Publication Ethics

These guidelines are entirely consistent with the COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice Guidelines and the COPE Code of Conduct. More details can be found here: https://publicationethics.org. We encourage the best standards of publication ethics and take all possible measures against publication malpractices. The publisher takes its duties of guardianship over all publishing stages extremely seriously, and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORS

Editorial Board
The Editorial Board will be generated from recognized experts in the field. The editor will provide full names and affiliations of the members as well as updated contact information for the editorial office on the proceeding webpage. 

Publication Decisions
The editor should be responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the proceeding should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor may be guided by the proceeding’s editorial board’s policies and constrained by such legal requirements, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Peer Review Process
All of a proceeding’s content should be subjected to peer-review. Articles submitted for possible publication are subjected to a double-blind peer-review process. Articles are first reviewed by editors. The editor may reject it out of hand either because it is not dealing with the subject matter for that proceeding or because it is manifestly of low quality, so that it cannot be considered at all. Articles that are found suitable for review are then sent to two experts in the field of the paper. Referees of a paper are unknown to each other. Referees are asked to classify the paper as publishable immediately, publishable with amendments and improvements, or not publishable. Referees’ evaluations usually include an explicit recommendation of what to do with the manuscript. The author then sees the referees’ comments.

Editors should be ready to justify any important deviation from the described process. Editors should not reverse decisions on publication unless serious problems are identified. Editors should publish guidance to either authors and reviewers on everything that is expected of them. This guidance should be regularly updated and will refer to or link this code.

Fair play
The editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. Editors´ decision to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper´s importance, originality and clarity, and the study´s relevance to the aim of proceeding.

Digital Archiving
The editor will ensure digital preservation of access to the proceeding content by the Czech National Library within its WebArchive.

Confidentiality
Editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher. Editors will ensure that the material submitted remains confidential while under review.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other members of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication.

Procedures for dealing with unethical behaviour
Unethical behaviour may be identified and brought to the attention of the editor and publisher at any time, by anyone. Whoever informs the editor or publisher of such conduct should provide sufficient information and evidence in order for an investigation to be initiated. All allegations should be taken seriously and treated in the same way until a successful decision or conclusion is reached. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

The editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher. Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration to the respective complaint or claims made but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, depending on the misconduct seriousness.

Minor misconduct might be dealt with without the need to consult more widely. In any event, the author should be given the opportunity to respond to any allegations. Serious misconduct might require the application of one or more following measures:

  • Informing or educating the author or reviewer where there appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards.
  • Publication of a formal notice detailing the misconduct.
  • A formal letter to the head of the author’s or reviewer’s department or funding agency.
  • Formal retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the proceeding, in conjunction with informing the head of the author or reviewer’s department
  • The imposition of a formal embargo on contributions from an individual for a defined period.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS

 
Publication and Submission fee

Authors to be charged for proofreading and publication fee. Full information about fees must be clearly stated on the proceeding´s website before authors begin preparing thein manuscript for submission.

Reporting standards
Authors of papers should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial „opinion‟ works should be clearly identified as such.

Data access and retention
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism takes many forms, from „passing off‟ another´s paper as the author´s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another´s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one proceeding or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one proceeding concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour. In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another proceeding a previously published paper. The copyright remains with the publisher.

Acknowledgement of sources
Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF REVIEWERS

 
Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Authors who wish to contribute to publications have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer´s own research without the written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.