Ethical Guidelines

Ethical guidelines

Publication ethics and malpractice statement

The journal AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics is committed to the highest ethical standards. All authors, reviewers, and editors are required to comply with the following ethical principles. In case of any doubts regarding the Ethical guidelines, do not hesitate to contact the editors of the journal agrisonline@pef.czu.cz.

Ethical expectations

Editors’ responsibilities:

To acknowledge receipt of submitted manuscripts within two working days and to ensure an efficient, fair, and timely review process.
To clearly identify manuscripts that are fully within the scope and aim of the journal “Agris On-line Papers in Economics and Informatics”. To treat all submissions fairly without any favour of prejudice regarding authors’ gender, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin.
To authorise for review and publication only content of the highest quality.
To recuse himself or herself from processing any manuscript if he or she has any conflict of interest with any of the authors or institutions related to the manuscripts
To provide advice to the authors during the submission process when necessary.
To be transparent with regards to the review and publication process with an appropriate care that individuals will not be identified when it is inappropriate to do so.
To not use any parts or data of the submitted manuscript for his or her own future research as the submitted manuscript is not published yet.
To respond immediately and take reasonable action when ethical problems occur concerning a submitted or a published manuscript.

Authors’ responsibilities:

To carefully read the Instructions for authors published on the website of the journal “AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics”.
To claim that the submitted manuscript is not under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere. To acknowledge and cite accordingly all content overlapping with already published content.
To ensure that the submitted manuscript is original, prepared to a high scholarly standard and fully referenced using the prescribed referencing convention.
To obtain permission to reproduce any content from other published sources. To clarify that all data used in the manuscript has been acquired following ethical research standards.
To accurately acknowledge funding sources related to the submitted manuscript.
To carefully read all the conditions included in the copyright form and to accept the copyright form during the submission process.
To declare any potential conflicts of interest (real or apparent) at any stage during the publication process.
To recognise that the Editorial Board of the AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics journal has the final decision to publish the submitted, reviewed and accepted manuscript.
To immediately inform the editors whenever any obvious error in his or her published manuscript is identified. To cooperate with the editors in retraction or correction of the manuscript if necessary.
The Author(s) must declare that all the data used in the manuscript were acquired following the ethical research standards. They must ensure that all the experiments performed comply with the current Czech and EU laws and regulations and WMA relating to the transport, housing and use of animals in research if applicable.
The Author(s) must Accept ethical standards , if he/she used in own manuscript involves methods (e.g., genetic research, interviews, questionnaires, randomised control trial) or subject matter (e.g. recreational and controlled drugs, human impact on the environment) that are sensitive and therefore need to be managed consistently with UCL’s high public reputation.

Review process

The Agris on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics review process is „Blind peer“ review process, which means that the reviewer identities are concealed throughout the review process. The reviewers are assigned by the Editor of the Journal. Reviewers are obliged to recuse himself or herself from processing any manuscript if he or she has any conflict of interest with any of the authors or institutions related to the manuscripts.
The Editor of the Journal assigns the reviewers. Reviewers are selected from the database of external and internal reviewers. The database of reviewers is constantly updated.
The assignment of reviewers by the Editor is subject to control by individual executive editors, who check that there is no conflict of interest.
Any suspicion of conflict of interest is immediately reported to the Editorial Advisory Board, Editor-in-Chief of the Agris on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, who check that there is no conflict of interest.

Reviewers’ responsibilities:

To immediately notify the editors whenever feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript or sees difficulties to meet the deadline for completion of the review.
To agree to review a reasonable number of manuscripts at the same time.
To inform the editors if there is any possible conflict of interest related to the assigned manuscript. Specifically, to avoid reviewing any manuscript authored or co-authored by a person with whom the reviewer has an obvious personal or academic relationship.
To treat the manuscript in a confidential manner and to not use any parts or data of the reviewed manuscript for his or her own future research as the reviewing manuscript is not published yet.
To assist in improving the quality of the manuscript reading the manuscript with appropriate care and attention, reviewing the manuscript objectively and being constructively critical.
To immediately notify the editors of any similarities between the reviewing manuscript and another article either published or under consideration by another journal.

Ethical standards

Informed consent

All participants must be fully informed of the study and what is being asked of them, including the potential risks/benefits and exclusion criteria, in order to make a fully informed decision about whether or not to participate in the research. This must be an active step on behalf of the participant and not due to any inducement, coercion, or perceived pressure to participate. This is required of all participants in a research study, except where there is a justification for covert research or deception (such cases will be considered on an individual basis by the ethics committee).

Confidentiality

All participants have the right for their participation to remain confidential in that only the researcher will be aware of who has participated. Generally, all data will also be anonymous in the final report so that nothing can be attributed back to an individual participant. There are exceptions, for instance where participants wish to be identified or they cannot realistically have their identities kept confidential, but written informed consent must be obtained from the individual participant in advance.

Procedures for dealing with unethical behaviour

Dealing with possible misconduct:

Editors have a duty to act if they suspect any misconduct or if a claim of misconduct has been reported by anyone. This duty applies to both published and unpublished manuscript.
Editors should not simply reject an manuscript that raise concerns about possible misconduct. Editors are ethically obliged to pursue alleged cases.
Whoever informs the editors of such conduct should provide sufficient information and evidence to initiate an investigation.
Editors must take all allegations seriously and treat them in the same way, until a successful decision or conclusion is reached.
Editors should first seek a response from those suspected of misconduct. If the editors are not satisfied with the response, they should ask the relevant employers, or institution, or some appropriate body to investigate.
Editors should make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation into alleged misconduct is conducted. If this does not happen, editors should make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.

Minor breaches:

Minor misconduct might be dealt without the need to consult more widely. In any event, the author should be given the opportunity to respond to any allegations.

Serious breaches:

Serious misconduct might require that the employers of the accused be notified. The editors should make the decision whether or not to involve the employers, either by examining the available evidence themselves or by further consultation with a limited number of experts.

Retraction of a manuscript if:

Editors have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct or honest error.
The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e. redundant publication). The journal that first published the manuscript may issue a notice of redundant publication but should not retract the manuscript unless the findings are unreliable. Any journals that subsequently publish a redundant manuscript should retract it and state the reason for the retraction.
The manuscript constitutes plagiarism and reports unethical research.
The manuscript should be retracted as soon as possible after the editors are convinced that the manuscript is seriously flawed and misleading.

Outcomes of unethical behaviour (in increasing order of severity):

Informing or educating the author or reviewer where appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards.
A more strongly worded letter to the author or reviewer covering the misconduct and as a warning to future behaviour.
Publication of a formal notice on the journal website detailing the misconduct.
Publication of an editorial on the journal website (as well as in both electronic and printed issue) detailing the misconduct.
A formal letter to the head of the author's or reviewer's department or funding agency.
Retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the journal, in conjunction with informing the head of the author or reviewer's department, as well as Abstracting & Indexing services.
Imposition of a formal embargo on contributions from an individual in the journal for a defined period.