About the Journal

ECOCYCLES (ISSN 2416-2140, DOI 10.19040/ecocycles) is the first Open Access, fully refereed academic periodical in its field. The journal's primary goal is to offer a significant medium for scientists to present and discuss their newest findings from research on all aspects (social, economic, geological, environmental, etc.) of ecological cycles.

EDITORIAL POLICIES

Focus and Scope

Ecological cycles are the various self-regulating processes that recycle the earth's limited resources - water, carbon, nitrogen, and other elements - that are essential to sustain life. The Eco Cycle strategy is based on these processes and is aimed at bringing about a society with non-toxic and resource-efficient cycles. Understanding how local cycles fit into global cycles is essential to make the best possible management decisions to maintain ecosystem health and productivity for now and the future. The European Ecocycles Society has been created by researchers studying these cycles, and the goal of this journal is to publish scientific results in this field.

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to ECOCYCLES are reviewed by the experts in the particular field and peer review judgments have to be as objective as the manuscript's subject allows. Manuscripts are evaluated confidentially, exclusively based on the paper's scientific merit. ECOCYCLES adopts the single-blind review process. The decision on the manuscript is based on two or more reviews. Reviewers are expected to identify uncited relevant work(s), and point out the overall strengths and weaknesses that may be present. Throughout the review process, the anonymity of the referees should be preserved.

Authors, after uploading their manuscript, may suggest names they wish to exclude from the list of possible reviewers of their paper.

During the review international standards are followed: manuscripts are read by the Editor in Chief who decides whether the submission complies with the formal requirements and is within the scope of ECOCYCLES. If yes, he assigns an Editor who is responsible for the review process. The Editor selects the reviewers (at least two anonymous professionals). The Editor assesses the reviewers' evaluations and discusses them with the Editor in Chief. Editors communicate with the authors and decide on acceptance or rejection of the submitted manuscript.

Plagiarism

The Editorials of ECOCYCLES have a "zero tolerance for plagiarism" policy. Plagiarism issues are checked by the editors using the Premium version of the Grammarly software (www.grammarly.com/plans) and by the online Dupli Checker (duplichecker.com) tool.

Publication Frequency

ECOCYCLES publishes two issues a year aiming to become a quarterly journal. Individual papers will be published as soon as they are ready, by adding them to the "current" volume's Table of Contents.

Open Access Policy

This 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. LICENCE: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. Publications in the journal are also reposited in REAL (the searchable repository of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences).

Ethics and Malpractice Statement

ECOCYCLES is committed to ethical standards. The editors of ECOCYCLES work hard to guarantee an unbiased, transparent, and fair peer-review process and editorial decisions. They ensure that all studies they accept for publication strictly follow the relevant internationally accepted guidelines. Thus, investigations on humans (individuals, samples, or data) were performed under the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki, and the highest standards were met on the accessibility of research data, registration of clinical trials and other study designs, publication on vulnerable populations, research using animals or human subjects, handling of confidential data and business and marketing practices.

In addition to the Declaration of Helsinki, the editors follow other relevant declarations such as the Good Clinical Practice in medical sciences, the AERA and BERA declarations as well as the American Psychological Association ethical principles in psychology, Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals if using animals, the Ethics Statement on GMO and Ethics in a New Era and similar ones in their field.

The publication ethics and publication malpractice statement of ECOCYCLES are based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2011). Our journal endorses the position statements developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore, July 22-24, 2010 for editors and authors (readable at http://publicationethics.org/resources/international-standards-for-editors-and-authors).

The process ECOCYCLES follows ensures that the Journal complies with the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing by The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Authors and Publication - Authors of ECOCYCLES are expected to observe high standards in publication ethics: no plagiarism, no publication of the same research in different journals, no duplication in the contribution of the authors and/or no misappropriation of the works of other authors are allowed. Claims of unethical conduct will be examined first with the corresponding author of the paper. In case of absence of agreement, the case will be reported to the institution of the author and funding agencies for further action.

In their submissions, authors need to disclose any potential conflicts of interest that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgments on what is published.

Data Sharing Statement

Authors submitting manuscripts to Ecocyles are encouraged to share the data on which their research is based upon. This could be done by attaching them as Supplementary Data to their paper or archiving them in a public (institutional or other) repository of their choice. In the latter case, authors are urged to include a data availability statement in their paper together with a link to the repository.

Conflict of Interest Statement

Authors, reviewers, and editors participating in the publication process need to disclose any potential Conflicts of Interest that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgments on what is published.

Responsibilities of the Authors

Authors are expected to take part in the complete peer-review process. All authors are expected to contribute significantly to the research presented in the manuscript, and all data in the manuscript should be scientifically determined. Authors should take the reviewers' comments and suggestions seriously and address them fully.

Responsibilities of the Reviewers

Manuscripts submitted to ECOCYCLES are reviewed by the experts in the particular field and peer review judgments have to be as objective as the manuscript's subject allows. The reviewers are expected to evaluate the articles exclusively based on the paper's scientific merit, regardless of citizenship, ethnic origin, gender, race, religious belief, sexual orientation, or political orientation of the authors. Reviewers are expected to treat the reviewed manuscript confidentially. They should not have a conflict of interest regarding the authors, the research, and/or the funders of the research. ECOCYCLES adopts the blind review process. In most cases, the decision on the manuscript is based on two or more reviews. Reviewers are expected to identify uncited relevant work(s) and point out the overall strengths and weaknesses that may be present. Throughout the review process, the anonymity of the referees should be preserved. Before finishing the review, the Review Form needs to be filled in, and the reviewers are expected to suggest a decision on the acceptability of the paper for publication.

Responsibilities of the Editors

The editors of ECOCYCLES have full authority and responsibility to decide the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript. They should not have a conflict of interest regarding the manuscripts and are expected to be reasonably certain of their authenticity. If problems are identified, the editors will communicate with the authors and present the need for modifications and/or corrections in the article.

Publication Ethics Issues

Publication ethics issues will be continuously monitored and safeguarded by the editors of ECOCYCLES. Whenever necessary, ECOCYCLES will be willing to publish errata, clarifications, corrections, and apologies, provided that neither fraudulent data nor plagiarism will be published.

Privacy Statement

ECOCYCLES journal is managed under the open-access software platform Open Journal Systems (OJS).

The data collected from users (registered and non-registered) falls within the scope of the standard functioning of academic journals. The information collected serves the organized and recorded communication during the editorial process and monitors the number of site visits- and download statistics.

Data that will assist in developing OJS may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project (PKP) in an anonymized and aggregated form.

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Registered Users

All users (including the editorial staff, the authors, and the reviewers) who register with ECOCYCLES journal, including authors and peer reviewers, consent to having their personal information stored in OJS.

Rights of the Individual

The managers of the OJS platform and the journal's staff seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for "data subject rights". These rights include the right of access to registered personal data, as well as the right of deletion of such data (also known as "the right to be forgotten").

Participant Consent to Publish - Informed Consent

Identifiable individual data of human subjects (including children under 16 and deceased persons) collected in the course of research cannot be published without specific consent from the individual (or their parents or representative, or next of kin, respectively). Therefore, authors are required to confirm that all identifiable individuals are aware of the intended publication and their consent has been acquired. For adequate protection of participant anonymity, authors have to retain the proof of this consent and should not have to send it to ECOCYCLES. However, a statement demonstrating that consent was obtained for all identifiable individuals should be presented in the manuscript.

Authors, editors, reviewers, and readers have a right to their privacy and it cannot be violated without their informed consent. Authors should protect their co-authors' right to privacy by requesting written consent from them to include their ideas and results, before submission. The OJS software framework used by ECOCYCLES protects the rights of all co-authors of a paper in the following way: when the corresponding author uploads the manuscript to the website of ECOCYCLES, the names, email addresses, and places of work of all co-authors are required to be filled into the journal's database. After the upload is finalized, the OJS software sends an acknowledgment to all authors, not just the corresponding author. The Author Consent Form to be deposited by the corresponding author is downloadable here.

Public Interest Statement

(Optional but recommended)
In order to increase the impact of their research authors may give a description (up to 150 words in length) of their work in a language that is easily understandable to the general public.

HUMAN AND ANIMAL RIGHTS

Humans

In case the article covers studies performed on human subjects, authors should adhere to the Declaration of Helsinki principles of 1975 (as revised in 2000 and 2008) and show whether the methodologies used were following the ethical standards therein. Any possible negative outcomes of the study for ecosystems, populations, or individual organisms must be evaluated with regard to the possible advances in knowledge and their practical usefulness.

Animals

In case the study involved animals, authors should indicate whether relevant international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were conducted accordingly. All animal work must specifically require authors to include details of animal welfare (such as species, number, gender, age, weight, housing conditions, welfare, training, and the fate of the animals at the end of the experiment) and relevant details of steps taken to ameliorate suffering in all work. For studies involving client-owned animals, author(s) must possess (and attach) a document of informed client consent and adhere to a high standard (best practice) of veterinary care. These details should be included in the Materials and methods section of the article.

COMPLAINT POLICY

How to Make a Complaint

Complaints about editorial content in ECOCYCLES should be made as soon as possible after publication, preferably in writing by email to the Associate Editor (Dr. Sandor Nemethy) at sandor@conservation.gu.se. Please write your complaint with journal title, vol. no., issue no., paper title, and page no. In your complaint letter please describe clearly the nature of the complaint and the circumstances, the name of the person who is the subject of the complaint, and/or the product or the services which are subject of the complaint.

Policy for Handling Complaints

If ECOCYCLES receives a complaint that any contribution to the Journal infringes intellectual property rights or contains material inaccuracies or otherwise unlawful materials, the Journal will investigate the complaint in good faith whether to remove the allegedly wrongful material. ECOCYCLES will document its investigation and decision. The Editor in Chief will make every endeavor to put matters right as soon as possible in the most appropriate way, offering the right of reply where necessary. We welcome your complaint as it will provide an opportunity and a spur for improvement, and we aim to respond to your complaint quickly, courteously, and constructively. We will address it by following the best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing.

Errata, Retractions, Expressions of Concern

ECOCYCLES will publish corrections (errata) when errors could affect the interpretation of data or information, whatever the cause of the error (i.e. arising from author errors or from editorial mistakes). Likewise, ECOCYCLES will publish ‘retractions’ if work is proven to be fraudulent or plagiarized or will publish ‘expressions of concern’ if editors have well-founded suspicions of misconduct.

ADVERTISING POLICY

ECOCYCLES does not publish advertisements.

Publication Fees

Publication in ECOCYCLES is free, without article processing charges and article submission charges.