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Editorial Policy and Publication Ethics 

The Journal of articles of the Faculty of Education in Užice is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The journal promotes topics related to education science and associated scientific disciplines, thus contributing to the development of the education process. The journal has been published for twenty-one years.  

The Journal of Articles of the Faculty of Education in Užice publishes papers that have not been previously published, including: original scientific articles (papers) which include unpublished results of one’s own research and follow a specific structure (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion); review articles which include original and critical presentations of a specific research problem,  and the author of which has significantly contributed to the given area (according to auto-citations); short scientific reports in which results of original research, or research that has not been completed yet are summarized; professional articles in which already known findings are presented, as well as results of original research aimed at dissemination or practical applications, and book reviews. 

 Articles are published in Serbian, English or Russian. Each paper should include an abstract written in Serbian, English or Russian. 

The journal is published annually. Articles are submitted to the following e-mail address: zbornik@pfu.kg.ac.rs.

The journal is indexed in the following databases: DOAJ, SCIndeks.


Peer Review and Reviewers’ Responsibilities 

After a preliminary review and evaluation of the manuscript by the editor-in-chief and the managing editor to determine whether it conforms to the thematic area of the journal, and whether the instructions for authors have been followed, the review process shall begin. The editor-in-chief has discretion to decline to publish the submitted articles after the preliminary review if those articles do not meet the specified criteria with regard to content and form. The editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board must not be in any conflict of interest with regard to articles under consideration. During the peer review process, the editor-in-chief may request additional information from the authors (including raw data) if such information is deemed necessary for the review. These materials shall be strictly confidential, and must not be used for other purposes.     

The review process is aimed at helping the editorial board to reach a decision of whether to publish a manuscript or not. In addition, during the review process, communication with the authors shall be established if need be so as to improve the quality of the submitted manuscript. If a revision or correction of the submitted manuscript is recommended before publication, the reviewers are obligated to explain the manner in which it should be done. All manuscripts shall be reviewed by two competent reviewers. Reviewers must possess relevant knowledge of the thematic area covered in the article, and must not be employed in the same institution as the author of the manuscript.      

Reviewers are not privy to the identity of the authors, and the authors shall receive no information about the identity of the reviewers. The review process shall be completed within 45 days, and the procedure is free of charge. The editor-in-chief shall send the manuscripts to two competent reviewers, as well as the review form (review report). This report used for reviewing manuscripts shall be in the form of a checklist with listed factors that may help the reviewer to estimate and make a decision on whether to accept the paper for publication, or reject it. The report shall also include a section where the reviewer may propose suggestions on how to improve the manuscript.   

Reviewers are obligated to evaluate manuscripts in a professional, objective, substantiated and timely manner. They shall evaluate manuscripts in accordance with the journal’s profile, relevance of the topic researched and methods applied, scientific relevance of the information presented in the manuscript, presentation style and scientific instruments. The reviews shall have a standardized format. Reviewers must not be in any conflict of interest with the authors, or research patrons. If such a conflict should exist, the reviewer is obligated to promptly inform the editor-in-chief. The reviewer shall not accept to review manuscripts that fall outside the area of his/her competence.   

During the review process, the reviewers shall act independently of each others, and shall not learn the identity of other reviewers. If the decisions of the reviewers are in disagreement (to accept or reject a manuscript), the editor-in-chief may seek the opinion of other reviewers. 

In case the authors should have serious and well-founded objections to the review, the editorial board shall check whether the review is impartial and whether it meets academic standards.  

Reviewers should alert the editor-in-chief of any reasonable suspicion or knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. All manuscripts accepted for revisions shall be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers may not use unpublished material from the submitted manuscripts without the explicit written consent of the author. In addition, reviewers must not be in any conflict of interest with the authors or those who finance the research. In case there is a conflict of interest, a reviewer is obligated to promptly inform the editor-in-chief.   

The final decision on accepting a manuscript for publication shall be made solely by the editorial board.

 

Duties of Authors

Authors shall guarantee that their manuscripts are original works, that they have not been previously published, and that they are not considered for publication elsewhere. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time is a violation, and automatically eliminates the manuscript from further consideration. An article already published elsewhere cannot be reprinted in the Journal of Articles of the Faculty of Education in Užice.    

If a submitted manuscript is the result of a scientific research project, or if a previous version of it has been presented in a conference in the form of an oral statement (under the same or similar title), more detailed information on the project, conference and the like shall be stated in the footnote, at the beginning of the article.   

Authors are required to adhere to ethical standards relating to scientific research. Authors shall guarantee that their manuscript does not contain illegal or unsubstantiated claims, and does not violate the rights of others. The publisher, the Faculty of Education in Užice shall not be held responsible or liable in any way for any damage claims. 

The authors are required to inform the editorial board in writing about any changes or modifications made in the text in accordance with the reviewers’ comments and recommendations during the review process.  

Authors are solely responsible for the content of their manuscripts. Authors confirm that their article does not contain any illegal or unsubstantiated claims, and does not violate the rights of third parties.  

Authors shall ensure that the team of authors listed in the manuscript includes all and only those authors that significantly contributed to the manuscript submitted. If there are any parties that participated in the important aspects of the scientific research project, or preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in the footnote or the acknowledgement section. 

The author is required to submit a signed and scanned Statement of Originality along with the manuscript (the form can be downloaded).

The authors are required to correctly cite the sources that have significantly impacted their research and their manuscript. Parts of the manuscript, including text, equations, images and tables taken in entirety from other sources must be clearly marked, e.g. with quotation marks and their position in the original document (page number), or if more extensive, they should be given in a separate paragraph. Complete references of each citation must be listed in a separate section (References or Literature), in accordance with the citation style specified in the instructions for authors. 

Should authors discover a material error, or inaccuracy in their own published paper, they are obligated to immediately inform the editor-in-chief (or publisher) and cooperate with him/her to correct, or withdraw the paper. By submitting the manuscript, the authors agree to adhere to the editorial policy of the Journal of Articles of the Faculty of Education in Užice. 

Plagiarism. Plagiarism, or using other people’s ideas, words or other forms of creative expressions without acknowledging them, or presenting them as one’s own represents a gross violation of scientific and publication ethics. Plagiarism may include copyright infringement punishable by law. Plagiarism includes:   

  • literal (word for word) or almost literal copying, or intentional paraphrasing of the parts of text of other authors without clearly acknowledging the source in the manner described in the Duties of Authors section, the purpose of which is to conceal sources;
  • copying equations, data or tables from other documents without acknowledging the source properly, and/or without permission of the author, or copyright holder.

A manuscript in which clear signs of plagiarism have been identified shall be automatically rejected, regardless of the review stage. If plagiarism is identified in an already published paper, the said paper shall be withdrawn in accordance with the withdrawal policy.


Withdrawal Policy

Withdrawal is in the form of a separate item listed in the contents and titled Withdrawal.  Two-way communication is established between the original paper and withdrawal in the primary database (SCIndeks), with the full text of the journal. The original article shall remain unchanged, except for the watermark on each page of the PDF document signaling the article has been withdrawn. Withdrawals are announced in accordance with the requirements of COPE, operationalized as journal indexers and aggregators by CEON/CEES.

Copyright. Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Articles of the Faculty of Education in Užice, copyright shall be transferred from the author to the publisher, the Faculty of Education in Užice. Should a manuscript be rejected, the authors reserve all rights.   

The following rights to the manuscript, including additional materials and all parts, excerpts or elements of the manuscript shall be transferred to the publisher, the Faculty of Education in Užice: the right to reproduce and distribute copies of the manuscript in print, including print on demand, right to print proof copies, reprint and special editions of the manuscript, right to translate the manuscript to other languages, right to reproduce the manuscript using photomechanical or other means, including but not limited to photocopying, and the right to distribute these photocopies, right to reproduce and distribute electronic or optical copies of the manuscript using any data carrier or storage medium, especially  machine readable/digital format on storage media such as the hard disc, CD-ROM, DVD, Blu-ray Disc (BD), mini disc, tapes, and the right to reproduce and distribute copies of the manuscript from those data carriers, right to store the manuscript in databases, including online databases, as well as the right to transfer manuscripts in all technical systems and modes, right to make the manuscript available to the public, or to closed user groups based on individual requests to use the manuscript on the monitor or other readers (including e-book readers), and in print for different users, either via the Internet, online services, or internal or external networks.


Publication Ethics

Any individual or institution may, at any time, inform the editorial board of their suspicion of unethical conduct, or any other kind of misconduct by providing valid information/evidence needed to initiate an inquiry. The editor-in-chief makes the decision whether to launch an inquiry. During the inquiry, any evidence shall be treated as confidential and made available only to those involved in the process. A person accused of misconduct shall always have the opportunity to respond to any accusation.   

If the inquiry determines beyond any doubt there has been an irregularity, it shall be assessed if it is a minor misconduct, or a gross violation of ethical standards.  

Misconducts (acts that do not affect the integrity of the journal, e.g. misunderstandings or misapplications of publishing standards) shall be solved directly between authors and reviewers, without the involvement of a third party. These include:  

  • sending a letter of warning to authors and reviewers, 
  • publishing a revision or correction of the article, e.g. in case sources that have been correctly cited in the text are omitted from the references, ,
  • publishing an erratum, e.g. if the mistake was made by the editorial board. 

In case of a gross violation of ethical standards, the editorial board may take the following measures: 

  • publishing a formal announcement or editorial that describes the case, 
  • informing the affiliate institution of the authors/reviewers,
  • formally announcing the withdrawal from the journal in line with the Withdrawal Policy,
  • banning the publication of the article from the journal for a certain period, or permanently,
  • submitting the case to competent organizations or legal bodies for further investigation and undertaking measures within their competence.


The actions listed above may be taken separately or simultaneously. If necessary, appropriate professional organizations, bodies or individuals may be consulted in the course of the resolution process. 

In the matter of resolving ethically disputable actions, the editorial board shall rely on the guidelines and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 

Disclaimer. The opinions and views expressed in the published papers are not those of the editor-in-chief and editorial board of the Journal of Articles of the Faculty of Education in Užice. The authors shall bear full moral and legal responsibility for the opinions and views expressed in their papers. The publisher, the Faculty of Education in Užice shall not be held responsible or liable in any way for any damage claims.     

Self-archiving. The Journal of Articles of the Faculty of Education in Užice allows authors to deposit the final, reviewed version of the manuscript, as well as the published version in PDF format to an institutional repository, and/or non-commercial databases, or to publish them on their personal web pages (including their profiles on social networks for scientists, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.), and/or on the website of the institution where they work at any time after publication in the Journal of Articles of the Faculty of Education in Užice, provided that the basic bibliographic data on the article published in the journal (authors, title of the article, title of the journal, volume, tome, paging) are provided, as well as the identifier of the digital object – DOI of the published article in the form of an HTML link.