PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT
The prevention of publication malpractice is the responsibility of each individual editor, author, reviewer, and publisher.
1. Editorial Responsibilities
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization will be published. The Editor-in-Chief is guided by the Editorial Policy and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to decide not to publish submitted manuscripts in case it is found that they do not meet relevant standards concerning the content and formal aspects. The Editorial Staff will inform the authors whether the manuscript is accepted for publication within 5-7 weeks from the date of the manuscript submission (submission completed in all aspects). In the case a revision of the manuscript is required, this period shall be extended to 12 weeks from the date of the manuscript submission.
Editor-in-Chief must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. If an Editor feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, the selection of reviewers and all decisions on the paper shall be made by the Editorial Board.
Editor-in-Chief shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias.
The Editor and the Editorial Staff must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.
Editors and the Editorial Staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process and the authors remain anonymous to reviewers until the end of the review procedure.
2. Authors’ responsibilities
Authors warrant that their manuscript is their original work, that it has not been published before and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Parallel submission of the same paper to another journal constitutes a misconduct and eliminates the manuscript from consideration by Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization.
The Authors also warrant that the manuscript is not and will not be published elsewhere (before and after the publication in Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization) in any language without the consent of the copyright holder.
In case a submitted manuscript is a result of a research project, or its previous version has been presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or similar title), detailed information about the project, the conference, etc. shall be provided at the end of the article before the references. A paper that has already been published in another journal or other publication cannot be reprinted in Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization.
It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that papers submitted to Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization are written with ethical standards in mind. Authors affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Reporting standards
A submitted manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented in it. The deliberate presentation of false claims is a violation of ethical standards.
Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must make sure that they have permission from all involved parties to make the data public.
Authors wishing to include figures, tables or other materials that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s). Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Authorship
Authors must make sure that all only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors and, conversely, that all contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section.
Acknowledgment of Sources
Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and their manuscript. Information received in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties, in reviewing project applications, manuscripts and similar materials, must not be used without the express written consent of the information source.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism, where someone assumes another's ideas, words, or other creative expression as one's own, is a clear violation of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action.
Plagiarism includes the following:
- Word for word, or almost word for word copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another author's work without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation marks);
- Copying equations, figures or tables from someone else's paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.
Any paper which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected and authors will be permanently or temporarily forbidden to publish the papers in the journal.
In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under Retraction policy, and authors will authors will be permanently or temporarily forbidden to publish the papers in the journal.
Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization uses the iThenticate screening service to verify the originality of content submitted before publication. The iThenticate software checks submissions against millions of published research papers, documents on the web, and other relevant sources.
Conflict of interest
Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal Editor or publisher and cooperate with the Editor to retract or correct the paper.
By submitting a manuscript the authors agree to abide by the Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization’s Editorial Policies.
3. Reviewers’ responsibilities
Reviewers are required to provide written, competent and unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript.
The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.
Reviewers should alert the Editor to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and alert the Editor to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in the event they are aware of such. Reviewers should also alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same paper to another journal, in the event they are aware of such.
Reviewers must not have conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding sources for the research. If such conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.
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 without delay.
Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.
4. Publisher's responsibilities
The University of Niš, as the publisher of the Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization, will ensure the maintenance of good practice according to the above outlined standards.
Specially Relevant Publication Ethics Issues:
- to monitor and safeguard publishing ethics;
- to apply standard procedures of articles retraction, if needed;
- to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies, whenever needed;
- to maintain the integrity of the academic record;
- to preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
- to prevent plagiarisms / auto-plagiarisms and fraudulent data from being published.
PROCEDURES FOR DEALING WITH UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR
Anyone may inform the editors and/or Editorial Staff at any time of suspected unethical behaviour or any type of misconduct by giving the necessary information/evidence to start an investigation.
Investigation
- Editor-in-Chief will consult with the Section Editors / Editorial Board on decisions regarding the initiation of an investigation.
- During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as strictly confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in investigating.
- The accused will always be given the chance to respond to any charges made against them.
- If it is judged at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious.
Minor misconduct
Minor misconduct will be dealt directly with those involved without involving any other parties, e.g.:
- Communicating to authors/reviewers whenever a minor issue involving misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards has occurred.
- A warning letter to an author or reviewer regarding fairly minor misconduct.
Major misconduct
The Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Section Editors / Editorial Board, and, when appropriate, further consultation with a small group of experts should make any decision regarding the course of action to be taken using the evidence available. The possible outcomes are as follows (these can be used separately or jointly):
- Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct.
- Informing the author's (or reviewer's) head of department or employer of any misconduct by means of a formal letter.
- The formal, announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy (see below).
- A ban on submissions from an individual for a defined period.
- Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.
When dealing with unethical behaviour, the Editorial Staff will rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): http://publicationethics.org/resources/.
RETRACTION POLICY
Legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or any major misconduct require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.
Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by the Facta Universitatis, Series: Economics and Organization: in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”