AR / Publication Ethics

Introduction

Architectural research (AR) is a peer-reviewed academic journal published once per year by the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of architecture. The primary charge of the editorial team is to publish the highest quality original research regarding architecture and relative fields of theory, pedagogy and production. The integrity, originality and quality of the content published in AR are essential objectives that are consistently ensured by thorough peer-based reviews, editing and publishing processes. To that purpose, all parties involved—authors, reviewers, members of the editorial team—are expected to fully adhere to the AR’s policies regarding publication ethics with respect the statements below.

AR ethics statements follow the Codes of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Our publication policies strive to adhere to COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers and the Elsevier publishing policies and recommendations.

Anyone who believes that contents published by AR journal are not in line with the ethical guidelines below or the above principles, should raise their concern with the Editor-in-chief. Concerns will be addressed by following COPE guidelines and the Ethics Committee of the University of Ljubljana.

Editorial Process

The Architectural Research editorial process is committed to editorial independence and strives in all cases to prevent this principle from being compromised by any financial, political, or other corporate or business influence.

AR’s editorial board evaluates submitted manuscripts exclusively on the basis of academic merit (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and their relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. We do not discriminate against authors, editors or peer reviewers based on personal characteristics or identity.

Editors and reviewers are required to declare any competing interests or related conflict of interest and will be excluded from the editorial process if a competing interest exists (see section Conflict of interest below). Information relating to competing interests helps the editor assess the submitted work and invite reviewers who do not have competing interests.

Editors and the editorial board will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers and other editorial advisers as deemed appropriate (see section Confidentiality below)

Submissions: The submission guidelines for authors are available on the AR webpage. Every manuscript submitted for the AR is initially reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief who may also consult relevant editorial board members. If the proposal is suitable for consideration by AR, the manuscript will be sent to a minimum of two external and independent peer reviewers with relevant scientific competencies (see Peer review below).

Collaboration: Authors are asked to participate in the editorial and peer-review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to AR editors’ requests for clarifications, information, consent or permissions.

Publication decisions: The peer reviewers’ reports are used to inform and support the editor’s decision as to whether or not to accept the paper in a publication. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on appointed reviewers’ reports, the importance to researchers and readers, and requirements concerning copyright infringement and research integrity. The Editor-in-Chief shall confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Peer Review

All research articles published in AR undergo peer review. Peer review is critical to maintaining the standards of the AR journal. The Editorial Board govern and provide support to facilitate a rigorous, fair and effective peer review process. As an essential component of formal scholarly communication and scientific endeavour, all reviewers shall recognize their importance and decisive role within the publishing process. At AR we encourage our editors and peer reviewers to act in accordance with COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

AR operates the double-anonymised peer review process where both the authors’ and reviewers’ identities are anonymous. To increase the transparency of the reviewing process, reviewers may sign their reports, if they feel comfortable doing so.

Decision-making process

All submissions to AR are first assessed by the Editor-in-Chief and the guest editors, who will decide whether they are suitable for peer review. If any of the handling editors have any competing interests regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review.

Submissions felt to be suitable for consideration will be sent to appropriate independent external reviewers identified by the editor and guest editor. The editors send the manuscript to the reviewers, who are chosen for their expertise and distance from the authors. At this point, referees may reject, accept without changes or instruct the authors to revise and resubmit (accept with minor/major changes).

In the case of a decision for necessary minor or major revisions authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the AR reduction by the deadline given.

Appointed peer reviewers assist editors of AR in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with authors, may assist authors in improving their manuscripts. Editors will make a decision based on the reviewers’ reports; authors are then sent the reports along with the editorial decision regarding their manuscript. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer so as to obtain an extra opinion before making a final decision.

The editor(s) are responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on the appointed reviewers’ reports, the importance to researchers and readers, and requirements concerning the research integrity. The Editor-in-Chief considers all the reconsiderations of the reviewers and the authors’ responses before making an overall decision.

A manuscript may be returned to the author(s) without appointing an external review if, in the opinion of the editor(s), one or more of the following apply: A) the manuscript clearly falls outside the scope of the journal; B) the work is of poor scientific quality such that it is clearly not suitable for publication in a scientific journal; C) the manuscript is of insufficient general interest for the journal audiences D) the novelty of the work falls below that required for the journal; E) the manuscript represents undue fragmentation of the research into multiple papers; F) the manuscript contains redundant information or significant amounts of material that have already been published elsewhere or are under consideration by another journal; G) the quality of the English in the manuscript is so poor as to render the science presented unclear; H) the same manuscript has already been reviewed and rejected by the AR editorial board and the author(s) have made little or no attempt to address the advice that the editor and/or referees have provided already; I) the conclusions drawn by the manuscript are well known or have been published previously.

Competences

Peer reviewers will be invited by the editors and editorial board to review a specific manuscript based on their competencies. Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Standards of objectivity and clarity of the report

Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them to improve the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate. Reviewers should not in any case use their anonymity as justification for being unnecessarily critical or harsh when commenting on the authors’ work.

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement, i.e., an observation, derivation or argument reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.

Promptness

Editors and invited reviewers shall arrange the timeframe for reviewing. Any invited referee who knows that its prompt review will not be manageable should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Authorship and Contributorship

Listing authors’ names on an article is an important mechanism to give credit to those who have significantly contributed to the work. It also ensures transparency for those responsible for the content’s integrity.

Authorship should be limited to those who meet the following authorship criteria, as they must be able to take public responsibility for the content: (i) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; and (ii) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication.

Authors should ensure that they have written and submitted only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited.

All individuals or institutions who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as technical help, proofreading and writing or editing assistance, and general support) but who do not meet the criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but should be listed as contributors or acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named as been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication in AR.

At AR we endorse established and emerging standards to increase transparency in authorship and support the initiatives that enable transparency in authorship and contributorship such as the CRedIT taxonomy to describe each author's individual contributions to the work.

Affiliations

Every author and co-authors must list all relevant affiliations to attribute where the research or scholarly work was approved and/or supported and/or conducted.

Plagiarism

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) defines plagiarism as: “When somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were his/her own and without proper acknowledgement.” [1].

For AR, this applies to data, images, words or ideas taken from any materials in electronic or print formats without sufficient attribution. The use of any such material either directly or indirectly should be properly acknowledged in all instances. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Self-plagiarism (aka text recycling) should be avoided; however, when text duplication from previous works is necessary, it is then reported transparently and these previous works are fully cited in the publication itself.

Authors submitting their works to AR journal for publication confirm that the submitted works represent their own contributions and have not been copied or plagiarized in whole or in part from other works without clearly citing the source.

AR uses the University of Ljubljana’s acknowledged software for plagiarism detection.

Duplicate and Redundant Publication or Concurrent Submission

Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors mut not submit for consideration a manuscript to AR editorial board that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is considered unethical publishing behaviour.

The AR editorial board, in accordance with the Elsevier policies, does not view the following prior uses of a work as prior publication: publication in the form of an abstract or published lecture, publication as an academic thesis, publication as an electronic preprint with clearly stated status ([1])

Confidentiality

It is AR requirement to maintain confidentiality and integrity of the peer review and editorial decision-making process at all stages, complying with data protection regulations (including GDPR).

All the manuscripts received in the redaction of AR journal are confidential documents and will be treated as such. Editors and the editorial board will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers and other editorial advisers, as appropriate. The submitted materials must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the editors. If reviewers wish to involve a colleague in the review process, they should first obtain permission from the AR Editor-in-Chief.

Editors, peer-reviewers, potential reviewers and other editorial advisers, must not under any circumstances use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the author’s explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewers’ personal advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Declaration of Conflict of Interest / Competing Interest

Authors, editors and reviewers are required to declare any financial or non-financial competing interests / conflict of interest (COI). A COI is defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) as existing “when professional judgment concerning a primary interest…may be influenced by a secondary interest"[2].

World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) defines COI as “a divergence between an individual’s private interests (competing interests) and his or her responsibilities to scientific and publishing activities, such that a reasonable observer might wonder if the individual’s behaviour or judgment was motivated by considerations of his or her competing interests”[3].

A competing interest can occur where any of the involved parties (or his/her employee, sponsor or family/friends) have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them which could influence the research or interpretation of the results.

Editors, reviewers and members of the AR editorial board must recuse themselves from considering 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 connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.

Authors of the papers submitted to AR must disclose any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding, as well as non-financial ones such as personal or professional relationships, institutional affiliations, academic commitments, political or religious beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

Declaring a conflict of interest/competing interest by any of the parties involved does not mean that manuscript will not be published. It will help the editor assess the research work and invite reviewers who do not have the same competing interest.

Hazards of Research with Human and Animal Subjects

If the work involves human or animal subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subject must always be observed.

Permissions to Use Third-Party Material

Third-party materials are any materials which are owned and held in copyright by a third party. They include – but are not limited to – any proprietary text, illustration, table, or other material, including data, audio, video, film stills, screenshots, musical notation, and any other supplemental material.

Authors will need to obtain written permission in advance from any third-party owners of copyright for the use in print and electronic formats of any of their text, illustrations, graphics, or other material used in submitted articles. The same applies to any other rights held by third parties such as trademarks, design rights, database rights and rights relating to private information and confidentiality.

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies^[4] in AR publishing

This section provides a general guideline referring to the use and application of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in the publishing process for authors, editors and reviewers of AR.

AR journal follows and endorses the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Council of Science Editors (CSE) policies, Guidelines on the responsible use of generative AI in research developed by the European Research Area Forum and Elsevier guidelines regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in the entire editorial process

The following statements are summarised from the Elsevier AI policy in the publishing ethics[5].

Authors are allowed to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process before submission to improve the language and readability of their work and with the disclosure placed at the end of the manuscript. Any application of AI technology for the purpose of language and readability should be done with human oversight and control. The authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Authors are not allowed to use the AI or AI-assisted tools for producing scientific, pedagogic, or other insights, drawing scientific conclusions, or providing recommendations.

Authors are not allowed to use AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts. This may include enhancing, obscuring, moving, removing, or introducing a specific feature within an image or figure. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or colour balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. The only exception is if the use of AI or AI-assisted tools for images is part of the research experiment/study/methodology.

All manuscripts in the editorial process must be treated as confidential. Editors and reviewers are not allowed to upload authors’ material/manuscript or any part thereof into a generative AI tool as this may violate confidentiality and proprietary rights and, where the material/manuscript contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights. This confidentiality requirement extends to all communication about the material/manuscript including any reports or correspondence and decisions.

Responding to Allegations of Possible Misconduct

AR follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and procedures set out in the COPE flowcharts on how to deal with misconduct, thereby committing to investigate allegations of misconduct in order to ensure the integrity of research.

Editors and the editorial board of AR will take prompt and rationally responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised with regard to any aspect of the editorial process and peer review process followed by a submitted manuscript. Such measures will include contacting the editors/reviewers/authors of the manuscript and giving due consideration to the respective complaint or claims made but may also include further communications to the relevant institution and research bodies in order to clarify the allegations.

Corrections and Retractions

Rarely, it may be necessary for AR to publish corrections to, or retractions of, articles published, so as to maintain the integrity of the academic record.

When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify AR journal’s editors and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of a corrigendum or to retract the paper. If AR is found to have made an error, the erratum will be issued. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the author’s obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the AR editors of the correctness of the paper.

Our first concern is the integrity of the content we plan to publish or have published, so if doubts/considerations are upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, or an appropriate correction or expression of concern will be issued. AR editors will consider retractions, corrections or expressions of concern in regard to a specific case and in line with COPE’s Retraction Guidelines.

Transparency and Open Access Policy

AR is committed to information and knowledge sharing and transparency. All the articles published in AR are fully open access (Gold Open Access): immediately freely available to read, download and share. Articles are published under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

All the information about the journal policies is available on the AR webpage. At AR we strive to follow COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing

Copyright Policy

Copyright on the article published in AR is retained by the publisher, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Architecture, in accordance with the Slovene legislative Copyright and Related Rights Act (CRRA) and authors proper attribution and credit for the published work.

Authors agree to the non-exclusive and unlimited transfer to the publisher of the following material copyright:

Right of reproduction, including the right to be stored in electronic form (Art. 23 CRRA),
Right of distribution (Art. 24 CRRA);
Right to make available to the public (Art. 32a. CRRA).

However, AR supports the need for authors to share, disseminate and maximize the impact of their research. Therefore, authors transfer the copyright to the publisher as part of a journal publishing agreement, but have the right to/are licensed back to:

share their article, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for non-commercial use in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0),
retain patent, trademark and other intellectual property rights (including research data);
Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified.

Advertising Policy

AR journal does not contain or publish advertisements on its web pages nor in the print version of the editions.

[1] https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/publishing-ethics#Authors

[4] Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence technology that can produce various types of content including text, imagery, audio and synthetic data. Examples include ChatGPT, NovelAI, Jasper AI, Rytr AI, DALL-E, etc. (Elsevier, Publishing ethics, 2024)

[5] https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/publishing-ethics