Policies

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Journal has an international editorial board of recognized experts in the field. The editor and the publisher can be contacted here.

This is a diamond open access journal: publishing and downloading articles are both free of charge. The journal does not charge authors any article processing charges (APCs), submission, or publication fees. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of these articles.

Authors should declare that their submission has not been previously published, nor is it at another journal for consideration, the financial support and reference list are complete and precise, including the specification of URLs and DOIs where available. We require that all authors have significantly contributed to the research associated with the submission and approved the submitted version. Authors warrant that the article is their original work. Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process, follow the advice of the reviewers, meet the required deadlines, and to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes if any occur.

Peer Review Policies

All submissions are subjected to peer review where the editors ask at least two blind and independent reviews from international experts of the field, making sure that reviewers have no conflict of interest with the authors. The reviews are based on the objective evaluation of the scientific merits and the contribution to the state of the art. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief who takes into account the reviews and the recommendations of the editors. Editors and reviewers handle the submission confidentially.

The publisher and the editors are committed to maintain high ethical standards and prevent publications where research misconduct has occurred. We use Crossref/iThenticate for plagarism checking. In case of any allegation of misconduct, the editor deals with the allegation appropriately. In such ethical issues, including also retractions and corrections, the COPE guidelines are followed. The Journal is ready to publish corrections if needed.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). As soon as the paper is accepted, finally submitted and edited, the paper will appear in the "OnlineFirst" page of the journal, thus from this point no other internet-based publication is necessary.

The Journal archives all published papers and the owner of the Journal, the Budapest University of Technology shall continue to maintain the database even if the Journal publishing should be terminated.

Policies for studies involving human subjects and/or animals

If the paper is based on research involving human subjects or animals, the authors must provide the name of the ethical approval committee/Institutional Review Board they have obtained consent from, and they should confirm that the study was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. To respect privacy rights, personal identifying information about the subjects should not be included in the paper.

Conflict of interests

Authors must make sure that there is no financial or other interest or belief that could affect the objectivity of the paper or the validity of the published results, and all supporting organizations are properly listed. In case of potential conflict of interests, the authors should state its source and nature in a cover letter.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site for author correspondence are used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and are not made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Data Privacy Policy

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal fall within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting aggregated data on readership behaviors, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.

This journal's editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will assist in developing this publishing platform may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project in an anonymized and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here. The authors published in this journal are responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported here.

Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for "data privacy requirements" that include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of "the public interest in the availability of the data", which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.