About the Conference Proceedings Series

Aims & Scope

TH Wildau Engineering and Natural Sciences Proceedings (TH Wildau ENSP) are the home for various proceedings of conferences organized by researchers of the TH Wildau.

The TH Wildau as one of the top research universities in Germany specialises in the research fields of applied biosciences, information technology/telematics, optical technologies/photonics, production and materials, transport and logistics as well as management and law.

These proceedings give a manifold insight into the technical and scientific research output and present the latest advancements of the university's research fields.

Open Access policy

TH Wildau ENSP are open-access proceedings. 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 Licence 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

All proceedings papers published in TH Wildau ENSP are peer reviewed. Since the individual volumes are edited by different conference organizers, the procedures, however, may differ. The processes actuallly applied are therfore described per volume.

The volume editors have full accountability and power to approve or reject a paper submitted for publication. To assist in making this decision, the editors can consult with other editors or reviewers for an assessment. Reviewers should sufficiently clarify and justify their opinions, so that editors and authors can understand the reason for their statements.

Indexing

TH Wildau ENSP are indexed in Dimensions, DOAJ, EBSCO Discovery Service, Google Scholar, and J-Gate .

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 content published in TH Wildau ENSP is 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, TH Wildau ENSP 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

TH Wildau ENSP will use 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. TH Wildau ENSP will follow the COPE flowcharts in cases of suspected or proven misconduct. TH Wildau ENSP 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.

Financing

The publication in TH Wildau ENSP is free of charge for authors. The individual conference proceedings volumes published in TH Wildau ENSP are financed through the conference budget of the respective conference or by the Open Access Publication Funds of the Technische Hochschule Wildau – Technical University of Applied Sciences. The current funding information will be displayed in every volume. TH Wildau ENSP does not accept any form of commercial adverts.