CEREM RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ETHICS

Submission

Articles for CEREM should be submitted through the journal’s Open Journal System, accessible via: https://ojs.wsb.wroclaw.pl/

The contact author should have or create an account in order to submit. In case of any kind of problems in this respect, please contact: johannes.platje@wsb.wroclaw.pl or tomasz.rolczynski@wsb.wroclaw.pl

Publication fees

There are no publication fees. The policy of CEREM is to support a free flow of scientific information through open access.

Copyright and access

The articles published in CEREM are available on the website as individual PDF, or in the form of a complete issue.

The articles are open access under the Creative Commons –  CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/pl/deed.en).

Publication ethics

  • All article authors are co-responsible for good scientific practice.
  • The work should be original with proper citations.
  • The work should not have been published previously somewhere else, or is not under consideration for publication somewhere else.
  • All interests which could lead to biases in the article should be expressed (e.g., grants, funding, connection with the subject of research).
  • In case of empirical research, the data should be presented in an applicableway and be accessible on request to the authors in order to make replication possible. Raw empirical data should be available during the reviewing process on request.

Peer review

  • CEREM applies the principle of double-blind peer review.
  • The initial selection by the editorial team (relevance of topic, fulfilment of technical standards, plagiarism checking, …..) will take at maximum a few weeks.
  • After checking the eligibility of the article, the editor sends out the article for review or will reject immediately (with the eventual possibility of re-submission).
  • The first review round takes about one to two months.
  • The reviews are carried out by experts in the field, who need to declare a lack of conflict of interest. Based on their review, the article may be accepted immediately, subject to revision to be checked by the editor, subject to revision sent for review, or rejection. More review rounds will take place in case of need.

The reviewers will assess articles according to the following categories (when applicable):

  1. Relevance of the topic.
  2. Match with profile of the journal.
  3. Scientific level.
  4. Goal (Is the goal of the paper focused, clearly stated, and can be feasibly dealt with within the scope of the article?).
  5. Literature used (Is the literature properly selected? Are there important papers the author(s) have not mentioned?).
  6. Conclusion (Are the interpretations and conclusions sound and justified by analysis and/ or data?).
  7. Does the article contain new ideas?
  8. Is the article original, i.e., are the ideas presented important in comparison to the present state of the art?
  9. Application of results (Can the result of the paper be applied in practice or contribute to the development of theory?).
  10. Methodological aspects (Are proper research methods used and applied? Are research data properly presented and analysed?).
  11. Clarity of arguments (Are the arguments presented in a clear, transparent and logical way?).
  12. Logic of structure (Is the structure of the article clear, coherent and consequent?).
  13. Illustrations and tables (Are the illustrations used, such as tables, figures and diagrams, properly designed and presented?).
  14. References (Are the references correctly quoted and written?).
  15. Formal and language issues (Is the article written using proper, understandable and scientific language?).
  16. Level of English language (Does the English used in the paper fulfil the standards of a scientific article?).
  17. Good scientific practice (Does the article fulfil standards of good scientific practice in terms of plagiarism, ghost-writing, guest authorship, etc.?).

The reviews are confidential, and comments are constructive and professional. The reviewers are expected to deliver the reviews in due time, and inform the editor as soon as possible in case of delay. Reviewers should contact the editor immediately in case of suspicion of any type of scientific malpractice. Comments and critique should be constructive, formulated in a sensible way. Reviewers may identify relevant uncited work the author(s) should consider in the paper.

Retractions / corrections of mistakes

  • When a mistake in an article is discovered after publication, please contact the editorial office (johannes.platje@wsb.wroclaw.pl). It is possible to add errata, publish corrections, clarifications, apologies, etc.
  • In case of suspected plagiarism or other scientific misconduct, please contact the editorial office (johannes.platje@wsb.wroclaw.pl). In case of plagiarism or other proven scientific misconduct (see below), the article will be retracted and the author(s) will be blacklisted.

Ghost-writing, guest authorship and plagiarism

  • In order to guarantee the scientific quality of the journal, the Central European Review of Economics and Management (CEREM) has developed procedures with the aim of dealing with problems related to ghost-writing, guest authorship and plagiarism. We consider scientific malpractice as a significant breach of scientific ethics, as it not only may concern a breach of intellectual property rights and be a sign of bad science, but it also reduces trust in science, which can not only induce distrust in the scientific community, but also be detrimental to socio-economic development.
  • Ghost-writing – the contribution of co-author(s) to the article is not mentioned.
  • Guest authorship (honorary authorship) – a person is identified as co-author while not having contributed to the article.
  • The authors should mention the contribution of others to the development of ideas. This also concerns informal conversations, where someone else comes up with an original idea. This person should obtain credit for this from the author(s).
  • Plagiarism – this phenomenon is interpreted as a case when resources are not given and/or when thoughts of other authors are not properly paraphrased. The authors should make clear when thoughts are their own, but also give credit to the authors whose work created the base for developing their thoughts.
  • The sources should be given in such a way, that the reader can easily find the original source, while being able to verify data (when used).
  • Auto-plagiarism – this phenomenon is interpreted as a case when the article contains more than 10% of text already published by the same author somewhere else. When using and paraphrasing own work, the resource also should be identified. When CEREM considers it worthwhile to make the article available to wider public, it is allowed to publish a translation of an article or a reprint of an article, under the condition that the original source is clearly mentioned in the first footnote.
  • Improper or unsound scientific practice, based on decisions of reviewers, the editor or the editorial board, may lead to the following consequences:
    • Exclusion from publication of the article in question in CEREM.
    • Depending on the seriousness of the improper practice, the author may be excluded from future publication in CEREM, while the employer of the author and other institutions and journals will be informed.
  • In case of more than one author, all authors are held responsible. The reason is that CEREM assumes that co-authorship is based on strong cooperation between the authors, as well as peer review of co-authors regarding the individual contributions.

Archiving and online publishing safety

CEREM does the greatest effort to guarantee continuous access to the articles published as well as the website. The website is permanently monitored, backups are made automatically on an external server, and the safety measured are improved on a continuous basis. Every quarter, after the publication of a new issue, a backup is made. This allows to restore the full operation of the website, and thus access to the publications, within 24 hours. Files of individual articles are archived on separate discs of the publisher and the website administrator.

For authors and reviewers. A short checklist regarding the usefulness of research

Based on Kampen and Tamas (2014) and Platje and Burkatzki (2015), we provide here a checklist regarding the usefulness of the research. This checklist enables reviewers and editors to quickly assess whether an article should be sent for review. For authors the checklist provides a useful instrument in order to reflect on the paper.

1. Is the work is plagiarized?

As described earlier, this leads not only to an immediate reject, but also to unpleasant professional consequences. For a reflection on plagiarism, see Burkatzki et al. (2012), available at http://www.ees.uni.opole.pl/content/03_12/ees_12_3_fulltext_03.pdf.

2. Is the abstract clear and well-structured?

A clear and well-structured abstract increases the probability of citation. Readers are readily able to check whether it is worthwhile to read the paper. Editors and reviewers obtain a quick impression of the relevance and coherence of the paper, important for the reviewing and editorial process.

3. Properly formulated aim.

When the aim is not properly formulated, the impression appears the author(s) do not really know what they are writing about. While lack of a proper aim does not necessarily means the research is irrelevant, the author(s) should remember that the first impression is important for people to start reading. Furthermore, without a clear, well focused aim, the structure of the paper is likely to lack coherence.

Furthermore, as Kampen and Tamas (2014) argue, an aim should be scientific, and not political. For example, “How to reduce climate denial” implies a political agenda. A more proper formulation would be “Identification and assessment of determinants of climate denial.” It is important to considerer whether the aim can be achieved within the scope of the paper.

3. Proper introduction and conclusion.

A proper introduction and conclusion, in addition to a clear abstract, allow for quick communication of relevant information. A poor introduction or conclusion may indicate that the authors have no clear focus, coherence and method in their article. The conclusion should show the limitations of research, and prevent excessive claims.

Table 1- The checklist

The checklist 

Source: Kampen, Tamas, 2014: 1222.

Files to download

Sources

Burkatzki E., Gerstlberger W., Platje J. (2012), Cultural differences regarding expected utilities and costs of plagiarism – preliminary results of an international survey study, „Economic and Environmental Studies”, vol. 12 no. 3, pp. 235-279, Available at: http://www.ees.uni.opole.pl/content/03_12/ees_12_3_fulltext_03.pdf

Kampen J., Tamás, P. (2014), Should I take this seriously? A simple checklist for calling bullshit on policy supporting research, „Quality & Quantity”, vol. 48, pp. 1213-1223, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-013-9830-8.

Platje, J., Burkatzki, E. (2015), Science and policy for sustainable development – bad scientific practice and plagiarism, in: Integrative Approaches to Sustainable Development at University Level, eds. Leal Filho W., Brandli L., Kuznetsova O., Finisterra do Paço O.M., “World Sustainable Development Series” (WSSD), pp. 385-395, Springer Verlag, Switzerland, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10690-8_27,