Publication Policies

  • Publication Ethics & Obligations of Authors
    • The submitting author guarantees that he or she has written the submitted article himself or herself or names all co-authors involved in the article order.
    • The submitting author guarantees that he or she may use all materials used in the article, e.g. text passages, illustrations, graphics, for this article, has obtained appropriate permission from the authors, if necessary, and correctly identifies third-party work as such (use of quotations and references).
    • The submitting author guarantees that the submitted work has not been previously published and is not currently being reviewed for publication in any other journal.
    • The submitting author confirms that he or she has correctly filled out the given Word template.
    • The submitting author confirms that all sources are in APA format (7th edition), that all URLs in the article are clickable links and that the DOI has been specified for all sources, if available.
    • Authors have to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes. Clarifications and apologies have to be provided if necessary.
    • Finally, the submitting author confirms that he or she has read, understood, implemented and accepted all regulations and policies of this journal.
  • Copyright Notice
    • This journal is an open access journal. This means that it makes the published articles available to its readers free of charge.
    • The submitting author guarantees the originality of his or her article (together with possible co-authors) and declares that all material used (text passages, graphics, illustrations etc.) may be used by him or her in the context of the article and has been appropriately marked in accordance with the usual citation rules of the scientific community.
    • The submitting author agrees that the submitted article may be published under CC BY 3.0 license (read more).
    • Authors and readers are free to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) for any purpose, even commercially. To do so, you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
    • The submitting author declares that he or she grants the journal the non-exclusive right to publish the submitted article accordingly, while at the same time the author retains the right to publish the article elsewhere.
  • Peer Review Process
    • The submitting author declares that he or she generally submits his or her article for participation in a double-blind peer-review process. This means in particular that the author ensures that personal information has been removed from the article’s metadata.
    • The submitting author further agrees that his or her article may be read by other scientists, possibly in his or her direct field of expertise, within the double-blind peer-review process and that he or she will receive anonymous feedback on any improvements that may be necessary for publication.
    • The entire double-blind peer-review process of this journal will be mapped by e-mail.
  • Anti Plagiarism
    • This journal pursues a 100% anti plagiarism policy.  The journal routinely screens article submissions for plagiarism using services like iThenticate.
    • This means that authors who submit an article that they did not write themselves, contrary to their declarations, will be banned from further publications by this journal and the article in question will be listed here as plagiarism.
  • Change of Authorship
    • Any addition, deletion of rearrangement of author names of accepted or published manuscripts must be requested at the Technical Editor of the journal. The request must contain the reason for the change in authorship and a written confirmation by all authors that they agree with the desired changes in authorship.
  • Identifying Information
    • The submitting author guarantees that participants of studies (e. g. surveys or experiment) are not identifiable in the manuscript. This includes names, personal details and health data as well as images and videos that could allow the identification of persons. Therefore the author confirms to remove any identifying information from the manuscript, images and photos in the manuscript or datasets submitted together with the manuscript.
    • The above rules regarding identifying information may be waived if the authors can demonstrate the consent of the data subjects for such information to be published. The consent must have been given in writing and must clearly inform the data subjects of their rights and the consequences of their consent.
  • Conflict of Interest
    • For the three years preceding the start of the submitted work, all authors are asked to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest, including any financial, personal, or other relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work.
  • Privacy
    • In the course of the submission, review and publication of articles in this journal, the journal will obtain knowledge of the names, places of residence, e-mail addresses and institutions of the authors of the articles.
    • These data are used exclusively for the submission, review and publication of the articles in the journal.
    • This concerns in particular the presentation of that data in the context of the published articles and the communication with the submitting author during the review process.