ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF PUBLISHING

in the A & P (Art Communication & Pop culture) scientific journal

Ethical principles of publishing in the A & P (Art Communication & Pop culture) scientific journal follow the ethical rules of publishing formulated in the Statement on the Scopus Journal Selection Process in 2010 as well as the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics and are consistent with binding general regulations applicable in the territory of the Slovak Republic (and in accordance with the Act No. 185/2015 Coll. on Copyright, a so called Copyright Act).

The statement of ethical principles of publishing in the A & P (Art Communication & Pop culture) journal is related to the ambition of its publisher to publish on its pages scientific papers of highest quality and to the effort to avoid any sort of publishing misconduct or failures while doing so. The publisher’s aspiration is to have the journal included in the ERIH PLUS, Scopus, and ISI Web of Knowledge databases.

ARTICLE I. GENERAL PROVISIONS

1. The publisher of the A & P (Art Communication & Pop culture) scientific journal is the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra.
Publisher’s address:
Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa
Trieda A. Hlinku 1
949 74  Nitra, Slovenská republika
Company Identification Number 00 157 716

2. Publishing of the journal in terms of organisational work and its content is ensured by the Institute of Literary and Artistic Communication of the Faculty of Arts of the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra.
Editorial office address:     
Ústav literárnej a umeleckej komunikácie
Filozofická fakulta UKF v Nitre
Štefánikova 67
949 74 Nitra, Slovenská republika
Email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Journal’s website: ..............................

3. The journal is published twice a year – in April and in October – in printed form. The content of the issue, abstracts in Slovak and English as well as means of contacting the authors can be found on the journal’s website.

4. Publishing of the journal is regulated by a scientific board composed of prominent Slovak and foreign experts representing scientific research in various fields of artistic communication and pop culture.

5. The journal is led by an editorial board composed of internal scientific-educational and scientific research workers of the Institute of Literary and Artistic Communication and their close associates from the Faculty of Arts of the CPU in Nitra representing various fields of artistic communication and pop culture. The editorial board decides on the publishing of papers in the journal.

6. A paper is considered a written work of an author (including illustrations, tables, graphs and other graphic elements) published in the journal. Until publishing is approved by the editorial board, the submitted manuscript is considered a draft of a paper.

7. An author is a natural person who prepares a manuscript of a scientific paper based on their scientific research and submits it to the publisher. An author is also considered a natural person who prepares a manuscript of some other than scientific paper (interview, review, critique, gloss, reflection, etc.) based on the assignment of editorial staff or on their own initiative. Manuscripts of both scientific and other papers may have a single author or a number of authors (co-authors).

8. A co-author is a person who has a significant share of the manuscript version in case that it is submitted as a joint scientific paper of a number of authors. The author’s responsibilities referred to in these ethical principles of publishing apply in a reasonable manner also to co-authors of a manuscript of a scientific paper. The same applies to manuscripts of other types of papers.

9. Manuscripts of scientific papers are subject to reviews of two experts on the topic. The reviewing process is a double-blind peer review – neither the author nor the reviewer obtains information on who reviewed the scientific paper and who is its author respectively.

10. Manuscripts of other than scientific papers are not reviewed. Publishing of interviews, reviews, critiques, glosses and reflections is subject to the approval of the editorial board or the Editor in Chief and the compilers of the issue.

11. The reviewer and members of the editorial board of the journal review the content of manuscripts without distinction as to race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, citizenship or political beliefs of the author.
 

ARTICLE II. PUBLISHING ETHICS OF AUTHORS

1. A manuscript of a scientific paper sent to the editorial staff of the A & P (Art Communication & Pop culture) journal must neither be subject to reviewing process in other domestic or foreign journal nor published in specialized or other periodicals. Submitted manuscripts of other papers, too, must not be published elsewhere.

2. The author is responsible for the originality of the manuscript of a paper, selected research methodology and interpretation of published results. Scientific findings that were or are published in other journal and are not supplemented by new facts must not be published in the A & P (Art Communication & Pop culture) journal. In cases where the author submits a reworked or amended manuscript of a scientific paper to the editorial staff, the extent of reworking/amendment and information on where and when the original paper was published needs to be noted at the end of the text.

3. The author is responsible for the correct and precise use of bibliography and sources in the manuscript of a scientific paper. Plagiarism and the use of unreliable sources are not acceptable and are considered a serious breach of publishing ethics.

4. If the manuscript of a scientific paper has more than one author, they agree upon the order in which their names will be listed. Neither a person who did not significantly contribute to the preparation and elaboration of the manuscript, or did not conduct their own research the findings of which are included in the submitted manuscript, nor a person who did not approve the final version of the manuscript of the paper or did not give their consent to publishing of their name in the list of co-authors may be listed as a co-author.

5. The author is obliged to disclose all public sources with help of which their research or publishing of results in the manuscript was funded as well as other forms of support at the end of the manuscript.

6. The authors are obliged to actively cooperate with the editorial staff of the journal in the process of reviewing, remove or rectify the errors brought to their attention by reviewers and members of the editorial board and immediately notify the editorial staff of any serious errors and inaccuracies in their papers even in case that they find out about them at a later time.

7. In case that the author of a scientific paper does not identify themselves with reviewers’ comments and recommendations, they are entitled to report to the editorial board through the Editor in Chief of the journal. In such cases, the editorial board proceeds according to specific rules. The resultant opinion of the editorial board is binding for the authors of manuscripts.

8.  The editorial staff is obliged to respect the decision of the authors who withdraw their manuscripts of scientific papers as a result of a failure to identify themselves with the opinion of reviewers or of the editorial board.

ARTICLE III. PUBLISHING ETHICS OF REVIEWERS

1. Reviewers of manuscripts of scientific papers are recommended to the editorial staff by members of the editorial board. When ordering reviews, the Editor in Chief also makes sure that at least one reviewer does not come from the same workplace as the author of the submitted manuscript of a paper.

2. There can be no conflict of interests among reviewers and the authors and entities funding the research which is the subject of manuscripts of scientific papers. Reviewers have to inform the editorial staff on whether or not they are able to write reviews of submitted manuscripts of scientific papers within the deadlines set out by the editorial staff.

3. A reviewer writes a review into a form that they receive from the editorial board. They assess the level of expertise of the paper and its potential contribution to the topic; the author quality of the paper in terms of form and bibliography, grammar, style, composition, content, methodology, and reasoning; comment on scholarly sources and annotations and give a recommendation as to whether or not to publish a paper.
The review is then sent to the editorial board via email within a given deadline followed by both signed documents in printed form.

4. Reviewers rate both content and form of submitted manuscripts of scientific papers. They are obliged to bring to attention any possible author’s professional errors as well as other shortcomings of manuscripts of scientific papers. Reviewers also have to report to the editorial staff if they find out that similar scientific papers were already published in other journals or collections, or that authors did not use relevant sources to support their claims in their manuscripts.

5. A review should be written as concisely, clearly and to the point as possible aiming to help improve the final version of a manuscript of a scientific paper in terms of both content and form. Any aggressive tone of a reviewer disparaging the author is undesirable.

6. Reviews need to be objective and are confidential. Editorial staff provides them anonymously (without reviewers’ names) only to the authors of manuscripts of scientific papers and members of the editorial board as the basis for deciding whether the manuscript of a scientific paper may be published in the journal.

ARTICLE IV. PUBLISHER’S RESPONSIBILITY

1. The publisher entrusts the editorial staff with publishing of the journal. The editorial staff is led and formally represented by the Editor in Chief.

2. The editorial staff confirms the receipt of the manuscript of a paper to the author. It reserves the right to reject a manuscript not corresponding with the professional focus of the journal, not respecting its scientific nature, or if it finds that the manuscript contravenes the ethical principles of publishing.

3. Before sending manuscripts of scientific papers to reviewers, the Editor in Chief or compilers of the issue need to check whether they comply with formal requirements specified in the instructions for authors. After the authors have incorporated suggestions made in reviews, the editorial staff will edit all papers and ensures their linguistic and technical revision.

4. The Editor in Chief, communicating with the authors, reviewers and members of the editorial board, puts an emphasis on correctness, objectiveness, and impartiality. They also bring attention of the editorial board to possible conflicts of interest and consequences they may have.

5. The editorial staff protects the confidentiality of personal data, the content of reviews and correspondence between the authors and reviewers.

6. The editorial staff publishes instructions for authors on the journal’s website and updates them, if necessary, with the approval of the editorial board.

7. After the editorial board approves the ethical principles of publishing, editorial staff ensures that they are published and up to date on the journal’s website. It also consistently brings the rules of publishing ethics to the attention of both authors and reviewers.

ARTICLE V. RESPONSIBILITY OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD

1. The editorial board guarantees the binding nature of ethical principles of publishing ethics and compliance with them on the part of all persons participating in the creation of the journal.

2. The editorial board maintains the scientific level of the journal. It brings the attention of the authors to any shortcomings or possible professional errors and gives approval to publishing of manuscripts of scientific papers.

3. The content of individual journal issues is subject to the approval of the editorial board. The editorial board is entitled to send out calls for publishing thematically related scientific papers and, on this basis, to entrust experts (compilers) not only from their own ranks, but also from the ranks experts who are not members of the editorial board or are not employed by the publisher, with compiling a monothematic block of contributions..  

4. The editorial board must not give approval to publishing of a manuscript of a scientific paper that has not been reviewed.

5. The editorial board looks into suspicions of breach of the ethical principles of publishing. Serious cases of breach are punishable by the suspension of cooperation with the violator for the entire period of publishing of the journal.

 
ARTICLE VI. RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SCIENTIFIC BOARD

1. The scientific board guarantees the scientific level of the journal and determines its thematic scope.

2. The scientific board monitors compliance with the ethical principles of publishing in the editorial practice.

3. The scientific board makes proposals for the improvement of activities of the editorial board.

ARTICLE VII. FINAL PROVISIONS

1. The author expresses their consent with royalty-free publishing of their paper in the A & P (Art Communication & Pop culture) journal by submitting the version of their paper edited according to the requirements of reviewers or compilers and the editorial board to the editorial board.

2. Copyright remains in the ownership of the author or co-authors of the paper.

3. Any breach to Articles III. to V. of these principles may be qualified as a serious breach of contractual obligations of the publisher.

4. Publishing of scientific and other papers in the A & P (Art Communication & Pop culture) journal is free of charge.  

These Ethical principles of publishing shall enter into force on 1.5.2016.