Code of Ethics

These terms and conditions fully concord with the COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice Guidelines and the COPE Code of Conduct. Editors will, as reviewers too, refer to the guidelines explicitly highlighted by COPE https://publicationethics.org. By accessing or using any of the Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions. If you do not agree with these Terms and Conditions, please do not use our Services.

We encourage the best standards of publication ethics and take all possible measures against publication malpractice. The European Research Center as a publisher, takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities.

Obligations of editors

Besides general duties, such as constantly improving the quality and credibility of the journal, filling needs of authors and readers, supporting academic debate, and others, the editors accept obligation to apply best will and practice to correspond the following responsibilities:

Editorial Board will be created from acredited specialists in the field. The editor is required to provide full names and affiliations of the members as well as actual contact information for the editorial office on the journal webpage.

The editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles put forward for review and publication. The validation of the relevant work and its importance to researchers and readers must always lead such decisions. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and restricted by such legal requirements, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may consult making decision with other editors or reviewers. 

Peer review approval

Articles submitted for possible publication are subjected to a double-blind peer review process. Articles are first judged by editors. If an article does not meet the journal´s criteria, the editor may desk reject the article without full review process.

Articles that are found suitable for review are then sent to two independent experts in the field of the paper. Referees are asked to mark the paper as publishable immediately, publishable with ammendments and improvements, or not publishable.

Referee's judgement usually include an explicit recommendations and revisions needed to be made before publication. Referee's comments should be considered by the author.

Editors should be ready to justify any important deviation from the described process. Decisions on publication should not be changed by editors unless serious problems are identified.

Editors publish guidance to either authors and reviewers on everything that is expected of them. This guidance should be actualized regularily and will refer to or link this code.

Publication standards and copyright

Editor must not judge manuscripts for their intellectual content based race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. Approvement of an article to publish should be based only on the importance of the article, its originality and clarity, and the study´s relevance to the target of journal.

The editor will secure digital archiving of the journal content by the Czech National Library within its WebArchive.

Editor and any editorial staff must not reveal any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher. Editors will secure that material submitted remains confidential while under review process.

Unpublished texts must not be used in the editor's own research nor distributed to third parties.  Informations or ideas received through peer review in the process of approval must be kept confidential and not used for any personal advantage.

Reproducing Published Material from other Publishers

It is absolutely essential that authors obtain permission to reproduce any published material (figures, schemes, tables or any extract of a text) which does not fall into the public domain, or for which they do not hold the copyright. Permission should be requested by the authors from the copyright holder (usually the Publisher, please refer to the imprint of the individual publications to identify the copyright holder).

Permission is required for:

• Your own works published by other Publishers and for which you did not retain copyright.
• Substantial extracts from anyone's works or a series of works.
• Use of Tables, Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks if they are unaltered or slightly modified.
• Photographs for which you do not hold copyright.

Permission is not required for:

• Reconstruction of your own table with data already published elsewhere. Please notice that in this case you must cite the source of the data in the form of either "Data from..." or "Adapted from...".
• Reasonably short quotes are considered fair use and therefore do not require permission.
• Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks that are completely redrawn by the authors and significantly changed beyond recognition do not require permission.

Obligations of authors

Publication and Submission fee

A submission fee is applicable to all submitted papers. No further publication fee is charged except for IJOES. All information about fees must be clearly stated on the journal´s website before authors begin preparing their manuscript for submission.

Open Access Policy

The journal is available online without any permissions or fees being required. Authors are obligated to agree with this open access policy which enables unrestricted access and referencing  all published articles. The articles are published under the Creative Commons copyright license policy CC-BY.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw underlying data used for the analysis presented in the paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Publication standards and copyright

Authors should present an exact description of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its meaning. Underlying data should be listed clearly in the paper. A paper should contain sufficiently detailed references to permit others to replicate the work. Inaccurate or fraudlent statements represent unethical behaviour and if detected the text will be rejected without further review. Review and professional publication articles should also be clear and objective, and editorial „opinion‟ works should be clearly identified as such.

Authors should not publish content describing the same research in more than one journal or primary publication nor submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently is considered  unethical publishing behaviour. The copyright remains with the authors (CC-BY), thus they can decide about eventual republication of parts of their text. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.          
Plagiarism takes many forms, from „passing off‟ another´s paper as the author´s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another´s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Confirmation and prove of sources

Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work the author must cite and prove the source. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties can be used or reported only with the explicit written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, can be used only with the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Authorship of the content

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the idea, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Others who have participated in certain aspects of the research project should be listed as contributors.

The corresponding author should secure that there are included all appropriate co-authorsin the content and no inappropriate co-authors and ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the content and have agreed with submission for it's publication.

Significant mistakes in published content

If an author discovers a significant mistake in his/her own published work he is obliged to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to withraw or correct the content. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant mistake, the autor is required to promptly retract or correct the content or provide relevant evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original content

Duties and responsibilities of reviewers

Obligations of reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the content.

Willingness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a content or knows that its immediate approval will not be possible should inform the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Standards of confirmation process

Any manuscript received for review must be treated as confidential. It must not be shown to or discussed with others.

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should formulate their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any declaration that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be attached by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also point out to the editor's attention any significant similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Conflicts of interests

Editors should give up manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication.

Authors should reveal in their content any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Readers should be informed about who has funded research and on the role of the funders in the research.

Reviewers should not approve manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Procedures for dealing with unethical behaviour

Unethical behaviour may be identified and brought to the attention of the editor and publisher at any time, by anyone and should provide sufficient information and evidence in order to start an investigation.

All allegations should be taken seriously and treated in the same way, until a successful decision or conclusion is reached. All reported acts of unethical publishing behavior must be examined, even if it is discovered years after publication.

The editor should take suitable measures according to situation when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher.

Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript and giving due consideration of the complaint, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions, depending on the misconduct seriousness.

Minor misconduct might be dealt with without the need to consult more widely. In all cases, the author should be given the possibility to respond to any allegations.

Serious misconduct might require use of one or more following measures:

• Informing the author or reviewer where a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards appears to be.
• Publication of a formal notice detailing the misconduct.
• A formal letter to the head of the author's or reviewer's department or funding agency.
• Withdrawal of a publication from the journal, combined with informing the head of the author or reviewer's department
• Imposition of a formal embargo on contributions from an individual for a certain period.