Studies in Informatics and Control – ICI Bucharest
Ethical guidelines for journal publication
Studies in Informatics and Control (SIC) pledges to guarantee ethics and quality in the publication of research articles, as a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and according to its standards/principles for Ethics and Publications Malpractice.
As publisher of the Studies in Informatics and Control journal, the National Institute for Research & Development in Informatics (I.C.I. – Bucharest), a state-owned organization, is in charge with an active and serious assurance of the publishing process and exposes awareness of its responsabilities, especially of the ethical engagements. It is also committed to guarantee that editorial decisions are not altered by any advertising (if any), reprint or other commercial proceeds.
In addition, Studies in Informatics and Control and the journal’s Editorial Board will be in connection with other journals and/or publishers if this proves to be mandatory or appropriate. With the scope of knowledge improvement and as an effect of the quality of the authors’ work and of the institutions they represent, the act of disseminating the articles in the peer-reviewed journals published by the National Institute for Research & Development in Informatics (I.C.I. Bucharest) has a scientific support.
In consequence, all parties involved – Authors, Editors, Peer Reviewers, Publishers – will comply with the ethical norms as described below:
Duties of authors
Reporting standards
A rigurous report of the work performed and of its significance should be presented by the authors of original research. The paper should precisely include fundamental data and adequate details and references. The deceptive or falsified data (including images) are not accepted.
Data access and retention
For editorial review, the authors should be prepared to furnish raw data for the validation of the obtained results. They should also preserve this documentation after the publication, for an appropriate period of time.
Originality and plagiarism
In all its forms, plagiarism in not accepted. In consequence, the authors have to assure that the submitted work is absolutely original, is not plagiarised and has not been published elsewhere before. They also have to properly cite or quote any work and/or parts of others’ works they have used. Authors submitting papers to SIC may never use copyrighted material without acknowledgement. To use a reproduced or an adapted figure or table in your manuscript, you must obtain written permission from the copyright owners (usually the original publisher or patent owner) and provide attribution to the original source in your manuscript next to the reproduced/adapted figure or table. This must be done even if YOU created the original figure or table from which the new one has been adapted. All figures and images should be labelled sequentially, numbered, and cited in the text. The minimum acceptable resolution is 300 dpi. at the maximum size they can be used, in .PNG format. All the papers submitted to the journal are going to be checked for plagiarism by making use of a reliable antiplagiarism software. Authors are encouraged to do a plagiarism scan themselves before submitting their manuscripts for possible publication in the Studies in Informatics and Control journal.
Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
In general, the author should avoid to publish manuscripts that expose the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Simultaneous submission to other publications will result in immediate rejection of the paper.
Acknowledgement of sources
The authors have to give an accurate acknowledgement of the work of others. The publications that have a substantial importance in the essence of the reported work should be cited by the authors.
Authorship of the paper
Authorship should include only those who substantially contributed to the reported study. Other substantial contributions belong to those listed as co-authors. Where there are other contributions in different substantive aspects of the research work they should be mentioned in an Acknowledgement section. The corresponding author should make sure that the final version of the paper has been seen, certified and allowed for publication by all the co-authors. The corresponding author should also assure that no inadequate co-author has been included in the author list of the paper. After the acceptance of a paper, no modification of authorship is accepted.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Any financial or other considerable conflict of interest that might be interpreted as an impact for the results or conceptualization of the paper has to be disclosed by the authors. The disclosure of any potential conflict of interest should occur at the earliest phase possible.
Fundamental errors in published works
The author has the obligation to immediately signalize any considerable error of his/her published work to the journal editor or publisher and collaborate with them in order to withdraw or remedy the paper. The author has also the obligation to immediately withdraw or remedy the paper if the editor or the publisher discovers from a third party that a published paper contains a considerable error.
Duties of the Editor and the Editorial Board
Publication decisions
The editor decides which of the articles proposed for the journal deserve to be evaluated and published afterwards. His selection should be constrained by legal requirements regarding denigration, plagiarism or copy breach. The editor’s decision has to be entirely based on the academic importance of the paper. He is not allowed to use any unpublished information without the written authorization of the author.
Fair play
In the evaluation of the manuscripts, the editor has to fairly weight only the intellectual content of them, disregarding the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, citizenship, ethnic or geographical origin.
Confidentiality
The editor and/or any editorial staff is not allowed to reveal any information about a submitted paper to anyone other than the corresponding author, (potential) reviewers, the publisher or other editorial advisers as appropriate.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
The editor is not allowed to use the unpublished materials or any piece of information obtained by means of peer review for personal research or advantage without a written authorization of the author. If the editor has conflicts of interests with any of the authors, companies or institutions involved in a paper, he should avoid himself from considering the paper.
Involvement and cooperation in investigations
When ethical accusations regarding a proposed or published paper have been raised in association with the publisher, the editor should take measures like announcing the authors of the paper or the proper institutions and he should also make public a remediation if the accusation is maintained. Although it is detected years after publication, any act of unethical publishing behaviour has to be examined.
Studies in Informatics and Control will react to all accusations/distrusts of research or improper publications made by readers, reviewers or other editors. The journal will evaluate any case of potential plagiarism or duplicate/redundant publication and may request a throughout analysis made by the institution or other relevant bodies.
Duties of the Reviewers
Contribution to editorial decisions
Peer review cooperates with the editor in making editorial choices and may also cooperate with the author regarding the enhancement of the paper, by reviewing the paper impartially. A peer review’s activity has to be based on the academic communication and scientific method.
Promptness
If a referee feels unable to promptly review the research of a paper should announce the editor.
Confidentiality
The manuscripts involved in the review process are confidential and must not be revealed to others without the editor’s authorization. The reviewer has to respect the confidentiality of the information provided by the editor or author and is not allowed to retain or to copy the paper.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be managed impartially, through a transparent and argued perspective, without any personal critique of the author.
Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should establish which are the proper published work that the author has not quoted. They should also alert the editor regarding any significant resemblance or overlap between the paper involved in the review process and other published paper.
Disclosure and conflict of interest
Privileged information collected after the peer review represents confidential information and must not be used for personal advantage. If the reviewer has conflicts of interest with any of the authors, companies or institutions involved in a paper, he should avoid himself from considering the paper.
Reviewer misconduct
Editors will actively consider reviewer malpractice and pursue any accusation of violation of privacy, concealing of conflicts of (non)financial interest, improper usage of private material or postponement of peer review in order to obtain competitive advantages. Accusations of significant reviewer malpractice, like plagiarism, will be led to the institutional level.
DISCLAIMER
The editors and the editorial board are not guilty for authors’ declared ideas, perspectives and contents of the published papers in the journal. The individual author is the one responsible for the originality, analysis and errors of the paper. The publication of the papers shall not constitute or be deemed to constitute any representation by the Editors of ICI Bucharest that the content presented therein is sufficient to support the conclusions reached or that the methodology is adequate. All papers proposed for review and publication in the Studies in Informatics and Control journal will be subject to double-blind reviews for authenticity, problems of ethics and convenient contributions. The only medium for publication in the journal is represented by the reviewers’ final verdicts.