Ethical Satement

Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement

 

  1. Authorship

For publication in the Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment, authors will submit only original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. All citations must be based solely on relevance of the suggested work (i.e., citations of authors’ previous work, or works of authors’ associates, that is not relevant for the work in question, should be avoided).

Manuscripts which have been published elsewhere (copyrighted or not) or which are being considered for publication elsewhere cannot be submitted. Manuscripts under review by the Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment should not be submitted to other publications.

Authorship should be limited to persons who have made a significant contribution to the design of the study, execution of the research and analyses and interpretation of the results.

It is responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that all contributing co-authors are included (i.e., that there are no “ghost” authors). Persons not involved in the study (i.e., “gift” or “guest” authorships) should not be included in authors’ list. The corresponding author will also verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the editors. In such cases, they should provide corrections of errors or request retraction.

 

  1. Complaints and appeals

The complaints and appeals are sent directly to the editor-in-chief. In case there is a complaint against the editor-in-chief, its copy should be sent directly to the Macedonian Ecological Society (the Journal publisher), at contact@mes.org.mk, from where it will be promptly sent to MES board.

The editor-in-chief or MES board will appoint three-member task group, based on members’ expertise and avoiding possible conflict of interest, to resolve the compliant under question.

Editors/Board members will follow the procedures set out in the COPE flowcharts on complaints (https://publicationethics.org/files/Full%20set%20of%20English%20flowcharts_9Nov2016.pdf).

The complaints will be responded to promptly.

 

  1. Conflicts of interest and competing interests

The Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment requires authors, reviewers and members of the editorial board to declare existing or potential conflicts of interests.

 

  1. Data sharing and reproducibility

The Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment is a free-access journal, publicly available at http.mjee.org.mk. All publications and the electronic supplementary material can be freely downloaded as PDF files or in other generally accepted formats (.txt, .csv, .jpg, .shp, etc.).

At this moment, authors are not requested to make their data publicly available, but are encouraged to do so, as a part of the manuscript text or as electronic supplementary material.

Authors could be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the paper for the peer-review process and should be prepared to make the data publicly available.

Reproducible methodology needs to be explained in sufficient details for the research to be repeated. Provision of the analytical procedures and algorithms (e.g., R code) is encouraged, and might be requested for the review process.

By submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retain the rights to the published material. In case of publication, they permit the use of their work under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 

  1. Ethical guidelines

Ethical guidelines for the authors are covered under “Authorship”.

 

  1. The editor-in-chief, editorial board and the editing process

The editor-in-chief is responsible for everything published in the journal. He is obliged to take steps to ensure high quality of the published material.

The editor-in-chief might appoint one or more members of the editorial board as editor(s) of a manuscript.

The editor(s) will identify reviewers with field of expertise relevant to the content in a manuscript. Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers, unless the reviewer(s) decide not to remain anonymous.

The editor(s) will provide guidance to reviewers on what is expected of them.

Decisions to accept or reject a paper will be based only on the paper’s originality, clarity and relevance for the journal. Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason.

Editor(s) will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Editor(s) should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
Editor(s) should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.

Editors should not reject articles based on suspicions only, but they should seek to find proof of misconduct.

  1. Reviewing process and reviewers

Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment practices single-blind peer-review for all submitted manuscripts. The editors will seek at least two competent reviewers, that will be requested to finish their review within one month and advise the editor on the decision for the manuscript.

The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.

Potential reviewers should provide accurate and up to date professional information on their expertise and contact details, if requested. Impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered serious misconduct. Potential reviewers should only agree to undertake review if they have the necessary expertise and can objectively assess the manuscript. In cases potential reviewers recognize gaps in their expertise regarding the manuscript under review, they should clearly identify them and inform the editor.

Potential reviewers should declare all existing or potential competing, or conflicting, interests, or alert the editor on potential conflict of interest when they are not sure about it.

Potential reviewers should only agree for a review if they complete the review within a proposed timeframe, or alternatively, a timeframe agreed with the editor.

Reviewers should respect the confidentiality of the peer review process. They should not use information obtained during the peer review process for their advantage or advantage of third parties, or to disadvantage or discredit others.

Reviewers should not include third parties in the review process.

In case the reviewers note any ethical offenses with respect to the research and publication, they should inform the editor.

Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.
Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

If reviewers have reviewed the same manuscript for another journal from which the manuscript has been rejected, they should go through the review process as reviewing an entirely new manuscript, as it might have been modified.

Reviewers should not suggest to authors to include citations to their work, or work of their associates, just in order to increase citations. All suggestions for citations must be based solely on relevance of the suggested work.

 

  1. Publisher

The publisher (Macedonian Ecological Society) through its statutory bodies appoint the Editor-in-chief and the members of the editorial board, and provide the necessary means to sustain publication of the Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment.

The publisher and its statutory bodies will not interfere in any matter related to the process of submission, review and decision regarding any submitted work (i.e., the work of the editorial board is autonomous).

In case a compliant is received against the Editor-in-chief, the publisher will appoint three-member task group, based on members’ expertise and avoiding possible conflict of interest, to resolve the compliant under question.

 

  1. Intellectual property

With submission to the Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment, authors warrant that their works do not infringe copyrights or violate any other rights of any third party. All intellectual property rights are retained by the authors. Publication of an article in the Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment does not infringe patent rights.

Editorial board of the Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment will act promptly when realistically supported issue that falls within legal scope of concern is raised.

The Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment will not mediate disputes among scientists.

 

  1. Post-publication corrections and discussions

The Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment offers possibilities to publish corrections to earlier published work, only in cases when they can sufficiently address errors and if they do not substantially change the conclusions of the work in question.

Discussion, in forms of “Comments” to earlier published work is also accepted. In such case, the submitted “Comments” will undergo a review process identical to any other manuscripts submitted, and will preferably be sent to at least one of the editors that reviewed the work which the “Comments” refer to.

Authors of the original (referred) work will be presented with the accepted “Comments” and will have up to six months to prepare their “Reply to the comments”. The reply will not undergo thorough review, but will be examined by the editors to certify that issues raised in the “Comments” are properly addressed. The “Comments” and the “Reply to the comments” will be printed in same issue of the Journal, and will be published on-line simultaneously.

In cases “Comments” raise issues that question the quality of the work in consideration, authors and/or editors might decide to retract the original paper.

 

  1. Other relevant ethical and publication information

 

  1. Corrections to the list of authors

Correction to author/contributor list might be published in cases of authorship disputes or upon request by the original authors, after proof is presented that such a change is justified.

 

  1. Retractions

The main purpose of retraction is to correct the literature and ensure integrity of the Journal and the science.

Retraction can be requested by the authors if they identify errors in their work that can not be corrected, or by the editor-in-chief.

The editor-in-chief will retract published work in cases when it has been shown, beyond any doubt, that:

  • the published work is plagiarism or redundant publication;
  • there is evidence that the results are erroneous and the publication can not be corrected;
  • data has been used without approval, or other serious legal issues have been raised and confirmed;
  • the review process has been compromised;
  • the research is shown to be unethical.

Notices on retraction will be published in the printed version of the journal, and all on-line versions will be amended to include clearly visible information, or watermark, “RETRACTED”.

A retraction notice will mention the basis for the retraction and will specify who is retracting the article.

Publications will be retracted as soon as possible after it has been shown that the publication is seriously flawed, misleading, or falls into any of the categories described above.

In all cases of retraction, the retracted article will be clearly identified.

 

  1. Self-archiving policy

The Macedonian Journal of Ecology and Environment allows authors to deposit authors' pre-prints, post-prints (accepted versions) and published versions (PDFs and electronic supplementary materials) in other repositories, their personal website, institutional websites or similar. Publisher’s copyright and source must be acknowledged for the published versions, and a link must be given to the article's site.

 

  1. References

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Retrieved from http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf. March 2011.

COPE Council. COPE Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers — English. https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.9 Version 2: September 2017.

COPE Council. COPE Guidelines: A Short Guide to Ethical Editing for New Editors. Version 3. May 2019

COPE Council. COPE Retraction guidelines — English. https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4 Version 2: November 2019