Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
CETRA Conference serves as a platform for a broad blend of scientific and technical papers in the fields of Civil, Transport, Geotechnical, Environmental, Traffic and Electrical Engineering with application in Road and Rail Infrastructure. Papers considered for publication in the conference Proceedings are original papers that form a contribution to the theory or practice of infrastructure engineering, present state-of-the-art work on topics related to infrastructure, or case studies in which theory is applied to a significant infrastructure problem.
University of Zagreb Faculty of Civil Engineering Department of Transportation Engineering as a publisher, takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities. Therefore, all parties involved in the act of publishing (editors, authors, reviewers and the publisher) of these Proceedings have to agree upon following standards of ethical behaviour based on the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors of the Committee on Publication Ethics – COPE (available at http://publicationethics.org/).
Editors’ Duties
Publication Decisions: The Editor is responsible for deciding on accepting, rejecting or requesting modifications to the manuscript. In some instances, the Editor may require multiple rounds of reviews and modifications. The Editor communicates review result in a timely fashion. The Editor reserves the right to edit, clarify or shorten the manuscript as deemed necessary.
Fair Review: The Editor must ensure that each manuscript submitted to CETRA Conference is reviewed for its intellectual content without regard to the Author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy. The decisions will be based on the paper’s importance, originality, clarity, and relevance to the Conference’s scope.
Confidentiality: The Editor must ensure that information regarding manuscripts submitted by the Authors is kept confidential.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: The Editor shall not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript for his/her own research without the Author’s explicit written consent.
Academic Integrity (corrections, retractions, expressions of concern): The Editor is responsible for granting the integrity of published works by issuing corrections and retractions, if necessary. The Editor will pursue suspected or alleged research, or any other form of publication misconduct. Likewise, the Editor will pursue Reviewer’s misconduct. The Editor will take necessary responsive measures if ethical complaints concerning submitted or published papers arise. If Editor finds post-publishing Author's complaint valid, “corrections” will be published in online version of the proceedings. Likewise, “retractions” will be published if work is proven to be fraudulent or plagiarism or will published “expressions of concern” if Editor have well-founded suspicions of misconduct. The Authors can send retraction note for published paper, but the Editor decides if such statement will be accepted or not.
Authors’ Duties
Publication guidelines: Authors must follow the submission guidelines of the CETRA Conference.
Originality, Plagiarism and Acknowledgement: Authors must ensure that the work they are submitting as theirs is entirely original. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere. Authors will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. It is also their responsibility to check that all copyrighted material within the article has permission for publication and that material the author does not personally hold copyright in is not reproduced without permission. Finally, authors should ensure that the submitted article has a funding acknowledgement, where relevant. Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled “Supporting agencies” in abstract submission procedure.
Multiple Submissions: Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
Authorship of the Paper: All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research. The Author submitting the manuscript ensures that all contributing co- authors and no uninvolved person(s) are included in the author list.
Conflict of Interest: Authors must notify the Editor of any conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the manuscript.
Fundamental Errors: Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes at any point in time if the author(s) discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in submitted manuscript.
Reviewers’ Duties
Confidentiality: Reviewers must keep all manuscripts received confidential.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Reviewers must ensure that Authors have cited all relevant published work referred to in the paper in the endnotes and bibliography. Reviewers will bring to the Editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript and any other published paper they are aware of.
Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the Author is inappropriate.
Supporting Argument: Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Conflicts of Interest: Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships, or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the paper(s).
Promptness: If a reviewer feels it is not possible for him/her to complete review of manuscript within the stipulated time he/she should notify the Editor in a timely manner and withdraw from the review process.
Peer-review process
All research papers considered for publication in the CETRA Conference Proceedings are subjected to thorough peer-review, usually by two peer-reviewers that are members of the CETRA International Academic Scientific Committee. After initial assessment for suitability in the publication, the Editor will invite appropriate Reviewers with specific area of expertise. The Editors decision is made based on these Reviewer reports, which are made available to the Authors upon decision. Where the Editor is an author in the submission, adequate steps are taken to ensure blinding the Editor from the submission during peer-review.
Author Appeals
Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the conference. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments. Editorial Office will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Conference chairman. The Editorial Board Member being consulted will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.