Journal's ethical standards

BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT THE JOURNAL
Forum Historiae (hereinafter FH) is an open access online peer-reviewed scholarly journal. It is published by the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. The journal is managed by the Executive Editorial Board , in cooperation with the National and International Editorial Boards of the journal, which are composed of scholars from the fields of social and human sciences from Slovakia and abroad. The National and International Editorial Boards supervise the compliance of the published material with ethical standards, monitor and guarantee the quality of the journal. Ethical standards are binding for FH editorial staff as well as for authors publishing in the journal.
Forum Historiae is published online twice a year in form of monothematic issues. The issues are edited and prepared for publication by two editors who are responsible for the processing of submitted manuscripts and the management of the peer review process. At least one of the issue editors must be a member of the journal’s Executive Editorial Board, National Editorial Board or International Editorial Board.
Forum Historiae is an Open Access journal in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access. The content of the journal is freely available to the readers under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license. Under this license the users are allowed to use, reuse, distribute, adapt, and build upon the material published in the journal for both non-commercial and commercial purposes, as long as the author is credited for the original creation.
Publishing of articles in FH is free of charges, no fee or any other kind of financial compensation can be asked from the authors.
Forum Historiae accepts manuscripts and publishes articles in English, Slovak, and Czech.

THE DUTIES OF THE EXECUTIVE EDITORIAL BOARD
The board of editors ensure that the published articles correspond to internationally accepted ethical principles and academic conventions, and prevent commercial pressure to misuse and influence intellectual and ethical principles. The editors commit themselves to constantly improve the quality of the journal, to promote freedom of expression, to ensure the independence of the editors and of the scientific discourse and to protect intellectual property.

THE ISSUE EDITOR'S OBLIGATIONS
The editor (or editors) prepare and circulate Calls for articles and also may approach particular scholars and professionals in the selected scholarly and scientific field with an offer to submit a manuscript.
The editor of the issue is obliged to decline a submitted manuscript if it does not correspond with the thematic focus of the forthcoming number. As regards the publication, the editor and the Executive Editorial Board decide whether a manuscript will be published or not, taking into consideration the outcome of the review process. If the editor and author is one and the same person (an editor who aspires to publish in the issue which he/she edits), the review process must be conducted independently of the editor-author and without his/her interference. Only reviews and transcripts of historical documents may be published without peer review process. The editor cannot be in a conflict of interest with the authors of submitted manuscripts. The editor safeguards the anonymity of contributors and reviewers. The editor, reviewers and the Executive Editorial Board assess the quality of manuscripts regardless of the age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnic origin or political views of the author.

SUBMISSIONS
The journal Forum Historiae publishes thematic issues only. The authors should send their submissions only after reading the Call for articles. Submissions that does not correspond with the thematic focus of the issue as outlined in the respective Call for articles will be declined. The manuscripts should be submitted via Submission form in MS Word format (.rtf, .doc or .docx). Submissions must follow the Style Manual for the Authors. Only manuscripts meeting all the formal requirements will be considered for review and publication.

ORIGINALITY OF THE ARTICLES
The journal publishes only original and previously unpublished materials that have undergone peer review process. The professional quality of each submission is assessed by two reviewers. Reviewers are scholars working in an academic or university environment or in other specialised institutions. The review process is anonymous.
Editors do not accept plagiarised manuscripts or manuscripts which do not meet the scholarly criteria. Forum Historiae reports the identified cases of plagiarism to the author’s institution or any other relevant entity.

THE AUTHOR'S OBLIGATIONS
The author is required to comply with the citation norms and editorial standards of the FH. The results of the review process are binding for the author. The author is obliged to incorporate the recommendations of the reviewers to the extent suggested by the reviewers. Every author has the right to appeal rejection (e.g. in cases when the reviewer has misunderstood or overlooked key aspects of the manuscript). However the appeal must be supported by a solid explanation and argument. The appeal should be submitted to the editor-in-chief who forwards it to Executive Editorial Board for decision. In exceptional cases members of the National or International Editorial Boards can be asked for assistance.
The author retains the copyright to his/her work without restrictions, however, by submitting the manuscript the author agrees to the above mentioned ethical standards, the Open Access and Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license of the journal.

THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS AND THE REVIEWERS' OBLIGATIONS
The review process is fully anonymous and confidential. Submitted manuscripts are anonymized and assessed by two reviewers. The identity of the reviewer is not disclosed to the authors or to other reviewers, except when the reviewer specifically asks to be identified. The reviewer critically assesses all relevant aspects - such as originality, quality and relevance of the methods and sources, quality of analyses - of the manuscript under review. The reviewer must avoid ad hominem criticism of the author. A third party has no access to the review report. The reviewer must not be in a conflict of interest with the author, with the submitted research and/or with the organization or individuals who finance or otherwise support the research. Reviewers are chosen by the editors of the particular issue based on academic orientation and erudition. Reviewers are scholars working in an academic or university environment or in other specialised institutions.
Any contentious issues, which are not regulated in these ethical standards, will be dealt with in accordance with the rules of Committee on Publication Ethics.