(Pro captu lectoris) habent sua fata libelli! Books have their own destinies! Knjige imajo svojo usodo! Skrivnostna so naših knjig pota.
Terentianus Maurus, 2. st. n. št., stih 12861
Tvrtko-Matija Šercar
Spoštovani!
Pošiljam vam v branje in objavo po izbiri:
(1) uvodno opombo
– (2) Letter to the Editor revije AJIST, ki ga AJIST ni objavil, kljub moji vztrajnosti in samozavedanju, da imam prav
– (3) Dopisovanje s Heleno Gibbins, vodjo administracije (administrator) pri Committee for publishing Ethics (COPE)2 – (4) rokopis članka »The contribution of intelligence to the development of information science«.
(1) Uvodna opomba
V Letter to the Editor Habent sua fata libelli! Books have their own destinies, ki sem ga poslal reviji American Journal for Information Science and Technology (AJIST) v objavo, prikažem usodo rokopisa mojega članka »The contribution of intelligence to the development of information science«, ki sem ga pred dvadesetimi meseci po eksplicitnem povabilu odposlal uredništvu revije AJIST v objavo.
V Letter to the Editor opišem nepravilnosti glede uredniškega procesa in negativne ocene vsebine mojega članka na ravni uredništva AJISTa, po desetomesečnem ignoriranju mojih prošenj, da se me informira, kaj se dogaja z rokopisom mojega članka, katerega po mojem prepričanju niso ni prebrali!
Naslov revije »American Journal for Information Science and Technology (AJIST) vključuje enake ključne besede kot naslov revije »Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), toda AJIST ni ameriška, temveč pakistanska slabo citirana revija s sedežem v New Yorku ZDA, za razliko od najbolj citirane vodilne mednarodne revije v področju informacijske znanosti in tehnologije JASIST.
Ključne besede so ideje in teme, o katerih govori vsebina dokumenta in pomagajo najti, kaj ljudje iščejo, zato so enako pomembne za občinstvo in uporabnike kot za vsebino in avtorje. Pomembne so za optimizacijo spletnih straneh za iskalnike oziroma za SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Z ključnimi besedami opisujejo avtorji, kaj ponujajo na način, ki je nekoliko drugačen od tistega, kako uporabniki to vsebino kasneje dejansko iščejo.
AJIST se deklarira kot član in spoštovalec etičnih načel COPE, ni pa ne član združenja COPE niti ravna etično, saj ne upošteva niti lastnih pravil uredniškega dela.
Strinjam se s Heleno Gibbins, da COPE nima formalne osnove za ukrepanje zoper AJIST, kajti ta ni član COPE.
Vendarle pa mislim, da ima COPE obveznost do mednarodne znanstvene javnosti zahtevati, da jo AJIST neha dezinformirati in zavajati, da je član in privrženec etike publiciranja COPE, čeprav dejansko ni član tega mednarodnega združenja in se v uredniški praksi, ki jo izvaja, ne pridržuje niti lastnih pravil! Zato še vedno lahko vztrajam na arbitraži COPE tudi v mojem primeru, čeprav AJIST formalno ni član COPE.
Citiram del etičnih smernic Science Publishing Group (SciencePG) kot založnika revije AJIST, ki se nanaša na pritožbe in prizive:
Pri SciencePG cenimo povratne informacije in vse pritožbe jemljemo resno. Naš postopek obravnavanja priziv (appeals) zajema prizive zoper uredniške odločitve, prizive glede zamud ali napak v naših procesih in prizive glede etičnega ravnanja.
• Pritožbe zoper zavrnitev ali pritožbe glede znanstvene vsebine
Glavni in odgovorni urednik (Editor-in-chief) bo pretehtal avtorjevo argumentacijo, recenzije in se nato odločil, ali bo potrdil prvotno odločitev, poiskal neodvisno mnenje ali upošteval pritožbo. Pritožnik bo o odločitvi obveščen z ustrezno obrazložitvijo. Upoštevajte, da so odločitve o pritožbah dokončne in da bodo nove vloge imele prednost pred pritožbami.
• Pritožbe glede naših procesov
Glavni in odgovorni urednik bo v sodelovanju z odgovornim urednikom (responsible editor) ali interno kontaktno osebo (in-house contact) raziskal zadevo in pritožniku posredoval ustrezne povratne informacije. Te povratne informacije bodo uporabljene za izboljšanje naših procesov in postopkov.
• Pritožbe glede etičnega ravnanja
Te pritožbe se obravnavajo v skladu s smernicami, ki jih je objavil Odbor za etiko publiciranja (COPE). Glavni in odgovorni urednik se lahko o težkih ali zapletenih primerih posvetuje z založnikom ali drugimi strokovnjaki, nato pa se odloči za ustrezen ukrep in poda povratno informacijo pritožniku.
V primerih, ko je neposreden stik z avtorji neprimeren, se lahko obrnemo na uredništvo. To se lahko zgodi tudi, če se avtorji ne odzivajo ali če neposredni stik ne reši težave. Uredništvo se bo uskladilo s pritožnikom, avtorjem(-ji) in glavnim urednikom ali člani uredništva za preiskavo, odpravo ali rešitev morebitnih pomislekov ali pritožb.
Upoštevajte, da preiskave zahtevajo nekaj časa, pritožniki pa morda ne bodo prejeli obvestil o statusu preiskave, dokler ni sprejeta končna odločitev. Osebni komentarji ali kritike ne bodo upoštevani. Pritožbe obravnavamo zaupno v ustreznem obsegu in v skladu z našimi internimi postopki. Če pritožba ni utemeljena, bo dodatna komunikacija upoštevana le, če bodo predloženi novi dokazi.
Ko izrazite pomisleke, vključite podrobnosti o prispevku, povzetek glavnih točk, morebitno predhodno korespondenco z avtorji in izjavo, ki pojasnjuje morebitna dejanska, potencialna ali domnevna navzkrižja interesov.
(2) Letter to the Editor:
»Tvrtko-Matija Šercar, Maribor Slovenia
2024-03-27
Letter to the editor
Habent sua fata libelli! Books have their own destinies!
Dear editor
A letter to the editor is written with the purpose of supplementing, criticizing, informing or communicating certain information. In my case, it’s a criticism! In your response to my request to be informed definitively of what is happening with my manuscript of the article "The contribution of intelligence to the development of information science", which I sent to you by e-mail for publication in Ajist on 03/21/2023, your " the statement of the decision" about the manuscript reads: "After careful consideration by the journal’s editors, we believe that your article does not meet the criteria of novelty and impact expected of articles in our journal. We regret to inform you that we are unable to accept your submission."
My disagreement with your decision concerns both the procedure and the substance.
1. Display of the process flow
Mrs. Lola Mathis (hereafter LM) invited me on behalf of the Editorial Department to participate as an author, reviewer and member of the editorial board on 1 November 2022. In the invitation, she pointed out that my published articles are very interesting for readers. I accepted the invitation with enthusiasm.
Some manuscripts of articles I prepare for a long time. Truth be told, I started gathering the facts for the article in question since the Edward Snowden whistle-blowing scandal involving the National Security Agency (NSA)’s indiscriminate spying in the US and around the world broke out in 2013/14, and I finished the preparatory work after the publication of Snowden’s autobiography "Permanent Record" in 2019.
In the invitation to author collaboration, LM informed me that the editorial process takes "65-85 days"!
I sent the manuscript of the article in question on 21.3. 2023. to the email address submission@sciencepg.com recommended to me by Ms. LM.
Three months later, i.e. after the deadline for the editorial process, 7/4/2023, I asked LM to let me know what was happening with my manuscript. But now the editorial assistant Cindy Black (CB) and not LM answered me that the manuscript of the article was not accepted and that I should resend the manuscript if I am still interested in publication.
On the same day, I resent the manuscript of the article to the address given to me by CB. I also forwarded the same e-mail to LM.
At the same time, I asked CB to confirm acceptance, but neither CB nor LM have contacted me again.
On November 27, 2023, I wrote to CB again and asked her to inform me about the fate of my article! CB hasn’t heard back from me!
3/19/2024 I asked you to let me know what happened to my article!
Instead of "65-85 days", you needed 3 times more time for the editorial process!
And suddenly, the very next day, March 20, 2024, I got the already quoted negative answer!
The message is now, to my surprise, signed by Lily White, Editorial Assistant, who ends it with Bo Bennett’s cynical saying that rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success (47 Best Bo Bennett Quotes On Success - Succeed Feed , ,) and no more Cindy Black!
My conclusion is that I doubt you even saw the manuscript of my article!
2. Comments regarding content
Information science arose from documentation, the latter from bibliography, and as an information science (IS) scientist, I deal with "books", in the case of the article in question with book sources for the history of information science, precisely the contribution of the NSA as an intelligence service to the development information or data science and emerging (in statu nascendi) science of security and privacy (SoS, Science of Security). with all the positive and negative consequences for the right to privacy and freedoms of individuals without exception.
Ms. White noted that my article lacked "news," which is not accurate.
The novelty is that I reveal the effects of NSA on the development of IS, namely the importance of building an infrastructure, a system of databases in terms of their time relevance and pertinence, the widest collection of large online data in history, retrieval with the help of metadata, the development of graphics for the visualization of data important for processing data as the first phase of scientific work. For example I write about the use of AI in the presentation of the last report on the results of work in the centenary project on AI 2014-2114, which is part of another article of mine.
What is new is that I deal with the positive contribution of intelligence to scientific development, which by definition is the collection of secret, delicate and private information in an unauthorized way!
It is also new that I promote the development of electronic books according to the model of an eclectic document without redundancy, which was presented at the Institute of Information Sciences in Maribor, Slovenia in 1999.
In case of publication of my article in your journal, any reader of my book could click to get your journal and this article as part of my e-book "Information Science on Two-Way Bridges: A Selection of Theoretical Works from Information Science", which will be created automatically after publishes the Introduction, which contains a list of references with URL addresses of relatively independent parts in electronic form.
If I were you, I would personally fear too much citation of my article than the editors fear the little impact my article would have after publication.
Ajist is a member of COPE (Committee of Publication Ethics)! In the case in question, I will act depending on the response of the Ajist editorial team to my Letter to the Editor. However, I expect that the editor will publish it immediately in accordance with the COPE ethical standards for this category of work in scientific journals.
Greetings!
dr. sc.Tvrtko-Matija Šercar«
(3) Dopisovanje s predstavnico Committee for publishing Ethics (COPE)
Dne 20.05.2024 sem poslal uredništvu revije AJIST Letter to the Editor v objavo. Kajti ni bilo nobenega odziva s strani AJIST-a, sem se 24.10., po petih mesecih čakanja obrnil združenju za etiko publiciranja COPE s prizivom, prepričan, da je revija AJIST član COPE.
Istega dne je voditeljica administracije (administrator) COPE odgovorila, da bodo čim prej odgovorili na mojo prošnjo.
Takoj so ugotovili, da AJIST ni član COPE in me obvestili, da ni pravne osnove za ukrepanje zoper revije AJIST, jaz pa vztrajam na arbitraži COPE.
Dear Tvrtko Šercar,
Thank you for contacting COPE. We will respond to your enquiry as soon as possible. A copy of your enquiry is below, for your records.
Kind regards,
COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics
DATE SUBMITTED Thursday, 24 October 2024 - 3:30pm SUBMITTED BY: Anonymous …
Dear Tvrtko-Matija Šercar
Thank you for your email to COPE.
COPE is a membership organisation primarily aimed at editors, publishers and universities to support them with issues related to the publication of research. As such we are unable to provide specific advice to non-members, or regarding issues with journals, publishers or institutions who are not COPE members. Many of our resources are freely available on our website and you may find these helpful:https://publicationethics.org/.
You can check to see if a journal or publisher is a member by searching here:
I am pleasantly surprised and flattered that you responded immediately to my appeal to COPE as a higher level of appeal.
The American Journal for Information Science and Technology (AJIST) explicitly refers to COPE on its homepage in cases such as mine.
I quote:
»Publication Ethics Statement
At SciencePG, we are committed to upholding the highest standards in scholarly publishing. We ensure that all submitted manuscripts adhere to SciencePG’s guidelines and best practices. Our stance on publishing ethics is deeply rooted in the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We strictly follow COPE’s guidelines in addressing key ethical issues, such as conflicts of interest, authorship, misconduct allegations, data transparency, plagiarism, and the integrity of the peer review process.
As we remain committed to ethical standards, SciencePG also acknowledges the importance of autonomous decision-making based on our existing policies and principles. This independence, combined with adherence to COPE’s guidelines, ensures the highest level of integrity and professionalism in our publication process.
In case of uncertainties regarding ethical conduct in research and publishing, we suggest referring to the extensive resources provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). These resources offer a comprehensive guide to tackling ethical issues, thereby promoting the constant improvement of scientific record integrity.«
The subject of my request is that you influence those responsible at the JAIST journal to immediately publish my Letter to the Editor.
Once again, I am sending you my request in its integral form in the attachment.
Thank you for your understanding!
Dr. sc. Tvrtko-Matija Šercar
Pripombe:
1 Terentianus, imenovan Maurus (po rodu iz Mavretanije) je bil latinski slovničar in pisec prozodije (meroslovja), ki je doživelo razcvet verjetno ob koncu 2. stoletja našega štetja. (Pro captu lectoris) habent sua fata libelli. (Terentianus Maurus, 2. st. n. št., stih 1286) (Knjige imajo svojo usodo, če sledimo izvirni metrični shemi: "Skrivnostna so naših knjig pota."According to the capabilities of the reader, books have their destiny, glede na zmožnosti bralca, imajo knjige svojo usodo).
2
Registered charity No 1123023
Registered in England and Wales, Company No 6389120
Registered office: New Kings Court, Tollgate, Chandler’s Ford, Eastleigh,
Hampshire, SO53 3LG, UK
