Publisher:

University of Coventry, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR)

Coventry, United Kingdom in cooperation with ITLA

ISSN 2754-7612 (Online)

 

Current issue:

Volume 1, Number 2

December  2020

> Aims and scope

> Instructions for authors

> Journal information

> Editorial board

> Ethical principles

Ethical Principles and Abuse Elimination Policy

The Journal of Terraced Landscapes follows ethical principles and implements a publishing policy in line with the good practices identified by The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The guidelines set out in this Annex shall be taken as reference:

 

• Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf),
• Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers (https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers),
• Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing)
• Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code%20of%20conduct%20for%20publishers%20FINAL_1_0.pdf)

 

A selection of the key points is given below. For details on the standards adopted by the journal, please refer to the documents listed above.

 

Responsibilities of the editors

Maintenance of independence: the editors evaluate the submitted manuscripts solely on the basis of their scientific value (originality, relevance of research, transparency of content) and their inclusion in the line of the journal regardless of the authors' ethnic origin, citizenship, religious beliefs and political philosophy, gender, or sexual orientation.

Confidentiality: the editors and members of the journal's editorial team will not disclose any information concerning the text sent to anyone other than the authors themselves, reviewers (including potential ones), publishers, members of the editorial team, editorial office, proofreaders, operators of the computerised directory and other persons involved in preparing the number for publication.

Privacy policy and conflicts of interest: editors and editorial office will not use the unpublished information presented in the submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas obtained by the editors from reading the text will be treated as confidential and will not be used for anyone's personal benefit. Editors shall withdraw from editorial work on manuscripts where there are conflicts of interest arising from a competition, cooperation or other relationship with any of the authors, companies or institutions associated with the publications. They will ask another member of the editorial office to handle the manuscript.

Decisions concerning the publication of submitted material: the editorial office shall ensure that all submitted manuscripts considered for publication are reviewed by at least two reviewers who are experts in the field.

 

Responsibilities of reviewers

Cooperation with the editorial office: by formulating a review, the reviewer helps the editors to make an informed decision related to the publication of the text. His work is also intended to help authors improve their manuscripts to meet the highest scientific quality standards. The peer review mechanism is an important element of formal scientific communication and underpins scientific research.

Punctuality and qualifications: any invited reviewer who is not qualified to evaluate the submitted manuscript or knows that he will not be able to meet the review deadline proposed by the editors should immediately notify the editors so that the work can be passed on to other reviewers.

 

Confidentiality: all manuscripts sent for review are confidential and must be treated as such. It is forbidden to share them with third parties. This also applies to reviewers who reject the editorial invitation.

 

Objectivity: reviews should be impartial and written in a spirit of objectivity. The reviewer's observations should be formulated in a clear and unambiguous way so that the authors of the texts can use them to improve their work. Personal attacks on authors are considered inappropriate.

 

Documentation of sources: reviewers should identify references to works that have not been cited by the authors. Any observation, thesis, conclusion or argument presented in previously published texts shall be accompanied by an appropriate reference. The reviewer should also notify the editors of any significant similarities noted to other texts to confirm or rule out the possibility of plagiarism or unnecessary duplication of the publication (or its parts). In case of any doubts concerning the authorship of the article, we suggest to read COPE's guidelines:

https://publicationethics.org/files/Recognise_Potential_Authorship_Problems.pdf

Publicity of the review process and conflicts of interest: any reviewer who identifies a conflict of interest arising from a competitive, collaborative or other relationship with any of the authors of the texts or with companies and institutions related to the creation of the text or its content should immediately notify the editors of the conflict of interest and refuse to review it. Unpublished information contained in the text sent by the author may not be used for the reviewer's own research without the express written consent of the authors. The content of the texts cannot be used by a reviewer for personal gain. This also applies to reviewers who reject the invitation to review.

 

Responsibilities of authors

Reporting standards: authors report only their own original, reliable research. The manuscript should be based on reliable, verifiable data and indicate its sources. The review forms should be precise, objective and exhaustive, and author's opinions should be clearly identified. False or intentionally inaccurate statements are considered inadmissible and unethical.

Access to and storage of data: authors may be asked to provide raw data from the study together with the text, so that editors (with possible expert support) can assess its reliability. Authors may be asked to make this data public if necessary (if this does not violate the law, copyright or confidentiality rules). The authors should ensure that such data are available to other professionals for at least 10 years after the publication of the text.

Plagiarism: authors should make sure that they provide the editorial office only with completely original works, and if they have referred to the work of other researchers, that this has been appropriately marked. Those publications that influenced the general nature of the research presented in the text should also be quoted. Plagiarism takes various forms, from presenting another work as one's own, through copying or paraphrasing large parts of other texts without attributing authorship of thought, to the appropriation of unpublished research results. Plagiarism in any form is unethical and unacceptable, as is autoplagiarism, i.e. unnecessary duplication of a publication or its parts. For the sake of transparency in the application of procedures, the journal's team is assisted by COPE diagrams: https://publicationethics.org/resources/translated-resources.

 

Publication strategies: authors may not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. It is also unacceptable and unethical to submit a text to more than one journal simultaneously. In exceptional cases, with the permission of the editorial office (or at the request of the editorial office, if reprinting is justified by the substantive concept of the issue) it is possible to publish previously presented texts. The reference text must then be clearly marked.

 

Copyright policy: as authors of a manuscript, persons who fulfil a number of criteria, regardless of their place in academic structures should be listed (e.g. whether they are students or assistants). 1) They have made a significant contribution to the conception of the text, the design and execution of the studies, the collection, analysis and interpretation of data. 2) They have developed the text or critically reviewed it for important intellectual content; 3) They have seen and approved the final version of the article and agreed to submit it for publication. Persons who have contributed to the creation of the text (technical assistance, editorial assistance, other types of support), but who do not meet the criteria for authorship, cannot be named as authors. However, their contribution to the text should be indicated in the text section entitled Acknowledgements (when they agree in writing). The editors will actively counteract the phenomenon of ghostwriting and guest authorship.

 

Conflicts of interest: authors should disclose, at the earliest possible stage in their cooperation with the journal, any potential conflicts of interest which may affect the results of the reviews. These include, but are not limited to, financial interests (fees, scholarships, funds, stocks or other equity interests), cooperative and competitive interests (hiring speakers, membership of an organisation, employment, paid consultations and expertise, personal or professional relations), interests connected with the subject matter of the text. All sources of financial support (including the grant number or other reference number, if any) shall be disclosed.

Confirmation of sources: the authors should make sure that they accurately quote the sources and indicate when they refer to the authors whose works influenced the nature of the submitted manuscript. Information obtained privately (during a conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties) may not be used without the express written consent of the source. The authors should also not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services (e.g. evaluation of funding applications), unless they have the express written consent of the authors.

 

Human research: If the text is based on human research, the authors should ensure that all research procedures comply with relevant legislation and institutional guidelines. The manuscript should include a statement to that effect. The authors should attach to the manuscript a statement that they have obtained free prior and informed consent for the research. The privacy and confidentiality rights of research participants must always be respected.

https://www.ethnobiology.net/what-we-do/core-programs/ise-ethics-program/code-of-ethics/code-in-english/

 

Review process: authors are required to participate in the review process and to fully cooperate with reviewers and editors by responding promptly to requests for raw data, clarifications on research ethics and copyright. The authors should respond to the reviewers' comments reliably and rapidly, making the necessary corrections point by point and returning the text within the deadline set by the editors.

 

Errors in published works: if authors discover errors or inaccuracies in published texts, it is their duty to immediately notify the editors of the journal or the publisher. The text should then be corrected or withdrawn. If editors or publishers find out from other sources that the published text contains errors or inaccuracies, they will provide this information to the authors. If they are unable to provide evidence of the correctness of their argument, they must immediately correct these errors or withdraw their work. Guidance on withdrawing or correcting articles can be found at:

https://www.elsevier.com/about/company-information/policies/article-withdrawal.

 

Openness policy and copyright

Rights to the text: authors who submit a text to The Journal of Terraced Landscapes retain the rights to their work.

 

Licences: Submission of a text is equivalent to acceptance of its availability to third parties together with the metadata under the licence conditions Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).

 

Open Access: The Journal of Terraced Landscapes is a journal available in the Open Access Gold formula on the website and in the journal databases.

Graphics, illustrations, photos: the author, using all kinds of graphics and illustrations, must provide the publisher with permission to use them from the owner of the proprietary copyrights.