Publications Ethics

The journal for foreign languages and literatures Živi jezici is an international double peer-reviewed journal published by the Association for Foreign Languages and Literatures of Serbia and the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade. The publication of an article in the journal Živi jezici is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the author(s) and the institutions that support them. It is therefore necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviour for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the editor (and the editorial board), the peer reviewer and the publisher.

The Editorial Board of Živi jezici shall apply and adhere to all internationally recognized ethical principles in publishing defined by COPE (Committee on Publishing Ethics) – CODE OF CONDUCT AND BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES FOR JOURNAL EDITORS.

All authors must follow the procedures and guidelines of Živi jezici. Any breach of ethical standards concerning the author's duties shall result in retraction of the published article in compliance with the recommendations established by COPE – RETRACTION GUIDELINES.   

In order to ensure the compliance of reviews with general ethical standards in publishing, reviewers shall adhere to COPE guidelines – COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

Our ethic statements are based on COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and on existing Elsevier policies.

 

Publishers' Responsibilities

The Association for Foreign Languages and Literatures of Serbia and especially the Faculty of Philology, as publishers of the journal Živi jezici, take our duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities. We are committed to enabling the high quality of the publishing process in all its stages. In addition, we ensure that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. Finally, the publisher and the editorial board of Živi jezici will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful and necessary.

 

Responsibilities of the Editor and the Editorial Board

The final decision regarding the publication of papers lies entirely with the Editor-in-Chief of Živi jezici. The Editor-in-Chief is guided by the Editorial Policy and is constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to decide not to publish submitted manuscripts in case it is found that they do not meet relevant standards concerning the content and formal aspects. As a rule, the Editorial staff will inform the author whether the manuscript has been screened in within 15 days of submisision. Normally, the Editor-in-Chief will inform the author whether the manuscript is accepted for publication within 90 days from the date of the manuscript submission.

The Editor-in-Chief must hold no conflict of interest about the articles they consider for publication. If an Editor feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, the selection of reviewers and all decisions on the manuscript shall be made by the Editorial Board. If there is a conflict of interest in one or more members of the Editorial Board, those members will be excluded from the process of selecting reviewers and deciding the fate of the manuscript. The Editor-in-Chief and the members of the Editorial Board must duly disclose any conflict of interest.

The Editor-in-Chief shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias.

The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial staff must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process and the authors remain anonymous to reviewers until the end of the reviewing procedure.

 

Author's Responsibilities 

By submitting an article to the journal Živi jezici, the author(s) agrees to the following:

Reporting standards: authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention: authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and plagiarism: the 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. Any manuscript that shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected and the authors permanently banned from publishing in Živi jezici. In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under Retraction policy, and the authors will be permanently banned from publishing in Živi jezici.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication: an author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper. Publication of some kinds of articles (e.g. translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation as the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Acknowledgement of sources: proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Authorship of the paper: authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have  participated  in   certain  substantive  aspects  of  the  research  project,  they  should   be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Research with human subjects: if the research involves human informants, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for research with human informants. The privacy rights  of human subject must always be observed.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest: all authors should disclose in their manuscript 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. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

Fundamental errors in published works: when an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

 

Reviewer's Responsibilities

By accepting the review of an article for the journal Živi jezici, the reviewer agrees to the following:

Scientific quality: Peer review is essential part for scientific publication. Based on Reviewers decision and comments papers are selected for final presentation and publication. If necessary authors are asked to make revision of their submissions.

Promptness: Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review for chosen manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others, except as authorized by the editor.

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

Acknowledgement of sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider 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.

 

Malpractice statement

Academic misconduct in any form will not be tolerated by Živi jezici. In cases of suspected misconduct (plagiarism, fraud, breached intellectual property rights, etc.) an editorial panel will be formed to evaluate the substance of the claim. In the case of supported evidence, the paper in question will be rejected for consideration in Živi jezici and all authors and their affiliations will be informed. In cases where the paper has already been published before the misconduct was discovered, a retraction by authors or by the Živi jezici board will have to take place and the case will be made public. Evident cases of misconduct may result in a permanent ban from future submission to Živi jezici. All appeals regarding the panel’s decisions have to go through the Editor-in-Chief and should be submitted within 30 days of the decision date.

Retraction policy

The infringement of the legal limitations imposed by the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), as well as the infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or any major misconduct, require retraction of an article. Occasionally an already published paper may be retracted due to errors discovered after publication.

Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by Živi jezici: in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article (which is retracted), a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

When dealing with unethical behaviour, the Editorial Staff will rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): http://publicationethics.org/resources/.