Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal wants to assure the readers that authors of publications present the results of their work in an honest, reliable, and clear manner. We believe in the ethical meaning of all manuscripts in order to develop the knowledge in the field.

Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal Editorial Board follows the industry associations, such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME) that set standards and provide guidelines for best practices in order to meet the appropriate requirements. Scientific articles not conforming to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki should be rejected for publication.

In the context of data publication, Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal follows community best practices on data publishing ethics and aligns with the recommendations and workflows published by the FORCE11 & COPE Research Data PUblishing Ethics Working Group.

Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal will follow up on any ethical concerns about the data associated with a submitted manuscript or a published article. Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal will follow due process in accordance with COPE guidelines and the FORCE11 & COPE Working Group recommendations to inform whether any actions may be required about a dataset or an article.

Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal reserves the right to remove or disable access or links to a published dataset and/or associated content in order to address a legal or ethical concern, a publication ethics issue, or a breach in journal policy.

Per the Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal discretion, we may also remove access to published data and/or linked articles while such concerns are under investigation. In the context of any data publishing concerns, Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal may contact other parties that host content associated with the dataset (e.g. a data repository) and may contact the institution(s) of relevant authors if required.

https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/concerns-legal-unpublished-data_0.pdf

Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal follows legal framework and obligations in Romania and may have a legal obligation to inform the authorities in its own jurisdiction if a legal breach is identified in relation to the content in a submission or a publication in the journal.

When dealing with cases of a possible misconduct Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal follows the ethics flowcharts developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts

The journal Editorial Board and Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to expose any cases of plagiarism, redundant (duplicate) publication, ghostwriting, fabricated data, guest authorship etc., and to inform the relevant institutions or affiliations (institutions employing the author, scientific editor’s associations, scientific societies, etc.).

Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal shows no tolerance to fraudulent activities. The Journal’s Editorial Board follows the code of conduct set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

In the case of a published article for which concerns are raised, the journal will do all the necessary actions for the manuscript to be re-reviewed, in accordance with guidance from the COPE. Therefore, the editorial decision will be made based on the re-reviews and this may result in correcting the academic record. 

Duties and responsibilities of authors

1)      Authors should present their results honestly, without inappropriate data manipulation and without competing interests. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit other researchers to replicate the study. Scientific articles should follow the submission guidelines of the journal.

2)      Authors are obliged to participate in peer review process, to correct any errors upon discovery, prior or subsequent to publication of their manuscript.

3)      Submitting the same paper to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior.

4)      The paper should not be published elsewhere prior to acceptance/rejection by this Journal and a copyright permission should be obtained for materials published elsewhere and which require this permission for reproduction.

5)      Previous ideas, publications should be properly referenced. We encourage authors to cite the primary literature. Multiple papers arising from the same research project should be identified, the primary publication being referenced. Acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given.

6)      Authors should expose the authorship of the paper, by ensuring that: all who participated are credited and have given consent for publication; all persons credited as authors participated in the actual authorship of the work. Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal in the matter of authorship criteria, respects COPE recommendations.

7)      Author(s) are responsible for disclosing all personal and financial relationships that might bias their work. All sources of financial support should be disclosed.

8)      Before accepting the manuscript for publication, authors can withdraw the article by submitting a statement in the electronic system - Open Journal Systems (OJS).

For Reviewers

• Articles respect double-blind peer review process (the identity of both the reviewers and authors is hidden), therefore, information regarding the paper should be kept confidential.
• The reviewers must alert journal Editorial Board (www.discobolulunefs.ro) of any potential competing interest that could affect the quality of the review, and should not consider the manuscripts (should decline the review).
• Reviewers (if is a legitimate need) should point out important published manuscripts which are not yet cited; all judgments in the peer-review process must be objective and reviewers should express their point of view with supporting arguments.
• The reviewers must agree to review a manuscript only if they are aware that they can return a review in a reasonable time-frame (two weeks); reviewers should inform journal Editorial Board if they require an extension.

We encourage reviewers to refer to the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers as appropriate.

Duties of Editor

The Editor can accept, reject, or request modifications to the paper, based on the reviewers  observations. During this process, editors must act fair and objective, without discrimination of religious, gender, political beliefs, geographical origin or sexual orientation of the authors.

Editors must cooperate with authors and reviewers, in order to ensure a qualitative, unbiased review process, and, in the same time, the confidentiality of the reviewing process. Editors should not be involved in decisions about manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest.

     Discobolul – Physical Education, Sports and Kinetotherapy Journal adopts the World Association of Medical Editors’ definition of editorial freedom/ independence. Therefore, Editor-in-Chief has the final say in decisions about which manuscript and when appears. Authors are obliged to respect the concept of editorial freedom and should not interfere in the selection, evaluation, scheduling, or editing of individual papers.

In the situation when there are concerns regarding the research procedure presented in the scientific article, the journal Editorial Board can request from the authors to submit data considering the approval of the mentioned research procedure by an adequate ethics committee.