Water and Ecology journal does its best to follow common etiquette rules as acknowledged by international scientific community and to prevent any violations of those rules. Such policy, as we think, is a necessary term facilitating the journal to efficiently contribute into developing comprehensive knowledge system.
The journal editorial activity is particularly based upon recommendations by Committee of Publication Ethics, COPE, as well as upon valuable experience of well-recognized international journals and publishing houses [www.publishingethics.org].
The editorial team duties include approval of the collegial decision regarding publishing the articles submitted, fair and unbiased reviewing thereof, reviewing confidentiality, prompt disclosure and consideration of any interest conflicts during the reviewing process, full participation and cooperation in any case of complaints regarding violation of ethics; reviewers assist the editorial team in making decisions and either provide a prompt review or refuse to write one promptly, respect data confidentiality regarding the review and the article reviewed, follow credibility standards, discover valuable works that are published but not quoted by the author, point out any essential similarities to works published earlier, disclose promptly any personal interest conflicts relating to authors of the article reviewed, including competition, cooperation and other relations of this kind; authors are bound to follow international standards when disclosing scientific research results, granting access to source data whenever necessary, and must avoid any plagiarism and excessive or multiple publications of the same results, quote valuable publications influencing the work represented, take responsibility for scripts represented, disclosing possible risks related to research methods, follow corresponding national or corporate ethics rules while making tests on animals and people, disclose any conflicts of interests that might influence results of the researches, inform about critical mistakes in works published for correction or withdrawal thereof.
We kindly request authors and reviewers to check out documents and main principles of COPE!
Authors’ responsibilities
Requirements to research results publications
Authors of works comprising original research results must submit a detailed report about the work carried out, as well as unbiased arguments in favor of its relevance. The article must comprise accurate data that confirms the results obtained. The article must include details and references necessary to duplicate the work carried out. Submitting knowingly fraudulent statements is considered a violation of ethical code and it is not acceptable.
Reviews and professional articles must be fair and comprise verified information. Works that express “editorial opinion” have corresponding remarks.
Originality and plagiarism
Article authors must guarantee they wrote perfectly original work, and, should the authors have used other authors’ work and/or words, it must be properly marked out either via a reference or mentioned within the text.
Plagiarism may have many forms, from taking credit for work carried out by someone else to copying or rewriting essential parts of someone’s work with no reference to the source, including claiming authorship rights for results obtained after researches carried out by other people. In any its form, plagiarism is an unethical act in publishing and it is not acceptable.
Submitting the same script to more than one place [B1] at the same time is an example of an unethical act and it is not acceptable.
An author should not submit to one journal for consideration an article that was already published in another journal.
Work that is carried out by other researchers must be duly recognized. Authors must give references to publications that influenced the content of the work described.
Authorship
Authorship must be restricted to those persons, who made significant contributions into a concept, planning, implementation or interpretation of the research described.
Each person, who made the significant contribution, must be mentioned as a co-author. Should any person have participated in any significant part of a project, this person should be credited or included into a list of co-authors.
An author agrees to mention all co-authors matching those requirements and omit co-authors not matching such requirements, and guarantees the final version of the article and its representation for publication to be approved by all co-authors.
Disclosure of information and conflict of interest
All authors must disclose in their scripts any financial or any other existing conflict of interest that could be interpreted as influencing their script evaluation results. Examples of possible conflicts of interests subject for disclosure include but are not limited to hiring, consulting services, holding shares, earned income, paid expertise, patents, subsidies and any other sponsorship. All sources of the project financial support must be disclosed.
Essential errors in works already published
Should an author discover a significant error or inaccuracy in his or her work that has already been published, it is the author’s responsibility to promptly notify the journal’s Editor-in-Chief about it and to cooperate with the Editor-in-Chief to publish the article disproof or correction. Should the Editor-in-Chief be notified by a third party about a significant error in a work already published, it is the author’s responsibility to either promptly disproof or correct the article, or provide the Editor-in-Chief with a proof the article is correct.
Discovering plagiarism
Our journal takes responsibility to assist scientific community in any aspects of implementing the policy regarding following the etiquette of publishing, particularly in situations when article double submission or plagiarism is suspected.
Editor-in-Chief responsibilities
Editor-in-Chief work matches the policy of our journal as well as standards approved by COPE (COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors).
Decision regarding article publication
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for making a decision regarding which particular works out of those submitted to the journal are subject for publication.
This decision should always be made based on verification of the work fairness and its importance for researchers and readers. The Editor-in-Chief may follow methodological guidelines as developed by the journal Editorial Board and legal rules preventing slander, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Besides, when making the decision regarding the publication, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board members or reviewers (or an educational research staff representative).
Equitableness
The Editor-in-Chief in scientific periodical literature evaluates works submitted by intellectual content thereof, independent of the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, citizenship or political position.
Confidentiality
Neither the Editor-in-Chief in scientific periodical literature nor the editorial team workers should ever disclose information regarding submission of a script in front of any person except the author, reviewers, potential reviewers, Editorial Board advisors and the publisher.
Information disclosure and conflict of interest
- Unpublished materials contained in the work submitted for consideration cannot be used in an own work of the Editor-in-Chief, any Editorial Board member, reviewers and other workers engaged into considering the material submitted, unless there is an authorization in writing to do so from the author.
- Confidential information obtained during reviewing is not a subject for disclosure or usage for personal interests.
- The Editor-in-Chief agrees that she will refuse to handle the work submitted, should there be a conflict of interest resulting from competition, cooperation or other kind of relations with authors or entities related to this work (duties of the Editor-in-Chief in such a situation may be temporarily taken by a deputy editor or any other Editorial Board member).
- The Editor-in-Chief must require all authors to disclose information regarding any conflict of interest, and publish corrections, should those be discovered after the publication. Whenever needed, another appropriate action may be undertaken, such as publication of disproof or a message of concern.
- The Editor-in-Chief must ensure compliance of reviewing procedures for articles submitted for consideration to one of periodicals of Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University and supplements thereof. Works are allowed to be published in the supplements strictly based on academic value thereof, rather than on profit criteria.
- Non-reviewed chapters in a science journal should be properly marked.
Processing ethically biased complaints
The Editor-in-Chief should react reasonably fast to ethically biased complaints regarding a script submitted or an article published, while staying in a contact with the Editorial Board, the publisher (or the educational research staff). Such reaction typically includes notifying the author and processing the complaint, and, when needed, further communications with respected institutions and research entities. Should the complaint be confirmed, a correction or disproof or another appropriate statement is published. Every ethically biased complaint is a subject for processing, including those submitted years after the publication.
Quoting the journal publishing the work
Any recommendations regarding quoting of works should base on scientific value thereof and be aimed to improve the material represented. Editorial team members may recommend source material to authors in terms of the reviewing procedure, but recommendations of this kind should not be restricted to quoting just one science journal.
Duties of reviewers
Each article is reviewed by at least two experts who have all opportunities to write free any motivated critical comment regarding the level and the clarity of presentation of the material presented, as well as whether it matches the journal profile, novelty and fairness of results.
Participation in making a decision about publication
Reviewing procedure is helpful for the Editor-in-Chief when making a decision regarding the publication, and also the Editor-in-Chief may communicate with the author of the work. Reviewing is an integral part of communication in science and a basement of science methodology. The editorial team shares scientific community opinion that researchers, who wish [B2] to publish their articles on the journal pages, must participate in reviewing.
Confidentiality
Any work taken for consideration is treated as a confidential document. The works are not subject for either demonstration in front of, or discussion with, other people, with the exception for persons duly authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.
Credibility standards
Reviews must be fair. Personalized criticism targeted on an author is not acceptable. Reviewers must express their opinion clear and prove it properly with adequate arguments.
Source formalization
Reviewer’s duties include recognition of published works fragments given with no proper reference. Any statement saying any observation, conclusion or argument had been presented earlier, must be accompanied by a proper reference. The reviewer must point the attention of the Editor-in-Chief to any similarity of the article submitted and any work that is published and known to the reviewer.
Information disclosure and conflict of interest
Unpublished materials contained in a work submitted cannot be used for researches by a reviewer, unless the author of the work issued an agreement in writing to do so. Confidential information obtained during reviewing is not a subject for disclosure or usage for personal interests. The reviewer agrees he or she will refuse to assess the work submitted, should there be a conflict of interest resulting from competition, cooperation and relations of another kind with authors and entities related to the work.