Policies
This document outlines the principles that guide our peer review process, ethical standards, publication ethics, and the pursuit of impactful and innovative contributions to the academic community. We invite you to familiarize yourself with our policies and join us in the pursuit of knowledge and academic excellence.
Authorship and Contributorship
Criteria
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the study. Individuals who have made substantial contributions should be listed as co-authors. All authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission. The publication of the manuscript must also be approved by all authors.
Acknowledgment
Individuals who contributed to the work in the manuscript (e.g. contributors to language editing) but do not meet the criteria of authorship should be acknowledged.
Originality and Acknowledgment of Source
Authors should ensure that they have written an original manuscript, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Authors should be prepared to provide public access to such data.
Data Sharing and Reporting
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript. A manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. Authors are encouraged to share their data and materials to facilitate reproducibility. Data availability statements should be included in the published manuscript.
Publication Ethics
Submitting an article implies that it has not previously been considered for publication in another journal. All authors, as well as institutional officers where the author(s) is/are employed, may be requested to provide proof that the paper has not been published elsewhere. The necessity of the institution’s consent for sensitive article publishing is evaluated by the authors themselves, but also the responsibility for eventual charges related to publishing articles that the institution does not support. If the journal editor requests authorization, authors are expected to respond positively and provide transparent communication. It is understood that any individual cited as a source of personal communication has consented to be cited, however, a written authorization may be required at the editor’s discretion.
Authors must ensure that the data presented in their manuscripts are accurate and not fabricated or falsified. Reporting or reanalyzing data from one large project is permitted, provided that there is no duplication of research purpose or research questions that have been published elsewhere. If the manuscript is accepted, it will not be published anywhere else in the same form in English or any other language. The editors reserve the right to edit and publish according to the set standards. After the final editorial check, the authors will approve the edited manuscript before publication.
To meet the criteria for acceptance, the manuscript should demonstrate advancements within its field, contributing thematically and problematically to the existing literature. The paper must justify its merit for publication in the journal Human Research in Rehabilitation.
Publishing ethics guidelines are, with permission form Elsevier, based on, or in some cases, completely aligned with Elsevier policies, and COPE Code Of Conduct guidelines (subscript 1; subscript 2; subscript 3; subscript 4; subscript 5).
Peer Review Process
Initial Screening Process
Once a manuscript is submitted to the journal, the author(s) receive(s) a reference number and the manuscript is initially screened by the selection committee. The committee is comprised of in-house editors and is rotated periodically. Initial screening checks if the manuscript follows journal guidelines, is formatted correctly, is within the journal scope, and is an original contribution that will appeal to the readers. If the committee deems that the manuscript is of insufficient general interest or otherwise unsuitable for publication, the manuscript is not sent for an external review. Only manuscripts that are likely to meet the editorial criteria are sent to the Editor-in-Chief for an additional review. The timeframe for the initial screening process is about 2 weeks.
External Review Process
After initial approval of the Editor-in-Chief, the manuscript is sent to two external, independent reviewers. The editor should select suitable reviewers and ensure a fair, unbiased, and timely review process. The editor will assign two reviewers to each paper, based on their availability and expertise. Authors may be asked to suggest suitable reviewers for the subject of their paper during the submission process. Once the review is completed, a final decision is made on whether the manuscript will be accepted, rejected or sent back for revision.
The journal uses a double-blind peer review system to ensure impartiality. Reviewer identities remain anonymous to authors, and reviewers cannot see the identity of the author. The review process usually takes a minimum of 2 months from the time of submission. However, if there is an issue (e.g., mixed reviews), editors may assign additional reviewers, and this will lengthen the process.
Duties of Reviewers
Reviewers are asked to evaluate the manuscript on the following aspects:
- Originality and scientific contribution to improving knowledge in the field;
- The study design and methodology are appropriate and described so that others could replicate results;
- Results are presented clearly and appropriately;
- Conclusions are reliable and significant;
- Internal validity (including review of the literature, methods, analysis, and interpretation);
- Organization and writing style (clear, concise, jargon-free writing)
The overall validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions.
Reviewers will provide anonymous comments to authors and confidential comments to the editors, if necessary. The anonymous comments meant for authors will be available to both external reviewers.
Reviewers are not expected to correct or edit manuscripts as this will be accomplished by the editorial staff. The editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, or other editorial advisers. Unless reviewers have agreed to disclose their names in some special circumstances, the editor must protect reviewers’ identities.
The reviewer assists the editor in making editorial decisions and may also assist the author in improving the paper through editorial communications. All reviewers are required to adhere to the following:
Promptness
Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviews should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgment of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper.
Reviewer Misconduct
Editors will take the reviewer’s misconduct seriously and investigate any evidence of confidentiality breach, non-declaration of conflicts of interest (both financial and non-financial), inappropriate use of confidential material, or delay of peer review for competitive advantage. Allegations of severe reviewer misconduct (e.g. plagiarism) will be taken to the institutional level.
The Journal endorses and strongly encourages reviewers to adhere to COPE Code Of Conduct guidelines for reviewers (subscript 1).
The Editor-in-Chief (or editor) is responsible for the final decision to reject or accept the manuscript for publication. The editor renders a decision based on the evaluations of the reviewers and his judgment. The decision will be sent to the author(s) along with the comments from external reviewers. The editor oversees the submission, review, and publication processes, ensuring that all ethical and publication policies are followed.
Author Response
Authors may be asked to revise their manuscript, following recommendations from the reviewers. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers or to alternate reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief may request more than one revision of a manuscript. Authors can amend their manuscript following the comments or can include an explanation of why they disagree with a particular comment.
Authors may request that their article be withdrawn before it is accepted for publication. After acceptance, significant reasons will have to be provided to the editorial board that maintains the right to publish the article.
Conflict of Interest
Disclosure
Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest at the time of manuscript submission, review, or decision-making. This includes financial, personal, and professional relationships that could influence the research or publication process. A conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that unduly influence (bias) his or her actions (such relationships are also known as dual obligations, competing interests, or competing loyalties). These relationships vary from those with negligible potential to those with high potential to influence judgment. Not all relationships present a true conflict of interest. The potential for a conflict of interest may exist regardless of whether the individual believes the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment. Financial relationships are the easiest conflicts of interest to recognize. All authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript.
Management
Disclosed conflicts of interest will be managed to ensure unbiased and ethical decision-making. Individuals with conflicts may be recused from the review process or decision-making. Other reviewers may be selected by the Editor-in-Chief. If the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict of interest, he may select an Action Editor, who will perform all the duties of the journal. The Action Editor may be a long-standing member of the editorial board or an individual (e.g., editor of another journal) may be invited to perform this role. Nevertheless, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal makes the final decision.
Forms: Authors are asked to sign the conflict-of-interest declaration before a review of the manuscript.
Research Misconduct
Human Research in Rehabilitation will always accept communication from institutions, readers, and reviewers, and respond promptly to findings of research misconduct. If this occurs, the editorial board will investigate the claims.
The editor will inform the author(s) of the given claims and, if need be, the journal will request an institutional investigation. If there is a valid concern regarding the published work in question, the journal may consider publishing expressions of concern, and after an investigation is completed, publish the results of the investigation as well.
The paper will be retracted if the editorial board is convinced of the misconduct. Retracted articles will remain online but marked as retracted.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is committed when one author uses another work (typically the work of a different author) without permission, credit, or acknowledgment. Plagiarism in any of its forms (literal copying, substantial copying, and extensive paraphrasing) is unacceptable. Self-plagiarism should also be avoided as much as possible (i.e., extensive paraphrasing of one’s previous published contents without citation or acknowledgment). Plagiarism complaints can be submitted to the journal’s email address.
If the manuscript is found to be plagiarized or to include copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgment, or where the authorship of the manuscript is contested, the journal reserves the right to take action including: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction) or retracting the article (removing it from the journal).
The Use of Generative AI and AI-assisted Technologies
Utilization of AI and AI-assisted technologies in writing articles should be limited to improving readability and language. AI should not be used to generate complete articles, to produce scientific insights, or draw scientific conclusions. If this is discovered during the review, the article will be rejected without the possibility of resubmission.
Authors should disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies and a statement will appear in the published work. Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an authors or co-author, nor cite AI as an author.
Acceptance and Publication
If the manuscript is accepted, the journal requires the author, as the rights holder, to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement for publication. An agreement is a license agreement under which the author retains copyright in the work but grants the journal’s publisher the sole and exclusive right and license to publish for the full legal term of copyright.
If the manuscript is accepted, an article processing fee will be requested from the author. This includes editorial processing, language processing, composite tables, images, and a color fee if applicable to the print edition. This fee depends on the time and effort required for processing and can amount to 150 euros.
All published research articles in this journal have undergone rigorous peer review, anonymous refereeing by independent reviewers, and consequent revision by contributing authors when required. The published article constitutes the final, definitive, and citable version of the scholarly record.
Ethics Approval
Authors must obtain approval from an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board (IRB) before commencing research involving human subjects, including vulnerable human participants. The manuscript must include a statement confirming that ethical approval was obtained, along with the name of the ethics committee or IRB and the approval reference number prior to publication.
All members of the editorial board (editor, reviewers) are required to update their ethics training periodically in accordance with the policies of their university’s institutional review boards.
Author Declaration
Before publishing, all authors will sign a declaration with the following content.
- Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest concerning authorship and/or publication of this article. This article has no conflicts of interest and has never been published before.
- Open Access: I agree that my article may be of interest to all interested people to use for reading and citation without charge.
- Funding: The author received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.
- Declaration of plagiarism: I agree that the journal is not liable for any form of plagiarizing, and the sole responsibility for such actions lies upon the author of the article.
Copyright and Infringement
The author retains copyright in the work but grants the journal’s publisher the sole and exclusive right and license to publish for the full legal term of copyright. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. As part of the license agreement, authors may use their material in other publications, provided that the journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication and the Institute for Human Rehabilitation is acknowledged as the publisher.
All complaints regarding copyright infringement should be sent to the Editor at hrr@human.ba with the title “Copyright infringement”. The request must be supported by documented evidence of the same version of an article that was published copyrighted or patented by the complainant prior to the date of publication of the article in the journal. Upon receipt of the complaint, journal management informs the author and performs a detailed investigation.
The journal reserves the sole right to decide on the validity of such requests. After consideration, if the request is found to be justified, the manuscript in question will be removed from all HRR archives and servers. All subsequent printed copies of that issue will not contain the article. All copyright claims will be handled with the highest priority.
Open Access
The journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. By agreeing with the immediate Open Access policy of paper publications, the author permits making the final version of the paper available online to readers without any embargo period. All articles are distributed through a Creative Commons (CC BY NC) License.
Disclaimer
The scientific articles published in the journal Human Research in Rehabilitation present the opinions of authors and will not be considered as the opinion of the Editorial Board of the journal.
The originality, proofreading of manuscripts, and errors are the sole responsibility of the individual authors.
Diversity and Inclusivity
Commitment: The journal is committed to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusivity in all aspects of the publication process. Editorial decisions will be based solely on intellectual content and scholarly merit, without regard to the author’s race, gender, or other personal characteristics.
Inclusivity: The journal actively encourages submissions from underrepresented groups and strives to create an ethical and inclusive environment for all contributors.
Accessibility
Our budget does not allow us to hire WCAG teams but, we have done our best to make our website as accessible as possible for all our readers. If you encounter any problems or have suggestions for improvement, please feel free to contact us. We will try to do everything we can to make this site as clear and accessible as possible.
Handling Complaints
Any complaints against journal procedures, policies, the review process, editors or reviewers and charges should be submitted to the journal email with a clear explanation of the complaint. Journal management will address the claim as soon as possible and work to resolve it fairly and objectively. If necessary, other institutions can be involved in resolving the matter.
References