Metrology & Hallmark Central Office of Measures

The journal METROLOGY AND HALLMARK adheres to COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) recommendations which are presented in the form of core practices available at:

https://publicationethics.org/files/editable-bean/COPE_Core_Practices_0.pdf,

Authorship and contributorship

• The submitted papers should fit in with the scope of the journal and should be prepared in accordance with the accepted rules.
• The submitted papers should describe the authors' original research. The authors are responsible for their content.
• Submission of a manuscript indicates that the work has not been copyrighted nor published elsewhere, except for the abstract. Submitted works or their parts should not be published in another journal, nor should they be considered for publication in another journal. Previously published material with minor changes under a different title must not be published.
• Any use of the results of other studies should be properly documented and referenced. To accurately cite sentences from other authors, quotation marks must be used. An express written consent of the author of the original study is required to reproduce photos and tables from other works.
• Article authors include all those who contributed to the research or writing of the article.
• The corresponding author is responsible for providing all necessary information to all authors of the article. The corresponding author should ensure that all authors agree to its submission and accept the order of their names as authors.
• Statements that appear in the article are those of the authors, not members of the journal's editorial team.
• In the event of any inaccuracies or errors in an article, authors should make efforts to correct them and inform the journal immediately.
• In the event of misconduct in research or publication at any stage of the publication process, the journal has the right to take legal action against the authors who violate the law.
• Authors may appeal against rejection of their manuscript to the Editor-in-Chief. References should be made to the scientific content of the manuscript and its suitability for publication. The decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief after reconsidering all the arguments.

Copyright

The corresponding author grants the journal the right to use the article, for instance to reproduce or distribute it.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors submitting manuscripts are responsible for disclosing financial and/or other conflicts of interest that may affect their work and/or may inappropriately impact its evaluation. If an appropriate confirmation is not provided, the journal assumes that there is no conflict of interest.

Research and Publication Misconduct

• Fabrication or falsification of data,
• plagiarism,
• duplicate submission and overlapping publications,
• manipulation of authorship by adding false or non-existent authors and hiding the real authors,
• manipulation of affiliations by adding a fake author's affiliation are not allowed.

The journal will take seriously any allegations of misconduct. In the event of misconduct at any stage of the publication process, including submissions, reviews or proof-reading, the journal reserves the right to stop the peer-review process before publishing or removing the article from the list of publications and will act in accordance with the law.

Submission of the manuscript

Each manuscript must be accompanied by a cover letter explaining why the manuscript is considered appropriate for publication in the journal. The letter should include:

• full title of the paper,
• a full list of authors with affiliations,
• the authors' e-mail addresses,
• the contact address and telephone numbers of the corresponding author.

The cover letter should clearly state that the manuscript has not been previously published in any language and that it is not being considered concurrently for publication by another journal.

Manuscripts which were previously rejected or withdrawn after being returned for modification may be resubmitted if the main objections have been taken into account. The cover letter must state that the manuscript is being resubmitted and contain the previous manuscript number.

All the authors of the manuscript are responsible for its content. Consent for publication and for the corresponding author to act on their behalf must be authorised by them. The corresponding author is responsible for keeping the co-authors informed of the status of the manuscript throughout the process of submission, review and production.

Publication evaluation process

• Each manuscript is assigned a unique number which is used in all correspondence regarding the publication process.
• Each entry is initially checked by the Editor-in-Chief for novelty and compliance with the journal's scope. Manuscripts which do not fit in with within the scope of the journal or ones which lack originality, may be rejected by the Editor-in-Chief and returned to the authors without review.
• The review process is conducted by the Editor-in-Chief, who appoints at least 2 Reviewers and deals with the review process. The editor-in-chief may also appoint a deputy editor or theme editor to conduct the review process. Subsequently, the Deputy Editor or Theme Editor appoints at least 2 Reviewers and deals with the review process. Reviewers should be affiliated with institutions other than those of authors. Authors are asked to propose the potential Reviewers of their manuscript. However, the final selection of Reviewers is made only by the Editor-in-Chief or a designated Theme Editor.
• The reviewer sends the evaluation sheet along with a statement proposing the rejection of the work or acceptance of the work with one of the following options:
  • no changes to the submitted manuscript,
  • following minor corrections agreed with the editorial office,
  • following major corrections agreed with the reviewer.
• Upon receiving reviews containing a request for acceptance or rejection of an article, the Editor-in-Chief or Deputy Editor or Theme Editor make a decision to accept or reject an article. Final approval is given by the Editor-in-Chief. The Editorial Office provides the Authors with a part of the review that justifies the publication decision, without information about the Reviewers.
• The Editors ask the Authors to introduce appropriate corrections and corrections suggested by the Reviewers and/or the Editors. Based on the recommendations received from the Reviewers and the Authors' replies, the Editor-in-Chief or a designated Theme Editor make the final decision about accepting the manuscript for publication or rejecting it.
• The Editor-in-Chief may appoint an additional editor with expertise in a given field who is fully responsible for further evaluation of the article and final decision regarding approval for publication or rejection.
• The review process should not exceed a period of 3 months.
• Once a year, the Editorial Office publishes an up-to-date list of cooperating Reviewers on the journal's website.

Reviewers help the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor and Theme Editors review the content of submitted articles in order to improve their quality.

• Reviewers may refuse to conduct the publication evaluation process.
• Reviewers have 7 days to decide whether they want to review an article or not. Reviewers who agree to review an article have one month to submit their comments to the Editor who conducts the review process. If the opinions are not received within this time, the editorial office sends reminders to the Reviewers. If the Reviewer does not respond to two reminders, the Editor in charge of the review process selects a new reviewer.
• Reviewers should not accept to review articles with which they generally disagree, as this may affect the fairness of their decisions. Reviewers should not accept papers for review in the event of a conflict of interest between the reviewer and the authors or institutions they represent, or of personal relations. Reviewers should not accept the works to which they have contributed, neither in writing nor in the form of ideas, obtaining experimental data, analysing, etc.
• Review of an article should be based on scientific argument, free from emotion and personal, racial, religious or other preferences. Reviewers indicate the strengths and weaknesses of an article.
• If an article does not meet the journal's standards or is otherwise deficient in scientific content or has serious deficiencies, the reviewer will endeavour to provide constructive solutions for its thorough review to help authors ultimately improve their work. If an article is potentially accepted for publication but needs to be corrected, the reviewer is asked to provide an adjusted review, assuming the authors fully respond to the reviewer's suggestions.
• Reviewers should keep all information from the articles confidential and may not disclose their content to other persons. Before the publication of an article, reviewers may not use their ideas for or against their own or other research, or criticise the author. After publication, reviewers may not disclose their dispute with the authors beyond what is presented in the journal.
• Each case of improper research and publication proceedings detected by the reviewer should be immediately reported to the Editor-in-Chief and supported by sending appropriate documents.
• Reviewers may not delegate their assignment to anyone such as their assistant without the written consent of the Editor-in-Chief. Anyone who helps review an article should be listed in the review report and journal papers.
• Reviewers may not contact the authors of the reviewed article, unless it is done through the Editorial Office.

Editor-in-chief, deputy editor-in-chief, theme editor(s) and members of the editorial team

• The editor-in-chief, deputy editor-in-chief and theme editor (Editors) appoint reviewers on the basis of their competence, scientific and professional experience, and ethical commitment. Editors also respect authors' requests for a specific reviewer to review their article. Editors should take care to avoid a conflict of interest in the review process, to exclude any personal, business, academic and financial relationships that may influence the decision to publish the submitted work.
• The editorial office accepts or rejects the work after receiving the reports and decisions of the reviewers, after evaluating the opinions of the reviewers and their relevance. Editors may consult their approval or rejection of an article with a member or members of the Editorial Board.
• The editorial office and members of the editorial team should keep all information in the articles confidential and may not disclose their content to other persons. Prior to the publication of an article, the Editorial Office and members of the editorial team may not use contained in it ideas for or against their own or other research, or criticise the author. After publication, the reviewers may not disclose their dispute with the authors beyond what is presented in the journal.
• Editors should take seriously any allegations of research and editorial misconduct involving articles submitted to the journal at any stage of the review process or already published in the journal. The allegations should be preliminarily assessed, and the accused authors should have a chance to respond to them.
• Where research and publication misconduct is found to be well documented, the Editor-in-Chief takes measures to stop the publication process immediately, or if an article has already been published, takes measures to remove it from open space, informs readers and databases where the article is indexed. The Editor-in-Chief is expected to initiate legal proceedings against authors guilty of misconduct.