Cultural Science

Authors send article submissions to these email addresses: csj@tlu.ee and carsten.herrmann-pillath@uni-erfurt.de.

Please download and read the detailed author guidelines before you submit your work to this journal.

Review Process

The journal adopts an open peer review process in which submissions are published as pre-prints on the journal pre-print website https://culturalscience.org/, after first-round editorial check and approval. The editors decide whether or not the article fits the journal's scope and is suitable for peer discussion. After the public pre-print stage of debating with peers, the editorial board decides whether to accept a submission for publication in the regular online version of the journal https://sciendo.com/journal/CSJ.

In detail:

1. Members of the editorial board screen submissions. Based on their recommendations, the editor- in-chief decides on the possible publication on the journal pre-preprint website https://culturalscience.org/, together with the first round contributions of peer reviewers.

2. The editor invites two peers to contribute public comments on the paper. They are independent experts who assess the article for originality, clarity, validity, and sound methodology and critically discuss with the authors. Authors can recommend or ask for the exclusion of specific individuals from the review process. The journal does not guarantee the use of these suggestions. All reviewers must be independent of the submission and declare all competing interests.

3. The review period is expected to take around four weeks once reviewers are secured, although the process can take longer. Reviewers provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.

4. Once the reviews are available, they are shared with the authors. The authors can decide whether to withdraw the paper from the pre-print stage. Only after they agree with the publication of their pre-print together with the peer comments the set is published on https://culturalscience.org/

5. Authors respond to those comments publicly. They can refute, engage with, or accept the peer's views.

6. Reviewers can respond, after which the public discussion is closed.

7. The authors declare whether they wish to move on to publication in the regular journal as a full paper and report about the intended revisions based on the peer discussion. 8. Editors decide on acceptance as full paper on https://sciendo.com/journal/CSJ. The editor will recommend rejection, minor or major revisions, or acceptance based on the reviewer reports. Overall editorial responsibility rests with the journal's Editor-in-Chief, whom an expert international Editorial Board supports.

9. If accepted, the paper will be published in the journal's next issue. Issues are volume open, so the paper is online immediately after acceptance and final editing. The publication includes reference to the records of the debate on the journal pre-print website: https://sciendo.com/journal/CSJ

10. Rejected papers are removed from the pre-print website, together with the discussion threads.

11. Only the full version on https://sciendo.com/journal/CSJ is assigned a DOI. The editorial team/board members are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal. In cases where an author is associated with the journal, they retreat from all editorial tasks for that paper, and another editorial team member will be responsible for overseeing peer review. A competing interest must also be declared within the submission and any resulting publication.

Reviewer Guidelines

Reviewers provide comment on the below topics and guidelines:

• Content: Does the article fit within the scope of the journal? Is the submission original, relevant, and rigorous? Is the author's depth of understanding of the issues researched adequate? Are the sources and references adequate? Has the existing knowledge base been explored and built upon? Are the chosen methodologies appropriate, and have they and the evidential base been used appropriately? Does the conclusion reflect the argument in the main body text and bring something new to the debate?
• Structure and argument: Does the abstract summarise the arguments succinctly and accurately? Is the manuscript logically structured, and do the arguments flow coherently? Is there enough reference to methodology in the introduction, and are the arguments fully evidenced and substantiated? Does the introduction logically signpost the arguments, and does the conclusion adequately summarise them?

Open Access License

This journal provides immediate open access to its content under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 license. Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY 4.0 license

Open Access Statement

The journal is an Open Access journal that allows a free unlimited access to all its contents without any restrictions upon publication to all users.

Reproducibility

Open Data

The journal strongly encourages authors to make all data associated with their submission openly available, according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). This should be linked to from a Data Accessibility Statement within the submitted paper, which will be made public upon publication.. If data is not being made available with the journal publication then ideally a statement from the author should be provided within the submission to explain why. Data obtained from other sources must be appropriately credited.

Structured Methods

As the traditional Materials and Methods section often includes insufficient detail for readers to wholly assess the research process, the journal encourages authors to publish detailed descriptions of their structured methods in open, online platforms such as protocols.io. By providing a step-by-step description of the methods used in the study, the chance of reproducibility and usability increases, whilst also allowing authors to build on their own works and gain additional credit and citations.

Open Code

If research includes the use of software code, statistical analysis or algorithms then we also recommend that authors upload the code into Code Ocean, where it will be hosted on an open, cloud-based computational reproducibility platform, providing researchers and developers with an easy way to share, validate and discover code published in academic journals.

Preprint Policy

The journal allows authors to deposit draft versions of their paper into a suitable preprint server, on condition that the author agrees to the below:

• The author retains copyright to the preprint and developed works from it, and is permitted to submit it to the journal.
• The author declares that a preprint is available within the cover letter presented during submission. This must include a link to the location of the preprint.
• The author acknowledges that having a preprint publicly available means that the journal cannot guarantee the anonymity of the author during the review process, even if they anonymise the submitted files.
• Should the submission be published, the authors are expected to update the information associated with the preprint version to show that a final version has been published in the journal, including the DOI linking directly to the publication.

ORCID

The journal strongly recommends that all authors submitting a paper register an account with Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID). Registration provides a unique and persistent digital identifier for the account that enables accurate attribution and improves the discoverability of published papers, ensuring that the correct author receives the correct credit for their work. As the ORCID remains the same throughout the lifetime of the account, changes of name, affiliation, or research area do not effect the discoverability of an author's past work and aid correspondence with colleagues.

The journal encourages all corresponding authors to include an ORCID within their submitting author data whilst co-authors are recommended to include one. ORCID numbers should be added to the author data upon submission and will be published alongside the submitted paper, should it be accepted.

Authorship

All listed authors must qualify as such, as defined in our author guidelines, which have been developed from the ICMJE definitions. All authors must have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.

Competing Interests, Funding and Ethics　

To ensure transparency, all authors, reviewers and editors are required to declare any interests that could compromise, conflict or influence the validity of the publication.

In addition, authors are required to specify funding sources and detail requirements for ethical research in the submitted manuscript (see Author Guidelines).

Corrections and Retractions

In accordance with guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (where applicable), the publisher handles different kinds of error. All articles have their proofs checked prior to publication by the author/editor, which should ensure that content errors are not present. Please contact the journal if you believe an article needs correcting.

Post-publication changes to the publication are not permitted unless in exceptional circumstances. If an error is discovered in a published article then the publisher will assess whether a Correction paper or Retraction is required.

Misconduct and Complaints

Allegations of misconduct will be taken with utmost seriousness, regardless of whether those involved are internal or external to the journal, or whether the submission in question is pre- or post-publication. If an allegation of misconduct is made to the journal, it must be immediately passed on to the publisher (Tallinn University), who will follow guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) on how to address the nature of the problem. Should the matter involve allegations against a member of the journal or publishing team, an independent and objective individual(s) may be sought to lead the investigation. Where misconduct is proven or strongly suspected, the journal has an obligation to report the issue to the author's institution, who may conduct their own investigation. This applies to both research misconduct (e.g. completing research without ethical approval and consent, fabricating or falsifying data etc) and publication misconduct (e.g. manipulating the peer review process, plagiarism etc). Should an investigation conclude that misconduct or misinformation has occurred then the author, along with their institution will be notified. Should the publication record need to be corrected, the journal's correction policy will be followed.

Should an author wish to lodge a complaint against an editorial decision or the editorial process in general they should first approach the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, explaining their complaint and ask for a reasoned response. Should this not be forthcoming or adequate, the author should raise the matter with the publisher, who will investigate the nature of the complaint and act as arbiter on whether the complaint should be upheld and investigated further. This will follow guidelines set out by COPE.