Policy

PEER REVIEW POLICY

Review of Articles

All submissions are subject to a single-blind review (provided by experts on the article subjects who are not part of the journal’s editorial staff), which means that reviewers can know the authors’ names or backgrounds, but authors do not know those of the reviewers. There are normally 3 reviews for each article, submitted through the Editorial Manager. Based on the reviews, the editor reserves the right to reject the paper or request the author to adjust it. After the texts have been reviewed, the comments of the reviewer must be considered and worked in the text without unnecessary delays.

Submission of an article implies that the work includes the author’s own contribution, that it has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Conflict of Interest

A Conflict of Interest exists if a person or institution has a relationship which has the potential to compromise or in any way interfere with professional objectivity or judgment in issues related to the relationship. The Conflict of Interest is actual if a relationship exists, or apparent if the possibility for a relationship could be inferred. In either case, it is the responsibility of the journal Editor, Editorial Board members, authors and reviewers to declare Conflicts of Interest, actual or apparent, so that an appropriate mitigating action is taken.

The author has the obligation to reveal any personal interest or relationship that has the potential to be affected by publication of the submitted manuscript. Sources of funding must be acknowledged in the manuscript. All authors must report any financial interest in corporate or commercial entities dealing with the subject matter of the manuscript. On behalf of all the authors, the corresponding author has the responsibility to advise the Editor of an actual or apparent conflict of interest at the time of submission of the manuscript. Authors must also submit corrections if conflicts of interests are revealed after publication.

A reviewer is entrusted to provide an unbiased assessment of the scientific merit of a manuscript under review. Any situation or relationship that could bias or be construed to bias this assessment must be reported to the Editor. These include personal relations to the authors, concurrent competitive research on the same subject in the manuscript, or professional or financial ties to an organization with interests in the subject under review. In such cases where an actual or apparent Conflict of Interest is disclosed, the use of a review provided or requested is at the discretion of the Editor.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies (since issue 1/2024)

This paragraph concerns using generative AI, which is a type of artificial intelligence technology that can produce various types of content including text, imagery, audio, and synthetic data. Examples include ChatGPT, NovelAI, Jasper AI, Rytr AI, DALL-E, etc.

A submitted manuscript is treated as a confidential document. Editors are not allowed to upload any part of it into a generative AI tool as this may violate the authors’ rights. The confidentiality extends to all communication about the manuscript including any notification or decision letters. For this reason, editors are not allowed to upload their letters into an AI tool, not even for improving language and readability.

Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies are not allowed to be used by editors to assist in the evaluation or decision-making process of a manuscript. The editor is responsible and accountable for the editorial process, the final decision, and the communication thereof to the authors.

Authors are allowed to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process before submission solely to improve the language and readability of their paper and with the appropriate disclosure, as per Instructions for authors (Disclosure instructions). Editors can find the disclosure at the bottom of the paper in a separate section before the list of references. Suspicions on violating the policy are reported to all relevant parties.

Reviewers conducting peer reviews for Architecture Papers of the Faculty of Architecture and Design STU may not share information from an article with public artificial intelligence (AI) platforms for AI generation of text for the reviewer’s report. All reviewers conducting peer reviews are required to provide substantive feedback, writing original review comments for the author’s and editor’s consideration.

 

PUBLISHING ETHICS

All authors must adhere to the Declaration of Compliance with Publishing Ethics in the journal ALFA (Architecture Papers of the Faculty of Architecture and Design STU), which has been prepared in accordance with the Elsevier’s Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK) (1, 2), Ethics in Research and Publication (3), and the COPE Code of Conduct (4).

Complaints, Appeals, Ethical Oversight

The journal follows guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Elsevier on how to address complaints, appeals, and misconduct. Such issues should be submitted to the journal’s contact e-mail. Abusive behaviour or correspondence is not tolerated. The journal may report research and publication misconduct to the relevant institutions. The journal also promptly attends to and resolves all complaints related to publishing ethics.

Ethical oversight includes especially consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, conduct of research using animals and human subjects, handling confidential data, business practices, multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Decision about ethical issues in publishing follows the COPE’s and Elsevier’s recommendations.

Post-publication Debate and Corrections

All corresponding authors are required to confirm in writing their approval of the final form of the made-up article to be published. Once the publications have been sent to the abstracting and indexing services, their pdf files can no longer be changed. Justified post-publication corrections are published in an html form within a summary of the respective article.

In serious cases, articles can be retracted after publication. Possible reasons for retraction and the associated procedures are described in the COPE’s and Elsevier’s retraction guidelines. The abstract and metadata of the original article will remain, but the article content will be removed in whole with a note on the retraction (providing name and reason). In all cases, the publisher will archive also retracted or otherwise removed articles.

Post-publication discussions are available through letters to the editor or direct e-mail contacts with the authors, which are published for each journal’s issue. Critiques should be reasonable and not contain libellous or defamatory content. They should provide evidence or data to support the claims. Critiques and responses may be peer reviewed, which may take additional time to respond.

Data sharing and Reproducibility

Research data refers to the result of observations or experimentations that validate research findings and which are not already published as part of a journal article. Research data can include but are not limited to: raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, methods, materials. The journal encourages and supports researchers to share research data where appropriate and at the earliest opportunity. Research data is peer-reviewed and CC BY licenses apply.

 

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of the publisher and/or the editor(s). The publisher and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

  1. Policy of the Journal
    • 1.1. The Journal has a clear editorial strategy approved by the Scientific Board of the Faculty of Architecture and Design STU.
    • 1.2. The Journal undergoes a single-blind review process.
    • 1.3. The Journal provides a variety of authors’ origins.
    • 1.4. All articles published in the Journal are subject to unconditional compliance with the Copyright Law and the rules of moral and ethical principles of publishing which exclude any forms of plagiarism. The journal employs iThenticate plagiarism checker (since 2021).
  1. Contents of the Journal
    • 2.1. The Journal publishes articles in the research fields of the Faculty of Architecture and Design STU (architecture, urbanism, design, art and culture) or related disciplines.
    • 2.2. All articles contain a clear abstract in accordance with the purpose and focus of the Journal.
  1. Reputation of the Journal
    • 3.1. The publisher of the Journal gives approval for Open Access (OA), i.e. provides a free unlimited access to the research results published in articles without copyright infringement under a publicly valid Creative Commons license (since issue 1/2023 CC BY 4.0, previously CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
    • 3.2. The Journal seeks to ensure the reputation of the Editorial Board members.
  1. Periodicity of Journal
    • 4.1. The Editorial Office of the Journal ensures regularity and compliance with the terms of the Journal publication.
    • 4.2. The Journal is published quarterly under the registered ISSN.
  1. Online Access
    • 5.1. The whole content of the Journal is published electronically (since 2020).
    • 5.2. Online access to the Journal is available via the Journal website (since 2020) free of charge.
    • 5.3. Since 2021 the Journal has been published exclusively in English. In the period of years 1996 – 2020 it had been published also in Slovak/Czech/German.
  1. Publishing and Authorship
    • 6.1. Authors are required to publish only true and authentic information.
    • 6.2. The authors must indicate the source of financial support for the research (number and title of the grant, and name of the grant agency).
    • 6.3. When publishing scientific papers in English, the STU authors must indicate affiliation to the faculty under the RECTOR’s DIRECTIVE No. 1/2016-SR on the Unified listing of the addresses of the Slovak University of Technology workplaces.
    • 6.4. Published articles must contain a list of citations (references) written in Latin alphabet in accordance with the Citation Standards.
    • 6.5. The authors’ obligations are defined in the Instructions for authors.
  1. Obligations of Reviewers
    • 7.1. All articles published in the Journal are subject to anonymous reviews. Reviewers cannot contact the author(s) of the article that they are reviewing regarding the review process. Authors cannot be provided any information on the reviewers that would disclose their identity.
    • 7.2. The reviews assess content, scientific and research knowledge, originality, methods, quality and suitability of image material, text structure and style, referencing, comprehensibility, length, keywords, and overall contribution of each article.
    • 7.2. There are 3 reviewers for each article.
    • 7.3. All reviews must be objective.
    • 7.4. Reviewers should draw attention to relevant published articles that are not cited.
    • 7.5. All reviewers are required to submit their reviews electronically via Editorial Manager (since 22 Aug 2022)

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Last update: 18 Jan 2024