The Editorial Process

Manuscripts should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief via the Journal's online submission system (COMET). Submission of a manuscript is understood on the basis that the manuscript is original and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. The manuscripts must contain all the necessary information to enable reproducibility of the described work.

All authors are expected to approve the manuscript and to sign a COVER LETTER to confirm that the manuscript has been prepared according to the journal’s instructions for authors, and checked for all possible inconsistencies and typographical errors. They must declare that the manuscript submitted is an original work and that it has been neither published in any other journal nor is it under consideration for publication by any other journal. The cover letter needs to contain the full names of all the authors, their titles and affiliations, with their signatures. The e-mail addresses of all authors should be provided in the cover letter, while the manuscript title page should provide the contact details (phone/fax and e-mail address) of only the corresponding author.

After successful submission of all materials, the corresponding author will receive a confirmation e-mail with a reference number assigned to the paper, which he/she is asked to quote in all subsequent correspondence. All manuscripts are first evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief and may be rejected without reviewing if considered not of sufficient interest or novelty, too preliminary or out of the scope of the Journal. If the manuscript is considered suitable for further evaluation, it is run through iThenticate plagiarism detection software and then sent to at least two reviewers. The authors' proposals of up to three reviewers along with their contact details could be useful, provided that they are not from the authors' institutions or countries of origin (when possible). All suggestions of reviewers will be evaluated and the decision about their selection will be made by the Editorial Office.

As soon as the reviews are submitted, the Editor-in-Chief renders a decision about the possible acceptance of the manuscript. The reviews are then sent to the authors via the online submission system, and if the reviews are positive, the authors are expected to submit the revised version within two months. If during the revision a change in authorship (addition or removal of an author) has occurred, the authors are requested to clarify the reason for the change, and all authors (including those removed or added) need to submit their written consent for the change.

The revised version of the paper should be re-uploaded through the online submission system, together with the reply to the reviewers and the letter to the Editor-in-Chief. All the changes made in the revised manuscript must be either highlighted, written in a different colour, or using Track changes. In reply to the reviewers, the authors need to explain how they addressed each point given by the reviewer. The revised version is evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief and/or reviewers. If necessary, further revision may be requested to meet all the reviewers’ requirements.

When a manuscript is accepted for publication, each co-author is requested to sign DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP and STATEMENT OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST forms. Then the corresponding author is obliged to send all the signed forms to veterinarski.arhiv@vef.hr and after that an official letter of acceptance is sent to the corresponding author, the manuscript is assigned a doi number and posted online in an unedited version (in the category: Advanced online publication of articles). After that stage, changes to the authors of the manuscript are not possible.

Before printing, linguistic and technical revision is undertaken, at which stage the authors are asked to make the final corrections in no more than a week. The final version is then sent to the printer's office and the authors receive the galley proof for final checking before printing. The authors are expected to correct only typographical errors on the proofs. Any changes in the text (additions etc.) at that stage will be made at the authors’ expense. The proofs have to be returned to the Editorial Office within 48 hours. After printing, all manuscripts are posted online as pdf files in the final form, indexed in databases and deposited in CrossRef with the assigned doi numbers.

Articles published in Veterinarski arhiv (Online) are available at the Internet address: http://vetarhiv.vef.unizg.hr/ in pdf format.