Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

E-LOGOS Journal is committed to maintaining high standards of integrity, transparency and ethical conduct in scholarly publishing. The journal's publication ethics policies are informed by the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME.
Authors, editors and reviewers are expected to observe the principles described below. Suspected breaches of publication ethics will be investigated fairly, confidentially and consistently.

Authorship and contributorship

Authorship should accurately reflect the individuals who made substantial contributions to the conception, design, execution, analysis or interpretation of the work and who accept responsibility for the published article.

All listed authors must:

• have made a significant scholarly contribution to the work;
• have reviewed and approved the submitted version of the manuscript;
• approve the final version accepted for publication; and
• accept appropriate responsibility and accountability for the work.

Individuals who contributed to the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be appropriately acknowledged.
The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all legitimate authors are included, that no inappropriate authors are included, and that all authors have approved the manuscript and its submission.
Requests to add, remove or rearrange authors after submission must be justified and agreed to by all affected authors. The editors may request written confirmation of such agreement and may reject changes that cannot be adequately justified.
Ghost authorship, guest authorship and honorary authorship are unacceptable.
Where appropriate, authors should describe individual contributions to the work.

Originality, plagiarism and duplicate publication

Authors must submit original work and appropriately acknowledge the work and ideas of others.
Plagiarism in any form, including unattributed copying or close paraphrasing of another person's text, ideas, data or other material, is unacceptable.
Authors must appropriately cite primary sources and relevant previous publications.
By submitting a manuscript to E-LOGOS Journal, authors confirm that the manuscript has not previously been published and is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal.
The same research should not be published in more than one journal except where legitimate secondary publication is clearly identified and appropriately authorized.
The journal may use plagiarism-detection or other editorial tools to assess manuscripts where appropriate.

Allegations of research misconduct / Research integrity

E-LOGOS Journal takes allegations of research and publication misconduct seriously.
Potential misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

• plagiarism;
• fabrication or falsification of data or results;
• inappropriate manipulation of data or research materials;
• citation manipulation;
• duplicate or redundant publication;
• inappropriate authorship;
• undisclosed conflicts of interest;
• manipulation of the peer-review process; and
• other practices that compromise the integrity of the scholarly record.

When a concern or allegation is raised, the editors will conduct an initial assessment of the available information. Authors will normally be informed of substantive allegations and given an opportunity to respond.
Where necessary, the journal may request supporting documentation, original data or other materials relevant to the investigation.
Serious cases may be referred to the author's institution, employer, research organization, funding body or another competent authority where these bodies are better placed to conduct a formal investigation.
The journal will seek to protect the confidentiality of all parties while an investigation is in progress, subject to applicable legal and ethical obligations.
Publication of a manuscript may be suspended while serious concerns remain unresolved.
Editorial action will be based on the available evidence and the need to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Conflicts of interest / Funding

Authors must disclose any financial, professional, personal, political, intellectual, religious or other relationships or interests that could reasonably be perceived as influencing their work.
All sources of financial support and research funding must be disclosed in the manuscript.
Funding for any type and all research funders should be listed on all publications.
Editors and reviewers must also disclose any conflicts of interest that could affect, or reasonably appear to affect, their impartiality.
Editors and reviewers must not participate in the assessment or editorial decision concerning a manuscript where they have a conflict that could compromise independent judgment.
Where an editor is an author or co-author of a submission, or otherwise has a significant conflict of interest, that editor will have no involvement in the editorial decision concerning the manuscript. Responsibility for the manuscript will be assigned to another qualified editor.

Peer review and editorial independence

Editors and reviewers must apply consistent academic and ethical standards throughout the peer-review process.
Reviewers should possess appropriate subject expertise and should provide objective, constructive and evidence-based assessments.
Manuscripts and information obtained through peer review must be treated as confidential and must not be used for personal advantage.
Editorial decisions should be based on the scholarly merit, relevance, originality and integrity of the submitted work and should not be influenced by commercial interests or inappropriate personal considerations.
The Editorial Board monitors the peer-review process and the performance of reviewers and seeks to prevent conflicts of interest, fraudulent review and other manipulation of editorial processes.

Peer review process is described in separate section.

Data sharing and reproducibility

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and integrity of the data and other evidence supporting their conclusions.
Where applicable to the type of research concerned, authors should retain the underlying research data and make data, materials, methods, analytical procedures or other supporting information available to readers to the extent reasonably necessary to permit verification or replication of the research.
Authors should provide a data-availability statement where appropriate, explaining where supporting data can be accessed or why access cannot be provided.

Restrictions on data sharing are acceptable where justified by:

• protection of personal or confidential information;
• research-participant consent;
• ethical requirements;
• intellectual-property rights;
• contractual obligations;
• legal restrictions; or
• other legitimate considerations.

Authors may be asked to provide underlying data or other supporting materials to the editors during peer review or during the investigation of concerns about a published article.

Ethical oversight

Authors are responsible for ensuring that their research complies with applicable ethical standards, laws and institutional requirements.
Research involving human participants, personal data, confidential information or other ethically sensitive material must comply with the relevant ethical and legal requirements.
Where applicable, authors should state that approval or exemption was obtained from an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review body and should provide sufficient information about that approval.
Authors must obtain informed consent where required, including appropriate consent for publication where individuals may be identifiable.
Privacy, dignity, confidentiality and the rights of research participants must be protected.
Editors may request documentary evidence of ethics approval, informed consent or other ethical safeguards where necessary.
The journal reserves the right not to publish research where ethical requirements have not been adequately addressed.
Editors will exercise appropriate sensitivity when considering publication of material that may be offensive, discriminatory, harmful or otherwise ethically sensitive, while also respecting legitimate scholarly inquiry and academic freedom.

Intellectual property

Authors must respect copyright and other intellectual-property rights.
Material taken from previously published or otherwise protected sources must be appropriately acknowledged and, where required, used with the permission of the copyright holder.
Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted tables, figures, photographs, extensive quotations or other third-party material where such permission is legally required.
All quotations, ideas, data and other material derived from the work of others must be appropriately attributed.
The ownership, licensing and permitted reuse of articles published in E-LOGOS Journal are governed by the journal's copyright policy (Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 International license).

Complaints and appeals

Authors, reviewers, readers and other interested parties may submit complaints concerning the journal's editorial procedures, publication ethics or published content.
Complaints should be submitted to vacuram@vse.cz (Executive editor) and should clearly identify the manuscript or article concerned and explain the basis of the complaint.
Complaints will be considered objectively and in a reasonable time.
Authors may appeal an editorial decision where they believe that a significant error occurred in the review or decision-making process. An appeal should provide a clear scholarly or procedural justification rather than merely express disagreement with the editorial decision.
Appeals will normally be considered by the Executive editor or another editor who was not materially involved in the original decision, where practicable.
Where a complaint concerns the Executive editor, it should be referred to pavlik@vse.cz (Editor-in-chief) so that it can be considered without the involvement of the person concerned.
The outcome of a complaint or appeal will be communicated to the complainant together with an appropriate explanation.

Post-publication discussion and concerns

E-LOGOS Journal encourages legitimate scholarly discussion of articles after publication.
Readers who identify a possible error, ethical issue or other significant concern regarding a published article should contact the editorial office at vacuram@vse.cz (Executive editor), providing sufficient information for the concern to be assessed.
The editors will review substantive concerns and, where appropriate, seek a response from the authors.
Where post-publication review demonstrates that the scholarly record requires amendment, the journal may publish a correction, expression of concern, retraction or other appropriate notice.
Scholarly responses or comments may also be considered for publication in accordance with the journal's editorial policies.

Corrections, expressions of concern and retractions

The journal is committed to maintaining an accurate scholarly record.
Where an error that materially affects an article but does not invalidate its principal findings is identified after publication, the journal may publish an appropriate correction.
Where serious concerns have been raised but the available evidence is inconclusive or an investigation is still in progress, the journal may issue an expression of concern where appropriate.
An article may be retracted where there is reliable evidence that its findings are seriously unreliable as a result of misconduct or major error, where it contains plagiarism, where it constitutes inappropriate redundant publication, or where another serious ethical violation substantially undermines the article.
Retraction is intended primarily to correct the scholarly record rather than to punish authors.
Authors are expected to notify the journal promptly if they discover a significant error in their published work and to cooperate with any necessary correction or retraction.
Correction, retraction and other post-publication notices should clearly identify the affected article and the reason for the editorial action.

Protection of the integrity of the scholarly record

Editors will take reasonable measures to prevent the publication of work affected by research or publication misconduct.
Concerns about plagiarism, citation manipulation, data fabrication or falsification, inappropriate authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, peer-review manipulation or other threats to research integrity will be investigated according to the procedures described above.
The journal will not knowingly permit commercial, institutional or other pressures to compromise editorial decisions or the integrity of published content.
Where a problem is discovered after publication, the journal will take appropriate corrective action regardless of when the publication occurred.