The publication process of our journal involves authors, the journals office management, the (chief) editors, the peer reviewers, the members of the advisory board, and the copy editor. All of us are human and thus by no means infallible. Yet, we maintain high standards we expect every person involved to meet. Below, we describe the most important points in this respect for which we refer to the COPE/Principles of Publication Ethics.

1. How We Handle User Data

JRFM supports a strict open access policy. All public content is available without registering. However, if a user submits a papers or reviews, or if a user provides a peer review, he/she has to register. Registration enables the users to submit contributions, act as editors, peer reviewers and advisors (if applicable) and to receive notifications from JRFM about important news. The login data can be disabled in the user profile at any time, or the cancellation can provided from the JRFM office manager, if requested by a user.

For registering name, surname and a valid e-mail address a compulsorily requested. All other data are optional. All personal data are considered strictly confidential and are only used for the purpose of producing the journal. Under no circumstances will JRFM pass personal data to third parties with the exception of legal authorities according to legal requirements. The users are entitled to request the immediate and permanent deletion of their data at any time.

2. The Authors

The authorship of a manuscript submitted to JRFM is limited to people who made a significant contribution to the content submitted. This means that everyone and only those who substantially contribute in writing the text have to be named as a (co)author. JRFM encourages its authors to adhere to the best practices explained in the COPE guidelines.

The authors are highly esteemed partners in the challenge to produce original and creative contents. We trust that they submit manuscripts according to the style guide and containing an accurate presentation of their research results and accurate description of their objectives. If the authors refers to the work of others (e.g. data, texts, images, figures etc.), they are obliged to properly quote the source, according to the standards defined in our style guide to ensure the protection of intellectual property rights.

We also expect authors not to submit the same contribution to different journals at the same time.

The submitter of the manuscript is responsible to seek permission for submission from his co-authors, and to inform them about all the steps of the review process, the revision of the text and the approval of the galley files before publication.

Authors are expected to disclose any aspects of possible conflicts of interest in the submission process. This includes, but is not limited to, sources of financial support, employment or other relationships of dependence.

If a submitter has received financial or material support from third parties, especially from private companies, or if he or she is in any relationship of dependence with them, the related information is to be disclosed. Conflicts of interest or competing interests must be declared. Being an open access journal, JRFM encourages its authors follow to work under the guidelines of open science. This implies that authors may be asked to provide the underlying data to their work to ensure the reproducibility of their work.
 

Finally, a word on copyright issues: The JRFM is located in Graz, Austria. Therefore, Austrian law is applicable and the place of venue is Graz. The Austrian copyright law is restrictive, yet it gives room for scientific quotations of text and other media. Being an author, please make sure that media you use (e.g. pictures, screenshots, film stills, audio files, scans etc.) are either covered by §42f. UrhG or approved by the current copyright holder.

3. The Office Management Staff

If the submitter does not enclose an explicit note stating something different, our office manager directly forwards the uploaded contribution to the editor of the issue the contribution is attributed to. The editor is not allowed to forward submitted manuscripts to third parties prior to publications without written consent of the author. Confidentiality is key for us, especially in all respects concerning the double-blind peer review process. Thus, the office manager will never disclose names of authors to peer reviewers and vice versa (see also our detailed description of our peer review process).

4. The Editors and the Advisory Board

The chief editors are organizing the journal management and its public appearance. They manage the business operations and are responsible for the ethical oversight.

Each issue of JRFM is assigned to a member (in some cases two cooperating members) of the editorial board . They are responsible for the review and production process including the final decision to accept or reject a contribution. Their decision about the articles and the issue as a whole is made solely on the base of the scholarly quality of the submitted text  without regard to the person of the submitter, and neither gender, race, religion, ethnicity nor other factors like these will have any influence on it. The editors of an issue may discuss the review or production process within the editorial boards. All members of the editorial board are requested to keep every information about submitted texts strictly confidential.

In the event of complaints and appeals or an instance of malpractice or plagiarism, the editorial board will act according to the COPE Guidelines. The editors will remove publications if they contain plagiarism, unauthorized material or data, image manipulation, unreliable data or copyright infringement. Authors are to be informed about the pending removal and they will be given the opportunity to respond to any allegation. The removal including an explanatory statement is to be announced on www.jrfm.eu in a clear and objective manner. 

The members of the advisory board are consultative partners of the editorial board in their respective field of expertise. When considering topics for upcoming issues, they are our preferred respondents. They also may be involved in the peer review process.

5. The Peer-reviewers

Peer-reviewers are esteemed partners in the quality management process of JRFM. Their recommendations are crucial for both the issue editor(s) and the author(s). Thus, our reviewers commit themselves to these statements:

Objectivity shall be maintained throughout the review process. The reviewer may cancel their participation in the review process at any time if they consider their expertise as insufficient, professionally biased or are personally involved.

Although reviewers are required to critically evaluate the texts, they are expected to provide constructive critique. Not only will their review be a suggestion for the journals editors to publish or reject a specific paper, it also should provide guidance on how it might be improved. The reviewers keep in mind that the author may be a younger colleague that may have less experience in publishing and is grateful for any helpful advice from seniors.

The reviewers shall maintain full confidentiality. Neither will they discuss aspects of the review process with other persons than the editors nor will they actively try to identify the submitter of a paper. They will not take any advantages of the ideas that are discussed in the paper to be reviewed (see also our description of our peer review process).

6. The Copy Editor

The copy editor is in charge of maintaining consistent linguistic and stylistic standards the published issues. They provide  proofreading and check not only spelling and language skills but also the consistency and comprehensibility of a text. They check whether the author has standardised the article according to our style guide and may request improvements.

7. Financial Aspects

For the time being, the journal offers its services for free for all involved parties. That depends, of course, on the development of our funding and the cooperation with our hosting institutions. Please note that the free use of the services of JRFM is a privilege, not a right. It may be subject to change in the future (although we do our very best to keep it as it is).

8. Advertising Policy

JRFM offers advertisement space for academic journals, monographs or anthologies in fields related to the journal's focus. The chief editors decide which advertisements, and how many, may be published, based on the advertisement’s content and the size of the specific issue. Advertisements and issue content are processed as two separate areas and decisions about advertising are in no way related to editorial decisions. Advertisements are clearly marked as such and visually divided from the issue’s content. Advertisements are published both in the online and print edition of an issue. Advertising revenues are used exclusively for the production of JRFM. For more information, please contact jrfm@uni-graz.at.

 Graz, July 2^nd, 2021

This statement is subject to changes and/or additions without further notice.