Publication Ethics

Authors’ responsibilities

Only articles and other contributions that have not been published in or submitted to another journal can be submitted in Pro-Fil. Authors are required to follow the author guidelines. Once a decision suggesting revisions has been reached, authors are obliged respond to reviewers’ comments and make the suggested modifications. In disputable cases they may appeal to the editor of the journal with particular objections or retract the paper respectively. By submitting a paper authors confirm that all data in the paper are accurate and authentic, that they are the sole authors and that they do not commit plagiarism.

Editorial responsibilities

The editor takes responsibility for the content of the journal and the quality of the published articles. The editor is objective and avoids conflict of interest with respect to all submitted articles. S/he respects the key criteria of article selection – the relevance of the article to the professional focus of the journal and the quality of the article. S/he is obliged to preserve anonymity of both reviewers and authors in the peer review process. In cooperation with editorial board, the editor addresses possible appeals of the authors against the reviewers’ comments and other complaints. The editor has full responsibility and authority to accept and/or reject an article.

Reviewers’ responsibilities

The reviewer has to be objective in his or her assessment and must not misuse information stated in the article under review for personal or other gain. S/he can refuse to review a paper for reasons of competing professional interests, such as:

• the recognition of the author’s identity;
• professional, financial or personal benefit from accepting or rejecting the paper under review;
• fundamental difference in opinions on the topic of the paper under review;
• cooperation on given project in the past five years (if author identity is recognized);
• close professional or personal relationship to the author or some member of the group of authors (if author identity is recognized).

Unless the reviewer refuses to review for the above reasons, the editor takes it for granted that there is no conflict of interests.

Responsibilities of the editorial board

The editorial board constantly makes an effort to improve the professional and formal quality of the journal, supports the freedom of speech and plurality of opinions in the field of study. It issues instructions concerning the whole editorial work (instructions for authors, guidelines for peer review process and reviewers etc.) and guarantees observation of the above rules.