About the Conference Proceedings Series

Aims & Scope

The Symposium on Solar Thermal and Innovative Heating Systems is the most important technical-scientific conference of the German-speaking solar thermal industry. In technical presentations, the diverse challenges of solar thermal and renewable heating solutions are discussed in depth.

The conference takes place annually in Bad Staffelstein, Germany.

Open Access policy

Solarthermie-Symposium Proceedings are an open-access proceedings series. This means all content can be accessed immediately after publication free of charge. Authors retain copyright and all content can be reused unrestrictedly according to the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. Preprints (pre-review manuscripts), post prints (authors accepted manuscripts, AAM), and the version of record (VoR) can be deposited without restrictions.

Please find further information on license and copyright on the page Submissions.

Peer review

The review process for conference papers is taken very seriously, as the conference organizers want the scientific quality of the conference to be as high as possible.

To ensure an objective rating of the scientific work, the ST-Symposium uses a blind reviewing process for the abstracts and a two-step reviewing process for the proceedings; this review process includes that the paper might be sent back to the authors for corrections and modifications or might be rejected.
Depending on the quality of the abstract, the author may be invited to present a poster or oral presentation at the conference.
Acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee acceptance of the paper for the proceedings.
Papers that are not presented at the conference will not be accepted for the conference proceedings.

The peer review takes place in two steps.
First, abstracts (in German language) are submitted for the conference and are selected for poster or oral presentation. The review criteria for abstracts are as follows:

  • Suitability for the topic. Does the abstract fit into the topic? Abstracts with inappropriate contents or commercial advertisements will be rejected.
  • Quality of research goals. Appropriately chosen and documented methods, logical presentation and analysis of results, findings, inferences and conclusions.
  • Novelty and significance of the work, and implications for practices, policies or further research. Considered as oral presentations will be only those contributions where significant results are already documented in the abstract in order to avoid a situation in which the "promises of the abstracts" cannot be fulfilled.
  • Standard of writing, clear and logical presentation, appropriate style, lack of errors, ease of reading, correct grammar and spelling, conformance with specifications for length and format details.
  • Depending on the content and quality of the abstract, the author may be invited to have an oral presentation or to present a poster at the conference.
  • Acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee acceptance of the paper for the proceedings.

Second, the authors of all accepted abstracts are invited to submit a full paper in English. All submitted papers for the proceedings will be reviewed according to the following guidelines:

  • Quality of research goals:Appropriately chosen and documented methods, logical presentation and analysis of results, findings, inferences and conclusions.
  • Originality: The measure of the creativity or inventiveness of the author, including new concepts, techniques, and methods.
  • Significance: The importance or worth of the reported work.
  • Completeness: The oneness or wholeness of the work. In this usage, the reported work should be marked by a unity and continuity of parts and show interdependence between these parts.
  • Acknowledgment: The adequate and accurate use of references to attribute the work of others.
  • Organization: The careful planning and logical structure of the manuscript.
  • Clarity: The correctness of English spelling and grammar, as well as the clear presentation of tables, graphs, and illustrations.
  • Formatting: The adherence to the full paper template. Papers that do not meet the requirements of the template will not be accepted by the publishing house and cannot be

The scientific reviewing of each paper is carried out mainly by two scientists from the Scientific Committee, taking care of "conflict of interest" and professional competence of the reviewers for the respective field. Reviewers receive a briefing with criteria and instructions on how to conduct the review. The reviewers cannot see the second reviewer's feedback and comments. In addition, comments can be sent to the Conference Chair and Editor. If the two evaluations differ significantly, the Conference Chair is contacted and ask for feedback and, if necessary, a decision. The same applies to papers that are rejected. These will be looked at again by the Conference Chair and given a final evaluation.

If changes to the paper are necessary, the paper will be sent back to the author with detailed feedback from the reviewers and a request to upload a revised paper by a certain deadline. The authors will not get to know who is reviewing the paper.
In addition, a thorough layout check of the papers collected is performed. Formal errors need to be corrected. Comments with the necessary changes will be sent to the author(s). 

In a second round, the collected papers are checked to see whether the layout change requests have been implemented.  In the case of a "rejected" paper, the author is informed provided with the chance to make significant improvements in the short term. Papers that were evaluated in the first round with "minor changes" or "major changes" will be reviewed again by the reviewer of the first round, who will make sure that the proposed changes have been incorporated. The reviewing process is conducted using the OJS software.

Data and other underlying material

Research output is not just text (journal articles, books, or conference papers), but also data, model code, software, etc. All of these outputs deserve acknowledgement and should be as open and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) as possible. All materials (data, code, etc.) supporting the findings presented in submitted manuscripts should therefore be deposited in a FAIR-aligned public repository. A registry to find suitable data repositories is re3data.org. Whenever no ethical or legal constrains apply, unrestricted access to all underlying data and other material should be provided. In addition, data (and other material underpinning the findings) need to be cited in the text and the respective reference must be included in the manuscript’s reference list. Please refer to the data citation principles of FORCE11 or the FORCE11 software citation principles, respectively. Every author should include a data availability statement in their manuscript describing how the data underlying the findings of their contribution can be accessed and reused. If the submission is not based on data or the data it is based on is restricted (third-party data, legal or ethical constraints), this should be explained in the data availability statement, too. Reciprocal linking of data and other underlying material and the contribution through persistent identifiers (e.g. DOIs) is best practice.

Long-term archiving

All proceedings volumes in Solarthermie-Symposium Proceedings are archived long-term through the TIB.

Publication ethics

Standards on ethics in publishing safeguard that publications are high quality, credible, and that authors receive appropriate credit for their works. For authors, it is therefore crucial to avoid

  • Data fabrication and falsification: Data fabrication means the scientist did not actually do the research, but made up the presented data. Data falsification means the manipulation of data (e.g. removing inconvenient data points) in order to provide a false impression. Data fabrication and falsification is scientific misconduct.
  • Plagiarism: Using the thoughts and works, even small pieces, of another person without providing appropriate credit is fraudulent.
  • Multiple submissions: It is dishonest to submit the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously. This practise waste time of editors and reviewers and can harm the reputation of the respective journals.
  • Redundant publications (or 'salami' publications): This means publishing various (often very similar) papers based on the same research.
  • Improper author contribution or attribution: The author list must only contain persons who contributed significantly (in a scientific sense) to the presented work. Likewise, all persons who made such contribution must be included.
  • Citation manipulation: excessive author and journal self-citations, honorary citations, and any form of citation stacking is scientific malpractice.

In accordance with the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI tools, AI tools (such as ChatGPT) cannot be listed as authors of a paper. These tools cannot take responsibility for the submitted work and hence do not meet the requirements for authorship such as the ability to declare competing interests or to agree to the license agreement.

Not only authors need to adhere to ethical standards, but also editors and reviewers:

  • Editors and reviewers must give unbiased consideration to all submitted manuscripts, review each on its merits without regard to race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s).
  • Editors and reviewers must not handle manuscripts they are directly affiliated with.
  • Editors and reviewers must avoid any real or perceived conflict of interests.
  • Editors and reviewers must respect the intellectual independence of authors.
  • Editors and reviewers must respect confidentially of any non-pubic information they see during peer review.

TIB Open Publishing plans to become a COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) member. Therefore, Solarthermie-Symposium Proceedings subscribes to the COPE's Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors as well as the Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers as best practice.

Plagiarism detection

Solarthermie-Symposium Proceedings uses Crossref’s Similarity Check to detect plagiarism in the submitted manuscripts. It is up to the editors to decide whether any manuscript is rejected because of plagiarism.

Competing interests

Competing interest, also known as conflicts of interest (COIs), arise when issues outside research may fairly be viewed as impacting the work's neutrality or the objectivity of it’s assessment. This can happen at any point of the research cycle. Competing interest include

  • Financial: funding and other payments, goods and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
  • Affiliations: being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
  • Intellectual property: patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization
  • Personal: friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections
  • Ideology: beliefs or activism, for example, political or religious, relevant to the work
  • Academic: competitors or someone whose work is critiqued.

Competing interests do not necessarily prevent the publication of research, or prohibit the participation of someone in the review process. However, competing interests do need to be recorded. A straightforward explanation of all potential issues – whether they have had an impact or not – helps to make informed judgements about the research and its review.

Handling of misconduct

There are two distinct circumstances to be noted: misconduct (i.e. serious scientific fraud such as data fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism) and honest errors. Errors may be due to inattentiveness (e.g. mistake in methods) and are not to be regarded as misconduct. Solarthermie-Symposium Proceedings will follow the COPE flowcharts in cases of suspected or proven misconduct. Solarthermie-Symposium Proceedings will take steps to correct the scientific record if it considers clear proof of misconduct.

Please find further information on post-publication corrections on the page Submissions.

Complaints

Any complaints should be directed to the editors of the respective volume.

Disclaimer

Any opinions expressed and information presented in Solarthermie-Symposium Proceedings are the views of the contributors and authors and not of the volume editors or TIB Open Publishing. The publication of contributions does not constitute endorsement or approval by the series and/or its publisher. Solarthermie-Symposium Proceedings and TIB Open Publishing cannot be held responsible for any errors or for any consequences arising from the use of the information contained in this series. While every effort is made by the volume editors to make sure that no erroneous or false data, view, or statement is published in this series, TIB Open Publishing, and the volume editors accept no liability of any kind for the consequences of any such inaccurate or misleading data, information, opinion, or statement.

Financing

Solarthermie-Symposium Proceedings are financed through the conference budget without separate costs for the participants.