Code of Ethics
Editorial Board
- The editorial team of the student journal Obscura, committed to upholding the good name of its maternal institution History Students’ Association of Faculty of Arts, Charles University, is dedicated to an ethical, objective, and fair approach to both authors and their texts throughout the entire evaluation and publication process.
- The editorial team commits to adhering to and supporting academic work ethics and responding to the latest ethical challenges in the field.
- The editorial team is responsible for the selection of texts, their submission to an appropriate reviewer if they fall under the category of texts undergoing peer review, and guiding the author through the evaluation and publication process.
- The editorial team commits to evaluating texts solely based on their scientific and argumentative quality, irrespective of the non-academic behavior or facts about the authors, such as political preferences, beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, age, race, or origin. Additional criteria for selecting texts include the journal’s content capacity, thematic relevance, as well as their stylistic and formal quality.
- Texts accepted for peer review are, depending on the type of text (see Publication Guidelines), submitted to one or two reviewers, who will assess its academic quality. The editorial team commits to ensuring that, if possible, reviewers are external to the authors’ academic institution, thus preventing conflicts of interest based on professional, academic, or personal relationships.
- All texts are confidential until published, and the editorial team will not share them outside the evaluation process. Unpublished texts must not be used by any member of the editorial team for personal gain or further disseminated.
- The editorial team reserves the right to make linguistic and technical corrections to submitted contributions. These corrections will not interfere with the integrity of the text.
- In the event of an error made by the editorial team, such offenses will be reported to the governing bodies of the History Students’ Association of Faculty of Arts, Charles University, under whose projects the journal Obscura falls. However, the governing bodies of the History Students’ Association do not influence the publication, evaluation, or peer review processes and do not intervene in the editorial operations unless circumstances require it.
Authors
- Authors commit to submitting only their original texts, which are the result of their own research and intellectual work. Any references to other authors must be properly cited in the text, in a manner that adheres to the formatting requirements (see Publishing Guidelines).
- Authors must avoid including unethical content in their contributions, such as hateful, racist, homophobic, or otherwise discriminatory and problematic expressions. Such content contradicts our commitment to promoting mutual respect in the academic environment. Contributions should adhere to the principles of ethical scientific research and contribute to supporting diversity, equality, and inclusivity in the academic community to which we belong.
- Authors must never submit plagiarized or self-plagiarized work. Authors adhere to the ethics of academic work and refrain from dishonorable or illegal conduct.
- Authors are obliged to inform the editorial team if a part of their submitted text has been published in another periodical. Simultaneous submission of the same text to multiple journals is considered an ethical violation.
- By submitting a contribution for evaluation and publication, authors agree to the publication of their name, the name of their institution, and the text itself. Authors grant the editorial team the right to handle the contribution within the publishing process, i.e., to submit the text to anonymous reviewers, make linguistic, technical, and graphical edits, and allow the text to be reproduced and distributed in both printed and electronic forms on the digital platforms of the journal Obscura.
- If an author discovers discrepancies or errors in their text after submission or publication, they are obliged to immediately inform the editorial team, which will decide on the method of correction.
- Authors are required to disclose any potential sources of funding for their contribution and to inform the editorial team about any conflicts of interest that may affect the publishing or evaluation process.
- Authors are required to follow the formal formatting guidelines provided by the editorial team, which can be found in the Publishing Guidelines.
- If the author submits a contribution for the peer-reviewed section of the journal, the peer review process is mutually anonymous, meaning the author does not know the identity of the reviewer, and vice versa.
- Authors are entitled to one physical copy of the journal if their text is published within it. However, authors cannot claim financial or material compensation for the publication of their text. Decisions regarding any type of reward are made by the editorial team in cooperation with the governing bodies of the History Students’ Association of FF UK.
Reviewers
Peer Reviewers, who assist the editorial board with selecting texts, prepare evaluations based on the scientific, argumentative, and intellectual quality of the text, regardless of the authors’ non-scientific behavior or characteristics such as political preferences, beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, age, race, or origin. Reviewers base their assessment on factual and impartial arguments.
The review process is double-blind, meaning the reviewer does not know the identity of the author and vice versa.
Reviewers are obliged to inform the editorial board if they find significant similarities between the reviewed text and other previously published works or if they have serious doubts about its originality. Reviewers must also inform the editorial board of any aspects of the text that they believe may violate the principles of academic work.
Reviewers treat the texts confidentially and do not share them with third parties. Unpublished texts must not be used by reviewers for personal gain or disseminated further.
The Review Process
If the submitted manuscript falls under the category of peer-reviewed texts, the editorial board will decide whether to accept it for the review process based on its scientific quality, thematic relevance, and the issue’s content requirements.
Once the manuscript passes internal approval by the editorial board, and after the publication call has closed, it is assigned to a selected reviewer or reviewers. The number of reviewers depends on the nature of the manuscript (see Publication Guidelines). Reviewers are always anonymous and are selected so that they do not share the same institution or workplace as the author. The review process is double-blind, meaning that the reviewer does not know the identity of the author, and vice versa.
If the review or reviews do not recommend the manuscript for publication, the manuscript will be sent back to the author for revision, or it will be rejected from the publication process based on the number and severity of the issues identified by the reviewers.
If two reviews significantly differ in their assessment of the manuscript, the editorial board will consult a third reviewer.
If the manuscript successfully passes the review process, it will be sent back to the author for any necessary revisions based on the feedback from the review. If the manuscript does not require substantial changes, the editorial board will proceed with linguistic and technical corrections. Afterward, the manuscript is sent to print and published.
The editorial board of the student journal Obscura adheres to the Ethical Code of Charles University, is familiar with the Dean’s Measure No. 20/2020, which addresses the ethics of scholarly work at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, our alma mater, and respects the Statutes of the History Students’ Association of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, our parent organization.
The ethical code was published on February 27, 2024, and therefore applies to all issues of the journal whose publication calls were announced after this date. However, the general principles and guidelines of academic work are valid for all issues, both published and unpublished, up until this date.