RSP Ethics and malpractice statement
1. Publication and authorship
All publications should include a list of references and the financial support (if any). The Funding Acknowledgments are also present in the article when existing. Authors are required to provide original papers that are not published or submitted for publication or review elsewhere in any language. It is forbidden to publish the same research in more than one journal.
2. Author's responsibilities
Authors are invited to participate in the peer review process by revising their original manuscript considering specific recommendations, technical approaches, interpretational issues and providing supplementary references on a particular conceptual advance. It is required that all authors have significantly contributed to the research providing the true origin of methodology and data used in research.
Plagiarism approaches many forms from various ways and manners of copying or paraphrasing particular or substantial parts of another�s paper (without attribution) to appropriating results from research developed and conducted by other authors. In all forms, plagiarism represents an unethical researching and publishing behavior and is considered as unacceptable.
In case reviewers consider necessary under certain imminent circumstances, the authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
3. Peer review / responsibility for the reviewers
The practice of RSP is to ensure that qualitative social sciences research is published. Our reviewers play the crucial role in maintaining the quality standards of RSP. Manuscripts are peer reviewed following the procedure outlined below.
RSP uses double-blind review, where both the reviewers and the author remain anonymous throughout the process. Reviewers are submitted the paper according to their expertise, methodological and contents area of professional experience, and the RSP reviewers database is permanently being updated. Reviewers judgments should be objective. Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders. Reviewers should point out other relevant published work which is not yet cited in the paper. It is required that reviewed articles should be treated confidentially.
4. Editorial responsibilities
Editors (editor-in-chief together with the managing editor) have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article. Editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept. Editors screen all paper submission and only accept a paper when reasonably certain. Those rejected at this stage generally concern issues outside the aims and scope of the journal. At this stage of reviewing, authors of manuscripts rejected are normally being informed in 2-4 weeks from receipt. Usually, the manuscript will be reviewed within 1 to 3 months from submission date. The Editors have the responsibility to preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
5. Publishing ethics issues
Editors should actively be involved in the process of improving the RSP processes by monitoring and constantly safeguarding the publication ethics. It is also required for the Editorial Board to safeguard and monitor the views of authors, readers, reviewers and International Advisory members about ways and approaches to ensure the high quality of the journal. Editors should consult the Editorial Board members periodically to actively express their opinions and findings about the functioning of the journal, presenting information when editorial changes and editorial policies are required. It is recommended for the editors to always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
Guidelines for retracting articles
Editors should consider retracting a publication if they have clear evidence that the papers findings are inaccurate, either as a result of misproperty (e.g. data statistics) or plagiarism, fraudulent data or honest error (e.g. data miscalculation or experimental error), unethical research or if the paper research findings have previously been published elsewhere without correct cross-referencing, rights and permissions.
Maintain the integrity of the academic record
Editors have to assume the responsibility for RSP to have strategies, procedures and publishing policies in order to ensure the high quality of the journal and to keep and preserve the integrity of the academic published record.
Preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards
It is recommended for the researchers not to enter or conclude agreements that allow the research financial supporter to control the publication of the research findings (an exception in this case are classified governmental files due to security implications).
See RSP Manuscript Submission
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