Guide for authors

Authors often write an article already taking into consideration the requirements of the chosen journal. Alternatively, they choose a journal based on an article they have already written or their research.

Choosing a journal to publish an article can be one of the most difficult tasks for new authors. It is important to choose a quality journal that fits the topic, is well regarded by the faculty, and can be submitted to RIV. Sometimes it is necessary to publish an article in Open Access mode. At the same time, untrustworthy and predatory publishers should be avoided.

How to choose a journal?

Probably the most important thing is the thematic match between the article and your topic (or research) and the journal. You can consult with your colleagues or search databases for journals that are published in your area of interest according to the criteria you specify. You should always carefully review the last few issues of your chosen journal to assess quality and focus. You can use the University's subscription access (E-resources) to do this, as explained below.

What is RIV?

It is a national database collecting information for the evaluation of the results of research and development from all over the Czech Republic. Submission of data to the RIV is one of the basic conditions for the provision of institutional funding for research and development from public funds. The Council for Research, Development and Innovation (an expert and advisory body of the Government of the Czech Republic) is responsible for the evaluation of the RIV. 

Authors register their outputs in the university's OBD system, from where they are sent to RIV once a year. Only those results that meet the criteria for submission are submitted - see the 2017+ Evaluation Methodology. These results are considered in the evaluation and are thus taken into account in the subsequent provision of funding to the UK.

Since 2017, RIV points are no longer counted under the new  evaluation methodology as in previous years. Nevertheless, publication in prestigious journals is still one of the key criteria for university evaluation. The highest ranked articles are those published in journals included in the Web of Science and SCOPUS databases, which have Article Influence Score and Scimago Journal Rank indicators assigned in these databases (more about the indicators below). In addition to these publications, other types of publications (books, book chapters) and other outputs including applied outputs (patents, software, utility or industrial design, etc.) are also evaluated. Of these, however, only the best results are sent for evaluation according to the quota allocated to each department (under Module 1).

For journals that meet the conditions for RIV evaluation in the Czech Republic, search the Web of Science and SCOPUS databases:

• • Impacted journals, i.e. journals included in Web of Science, can be found by searching directly in Web of Science or in the Journal Citation Reports database (part of WoS).
  • For a list of SCOPUS-included journals, see the Scopus "Title list" (the current list is available under High-quality Data), search SCOPUS, or the Scimago Journal Rank. 

Scientific journals are evaluated by so-called bibliometric indicators. Although the objectivity of these indicators is sometimes considered questionable, they are now considered as quality measures in academia. The indicators are based on citation analysis, which measures which articles or journals are cited more than others. 

What are the metrics used are Impact Factor, AIS and SRJ. What are quartiles and deciles. How to find out the IF and quartile of a particular journal?

How do I access the content of a specific magazine?

When selecting a journal, it is important to go back through the last few issues and check if they meet your requirements both thematically and professionally.

Many journals are purchased by the UK or directly by the FSV for its users and can therefore be studied online. In particular, you can use the following services to do this:

• UK-AŽ - search engine across UK subscription resources, allows searching for print and electronic journals, sometimes even specific articles
• Portal of E-resources
• or try the Web of Science  feature - "Free Full Text from Publisher" - right next to the article. Try to find the option to log in as a Charles University user, if the UK subscribes to the journal, you will get direct access to the full text.

• You can publish in an open-access journal.
• Find out in advance whether the publisher requires an article processing charge (APC) and what the amount is.
• You can deposit the article in a repository, such as the Charles University Repository.
• If you are considering depositing the article in a repository, posting the full text on your website, or sharing it on social media, check the publisher's policy on self-archiving beforehand.

Learn more about open access at Charles University.

Young and early-career researchers can become targets of various fraudulent entities that offer services of questionable quality for a fee, or are established to support other parasitic companies. These entities often use mass emails or personalized invitations to publish in special issues. This may include predatory journals that merely pretend to be reputable but primarily aim to collect fees from authors. They may also exploit the popularity of Open Access by publishing a large number of articles with minimal quality control (e.g., MDPI is sometimes included in this category).

The responsibility for selecting a high-quality and trustworthy journal always lies with the author.

How can you avoid predatory publishers?

Formal Requirements for Academic Texts

When drafting an article,it is always necessary to follow the principles of writing a professional text, i.e. in particular, it is necessary to maintain the usual structure of a professional text. This includes providing an abstract (usually also in English), an introduction, the main body of the text, and a conclusion. Additionally, the article must include references and follow the citation style required by the specific journal. Journals usually require the use of a specific citation style and often also dictate the structure of the final text. They may have other technical requirements for the format of the text, figures, and supplementary materials. 

For more information on citations, differences between citation styles, and recommended tools for citing, you can visit the FSV website obout citations.

Requirements for Submitting Articles to the RIV (According to Methodology)

The article must be an original or review article published in an academic journal, regardless of the publisher's country. It should present original research results conducted by the author or a team that the author was part of, with the affiliation specified as FSV UK.

These are complete texts of papers with a structure according to the requirements of the publishers of the periodical for the structure of scientific work (most often summary, introduction, material and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, literature review) with the usual way of citing sources, possibly with notes. 

The article must have a minimum of two pages, excluding advertisements, images, etc., and must be peer-reviewed.

An academic journal refers to a scientific, peer-reviewed periodical with an editorial board. It must be published (or have been published) periodically, assigned an ISSN or e-ISSN code, and issued in print, both in print and electronic form, or solely in electronic form.

Publication results are often a part of a specific project, and in order for the article to meet the project's requirements, it must meet certain criteria. Formally, this typically involves including a dedication, which means mentioning the project's name and number directly in the article. This is usually done in a separate section, such as "Acknowledgment" or "Funding," or in a footnote.

All individuals who made significant contributions to the creation of the article or chapter must be listed as authors. The author also assumes public responsibility for the text of the study or its relevant section.

According to internationally recognized best practices, a person is considered an author if they meet the following criteria: 

• Significant contribution to the writing of the text.  
• Significant contribution to the conception and design of the study and the interpretation of the results.  
• Compilation of the study manuscript or critical revision of the manuscript leading to significant professional enrichment.  
• Final approval of the version of the manuscript to be published.  
• Responsibility for the study, or relevant parts of it; responsibility for the accuracy, precision and completeness of the results of the published research. 

Persons who do not meet these criteria should not be listed as authors. Persons who have not made a substantial contribution to the scientific content of the study should be acknowledged in the acknowledgement, not in the list of authors, which is allowed by most journals. This generally refers to the following activities or situations:  

• Securing funding, routine technical assistance, administration. 
• Data collection not requiring scientific expertise, routine on-site activities, or minor assistance that by its nature does not significantly affect the scientific content of the publication ("contributorship").  
• Honorary authorship ("guest" / "gift" / "honorary authorship") or position of authority (senior scientist, department head, student mentor, etc.). It is also related to authorship as reciprocity (attribution in exchange), which is not accepted

On the other hand, it is not acceptable to purposely omit from the list of authors persons who have otherwise made significant contributions to the design of the study:  

• Students.  
• Persons not listed due to potential conflicts of interest (e.g. industry partners) and professional copywriters writing an article e.g. on behalf of industry ('ghost authorship'). 

The order of authors may strongly reflect local and disciplinary practices.

Often the order of authors is alphabetical, regardless of the level of contribution. Nevertheless, it is common practice that the order of authorship is indicative of the degree and importance of contribution to the professional content and design of a publication. The order of authors must be agreed upon by all listed authors, ideally before the publication is produced. 

If there is more than one author of a publication, a corresponding author (corresponding author, reprint author) must be identified to receive and distribute comments during the review process. The corresponding author is usually listed first or last, depending on the practice in the field.

According to OR 40/2021, every article or other published result must include the author's affiliation to Charles University, the responsibility for fulfilling this obligation lies with the author of the result. 

The authors are obliged to indicate the official institutional affiliation in the form of "Name of the university, name of the university unit (faculty, institute, department)". In results in Czech or Slovak language, the affiliation is given in Czech, in results in other languages the affiliation is given in English.

In articles, this is typically done by indicating the university affiliation next to the author's name; in books, there is often a list of authors at the end with information about their expertise and university affiliation. It is appropriate to list the entire affiliation, i.e., university, faculty, institute, or department, but at a minimum, the university and faculty should be included.

The author personal identifier allows you to distinguish authors with the same or similar names and to find all publications by the same author, even if his or her name appears in different versions in the publications. This eliminates problems caused by diacritics, use of abbreviations of first names, duplication of names, changes in surnames of women after marriage, etc.  When publishing, it is very advisable to provide the editors with your personal identifiers in addition to your name; some publishing houses already consider this to be mandatory.

The following personal identifiers are used at Charles University:

• ORCID 
• ResearcherID
• Scopus Author ID

Learn more

The article should undergo formal and language proofreading before being submitted to the editorial office.

Usual Process When Submitting an Article to a Journal

• Registration in the journal’s interface: Usually you must have at least an ORCID.
• In the case of an article published under Open Access, review the licensing and payment terms.
• Submission of the manuscript: The article is usually uploaded to the system, sometimes including additional data (questionnaires, research data, etc.) and a so-called Cover Letter.
• Writing a Cover Letter is considered a a matter of courtesy, even if its submission is not specified in the journal’s conditions. A well-written cover letter can significantly impact the chances of the article being accepted. The letter is usually addressed directly to the journal's editor-in-chief and is in the form of a formal letter (letterhead, addressing a specific person). It summarizes why the article should be published in the specific journal and highlights its most important ideas.
• Marking the article in the system as submitted.
• The editor may then mark the article as:
  • Rejected by the editor
  • Accepted by the editor (at this point, the journal may send this version to the author, sometimes labeled as preprint, although sometimes it is only marked as a preprint after peer review).
  • After acceptance by the editor, the peer review process takes place, which is an evaluation procedure that the scientific work allways undergoes before publication. Comments from the reviewers are incorporated into the final published version. At least two experts outside the author’s institution review the text and express their opinion on its publication. If they do not agree, a further review is conducted.The result of the peer review process can take one of these four forms:
    • Rejected,
    • Accepted without changes,
    • Accepted after minor revisions,
    • Accepted after major revisions.
• Revising the text by the author: In case of necessary minor or major changes, communication with the editor takes place, where the author addresses the reviewers' comments and incorporates them into the text.
• Acceptance of the revised text: At this point, some journals send the so-called postprint for the author’s approval. This version may already be formatted according to the journal’s requirements. How the author may handle the postprint is usually specified in the journal’s terms. It often serves only for the author’s internal use and should not be published. Some journals allow the postprint to be stored in a repository.
• Since the publication of an article in a standard issue may take up to a year (often even two or three years), the journal may release the approved version of the article online as Early Access, Early View, Online First. However, this is still not the final published version.
• Final publication of the article (publisher’s version) in a specific journal issue – with the volume and issue numbers. At this point can the article be considered as officially published.

After the final publication of an article or book, the author is obliged to enter this information into the university's OBD system, which is used to register publication activity and through which results are sent to the national evaluating system (RIV). The information about the result is provided by the author within three months of publication, and at the latest by the deadline announced by the faculty for submission of the results, which is usually in the spring of the following year. More about the registration of results in OBD.

The result is then evaluated

• National assessment is done through the RIV system and follows the M17+ methodology and in this area in particular modules 1 and 2, the M17+ methodology seeks to promote quality of outcome over quantity;
• internal evaluation - the university, the faculty and the individual units themselves evaluate the publication and non-publication results of their authors and can allocate funding accordingly.