The present Publishing Ethics Policy concerns the standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing in “Notes on Number Theory and Discrete Mathematics”. The document aims to provide clear description and management of situations that may arise if these ethical standards have not been adhered to by the parties, while promoting shared understanding of the responsible publication practices in maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record.
Submission of Manuscripts
When making paper submissions, authors should consult the “Instruction to Authors” document on the website of “Notes on Number Theory and Discrete Mathematics” (herein after referred to as “the Journal”), which contains instructions about the formatting style and the procedure of submitting the manuscripts.
Manuscripts should be prepared according to the provided journal template, both LaTeX and MS Word submissions are acceptable. Submissions that significantly deviate from the specifications of the journal template may be returned to authors for reformatting and resubmission.
Declaration of Originality and Authorship
Along with the initial manuscript submission, the corresponding author is prompted and required to submit also a cover letter, which certifies that:
- All authors who have made significant contributions to the work are included in the author list, its order has been agreed by all authors, and all authors are aware of the paper submission.
- Any potential acknowledgements and/or conflicts of interest have been disclosed.
- The work submitted is original and does not include copyright infringements (plagiarisms).
- The work in full text has not been previously published nor is under consideration elsewhere, in either English or other languages.
- Partial reuse of other works is only possible:
- in amount, justified for the purpose,
- in the context of critical commentary and discussion of the work in question, and
- provided the respective sources are duly quoted and cited.
Any changes to the author list after submission, such as a change in the order of the authors, or the deletion or addition of authors, must be approved by every author from the original author list.
Peer Review Process
Peer review is fundamental in ensuring the integrity of the scientific publication process and can flag potential misconduct at an early stage.
Each paper submission is sent out for peer review to at least two independent reviewers, whose identities are not released, in a process named single blind peer review. Papers may, however, be returned to authors without review if the Editors consider that they fall out of the scope of the Journal or fail to meet the basic criteria of scientific presentation, significance or originality.
Reviewers shall conduct their evaluation in a timely and objective manner, avoiding any personal or unsupported criticisms. Reviewers agree not to disclose any information regarding the manuscript to any other party or to use any part of the content on their own behalf. To guarantee a completely rigorous and unbiased review process, reviewers should not have any conflicts of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders.
Reviewer selection is based on multiple factors and considerations, including expertise (e.g., according to the Mathematical Subject Classification codes in the submission), reputation, prior experience, current workload and availability. In general, reviewers are expected to be quick, objective and careful, and provide reasoning for their reviews. When reviewers agree to assess a paper, the Journal considers this a commitment to review subsequent paper revisions, too.
The Journal’s pool of reviewers includes scholars, who are recommended or invited by the members of the Editorial Office with respect to their field of expertise. Spontaneous applications from scholars to join the Journal’s pool of reviewers will not be considered.
In case of unavailable reviewers from the Journal’s own pool of reviewers, the authors may be offered to propose suitable independent reviewers, who are not directly affiliated with their research unit and are not in any other form of conflict of interest with them. However, the Editorial Office reserves the right to ignore such proposals, if deemed inappropriate, and proceed with its own pool of reviewers.
The final decision concerning the manuscript is taken by the Editorial Office based on the reviewer reports and recommendations. The possible decisions of the Editorial Office are:
- Acceptance
- Minor revision
- Major revision (new review procedure required)
- Rejection
At least two positive reviews are required for a submission to be accepted for publication.
The usual review process would take up to four months, but this period may be longer depending on the specifics of the research presented and reviewers’ availability in this period.
Editors and reviewers are required to keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted manuscripts. Reviewers will be removed from the Journal’s pool of reviewers if they have been proved to conduct unethical practices against the authors and manuscripts they have been assigned to review.
Post-publication issues
If in the process of publication, technical errors have been introduced to the article, it is the responsibility of the Journal to correct the errors in a timely manner (in the electronic version of the Journal) or publish respective errata (in both the electronic and printed versions).
- If the Journal’s authors discover (scientific) errors in their accepted and/or published papers, and request changes from the Editorial Office, then, depending on the timing and impact of the changes, the authors will be given the choice to
- correct their manuscript prior to publication, or
- publish a relevant corrigendum (in both the electronic and the printed versions of the Journal).
- For published papers, depending on the respective reviewers’ opinions, the authors may be further invited to submit of a new follow-up manuscript with substantially new, original results, which informs the readership of the discovered errors and comments on the pertinent corrections.
- In the electronic version of the Journal, these original publications will be linked to the respective errata, corrigenda, or eventual follow-up publications.
If copyright infringements become evident post-publication, the Journal may retract (remove) the publication or demand its correction and acknowledgement (in its electronic version), depending on
- the degree of the infringement,
- the context within the published article, and
- its impact on the overall integrity of the publication.
Other Provisions
Any other situations of an ethical nature which have not been covered by the present Publishing Ethics Policy will be handled by the Editorial Office in the spirit of good faith and fair dealing, and will be reflected in a future amendment of this policy.
Last update: 7 September 2018
