Policies

Open Access

NCAW is an open-access publication and adheres to the Budapest Open Access Initiative’s (BOAI) definition of open access. This means that users may “read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts” of its articles. NCAW does not charge readers or institutions for access to the journal. All content published in NCAW is freely available immediately following publication (there is no embargo period).

Authors’ Rights

Authors retain the copyright of the content they publish with NCAW. They allow NCAW to distribute and continue to make available the article in perpetuity under the license Creative Commons CC BY-NC International 4.0. After publication in NCAW, authors may post their article or digital art history project to any repository or website. They also may republish their content, but they must notify NCAW before its republication and acknowledge NCAW in the new source. Authors agree to the storage of copies by third-party digital preservation services. NCAW encourages authors to deposit their content in open-access repositories. NCAW does not impose an embargo period on the redistribution of material.

Copyright

All articles and reviews in NCAW are published under Creative Commons CC BY-NC International 4.0 license unless otherwise noted. Copyright for illustrations and materials other than the text (e.g., videos, timelines, maps) may be held by individuals or institutions/organizations other than NCAW. It is the responsibility of the author to cite the relevant copyright when using images and other digital materials.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

NCAW is committed to ethical publication practices and expects all submitting authors to uphold the standards of publication ethics set out by the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE). Any case of ethical misconduct will be treated seriously and in accordance with the COPE guidelines. See https://publicationethics.org/.

Author’s Responsibilities

Authors need to ensure that the submitted manuscript is their own work and is not plagiarized, wholly or in part. They must also make sure that the submitted manuscript is original and not wholly or in part a republication of earlier published work. They must acknowledge and provide appropriate citations for the scholarship or contributions of other people and document any citations of unpublished work, such as personal communications. Finally, they must make sure that their submission does not contain fraudulent data.

Authors also are responsible for checking that all copyrighted material in the article is published with permission of the copyright holder, unless usage is clearly within the strictures of fair use as defined by the US Copyright Office (see https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use).

Authors must disclose all sources of financial support for their projects and any other financial or substantive conflict of interest that might be perceived as influencing their research and article.

Peer-Review Process and Reviewer Responsibilities

NCAW is committed to a double-anonymous peer review process in which both reviewer and author remain unidentified throughout the process. Reviewers, however, may elect to share their names with the author upon submission of their review. Referees are selected for their expertise related to the content and/or methodology of the submitted article. Submitted papers are reviewed by at least one but usually two independent reviewers and by NCAW’s editorial staff.

Reviewers are requested to evaluate the manuscript according to the following criteria:

• originality and soundness of research;
• clearly articulated thesis;
• evidence of awareness of the literature on the topic;
• transparent methodology;
• clear and adequate language and effective use/selection of images.

NCAW editors recommend that authors consult the reviewer form before submitting their articles.

Reviewers need to be objective in their judgments and have no conflict of interest with respect to the research. They are expected to point out relevant published work, which is not yet cited by the author, and treat the reviewed articles confidentially.

Referees judge each paper based on the following scale:

• strongly recommend publication;
• recommend publication but offer some suggestions for revision;
• recommend that the manuscript be revised for further consideration (may include renewed peer review);
• do not recommend publication.

A decision is sent to the corresponding author, along with recommendations made by the reviewers and the editors. The editors are responsible for the final decision to accept/reject the manuscript.

Authors are entitled to expect that reviewers or other persons privy to the work they submitted to NCAW will not appropriate their research ideas or plagiarize their work.

Editorial Responsibilities

The editors hold full authority to accept or reject an article, insist on publication of corrections or retraction when errors are found, preserve anonymity of reviewers, and have no conflict of interest with respect to the articles that they accept or reject.

If an editor feels that there is likely to be a perceived conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, they will disclose it to the other editors. The other editors will select referees and make all decisions on the submission. This procedure also applies if an article is submitted by one of the editors, if an article is submitted by an author who is at the same institution as one of the editors, and if an article is submitted by an author whose relationship with one of the editors might create the perception of bias (e.g., in terms of close friendship, co-authorship, or conflict/rivalry). In all aforementioned instances, the editor must declare a potential conflict of interest.

Safeguarding of Publishing Ethics

Any complaints or appeals should be addressed directly to the editors, and they will be handled according to COPE guidelines. In cases of alleged or proven misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, appropriate measures will be taken to amend the article in question, and in the most severe cases, to retract the affected publication.

All members of the editorial board monitor and safeguard NCAW’s publishing ethics, which are comprised of the strict policy on plagiarism and fraudulent data; the double-anonymous peer review; the commitment to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed; and the avoidance of conflict of interest.