must not have been submitted for publication to any other journal.

Acknowledging sources. The sources of data used in the development of the manuscripts should be acknowledged. It is necessary to quote correctly all sources used for writing the manuscript.

Compliance with standards, access to data and keeping it. Authors should develop their conclusions on objective data, correct calculations and scientific arguments. Reference to old surveys should be appropriate and correct. Authors should keep used data long enough and submit it on demand so that a reader, if willing to, can re-conduct the survey.

Fundamental errors in already published papers. All errors discovered in a manuscript after submission must be communicated to the editor immediately.

References relevance. The research papers mentioned in “References” must be directly related to the contents of the manuscript.

Article authorship. Only those who have provided an essential contribution for writing the article can be identified as authors.

Declaring conflict of interest. Authors must declare conflict of interest that can influence the results of the research.

 

Reviewers’ obligations:

Contribution to editorial decisions. Reviewers’ precise work underpins the decisions of the editorial board/programme committee for publishing. Besides, reviewers’ comments can improve the quality of the manuscripts. Any information that may be the reason for the rejection of publication of a manuscript must be communicated to the Editor.

Timeliness. Each reviewer, who feels not competent enough in the scientific field of the manuscript offered or is unable to submit his review within the expected deadline, must inform immediately the editor/s-in-chief that he gives up reviewing.

Confidentiality. All information pertaining to the manuscripts should be kept confidential. The reviewers must comply with the principle of confidentiality and not discuss with a third party any information concerning the reviewed manuscript.

Objectivity standards. All manuscripts are reviewed in fairness based on the intellectual content of the paper regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, citizenship or political views of author(s).The review must be written impartially and based on the objective reality in the manuscript. Reviewers are expected to express their viewpoint clearly, with competence and enough arguments.

Acknowledging sources. Reviewers must observe strictly citation and the use of data and sources. In case they identify considerable similarity between the reviewed manuscript and an article already published, they are required to inform the editor/s-in-chief.

Declaring conflict of interest. Reviewers must stay away from reviewing when a conflict of interest arises based on professional, personal, financial or other commitments with the author. Reviewers should not take advantage of ideas and information in unpublished manuscripts without the authors’ agreement. Any observed conflicts of interest during the review process must be communicated to the author.

 

Editors’ obligations:

Objectivity and equality. The editorial board assesses the submitted articles on the ground of their scientific merits irrespective of the authors’ gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, citizenship or political view.

Confidentiality. All information concerning the manuscripts will be kept confidential. The editorial board has no right to discuss the submitted materials with a third party, except for the reviewers, publisher and author.

Conflicts of interest. Any observed conflicts of interest concerning manuscripts will be brought into notice of the editor/s-in-chief as well of the author(s). The members of the editorial board and the reviewers should not take advantage of ideas and information in unpublished manuscripts without the authors’ agreement.

Plagiarism and copyright infringement. The editorial board/programme committee follows the suitable policies concerning the plagiarism and copyright infringement. The editorial board/programme committee will take the necessary steps to detect plagiarism research misconduct and communicate to the author(s) with rejection of the manuscript.

Decision for publishing. The editorial board makes the decision for publishing as suggested by the editor/s-in-chief. The editor/s-in-chief has in mind the reviewers’ opinion and complies with the editorial policy of the periodical for protecting the author’s rights and against all forms of plagiarism and fraud.

Ethical irregularities and complaints. The editorial board/programme committee will resort to immediate measures in all cases of received signals for unethical behavior like plagiarism, incorrect citation, manipulation of data and results. The measures include contacts with the affected parties and institutions for discovering the truthfulness of the alleged ethical irregularities. As a consequence of this process, the manuscript can be removed or, if already printed, the identified ethical irregularities can be published. In the case of rejecting a manuscript the editorial board recommends authors to offer the article to another publishing house. The authors have the right to ask for a new review but only in the case of submitting to the editor/s-in-chief convincing proofs of the reviewers’ inaccuracies. In this case it is possible to have a new expert review, which will be final.