Journal Policies

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING

Authors contributing to Puls agree to publish their articles under a Creative Commons license (CC BY) which gives third parties the right to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. It also gives third parties the right to remix, transform and build upon the material for any purpose, except commercial, on the condition that clear acknowledgment is given to the author(s) of the work, that a link to the license is provided and that it is made clear if changes have been made to the work. This must be done in a reasonable manner, and must not imply that the licensor endorses the use of the work by third parties. The author(s) retain copyright to the work. Learn more >>

AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA

Each author, and any co-authors, must meet the following criteria:

1. All must have made a significant contribution to the design of the study, the collection of data, or the analysis and interpretation of data;
2. All must, either by writing or by helping to edit the manuscript, have contributed to the design of its intellectual content to a significant degree;
3. All must have approved the submitted manuscript.

Each author must also be able to take responsibility for part of the article's content and be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for the remaining parts.

Those who do not meet these criteria but who nevertheless contributed significantly to the final manuscript should be included in the acknowledgments section. It is the author's responsibility to obtain the written approval of persons named in the acknowledgments section.

AI tools

In accordance with COPE’s position statement on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, AI tools such as Large Language Models, chatbots and image creators cannot be credited with authorship of any manuscript submitted to this journal. Authorship attribution implies responsibility for the integrity, originality, accuracy and validity of a work, and AI tools cannot take such responsibility.

In any instance where generative AI tools have been employed in the creation of written content, generation of images or graphical elements, or the collection and analysis of data within a submitted work, authors are required to disclose these uses within the manuscript. This acknowledgement should provide explicit information about the specific tasks performed by AI tools, including the identification of the tool(s) and their respective versions. AI tools used to improve or correct spelling and grammar need not be credited.

Authors bear full responsibility for the content of their manuscript, including any portions generated with the assistance of AI tools. Consequently, they are liable for any potential breaches of publication ethics. Authors must ensure that all quoted and referenced material is appropriately credited.

REVIEWER POLICY

Reviewers should generally take note of COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, and specifically ensure compliance with following items.

1. Authors of manuscripts and reviewers of the same manuscript must not be close colleagues, family members, work on the same research project, or otherwise have a close collaboration.
2. Reviewers should only accept to assess manuscripts that fall within their own subject area.
3. Reviewers should respond to invitations without delay (normally within one week) and submit completed reviews within a reasonable time (normally within four weeks).
4. Reviewers’ comments must not contain hostile or provocative language and must not include personal attacks, slander or other derogatory comments.
5. Reviewers are asked to substantiate their recommendation with arguments about the strengths and the weaknesses of the paper.
6. Reviewers should not share the work they are reviewing and keep its content confidential.

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

All submitted manuscripts are first assessed by the Editorial Board who decides whether the manuscript is suitable to be sent for peer review.

Manuscripts deemed suitable for further review are sent to two or more experts who are tasked with highlighting the manuscript's general and specific merits and shortcomings.

The journal uses a double-blind review procedure before acceptance/rejection of manuscripts, which means that authors and reviewers are anonymous throughout the review process.

The review process is expected to take 6 to 8 weeks but may vary.

Based on the review, the editor then compiles a recommendation to a) accept the manuscript for publication b) ask the author to revise the manuscript or c) reject the manuscript.

The responsibility of the publishing process rests with the journal's General Editor, and the overall publishing responsibility rest with the Director General of Statens musikverk/ The National Collections of Music, Theatre and Dance. They have a qualified Editorial Board for support in various issues regarding the publication of individual manuscripts, the journal's development, etc.

Original articles  are externally peer-reviewed, but editorials, book reviews and conference reports are approved by the editors without external peer review.

In cases where a manuscript’s author is in some way associated with the editorial team, they will be removed from all editorial tasks for that article. An independent editor will be tasked with organizing the peer-review process. The author's affiliation with the journal will also be indicated in the final publication of the article.

The journal accepts manuscripts that have previously been uploaded for review as preliminary versions, on personal websites, presented at conferences, or made available through other informal communication channels. However, authors must hold copyright for the text in question. Authors are also encouraged, when available, to include links to previous versions of the article in the final version of the article published in the journal.

Duplicate publication, also called "redundant publication" or "dual publication", is not permitted. This refers to the publication of the same article in more than one journal or to the publication of a document that is substantially similar to one already published without reference to the original publication. The Editorial Board demand a convincing motivation for translations and revised earlier publications by the author, prior to possible acceptance.

PREPRINT POLICY

Article authors have the right to self-archive the submitted ("preprint") version of the manuscript and the published version without any embargo period.

Submitted manuscripts and published versions of articles can, for example, be archived on:

• the author's personal website
• the author's company website and/or institutional repository or archive
• non-profit preprint servers or subject-based archives

ORCID

The journal's editors strongly recommend that authors submitting manuscripts register an “Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier ”or ORCiD. If you don’t have an account yet, you can create one here https://orcid.org.

This registration provides a unique and stable digital author identity that ensures that the article is attributed to the correct person and improves the searchability of all the author's publications. This helps to ensure that the author receives recognition for their work. As a person's ORCiD remains the same as long as the account exists, any name changes, change of employment, department affiliation or research field do not affect the searchability of previous publications. This facilitates correspondence between research colleagues.

The journal's editors encourage all authors to include ORCiD along with other author information when the manuscript is registered in the system. If the article is accepted, this will be published with the article.

OPEN DATA

As research funders' and universities' demands for open research data become increasingly common, some authors may be required to make their collected empirical material open and available to everyone.

In cases where this applies to the journal's authors, the journal's editors encourage making the data available according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

In that case, the material made available must be linked to within the submitted manuscript under a special heading. Research data should then be made public when the article is published. Empirical material obtained from other researchers must be referenced in the same way as other scientific sources.

POLICY FOR PREVIOUS VERSIONS

The journal's editors allow authors to make available earlier drafts of manuscripts/articles on the condition that authors agree to the following:

Authors retain all rights to any previously published version and are permitted to submit their updated manuscript to the journal.

Authors accept that the journal's editors cannot guarantee full anonymity in the review process, even if the author anonymizes his manuscript when earlier versions of the manuscript are made available.

If the manuscript is published in the journal, the author is expected to cross-link, with DOI link, the different versions of the manuscript/article.

ARCHIVING POLICY

The journal's current and future content, beginning when the journal joins Publicera, is made available via Publicera and stored long-term on a secure and central server at the National Library of Sweden.

In the event that the journal ceases operations, the journal's content on Publicera will remain archived at the National Library of Sweden.

CORRECTION AND RETRACTION POLICIES

The conditions of publication with persistent identifiers such as DOIs include that the object published is final and not changed without readers being clearly informed of such changes.

Articles published in the journal cannot therefore be changed without a) an erratum or b) a change notice being published and linked to the original article.

If a factual error in an article is discovered, this should be reported to the General Editor, who decides on possible actions and possible corrections.

COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS POLICY

In the case of formal complaints, disputes, or appeals, authors should contact the General Editor, who is responsible for ensuring that a fair, deliberative, and thorough investigation is conducted.

POLICY FOR ETHICAL OVERSIGHT

The journal follows the ethical guidelines and best practices set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All cases of ethical misconduct will be dealt with in accordance with COPE's recommendations and guidelines.

PUBLICATION FEES

There are no fees for publishing in the journal.