Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

The REVIEW of SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS and ICT EDUCATION is a collective initiative taken on by the Laboratory of Didactics of Sciences, Mathematics and ICTof the University of Patras. The Journal presents different didactical and pedagogical approaches for the teaching and learning of science, mathematics and ICT and offers a wide range of papers on academic and interdisciplinary research and practice.

This international journal is governed by a peer-review process. All manuscripts will be subject to peer review by two referees.

The articles are published in English or French, according to the author’s language preference. Re S M ICT E is published twice a year (one volume per year), in June and December.

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

 

Section Policies

Editorial

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Articles

Editors
  • KONSTANTINOS RAVANIS
  • Αγγελική Γιαννοπούλου
Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Varia

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education is governed by a peer-review process.

After a manuscript is submitted as a word file attachment to the Coord. Editor at the ravanis@upatras.gr address by a researcher, the Coord. Editor screens the manuscript and rejects unsuitable or poor-quality manuscripts at this point. Articles deemed appropriate for peer review are sent to 3 reviewers selected by the Editor-in-Chief and/or members of the editorial board. Reviewers are invited if they are experienced researchers with expertise in the contents of the manuscript. Following acceptance to perform the review, the reviewers are furnished with a copy of the manuscript and the journal’s peer review guidelines, to which they are asked to adhere. The identity of the authors and their affiliation details are blanked out to ensure a blind review. Reviewers are asked to complete the review within 8 weeks. Reviewers submit their reports to the Editor with a recommendation on the readiness of the paper for publication. The editor collates the review reports and makes a decision on the status of the paper accordingly.

Manuscripts may be: accepted (subject to minor or no revisions); returned to the authors for revision (to address all reviewer comments in detail, with the possibility of resending for peer review depending on the nature of the reviewer comments); invited for re-submission altogether or declined.  Authors are not made aware of the identity of a reviewer (double-blind approach) unless insisted upon by the reviewer for transparency. Members of the editorial board may be called upon to make additional recommendations.

The Editor has final decision on the acceptance or rejection of all manuscripts.

 

Open Access Policy

Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education is an Open Access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of Open Access.

 

No charges

The Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education being a nonprofit Journal, does not charge submission – publication - processing fees from the Author(s)

 

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education is committed to ensuring ethics in publication and quality of articles. This journal follows the standard for Ethics and Publication Malpractice set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK) for editors (Elsevier).

Conformance to standards of ethical behavior is therefore expected of all parties involved: Authors, Editors, Reviewers, and the Publisher.

In particular,

EDITORS RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Ethic Obligations of Editors

Publication Decision. This journal employs a double-blind review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor. The editor is solely and independently responsible for selecting, processing, and deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal meet the editorial goals and could thus be published. Each paper considered suitable is sent to three independent peer reviewers who are experts in their field and able to assess the specific qualities of the work. The editor is responsible for the final decision regarding whether or not the paper is accepted or rejected. The decision to publish a paper will always be measured in accordance to its importance to researchers, practitioners, and potential readers. Editors should make unbiased decisions independent from commercial considerations. The editor's decisions and actions are constrained by ethical and legal requirements such as its own PEMS and the intellectual property, governing copyright infringement and plagiarism. Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts should withdraw from editorial decisions if they have conflicts of interest or relationships that pose potential problems concerning articles under consideration. The responsibility of the final decision regarding publication will be attributed to an editor who does not have any conflicts of interest.

Conflict of Interest. The chief editor, members of the editorial board and scientific committee, and reviewers shall withdraw in any case of conflict of interest concerning an author or authors, or the content of a manuscript to be evaluated. The journal will avoid all conflict of interest between authors, reviewers, and members of the editorial board andnd International Scientific Board.

Peer Review. Each article submitted is the responsibility of one member of the Editorial Board or of the International Scientific Board, who undertakes to have it evaluated by two peers who are experts in the field and who evaluate it anonymously. Reviewed articles are treated confidentially by editorial board members, members of the international scientific board, and reviewers.

Identifying and Preventing Misconduct. In no case shall a journal and members of the editorial board and international scientific committee encourage misconduct of any kind or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. Members of the Editorial Board and International Scientific Board shall try to prevent misconduct by informing authors and reviewers about the ethical conduct required of them. Members of the editorial board, scientific committee, and reviewers are asked to be aware of all types of misconduct in order to identify papers where research misconduct of any kind has or seems to have occurred and deal with the allegations accordingly.

2. Guidelines in Case of Retraction or Corrections

  1. Editors’ Responsibilities. In case of misconduct, the journal editor is responsible for resolving the issue. He or she can work in conjunction with the other co-editor, members of the editorial board and international scientific board, peer reviewers, and experts in the field.
  2. Documentation. The issue will be documented accordingly. All factual questions should be documented: who, what, when, where, why. All relevant documents should be kept, in particular the article(s) concerned.
  3. Due Process for Authors. The journal editor shall contact the author or publication involved, either the author submitting to journal or another publication or author. The author is thus given the opportunity to respond to or comment on the complaint, allegation, or dispute.
  4. Data Access and Retention. Where appropriate, editors encourage authors to share the data that supports research publications. Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings. Editors encourage authors to state the availability of their data in a data statement attached to the submitted article. With the data statement, authors can be transparent about the data they used in the article.
  5. Fair Play and Editorial Independence. Coord. Editor evaluate submitted manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study's validity, clarity) and its relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Decisions to edit and publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal itself. The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content.
  6. Confidentiality. Editor-in-Chief and Inrenational Editorial Board will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
  7. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest. Editor-in-Chief and International Editorial Board will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.
  8. Publication Decisions. The editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer review by at least two reviewers who are expert in the field. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
  9. Involvement and Cooperation in Investigations. Editors (in conjunction with the publisher and/or society) will take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised with regard to a submitted manuscript or published paper. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior will be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication. Journal editors follow the COPE Flowcharts when dealing with cases of suspected misconduct. If, on investigation, the ethical concern is well-founded, a correction, retraction, expression of concern or other note as may be relevant, will be published in the journal.
  10. Appropriate Corrections. In the event that misconduct has or seems to have occurred, or in the case of needed corrections, the editorial board deals with the different cases by following the appropriate COPE Recommendations. Great care will be taken to distinguish cases of honest human error from deliberate intent to defraud. COPE states that:

    1. Journal editors should consider retracting a publication if they have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error). Retraction is also appropriate in cases of redundant publication, plagiarism, and unethical research.

    2. Journal editors should consider issuing an expression of concern if: (1) they have reason to believe that there has been research or publication misconduct by the authors but have insufficient evidence, (2) there is evidence that the findings are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case, (3) they believe that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair, impartial or conclusive, (4) or an investigation is underway but a judgement will not be available for a considerable time.


AUTHORS RESPONSIBILITIES

All authors must know and keep in mind the Editorial policy and the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement (PEMS).

The Editorial policy and the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement (PEMS) support combined efforts by Authors, Editors, and Reviewers to produce a responsible research publication.

Guidelines for the submission of articles and manuscript preparation and format are to be found on the ‘Author Guidelines’ webpage.

1. Ethic Obligations of Authors

Reporting Standards. Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and the results, followed by an objective discussion of the significance of the work. The manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Review articles should be accurate, objective and comprehensive, while editorial ‘opinion’ or perspective pieces should be clearly identified as such. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention. Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least 10 years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.

Originality and Plagiarism. Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited. Plagiarism takes many forms, from "passing off" another's paper as the author’s own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Multiple, Duplicate, Redundant or Concurrent Submission/Publication. Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behavior and unacceptable. The publication of some kinds of articles (for example, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided that certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Authorship of the Manuscript. Only persons who meet these authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript as they must be able to take public responsibility for the content: (1) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; and (2) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (3) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication. All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as technical help, writing and editing assistance, general support) but who do not meet the criteria for authorship must not be listed as an author, but should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named as been obtained. Each paper may not be signed by more than 5 authors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate coauthors are included in the author list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication. An author may not sign or co-sign more than one paper in the two issues that make up an annual volume.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest. Authors should: (a) at the earliest stage possible (generally by submitting a disclosure form at the time of submission and including a statement in the manuscript). (b) disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. Examples of potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include financial ones such as honoraria, educational grants or other funding, participation in speakers’ bureaus, membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest, and paid expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements, as well as non-financial ones such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed (including the grant number or other reference number if any).

Acknowledgement of Sources. Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.

Ethical Oversight.  Authors should ensure that all procedures have been performed in accordance with applicable law and institutional guidelines and that they have been approved by the appropriate institutional committee(s); a statement to that effect should be included in the manuscript. Authors should also include in the manuscript a statement that informed consent for experiments involving human subjects has been obtained. The privacy rights of participants must always be respected. Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee.

Including of details, images related to individual participants are not allowed. Experimental research on vertebrates or any regulated invertebrates must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing compliance with relevant guidelines (e.g. the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the UK and Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe) and/or ethical approval (including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate) must be included in the manuscript. If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption and the reasons for the exemption). The Editor will take into the account the animal welfare issues and reserves the right to reject a manuscript, especially if the research involves protocols that are inconsistent with commonly accepted norms of animal research. In rare cases, Editors may contact the ethics committee for further information.

Peer Review. Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors' requests for raw data, clarifications, and proof of ethics approval, patient consents and copyright permissions. In the case of a first decision of "revisions necessary", authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the deadline given.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works. When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal's editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper.

2. Ethic Actions of Author(-ors) at the Repeated Consideration of the Article and Answers on the Remarks of a Reviewer

When re-examining the article and responding to the reviewer's comments, the author must comply with ethical actions.

After the scientific retest of Your article and preparation of answer on a suggestion of reviewers, please:

  • pay attention to all remarks, given a reviewer;
  • describe all changes which took place in maintenance of Your article in a reverse letter;
  • conduct all additional experiments or do a retest, taking into account the analytical reasoning which a reviewer recommends to carry out. If you are sure that the offered measures will not perfect Your article then thoroughly and reasonably motivate, why do you consider so;
  • in a reverse letter separately describe all points of remarks, which you agree with, and with which – no;
  • provide the tolerant scientific ground of all debatable questions;
  • clearly mark all changes in Your article, which you brought in at a revision of the article (distinguish a color);
  • give back the revised manuscript and reverse letter in terms, set by an editor;
  • be polite and show respect to the reviewers when you agree, and when not agree with their remarks. In addition, you must bring into the article necessary changes which are offered by a reviewer;
  • remember, a reviewer is an expert in Science, Mathematics or ICT Education area. If suggestions which are brought into by an expert do not answer Your vision, then it, probably, because he did not understand the aspect of Your manuscript. It means that Your article is written in style, not quite clear for perception, thus, complicated for understanding of Your research. Hence, you must perfect the text of Your article, attainit communicative expediency, perfectionand readability.

3. Role of the Corresponding Author

One author is assigned as Corresponding Author and acts on behalf of all co-authors and ensures that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately addressed.

The Corresponding Author is Responsible for the Following Requirements:

  1. Ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors.
  2. Managing all communication between the Journal and all co-authors, before and after publication. The requirement of managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors during submission and proofing may be delegated to a Contact or Submitting Author. In this case please make sure the Corresponding Author is clearly indicated in the manuscript.
  3. Providing transparency on re-use of material and mention any unpublished material (for example manuscripts in press) included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor.
  4. Making sure disclosures, declarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate (see above).

4. Author Contributions

In absence of specific instructions and in research fields where it is possible to describe discrete efforts, the Publisher recommends authors to include contribution statements in the work that specifies the contribution of every author in order to promote transparency. These contributions should be listed at the separate title page.

Examples of such statement(s) are shown below:

  • Free text:

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Example: CRediT taxonomy:

  • Full name: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis and investigation, Writing-original draft preparation, Writing-review and editing; Full name: Funding acquisition, Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data, Resources; Full name: Supervision, Preparation of tables, figures, diagrams; Full name: Programming, software development, Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication / reproducibility of results / experiments and other research outputs, Submission of a data set to the international repository.

For review articles where discrete statements are less applicable a statement should be included who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search and data analysis, and who drafted and/or critically revised the work.

5. Affiliation

The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may additionally be stated. Addresses will not be updated or changed after publication of the article.

6. Changes to Authorship

Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authors, and/or changes in Corresponding Author, and/or changes in the sequence of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

  • Please note that author names will be published exactly as they appear on the accepted submission!

Please make sure that the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled, and that addresses and affiliations are current.

Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage are generally not permitted, but in some cases it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. Approval of the change during revision is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Please note that journals may have individual policies on adding and/or deleting authors during revision stage.

7. Author Identification

Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process. If desired, the author may also include a Researcher ID and/or Scopus Author ID.

8. Deceased or Incapacitated Authors

For cases in which a co-author dies or is incapacitated during the writing, submission, or peer-review process, and the co-authors feel it is appropriate to include the author, co-authors should obtain approval from a (legal) representative which could be a direct relative.

9. Authorship Issues or Disputes

In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the Collection will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.

10. Confidentiality

Authors should treat all communication with the Journal as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the Collection such as Editors-in-Chief and/or Handling Editors and reviewers' reports unless explicit consent has been received to share information.

 

REVIEWERS RESPONSIBILITIES

All reviewers must know and keep in mind the Editorial policy and Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement. Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education has taken as its model the best ethical practices as found in COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

The journal requires potential reviewers to have scientific expertise or significant work experience in a relevant field.

Potential reviewers should provide personal and professional information which is accurate and which gives a fair representation of their expertise.

1. Ethic Obligations of Reviewers

1. If a selected reviewer is not sure that his scientific qualification answers the level of researches, presented in a manuscript, he must at once give back a manuscript.
2. A reviewer always must objectively estimate the quality of a manuscript, its experimental and theoretical parts, interpretation and exposition of the material, and also to take into account, how maintenance of the article answers the scientific and lingually-stylistic standards; to respect intellectual independence of authors.
3. A reviewer must take into account a possibility of conflict of interests in the case when a manuscript is given to him close related to his current or published work. If there are doubts, a reviewer must at once turn a manuscript without a review, saying about the conflict of interests.
4. A reviewer has no right to estimate a manuscript, when he has the personal or professional copulas with an author or the co-author, and if such relations can influence on judgement about the publication of manuscript.
5. A reviewer must apply a manuscript which is the subject for criticizing, as a confidential document: not to show a manuscript to the other persons, not to discuss about it with other colleagues except special cases, when a reviewer requires somebody's special consultation.
6. Reviewers must adequately explain and argue reasoning in relation to the article, for editors’ and authors’ understanding, what their remarks are based on. Any statement that certain supervisions, conclusions, arguments and others like were already published, must be accompanied by a reference to the corresponding source.
7. A reviewer must mark any cases of insufficient or improper quoting by authors of works of the other scientists, which have direct attitude toward the article under criticizing, and also to take into account that a remark on the insufficient quoting can be regarded by the author of manuscript of the own researches of a reviewer as preconceived.
8. A reviewer must pay editor’s attention to any substantial likeness between this manuscript and any published article or any manuscript, simultaneously presented to another printed organ.
9. A reviewer must give a review in time.
10. Reviewers have no authority to use or expose unpublished information, arguments or interpretations which are contained in this article, if there is not a consent of the author on it.

Contribution to Editors Decisions. Peer review assists editors in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with authors, may assist authors in improving their manuscripts. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of scientific endeavor. Journal shares the view of many that all scholars who wish to contribute to the scientific process have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.

Promptness. Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality. Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief [https://pasithee.library.upatras.gr/review/about/contact] (who would only do so under exceptional and specific circumstances). This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Standards of Objectivity. Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.

Acknowledgement of Sources. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that is an observation, derivation or argument that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest. Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted. Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained through Peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

 

PUBLISHER’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Handling of Unethical Publishing Behavior. In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work. The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

Access to the contents of the journal of "Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education". The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our own digital archive.


POLICIES OF JOURNAL ON THE CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

All participants in the peer-review and publication process in the journal – not only authors but also peer reviewers, editors, and editorial board members of journal – must consider and disclose their relationships and activities when fulfilling their roles in the process of article review and publication.

Authors

When authors submit a manuscript of any type or format they are responsible for disclosing all relationships and activities that might bias or be seen to bias their work.  

Peer Reviewers

Reviewers are asked at the time they are requested to critique a manuscript if they have relationships or activities that could complicate their review. Reviewers must disclose to editors any relationships or activities that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and should recuse themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if the potential for bias exists. Reviewers must not use knowledge of the work they're reviewing before its publication to further their own interests.

Editors and Journal Staff

Journal editors who make final decisions about manuscripts will recuse themselves from editorial decisions if they have relationships or activities that pose potential conflicts related to articles under consideration. Editorial staff members of journal "Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education" who participate in editorial decisions will provide editors with a current description of their relationships or activities (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and recuse themselves from any decisions in which an interest that poses a potential conflict exists. Editorial staff must not use information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain.

Conflict-of-Interest. Members of the Editorial board and reviewers shall withdraw in any case of conflict of interest concerning an author or authors, or the content of a manuscript to be evaluated.

The journal of "Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education" shall avoid all conflict of interest between authors, reviewers, members of the editorial board and International editorial board. Situations in which editors and reviewers should withdraw from making decisions:

  1. There is a direct-reporting relationship between an author and a reviewer.
  2. There is recent, significant professional collaboration between reviewers and authors.
  3. An editor or reviewer is a collaborator on the project that is being submitted.
  4. The editor or reviewer has a financial interest in a company or competing company with a financial interest in the submission.

The editor or reviewer believes that he or she cannot be objective, whether for personal reasons or due to a financial interest not otherwise covered in the policy.

 

A MECHANISM OF REMOVAL OF VIOLATIONS OF ETHICS OF PUBLICATIONS AND UNCONSCIENTIOUS PRACTICE IS IN CONNECTION WITH PUBLICATIONS

Policy

The editors journal strictly adheres to the ethics and policies of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and Publishing Ethics Resource Kit for editors (PERK) (Elsevier).

If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud, the editors will carry out an investigation following COPE and PERK guidelines. If, after an investigation, there are valid concerns, the authors concerned will be contacted under their given email address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the editors implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

  • If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.

  • If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:

  1. an erratum/correction may be placed with the article;
  2. an editor's note or editorial expression of concern may be placed with the article;
  3. or, in severe cases, retraction of the article may occur.

The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, editor's note, editorial expression of concern, or retraction notice. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform watermarked "retracted" and the explanation is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.

  • The author's institution may be informed.
  • A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author's and article's bibliographic record.
1. Procedures and Decisions when Confronted with any Ethical Misconduct

COPE Flowcharts and guidelines and Publishing Ethics Resource Kit for editors (PERK) (Elsevier) are approached upon confronting any ethical misbehavior. If:

(1). Editors (or readers) must accept clever measures, when they suspect or see any violations of ethics of publication. It touches the both published and unpublished articles.

(2). Editors have no authority to give up investigation of the set ethic violations. It them ethic duty. In these cases they, first of all, must get an answer from the accused authors.

(3). Editors make effort for providing of the proper realization of investigation and carry out structural attempts for the decision of this problem.

(4). If an Editor (or Reviewer) educed unhonesty in materials of the article, he must operate according to norms, set by Committee on ethics of publications, and in accordance with the specific of the educed violations (COPE’s flowcharts). If:

(5). If Readers educed unhonesty in publications, they must operate after next algorithms in each of the below presented cases after a separate flow-chart. If:

2. Retraction of Publication

The scientific article text recall from a publication is a mechanism for correcting the published information and warning readers about the matter that a published scientific article contains serious faults or erroneous data that cannot be trusted. The inaccuracy of the data can result from both a conscientious delusion and deliberate violations. Retracement is also used to warn readers about instances of publications duplication (when authors submit the same data in several publications), plagiarism, and interest conflicts concealment that could affect the interpretation of the data or recommendations for their use.

The main goal of retraction is the correction of the published information and ensuring its integrity, but not the punishment of authors who committed violations.

Reasons and Grounds for Recalling an Article. The grounds for recalling the article are violation of ethical principles of the journal.

The reasons for the recalling of the article include:

  1. The presence of undue borrowings in a significant amount.
  2. Duplication of the article in several editions.
  3. Detection in the paper of fabrications or falsifications (for example, juggling research data).
  4. Detection of serious mistakes in the paper (for example, results misinterpretation), which casts doubt on the scientific value of the material.
  5. Incorrect authors composition (There being included the persons who do not meet the criteria of authorship or there is no one who is worthy to be considered as an author).
  6. The conflict of interests (and other violations of the publication ethics) is hidden.
  7. Re-publication of the article without the consent of the author.
  8. Other violations of the ethical principles of the Journal.

The Grounds for the Recalling of the Article are:

  1. The author's appeal for the article recalling.
  2. Decision of the journal’s Editor-in-Chief.

 

HOW THE JOURNAL WILL HANDLE COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS

Policy and Process

The below procedure applies to appeals to editorial decisions, complaints about failure of processes such as long delays in handling papers and complaints about publication ethics. The complaint should in first instance be handled by the Editor-in-Chief responsible for the journal and/or the Editor who handled the paper.

1. How to Raise a Concern

Anyone who believes that research published by "Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education" has not been carried out in line with these principles should raise their concerns with the Editor-in-Chief (e-mail: ravanis@upatras.gr).

2. Handling Complaints and Appeals

Complaints about the review and publications process should be directed, in writing, to the Managing Editor who will communicate these to the Editor. Complaints will be adjudicated by the Editor, and as needed, other members of the editorial staff.

Rulings on submissions are conducted by the peer review process and overseen by a qualified editor engaged with the journal. The journal is under no obligation to review all manuscripts submitted and decisions on papers forwarded for review are final.

Complaint about Scientific Content, e.g. an Appeal Against Rejection

The Editor-in-Chief or Handling Editor considers the authors' argument, the reviewer reports and decides whether

  • The decision to reject should stand.
  • Another independent opinion is required.
  • The appeal should be considered.

The complainant is informed of the decision with an explanation if appropriate. Decisions on appeals are final and new submissions take priority over appeals.

Complaint about Processes, e.g. Time Taken to Review

The Editor-in-Chief together with the Handling Editor (where appropriate) and/or in-house contact (where appropriate) will investigate the matter. The complainant will be given appropriate feedback. Feedback is provided to relevant stakeholders to improve processes and procedures.

Complaint about Publication Ethics, e.g., Researcher’s Author's, or Reviewer's Conduc

The Editor-in-Chief or Handling Editor follows guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics. The Editor-in-Chief or Handling Editor may ask the publisher via their in-house contact for advice on difficult or complicated cases. The Editor-in-Chief or Handling Editor decides on a course of action and provides feedback to the complainant. If the complainant remains dissatisfied with the handling of their complaint, he or she can submit the complaint to the Committee on Publication Ethics. More information can be found here.

 

OPTIONS JOURNAL FOR POST-PUBLICATION DISCUSSIONS AND CORRECTIONS

Journal “Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education” focuses on the guidance by COPE on Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections.

Specifically, Journal allows authors to request that papers be corrected where necessary. Authors may contact the editor or Managing Editor via email with specific requests to review suggested corrections after publication. The Editor or Managing Editor will work with the authors to correct or remove papers after review as appropriate.

 

Indexing

The Journal is currently covered by the following full-text or indexing and abstracting services:

 

Archiving

Open Journal Systems supports the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system to ensure secure and permanent preservation of the journal.