Submission and Review Process

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If you wish to reuse your own article in a new publication of which you are the author, editor or co-editor, prior permission is not required.

Ethical Principles

In ethical matters, OBIC Book Series follows the recommendations of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Code of Scientific Ethics and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org/), an international professional organization. The evaluation of submitted manuscripts is solely based on their scientific value and their compliance with the Book series' profile. The editors only accept manuscripts that are original, free of plagiarism, have not been published elsewhere and have not been submitted for publication to another journal or book. The editors treat all information regarding the authors, the review process, and the manuscripts as confidential. The editorial board examines any ethical issues arising in connection with the submitted manuscripts within 30 days and keeps in constant contact with the persons concerned.

The peer review process

The peer review process is a fundamental part of research publishing. It's a way of ensuring only articles of the highest quality, which describe sound research methods and results, are published.

The process involves both the journal editors and independent expert reviewers, who evaluate the submitted articles. Peer reviewers can recommend whether or not they believe an article should be accepted or rejected by the journal. However, the ultimate authority to make the final decision rests solely with journal editors or the journal's editorial board.

The key steps in the decision-making process are as follows.

Initial screening

After an article is submitted to OBIC Book Series (hereinafter: OBIC BS) one of the editors will screen the manuscript and decides whether or not to send it for full peer review. Only after clearing the initial screening is the article sent to an independent peer reviewer. Editors will consider the following aspects:

• Is the manuscript good enough in quality to be sent for peer review?
• Does it conform to the aims and scope of the journal and has it followed the style guidelines and instructions for authors?
• Does it make a significant contribution to the existing literature?
• Unsuitable articles may be rejected without peer review at the editor's discretion.

If the article passes these initial checks, it will be sent for peer review.

Benefits of carrying out this initial screening include:

A quick decision for authors – if the manuscript clearly lies outside the scope of the journal, then a rapid rejection allows the author to submit their article to another journal more quickly.

Peer reviewers' time is not wasted – reviewers don't have to spend time evaluating and giving feedback for a manuscript of clearly inferior quality.

The peer review process

Once an article has passed the initial screening process, it's sent for peer review.

There may be different types of peer review operated by different journals. OBIC BS applies the double blind peer review which means neither the author(s) of the paper will know who are the reviewers, nor the reviewers will know who is/are the author(s).

Editors will therefore very carefully select reviewers, who have sufficient subject matter expertise to do justice to the article they're reviewing.

The editors will notify the author of the results of the evaluations and the changes requested by the reviewers. The results of the reviews can be 1. accepted without changes; 2. accepted with minor changes; 3. accepted with significant changes; 4. refused. In case of two fundamentally contradictory reviews, the editorial board will ask for a third reviewer.

After returning the manuscripts and evaluation criteria, the authors will resubmit their revised version to the editors, then a new decision will be made on their publication.

The finalized manuscripts are sent to a proofreader, who makes formal, stylistic, and linguistic corrections, which the editors send back to the authors and which the authors are supposed to finalize.

The language reviewers, proofreaders of the OBIC Book Series: David Parker, Iván Nyusztay, Ian Jedlica, Marianna Kovács-Gergely.

The editors reserve the right to withdraw from the publication at any stage of the evaluation process, as well as - in special cases - to make an independent decision about the publication. The editorial board relies strongly on reviews but decides independently on publication.

How long does peer review take? This is a hard question to answer, but often peer review is the lengthiest part of this process. In our case, OBIC BS will ask reviewers to complete their reviews within 2-3 weeks. 

Licensing terms

Articles published and protected by the current copyright regulations of Hungary and in compliance with the legislation of the European Union. Users may access, download, copy, translate, text and data mine (but may not redistribute, display or adapt) the studies for non-commercial purposes provided that users:

• Cite the papers using an appropriate bibliographic citation (i.e. author(s), journal, article title, volume, issue, page numbers, DOI and the link to the definitive published version).

• Maintain the integrity of the article.

• Retain copyright notices and links to these terms and conditions so it is clear to other users what can and cannot be done with the study.

• Ensure that, for any content in the article that is identified as belonging to a third party, any re-use complies with the copyright policies of that third party.

• Any translations, for which a prior translation agreement with OBIC has not been established, must prominently display the statement: "This is an unofficial translation of an article that appeared in an OBIC publication. OBIC has not endorsed this translation."

For permission to use documents beyond permitted above, users need to contact the Editor in Chief of OBIC BS and obtain a non-commercial license where the use of published articles for commercial purposes is prohibited. Commercial purposes include:

• Copying or downloading articles, or linking to such postings, for further redistribution, sale or licensing, for a fee.

• Copying, downloading or posting by a site or service that incorporates advertising with such content.

• The inclusion or incorporation of article content in other works or services (other than normal quotations with an appropriate citation) that is then available for sale or licensing, for a fee.

• Use of articles or article content (other than normal quotations with appropriate citation) by for-profit organizations for promotional purposes, whether for a fee or otherwise.

• Use for the purposes of monetary reward by means of sale, resale, license, loan, transfer or other form of commercial exploitation.

Copyright terms

In order for OBIC BS to publish and disseminate research papers, we need certain publishing rights from authors, which are determined by a license agreement between the author and OBIC as well as a Declaration of Exclusivity signed by the Author(s) stating that the research paper is their own, individual work.

Authors will have rights under our publishing agreement, which support their need to share, disseminate and maximize the impact of their research.

OBIC is committed to protect and defend authors' works and their reputation. We take allegations of infringement, plagiarism, ethical disputes, and fraud very seriously.

Publishing Costs

As OBIC is committed to encourage researchers we do not charge any kind of fees from the Authors.