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Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
As editorial board of the journal PROKLA we strive to maintain the following principles of publication ethics and quality standards in the editorial process, the review process and authorship. This also involves a critical reflection of power relations within the scientific field.
Responsibilities of the Editorial Board and the Reviewers
Publication decision
The editorial board is responsible for deciding which papers submitted to the journal will be published. It evaluates manuscripts submitted to the journal solely with regard to its quality, independent of the author’s gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, citizenship and the ethnic origin. The editorial board's decision assesses scientific and political relevance and originality of the manuscript, the clarity and stringency of the argument and its scientific foundation. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism will also be taken into consideration.
Confidentiality
The editorial board does not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the possible reviewers, members of the scientific advisory board of PROKLA and the publisher.
Disclosure of conflicts of interest
Unpublished manuscripts and other materials will not be used in any form by members of the editorial board for their own research without the author’s explicit consent. In case of a conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or connections with the author(s), the member of the editorial board has to disclose this conflict of interest and leave the evaluation and decision about publication of the manuscript in question to the other members of the editorial board.
Review Process
The editorial board usually decides about the publication of a manuscript on the basis of a three-step review process within the editorial board. The first step involves the review of abstracts submitted to a Call for Papers. It is also possible to submit manuscripts directly, i.e. without prior submission of an abstract, for publication outside of the main theme of the Call for Papers. In the second step, at least two members of the editorial board review the manuscript and - if possible – discussed at an editorial meeting. If necessary, the editorial board consults external reviewers or members of the scientific advisory board which are bound to the same principles of publication ethics and quality standards. The final decision over publication is being taken by the editorial board after the author has submitted a revised version of the manuscript, evaluating in particular the extent to which the author has taken into consideration the proposals for revision.
The peer-review process supports authors in improving the manuscript. Only editors or external reviewers are selected which are eligible and qualified for reviewing contributions in the specific thematic area of the manuscript. Both editorial board and external reviewers keep the manuscripts confidential and must not be disclosed to or discussed with others. Reviews must be free of any personal criticism of the author and should express the points of criticism as clearly and comprehensible as possible. Particularly, reviews should indicate if published work and the contributions of other authors relevant to the main argument of the manuscript is referred to in the text and cited in the reference section. Reviews should also indicate if there is substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under review and any other published paper. External reviewers should not consider manuscripts if there is a conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or connections with the author(s).
Responsibilities of the Authors
The results of empirical research should be presented by the author as accurately and comprehensible as possible. Incorrect or distorted presentation of empirical findings and conclusions derived from them violate our publication ethics and quality standards and are unacceptable. Authors can be requested to provide the raw data of their study for editorial review and – if practicable – to make them public, provided personal rights and copyright can be protected.
Authors are obliged to submit only original work and to appropriately reference and cite work and words of others. Publications relevant to the basic approach and problem formulation of the paper should also be mentioned. Generally, papers that essentially present the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting identical papers to more than one journal is contrary to our publication ethics and quality standards and will not be tolerated.
It is not possible to submit manuscripts which have already been published as copyright material elsewhere. Concomittantly, manuscripts currently under review cannot be resubmitted to other copyright protected publication. By submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retain(s) the right to the published material. In case of publication, the author(s) agree(s) to the use of the work under the creative commons licence BY-NC-ND 4.0, which permits others to copy, distribute and make the content of the work accessible to the public under the following three conditions: mentioning the name of the author and the journal PROKLA, exclusion of commercial use and exclusion of any remix or transformation of the material. In any event, please inform us in case of further distribution at redaktion@prokla.de.
Authorship should be restricted to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, implementation or interpretation of the research. All those who have contributed significantly should be named as co-authors. The corresponding author ensures that all those who have made a significant contribution an persons which were not involved in the research are included in the authorship of the paper. The corresponding authors is also responsible for making sure that all co-authors have approved the final version of the manuscript and its publication.
Authors are obliged to disclose any financial or other relevant conflicts of interest that may have the potential to influence the results or interpretation of their research when submitting the manuscript. We also expect authors to disclose the sources of financial support for their research.
If an author discovers significant inaccuracies or errors in his or her published work, the author is obliged to swiftly inform the editorial board and to cooperate with it in order to retract or correct the paper in form of an erratum.
References
Committee on Publication Ethics (2011): Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf.
