Agroznanje / Agro-knowledge Journal is dedicated to following best practices on ethical matters, errors and retractions. The prevention of publication malpractice is one of the important responsibilities of the editorial board. Any kind of unethical behavior is not acceptable, and the Agroznanje / Agro-knowledge Journal does not tolerate plagiarism in any form. Authors submitting articles to the Agroznanje / Agro-knowledge Journal affirm that manuscript contents are original. Furthermore, they warrant that their article has neither been published elsewhere in any language fully or partly, nor is it under review for publication anywhere.

The following duties outlined for editors, authors, and reviewers are based on the Code of Conduct for Journal Editors (COPE).

 

Editors responsibilities

Publication decisions

The editor of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play

An editor will at any time evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

 

Authors' responsibilities

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 behavior and are unacceptable.

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 in all its forms constitutes unethical behavior and will be severely punished, and as such is unacceptable. The Editorial Board reserves the right to verify each work through the test of plagiarism and if the same occurs notify the author.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

An author should not 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 behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgment 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.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, realisation of study/research, or interpretation of the obtained results. 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 or study, 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.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Errors in published paper and changes in authorship

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published paper, 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.

Changes in authorship relates to the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in accepted version of the paper. An amendment to the data on the authors or co-authors is not possible after acceptance and publication in the online version.

If there is a need to amend the information on the authors, it is necessary to state the following:

1. The reason for the addition or deletion of author.
2. A written confirmation (sent in scanned version by e-mail) where all the authors agree that the notified operation is a named person is added or removed from the list of authors.
3. The editor will notify the author that needs to be added or removed from the list and will ask for his consent.

Requests for changes in authorship or any other changes in published papers that are not sent by the corresponding author will not be considered.

The corresponding author agrees to inform his/her co-authors, of any of the above terms. 

 

Reviewers’ responsibilities

Reviewing standards

Reviewers are required to provide written, competent and unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript, according to the highest level of academic standards.

The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus,.

Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor without delay.

Originality and Plagiarism

Reviewers should alert the Editor to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and alert the Editor to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in case they are aware of such.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

Reviewers should also alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same paper to another journal, in case they are aware of such.

Conflict of Interest

Reviewers must not have conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding sources for the research. If such conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.

Confidelity

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers 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.

 

Procedures for dealing with unethical behavior

Anyone may inform the editors and/or Editorial Staff at any time of suspected unethical behavior or any type of misconduct by giving the necessary information/evidence to start an investigation.

Investigation

• Editor will consult with the Editorial Board on decisions regarding the initiation of an investigation.
• During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as strictly confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in investigating.
• The accused will always be given the chance to respond to any charges made against them.
• If it is judged at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious/major.

Minor misconduct

Minor misconduct will be dealt directly with those involved without involving any other parties, e.g.:

• Communicating to authors/reviewers whenever a minor issue involving misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards has occurred.
• A warning letter to an author or reviewer regarding fairly minor misconduct.

Major misconduct

The Editor, in consultation with the Editorial Board, and, when appropriate, further consultation with a small group of experts should make any decision regarding the course of action to be taken using the evidence available. The possible outcomes are as follows (these can be used separately or jointly):

• Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct.
• Informing the author's (or reviewer's) head of department or employer of any misconduct by means of a formal letter.
• The formal, announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy (see below).
• A ban on submissions from an individual for a defined period.
• Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.

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/.

Retraction Policy

Legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), 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 a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.

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 Agroznanje / Agro-knowledge Journal  in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, 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.”

 

Copyright

Articles published in the Agroznanje / Agro-knowledge Journal are Open-Access articles,  distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

The Journal allows Author(s) to deposit Author's Post-print (accepted version) and Publisher's version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories, such as GoogleScholar and other repositories, or to publish it on Author's personal website and departmental website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.), at any time after publication. Publisher copyright and source must be acknowledged and a link must be made to the article's DOI.

 

Disclaimer

The views expressed in the published papers do not express the views of the Editors and Editorial Board. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the published papers. Publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.