Why do we need to think of ethics? Development of reviewer and author guidelines in scientific journal Annual of Social Work

Annual of Social Work recently redefined author manual and reviewers guidelines due to the active editorial policy. Process of development this document has several steps. First step was analyzing similar guidelines in prospective scientific journals which results with draft document of main topics important for the Annual of Social Work authors and reviewers. In the second step this draft was presented and discussed at editorial board. After implementing comments from editorial board document was prepared and sent to review to expert in science publishing. The last step included finalizing the documents and sending to copy edit and translation. Finaly document was presented to potential authors and reviewers and published at the web page of the journal Annual of Social Work.
Significant part of the guidelines was ethical questions considering editorial ethics but also ethics in presenting the research findings. Ethical questions should be considered in research designs as the research in social science are often conducted with people, sometimes with vulnerable groups and ethical standards of the research should be carefully planned to minimize the risks of joining the research.

Online research focused on ethical questions was conducted with members of editorial boards of eight journals published at Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb. The research was done through web survey methods. The results are interpreted using content analysis. Research findings presented in this paper will show opinion on ethical questions in science publishing in social science of editorial boards who are actively included in publishing activities of scientific journals.