Ethical Statement

Ownership

JeDEM is owned by the Department of E-Governance at the University for Continuing Education Krems. It is managed by the Managing Editors listed on this website and advised by an Editorial Board. Every four years, JeDEM has a new Chief Editor.

COPE Guidelines

JeDEM follows the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines regarding scholarly code of conduct and complaints. You can find their specific guidelines for journal management here, and a general approach to publication ethics for the editorial office here.

In the following, please find JeDEM's ethical guidelines regarding authorship, conflict of interest, extension or corrections of papers, complaints, research misconduct, and other important areas of research integrity.

Authorship, affiliations and contributorship

Authors submitting to JeDEM are responsible for giving credit to those who substantially contributed to the work of a publication. Contributing to the work reported can be conceptual work, design, writing, revision or review, data collection, analysis, or interpretation.

Authors and co-authors have to agree to the journal selection and the submitted paper (and later to the final version).

Authors and co-authors are expected to take responsibility for the submitted content and any questions that may arise regarding the integrity of the published version.

Editors do not decide on the order of authorship.

As authorship is related to automatic metadata and indexing systems, changes in authorship should ideally be made before submitting a manuscript. It is important to continuously update the metadata until the final publication (galley version). Please inform editors in time about such changes including an apparent reason for the change. 

A guide for new researchers on handling authorship conflicts can be found here.

Conflict of interests (competing interests)

Authors and co-authors must declare any conflicts of interest or competing interests relevant to the article. These conflicts result from a financial, commercial, legal or professional relationship between authors and other organisations or persons that could influence research or interpretation. 

Conflicts of interest may be of financial or non-financial nature. Examples are employment, consultancy, ownership, honoraria, expert work, patent applications or registrations and any funding.

Full disclosure of any conflicts of interest is required when submitting to JeDEM. Authors must disclose any conflicts on the first page of the submission.

If in doubt, editors recommend pointing out any potential conflicts of interest that could be perceived as such.

Extension of papers

JeDEM accepts submissions that contain up to 30% of previously published material (for instance, conference submissions).

Suppose a submission is based on a previous publication. In that case, we expect authors to point this out in the acknowledgements section of the paper, indicating where it has been previously published or where the original can be found. Authors are advised to point out how the contribution to JeDEM represents a novel contribution or how it is different to the first publication. This is particularly relevant if any sections relate to previously published material. We expect authors to reference any previously published paper in the case of overlapping publications or re-interpretations.

Plagiarism

Our plagiarism check will check for any previously published material or uncited phrases in all submissions prior to the review process. Submissions that do not offer novel material beyond this criterion will not be accepted. The plagiarism software we use is turnitin.com.

Allegations of research misconduct

JeDEM understands research misconduct as any fabrication, falsification, citation manipulation or plagiarism in producing, performing, or reviewing research and writing an article by authors or in reporting research results (as opposed to honest error or a difference in opinion). 

In cases of suspected misconduct, the Editors and Editorial Board will use the COPE best practices to assist them in resolving the complaint. A manuscript that is found to contain misconduct will be rejected. A retraction will be published if misconduct is found in an already published paper.

In the first step, Editors will check whether an allegation is consistent with the definition of research misconduct and whether there are any conflicts of interest. In a second step, the allegations are shared with the authors. After evaluation of the response, an additional review and potential involvement of experts may follow. If it is unlikely that misconduct has occurred, clarifications or additional analyses will be published as letters to the editors, and corrections to the published article will follow (including a correction notice). Please note that misconduct investigations might take time, as editorial staff might have to be included.

Corrections, updates and post-publication changes

Authors will receive the proofread pre-version of the galley before publication to include last-minute corrections. We kindly ask the authors to provide us with these last proof corrections within a few days to ensure a fast publication process. A correction note should be published with the new version if any correction occurs post-publication.

If authors need to change the co-authors post-acceptance, they should write to the editors with an apparent reason for the change. Changing the relevant metadata, including affiliations on jedem.org, is also important. 

Your published work is considered permanently and will be indexed by our indexing services. Minor corrections that are not related to metadata and changes in content can be fulfilled. However, please note that any metadata should be corrected before the final galley version of the article. Authors must contact the Editors for advice regarding corrections in cases of already published material.

An article or part of an article should only be removed from a database if it infringes professional or ethical codes (for instance, a violation of the privacy of a research subject), in case of legal issues, or if there is false or inaccurate data that would propose a risk and can not be handled by correction notices. Please note that removed content might still be able to be cited.

Complaints and appeals to editorial decisions

JeDEM follows the following processes for complaints and appeals to editorial decisions, including complaints against the journal, its staff, Editors and Editorial Board members or publishing institution.

JeDEM welcomes genuine appeals to review or editorial decisions. However, strong evidence and new information or data will be required for research articles. For reflections, which are more opinion-based, it might be difficult to present evidence in the form of data. However, we still encourage those sending complaints to present some evidence.

Please note that appeals are not handled frequently. Therefore, if authors receive a rejection notification, they are advised to submit their work to another journal or revise the manuscript. 

If you believe there is reason for a genuine appeal, please contact the Editors with a detailed explanation of why you disagree with the decision, including new information or data to consider or any errors or conflicts of interest you perceive on the part of the reviewers. Editors will review the appeal, potentially consult members of the Editorial Board, and decide about confirmation of rejection, further peer review or revisions.

Please note that Editors will only consider one appeal per article and decisions on any appeal are final. 

Feedback on management and procedure

JeDEM also welcomes any feedback on the journal management or general procedure independent from appeals. Please contact the Managing Editors or fill out our user feedback form.