Veröfflichungsethik
For all parties involved in the act of publishing in a journal edited by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage it is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior. Authors, journal editors, peer-reviewers and the publisher are obliged to follow the guidelines established by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).
Editorial Duties
FAIRNESS AND EDITORIAL INDEPENDENCE
Submitted manuscripts are evaluated for their academic and intellectual value without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. Editors and editors-in-chief are responsible for the content of a journal.
CONFIDENTIALITY
The editor-in-chief 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, as appropriate.
DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the explicit written consent of the author(s). Confidential information and ideas must be treated as confidential and will not be used for personal advantage. Members of the editorial staff must reject any article which could lead to a conflict of interest and – if necessary – hand over the submitted manuscript to another member of the editorial staff.
PUBLICATION DECISIONS
The handling editor-in-chief of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the submitted articles should be published. The editor-in-chief may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor-in-chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision. In case of two conflicting reviews (one positive, one negative), the editor-in-chief will forward the submission to a member of the journal’s advisory board and rely on the board member’s expertise when making the decision to proceed with the revision process or to reject the manuscript. The editorial department must inform the autor(s) about their decision as soon as possible. The decision has to be based on the submitted article’s relevance to the scientific community. The editorial staff guarantees that only articles which have been peer-reviewed by at least two experts will be evaluated for publication.
COLLABORATION AND COOPERATION
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors-in-chief, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum or, in the most severe cases, the complete retraction of the affected work. If cases of alleged scientific misconduct are suspected, the editorial staff will follow COPE’s corresponding flowcharts.
Duties of Peer-Reviewers
CONTRIBUTION TO EDITORIAL DECISIONS
(Double-blind-)Peer-review assists the editor-in-chief in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communication with the author, may also assist the author in improving the manuscript. Peer-review is an essential part of formal, scientific cummunication.
PROMPTNESS
Any referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its timely review will be impossible, should immediately notify the editor-in-chief. This ensures that alternative reviewers can be contacted as soon as possible.
CONFIDENTIALITY
Submitted manuscripts received for evaluation are confidential documents and must be treated accordingly. They must not be shown to or be discussed with others except if authorized by the editor-in-chief. This is also valid for reviewers who have been invited for evaluation but declined.
STANDARDS OF OBJECTIVITY
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Referees should express their views clearly with appropriate arguments in order to support the improvement of the author’s work. Personal criticism of the author is inacceptable.
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 data of which they have personal knowledge.
DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Reviewers should reject 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 submission. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer-review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. This is also valid for reviewers who have been invited for evaluation but declined.
Duties of Authors
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
The author’s work should be the result of original research and should present an accurate account of the work performed. It should also contain an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and will not be tolerated.
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 it should be ensured that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism can appear in various forms: the copying or paraphrasing of parts or whole texts written by others without proper citation, the copying of research results by others without proper citation etc. Every form of plagiarism is unethical and will not be tolerated.
MULTIPLE, REDUNDANT OR CONCURRENT PUBLICATION
Authors should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. This implicates that authors should not submit articles which already have been published in other journals. Parallel submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior and will not be tolerated.
However, there is one exception: the publishing of the same article (as well as translations and clinical guidelines) in multiple journals can be justified if the editors-in-chief of the journal in question give their consent, data and interpretation match the results from the first publication and the first publication is mentioned in the second one.
AUTHORSHIP OF AN ARTICLE
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be named in an Acknowledgement section. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list of the manuscript, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
All authors should disclose any financial or other substantive conflict of interest (e.g. due to personal or professional relationships and/or personal knowledge and beliefs) that might be suited to influence the results or their interpretation in their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed (e.g. salaries, development funds, membership, shareholdings etc.). If necessary, by publishing all data that is needed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SOURCES
Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Private discussions with third parties for instance should not be used without the explicit, written permission of the source. Moreover, authors should not use confidential information gained from expert’s reports or grant applications without an explicit, written permission.
ANONYMITY OF PATIENTS AND INFORMED CONSENT
Authors are obliged to guarantee the anonymity of patients. Information like names, initials, hospital stays etc. should be estranged in a way that conceals the patient’s real identity. Furthermore, authors need to ask for the patient’s permission if they wish to use results from experimental research or psychotherapy. Patients – including children – have to give their informed consent before being examined. Authors should be able to present declarations of consent at any time.
PEER-REVIEW
Authors are obliged to participate in the peer-review process (Double-blind-Peer-review) and to cooperate with reviewers and editors as well as editors-in-chief. Authors should be able to answer the editor’s questions regarding raw data, explanations, proof of ethical approaches, declarations of consent and copyright law. Authors should respond systematically and on time so that they are able to meet the deadline.
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’s editor-in-chief or publisher and cooperate with them to either retract the paper or to publish an appropriate erratum. If a third party informs the editorial staff about an error, editors are obliged to correct this error promptly, to retract the article or to prove its correctness.