The Magazine of Civil Engineering complies with the ethical standards adopted by the scientific community, in particular, with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
The focus is on the responsibility of all participants of the editorial process.
1. Responsibility of the authors
Originality of the research
All scientific papers should be original. Violations of this principle include:
- plagiarism, i.e., deliberately appropriating someone else’s work or citing someone else’s work without attribution to the original author; both verbatim copying and paraphrasing are considered plagiarism;
- simultaneous submission to multiple journals;
- republishing a paper or a considerable part of it, including translations from another language; this does not concern papers published as part of conference proceedings.
The authors of the paper must ascertain that the research submitted for publication is original. Works or statements by other authors must be cited and quoted correctly. Plagiarism in any form is unethical behavior and is unacceptable.
Data validity
The authors are responsible for the validity of the paper; this includes both presenting complete and accurate data, and objective discussion of the data. Data falsification and fabrication are the grossest violations of scientific ethics and are unacceptable.
Authorship
The authorship assigned in the paper should reflect each author’s actual contribution to research and to writing the paper. “Guest authorship” (i.e. listing an author who didn’t take part in the research and writing) and “ghost authorship” (i.e. omitting to list an author who made a significant contribution to the research and writing) should be avoided at all costs.
All authors must read the final version of the article and be responsible for all of its content.
Citation
All previously published data, results or conclusions (both by the authors themselves and by others) must be cited. The original source should be cited whenever possible, not the derivative works.
Using citation as a method for improving the author’s, journal’s or organization’s impact factor or rankings is unethical.
2. Responsibility of the editors
Decision to publish
The editor makes the decision to publish the paper and is responsible for this decision. The criteria that the editors use to assess the paper’s eligibility for publication are (primarily) whether the research submitted makes an important contribution to the given field, and whether it complies with the journal’s subject matter and guidelines. The editors’ decision should not be affected by the authors’ affiliation, position, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, origin, nationality or political preferences.
Confidentiality
The editor is responsible for maintaining confidentiality when handling submissions, in particular:
- Unpublished data obtained from the manuscripts submitted for consideration should not be transferred to third parties (other than reviewers and editors involved in handling the specific manuscript) and cannot be used for personal gain
- The identities of the reviewers and the authors remain concealed until a decision is made to publish the manuscript
Conflict of interests
Editors should withdraw from handling the manuscripts (by contacting another editor or by cooperating with other members of the Editorial Board when handling the manuscript instead of reviewing the manuscript or making the decision about publication on their own) in the event of conflicts of interests due to competing or common or any other activities and relationships with authors, companies and any other organizations associated with the manuscript. The editor should also consider any potential conflict of interests.
3. Responsibility of the reviewers
Assessing the manuscript
Review is based on mutual respect of the author and reviewer who are equal participants of the scientific process. The main purpose of review is to assess the scientific value of the manuscript and whether it complies with the general requirements for research. The corrections suggested by the reviewers should improve the quality of the manuscript. The reviewers’ comments and recommendations should be clearly argued and based on objective data.
Confidentiality
The reviewers must keep confidential the contents of the manuscript under review until it is published, and must not reveal or transfer the article to third parties without the express permission of the editors.
Conflict of interests
The reviewers should decline to review the manuscript in case of conflict of interests due to competing or common or any other activities and relationships with authors, companies and any other organizations associated with the manuscript.