About the Journal

EDITORIAL POLICY

 

The journal Musicology (subtitle: Journal of the Institute of Musicology of the SASA) is dedicated to the study of Serbian cultural and music heritage and presenting it to the local and international expert audiences. With an interdisciplinary orientation the journal was open from the start to looking at national music history in a broader cultural context. It strives to promote Serbian music practice abroad, and at the same time, to relay international trends and discoveries in musicology and ethnomusicology to Serbian audiences. Therefore, the journal Musicology is international in its character and it is recognised as one of the leading publications in the field of music study and musicology.

The journal Musicology publishes contributions from the scientific fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, art history and theory, sociology of music, psycho-musicology, philosophy and aesthetics of music, as well as from the intersections of music with science, technology etc.

The journal Musicology was established in 2001 by the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

The journal Musicology publishes original papers that have not been published previously, grouped into three sections: The Main Theme, Varia and Critics & Polemics (up until vol. 19 the title of the last section was Reviews). The central section, The Main Theme, consists of original articles and reviews dedicated to a particular musicological or ethnomusicological topic. The section entitled Varia presents studies from a broader field relevant to art, folklore and sacred music tradition. The third column, Critics & Polemics, consists of critical reviews of musicological publications, conferences and audio and video releases.

Musicology is an Open Access journal.

Contributions to the journal shall be submitted in Serbian or English, including an abstract and keywords in both languages. In addition, the submission includes the summary in English (if the main text of the study is in Serbian) or in Serbian language (if the main text of the study is in English). For non-Serbian-speaking authors, the journal provides translations of the abstract, keywords, and summary in Serbian language.

The Journal is issued twice a year. Until 2011 the journal was published annually, but due to the great interest of local and international collaborators who send their articles on a regular basis, the Editorial board decided in 2012 to switch to a more intense rhythm of issuing two volumes in a calendar year.

The journal is indexed in DOI Србија (link). Until 2014 it was also indexed in Komunikacija database.

Digital copies of the journal are archived in the Digital Repository of the National Library of Serbia.

 

Editorial responsibilities

 

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to Musicology will be published. The Editor-in-Chief is guided by the Editorial Policy and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to decide not to publish submitted manuscripts in case it is found that they do not meet relevant standards concerning the content and formal aspects. The Editorial Staff will inform the authors whether the manuscript is accepted for publication within two months from the date of the manuscript submission.

Editor-in-Chief, Guest Editor of The Main Theme section and members of the Editorial Board must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. If an Editor feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, the selection of reviewers and all decisions on the paper shall be made by the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board must be made aware of any possible conflict of interest in due time.

Editor-in-Chief, Guest Editor of The Main Theme section and the Editorial Board shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias.

The Editor and the Editorial Staff must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

Editors and the Editorial Staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process and the authors remain anonymous to reviewers until the end of the review procedure.

 

Duties of the Editorial Council (оr Advisory Board)

 

The Editorial Council is an advisory body that actively contributes to the development of the journal. The tasks and duties of the Editorial Council include: the support to the development of the journal, its promotion, encouraging experts in the area of scientific study of music to get involved as journal’s authors and/or reviewers, writing editorials, reviews and commentaries.

 

Author’s responsibilities

 

Authors warrant that their manuscript is their original work, that it has not been published before and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Parallel submission of the same paper to another journal constitutes a misconduct and eliminates the manuscript from consideration by Musicology.

The Authors also warrant that the manuscript is not and will not be published elsewhere (after the publication in Musicology) in any language without the consent of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board.

In case a submitted manuscript is a result of a research project, or its previous version has been presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or similar title), detailed information about the project, the conference, etc. shall be provided in the first footnote of the paper, marked with an asterisk *. A paper that has already been published in another journal cannot be reprinted in Musicology.

It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that papers submitted to Musicology are written with ethical standards in mind. Authors affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

 

Reporting standards

 

A submitted manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented in it. The deliberate presentation of false claims is a violation of ethical standards.

Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must make sure that they have permission from all involved parties to make the data public.

Authors wishing to include figures, tables or other materials that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s). Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Book reviews and technical papers should be accurate and they should present an objective perspective.

 

Authorship

 

Authors must make sure that all only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors and, conversely, that all contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in a footnote or the Acknowledgments section.

 

Acknowledgment of Sources

 

Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and their manuscript. Information received in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties, in reviewing project applications, manuscripts and similar materials, must not be used without the express written consent of the information source.

 

Plagiarism

 

Plagiarism, where someone assumes another’s ideas, words, or other creative expression as one’s own, is a clear violation of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action.

Plagiarism includes the following:

  • Word for word, or almost word for word copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another author’s work without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation marks);
  • Copying equations, figures or tables from someone else’s paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.

Please note that all submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism.

Any paper which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected and its author will be prohibited from publishing papers in the journal Musicology in the following 5 (five) years.

In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under Retraction policy, and authors will be prohibited from publishing papers in the journal Musicology in the following 5 (five) years.

Conflict of interest

Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal Editor or publisher and cooperate with the Editor to retract or correct the paper.

By submitting a manuscript the authors agree to abide by the Musicology’s Editorial Policies.

 

Reviewers’ responsibilities

 

Reviewers are required to provide written, competent and unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript.

The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.

Reviewers should alert the Editor to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and alert the Editor to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in the event they are aware of such. Reviewers should also alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same paper to another journal, in the event they are aware of such.

Reviewers must not have conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding sources for the research. If such conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor without delay.

Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

 

Peer review

 

The submitted manuscripts are subject to a peer review process. The purpose of peer review is to assists the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author it may also assist the author in improving the paper.

The peer review process is anonymous.

There are two reviewers per article.

The peer review process must be completed in the course of six weeks, so that the authors could be informed about the acceptance or rejection of their contributions within two months from the moment of the submission of the paper.

The reviewers are not paid for their work.

The choice of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief and the Guest-Editor(s) of The Main Theme section. The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript; they must not be from the authors’ own institution and they should not have recent joint publications with any of the authors.

In the main review phase, the Editor sends submitted papers to two experts in the field. The reviewers’ evaluation form contains a checklist in order to help referees cover all aspects that can decide the fate of a submission. In the final section of the evaluation form, the reviewers must include observations and suggestions aimed at improving the submitted manuscript; these are sent to authors, without the names of the reviewers.

Authors are advised to avoid the formulations in the text that could reveal their identity to the reviewers. The Editor guarantees that all personal data of the author (notably the name and the affiliation) will be removed from the manuscript before sending it to the reviewers, and that all reasonable measures will be taken to ensure that the identity of the author remains unknown to the reviewers until the completion of the peer review process.

All of the reviewers of a paper act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor-in-Chief may assign additional reviewers. In case that the reviewers’ opinions are again not in accord, the Editor-in-Chief, together with the Guest Editor of The Main Theme section or with the Editorial Board makes his final decision without consultations with additional reviewers.

During the review process Editor may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The Editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.

 

Procedures for dealing with unethical behavior

 

Anyone may inform the editors and/or Editorial Staff at any time of suspected unethical behaviour or any type of misconduct by giving the necessary information/evidence to start an investigation.

Investigation

  • Editor-in-Chief will make a decision regarding the initiation of an investigation with the purpose to check the factual evidence.
  • During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as strictly confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in investigating.
  • The accused will always be given the chance to respond to any charges made against them.
  • If it is judged at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious.

Minor misconduct

Minor misconduct will be dealt directly with those involved without involving any other parties, e.g.:

  • Communicating to authors/reviewers whenever a minor issue involving misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards has occurred.
  • A warning letter to an author or reviewer regarding fairly minor misconduct.

Major misconduct

The Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Editorial Board, and, when appropriate, further consultation with a small group of experts should make any decision regarding the course of action to be taken using the evidence available. The possible outcomes are as follows (these can be used separately or jointly):

  • Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct.
  • Informing the author’s (or reviewer’s) head of department or employer of any misconduct by means of a formal letter.
  • The formal, announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy (see below).
  • A ban on submissions from an individual for a defined period.
  • Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.

When dealing with unethical behaviour, the Editorial Staff will rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

 

Retraction policy

 

Legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or any major misconduct require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.

Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by Musicology: in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

 

Open access policy

 

Musicology is an Open Access Journal. All articles can be downloaded free of charge from the following link (DoiSerbia), and they can be used free of charge in accordance with the Creative Commons – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Serbia (CC BY NC ND).

Musicology does not charge APC (Article Processing Charge).

The journal does not charge any fees at submission, reviewing, and production stages.

 

Self-archiving Policy

 

The journal Musicology allows authors to deposit Publisher’s version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories or to publish it on Author’s personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.) and/or departmental website, in accordance with the Creative Commons – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Serbia (CC BY NC ND). Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided and a link must be made to the article’s DOI.

 

Archiving

The journal Musicology archives its content in the Digital archive of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (DAIS). 

 

Copyright

 

The following non-exclusive rights to the manuscript, including any supplemental material, any parts and copies thereof are transferred to the publisher:

  • the right to reproduce and distribute the Manuscript in printed form, including print-on-demand;
  • the right to produce prepublications, reprints, and special editions of the Manuscript;
  • the right to translate the Manuscript into other languages;
  • the right to reproduce the Manuscript using photomechanical or similar means including, but not limited to photocopy, and the right to distribute these reproductions;
  • the right to reproduce and distribute the Manuscript electronically or optically on any and all data carriers or storage media – especially in machine readable/digitalized form on data carriers such as hard drive, CD-Rom, DVD, Blu-ray Disc (BD), Mini-Disk, data tape – and the right to reproduce and distribute the Article via these data carriers;
  • the right to store the Manuscript in databases, including online databases, and the right of transmission of the Manuscript in all technical systems and modes;
  • the right to make the Manuscript available to the public or to closed user groups on individual demand, for use on monitors or other readers (including e-books), and in printable form for the user, either via the internet, other online services, or via internal or external networks.

The authors and third parties who wish use the article in a way not covered by the Creative Commons – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Serbia (CC BY NC ND) must obtain a written consent of the publisher. All requests for such a use of the article must be sent in written form to the publisher’s address (Institute of Musicology SASA, Kneza Mihaila 36/IV, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia) and also to the e-mail address of the Editor-in-Chief: [email protected]

The license Creative Commons – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Serbia, defines the notions of ”Adaptation”, ”Collection”, ”Distribute”, ”Licensor”, ”Original Author”, ”Work”, ”You” (the Licensee), ”Publicly Perform” and ”Reproduce”.

The work is provided under the terms of this Creative Commons Public License. By exercising any rights to the Work provided here, the licensee accepts and agrees to be bound by the terms of this license. To the extent this license may be considered to be a contract, the licensor grants the licensee the rights contained here in consideration of the licensee’s acceptance of such terms and conditions.

The full text of the License Creative Commons – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 (in English) can be accessed via this link: (link).

 

Disclaimer

 

The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editors and Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. Publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.