Monday, 9 February 2015

EDITORIAL AND PEER REVIEW POLICY



“Every Comparatist is part Swiss banker and part global justice activist, with one foot in a deeply exploitative cultural marketplace, and the other foot in the struggle for free and fair cultural exchange” (Redmond 2003)



Advocating a fair treatment of all parties involved  (editors, authors, reviewers), CDDC’s editorial board have taken due care to ensure high ethical and professional standards, as put forth in the Principles of Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers .



PUBLICATION ETHICS and PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT
CDDC is committed to maintaining the editorial independence of journal editors, as well as to supporting the latter to run their journals ethically and transparently.

Editors must maintain the confidentiality of the review process, i.e. they must not discuss individual manuscripts submitted with anyone apart from the author, the editor-in-chief, reviewers and the publisher, if appropriate, unless otherwise authorized by author or editor-in-chief. They are also not allowed to make any substantial alterations to the manuscripts without consulting the author and all co-authors beforehand. CDDC’s editors will, in addition, seek to ensure that any identifiable personal information they collect is kept to the minimum required by standard editorial procedure. In their capacity as editorial interface between author and reviewer they must conduct themselves fairly and impartially, with due regard for both parties involved.

Authors should abide by all statements listed in the Author’s Warranties Form (s. pdfdocument under AUTHOR GUIDELINES) and ensure that any real or apparent conflicting or competing interest is clearly stated on submission of their manuscript. If the manuscript was prepared jointly with other authors, the main authors should list co-authors, acknowledge any other major contributions to the research conducted and additionally list the names of those acknowledged as such. They are also expected to make public any sources of research funding as appropriate. Neither CDDC’s editors nor the publisher can be held responsible for any incomplete or incorrect manuscript submitted by the author(s). In addition, unless the authors and all co-authors are informed and are in agreement with the change, no authors can be added or removed post submission.

After performing an unbiassed meticulous overall assessment of the manuscript, with clear emphasis placed on both its fortes and its drawbacks, reviewers are expected to make a ‘reject’ or ‘accept’ recommendation supported by rigorous argumentation (s. Manuscript Reviewer’s Form for additional suggestions under ‘accept’). Reviewers must treat all manuscripts as strictly confidential documents and immediately alert the editor-in-chief of any conflict of interests which is in any way liable to infringe the principles of publication ethics, in which case they are expected to opt out of the team designated to assess the manuscript at issue (s. Peer-Reviewer’s Agreement Form).

Last but not least, since the final decision of accepting manuscripts for publication rests entirely with the editor-in-chief, (s)he must ensure that all manuscripts are fairly treated, without ethnic, racial, religious, political or sexual bias, and take immediate appropriate action if any of the quality standards or principles of best practice are not being met or complied with, respectively. Prior to making the final decision, the editor-in-chief must give due consideration to both the reviews submitted and the views of all those involved in the editorial process. Should the reviews of a manuscript differ significantly either on specific points or with regard to overall assessment, then it is the editor-in-chief’s duty to assign a third referee to the evaluation of the manuscript at issue.



COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright of the content of all research articles and reviews/interviews will remain with the designated author of the research article or review/interview, whereas copyright of the layout and design of the journal articles, reviews/interviews remains with CDDC and the publisher.

REPOSITORY POLICY
The final published version (publisher pdf) of a research article/review/interview can be archived by authors on their personal website (self-archiving) and/or on a non-profit server in an institutional repository.


PLAGIARISM STATEMENT
Painfully aware of the surreptitious attempts made by plagiarism in recent years to rear its ugly head in the scientific world, CDDC’s editors do their share of averting such attempts by utilizing as an additional editorial tool one of the several plagiarism detection services made available by the university to which the journal’s publisher is affiliated (s. detailed description at Third-stage cross-check plagiarism filter under AUTHOR GUIDELINES). In no case shall the publisher or editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that CDDC’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegations of research misconduct, they shall deal with allegations appropriately. In addition, both the publisher and the editors will always be willing to publish corrections, retractions, clarifications and apologies when needed. As regards plagiarizing manuscripts, if detected at any stage throughout the evaluation process, they will be exposed without delay by editors and reviewers alike, automatically rejected, and authors thereof indefinitely denied the right to submit any more manuscripts to CDDC on account of scholarly misconduct. 


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