STANDARDS OF ETHICS

STANDARDS OF ETHICS

Acta Mediaevalia. Series nova follows the standards of ethics outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics on the COPE website. These regulations are binding on every stage of the publication process. All parties involved – editors, authors and reviewers – must abide by them.

Editors

Editors must be objective, reliable and fair in their evaluation and selection of submissions. They must consider the content quality of the submissions exclusively. Any discrimination on the basis of gender, skin colour, religion, etc. is strictly forbidden.

If any allegations regarding potential breach of ethics arise, editors must take straightforward steps to clarify the situation and inform the author about the issue to allow them to respond to it. Any and all allegations must be recorded and investigated. The record must be filed and archived regardless of when the allegation surfaced. Errors identified and allegations confirmed after publication of a paper must be addressed appropriately by the editors. The nature of the problem dictates which steps ought to be taken. These include:

• Informing the author or reviewer about any breach of the standards of ethics and warning them against doing likewise in future.
• Banning the author from publishing in the journal for a specified period.
• Publishing a correction or explanation in the following printed issue.
• Publishing a clarifying note on the issue’s webpage.
• Retracting the paper.
• Publishing an editor’s note which voices justified doubts regarding the value of research results.

Authors

The research must be conducted and presented in a straightforward and truthful way.

In submitting a paper, the author states that the material is his/her original work, has not been published previously, is not being considered for publication elsewhere and does not include illegal or unethical contributions from third parties. When submitting a paper, the author agrees to the peer review procedure.

Code of Ethics for Researchers includes the details of ethical conduct [LINK].

• Reviewers

Reviewers involved in the decision process regarding the acceptance or rejection of an article should be objective and unbiased; reviews should be submitted in four weeks of receipt of the article/

Reviewers should follow the peer review procedure available on the website (see §3).

Reviewers must maintain confidentiality regarding any and all information submitted to them in the peer review procedure. They may not use the submission paper for any reason other than completing the review process.

Reviewers must notify the Editorial Board if they identify any issues in a paper submitted for review.