Ethics and Compliance
Reporting Standards
A submitted manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented in it. The deliberate presentation of false claims is a violation of ethical standards.
Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must make sure that they have permission from all involved parties to make the data public.
Authors wishing to include figures, tables or other materials that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s). Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Book reviews and review papers should be accurate and they should present an objective perspective.
Acknowledgment of Sources
Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and their manuscript. Information received in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties, in reviewing project applications, manuscripts and similar materials, must not be used without the written consent of the information source.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism, where someone assumes another’s ideas, words, or other creative expression as one’s own, is a clear violation of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action.
Plagiarism includes the following:
- Word for word, or almost word for word copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another author’s work without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation marks);
- Copying equations, figures or tables from someone else’s paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.
Please note that all submissions are checked for plagiarism.
Any paper which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected and its author will be prohibited from publishing papers in the journal Musicology in the following five years.
In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under Retraction Policy, and authors will be prohibited from publishing papers in the journal Musicology in the following five years.
Conflict of Interest
Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial impact or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.
Fundamental Errors in Published Works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal Editor or publisher and cooperate with the Editor to retract or correct the paper.
Procedures for Dealing with Unethical Behavior
Anyone may inform the editors and/or Editorial Board at any time of suspected unethical behaviour or any type of misconduct by giving the necessary information/evidence to start an investigation.
- Editor-in-Chief will make a decision regarding the initiation of an investigation with the purpose to check the factual evidence.
- During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as strictly confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in investigating.
- The accused will always be given the chance to respond to any charges made against them.
- If it is decided at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious.
Minor misconduct will be dealt directly with those involved without involving any other parties, e.g.:
- Communicating to authors/reviewers whenever a minor issue involving misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards has occurred.
- A warning letter to an author or reviewer regarding fairly minor misconduct.
In the case of major missconduct, the Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Editorial Board, and, when appropriate, further consultation with a small group of experts should make the decision regarding the course of action to be taken using the evidence available. The possible outcomes are as follows, which can be used separately or jointly:
- Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct.
- Informing the author’s (or reviewer’s) head of department or employer of any misconduct by means of a formal letter.
- The formal, announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy.
- A ban on submissions from an individual for a defined period.
- Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.
When dealing with unethical behaviour, the Editorial Board will rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Retraction Policy
Legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or any major misconduct require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.
Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by Musicology: in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted”.
AI Policy
Generative artificial inteligence is developing fast and Muzikologija is recognizing its importance in contemporary schlarship, but calls for its critical and ethical use. Authors must acknowledge every use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies with the statement of the use particular tool and its particular use purpose.
Authors should not use generative AI tools to replace core author responsibilities, while peer reviewers and editors must not expose any manuscript or its part to generative AI tools because of the confidentiality of the content. In addition, AI tools cannot be used as sources.
The journal accepts manuscripts where chatbots are used as tools to support authors in their research or writing process. Acceptable uses include proofreading, copyediting, structure and style feedback, translation, data analysis, data visualisation and programming.
Authors must check the terms and conditions of any AI tool that they use to ensure that the privacy and confidentiality of their data and inputs, including their unpublished and published manuscripts, is maintained. Particular care should be taken with any personally identifiable data. Authors should check for factual errors and for any potential bias.
