About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Metallurgical and Materials Data is a diamond open-access peer-reviewed journal that publishes original scientific research in the field of metallurgy and materials. The journal focuses on publishing peer-reviewed papers that contain significant data and results in the fields of metallurgy and materials engineering, which is essential in today's data-driven era. The journal accepts papers that contain experimental and theoretical scientific and engineering results that can be reproduced based on the presented data.

Article processing charges: free of charge (all expenses are covered by the publishers).

(ISSN (Online): 2956-1795, ISSN (Print): 2956-1787)

The journal's focus is on the dissemination of accurate and reliable data that contributes to the advancement of knowledge in these domains. The journal covers the following key areas:

Metals and Alloys: Data on the synthesis, processing, properties, and applications of various metallic materials, including ferrous and non-ferrous alloys, superalloys, and advanced metal matrix composites.
Materials Processing and Manufacturing: Innovations in materials processing techniques and manufacturing methods, including additive manufacturing, casting, and heat treatment.
Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology: Insights on the synthesis, processing, properties, and applications of nanoscale materials, including nanoparticles, nanocomposites, and nanostructured materials.
Ceramics and Glasses: Information on the fabrication, characterization, and applications of traditional and advanced ceramic materials, including glasses, glass-ceramics, and functional ceramics.
Polymers and Composites: Reports on the synthesis, characterization, and applications of polymer-based materials, including thermoplastics, thermosetting polymers, elastomers, and polymer matrix composites.
Biomaterials and Biomedical Applications: Data on the development, characterization, and applications of biomaterials for tissue engineering, drug delivery, and medical implants.
Electronic and Photonic Materials: Information on the design, synthesis, properties, and applications of materials for electronic and photonic devices, including semiconductors, dielectrics, and optical materials.
Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion: Reports on the development and characterization of materials for energy applications, including batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors, and solar cells.
Computational Materials Science: Data-driven research employing computational tools and simulations to predict and understand the behavior and properties of materials.
Materials Characterization and Testing: Methodologies and techniques for the accurate and reliable assessment of materials properties, including mechanical, thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties.

Metallurgical and Materials Data journal emphasizes the importance of accurate data and rigorous methodologies in all submissions. We invite researchers to share their findings, data sets, and methodologies, fostering collaboration and promoting transparency in the metallurgy and materials science community.

Metallurgical and Materials Data journal publishes 4 times a year and focuses on thematic issues. This means that each issue of the journal will be dedicated to a specific topic or theme related to metallurgy and materials science, allowing readers to easily find and access the most relevant information for their research and interests. Metallurgical and Materials Data publishes full-length research papers, preliminary communications, and review papers. A special type of paper consists of databases and accompanying software that have been written in accordance with the journal's guidelines.

Contributions to the journal are written in English, with abstracts and summaries written in both English and the author's native language. We support linguistic diversity in this way, which should enrich professional literature.

Publisher

The publisher of the journal is the Association of Metallurgical Engineers of Serbia together with the Faculty of Technological Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, and Institute for Technology of Nuclear and Other Mineral Resources (ITNMS).

Vision: The Metallurgy and Materials Data journal aspires to be the source of accurate and reliable data in the fields of metallurgy and materials science. Our goal is to foster a collaborative and transparent research community that drives innovation and benefits society through the dissemination of high-quality, accessible, and data-driven knowledge.

EDITORIAL POLICIES

Editorial Responsibilities

According to the scope of the manuscript, a principal Editor will be assigned to each submitted manuscript (in the following text, just Editor). The Editor is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to Metallurgical and Materials Data will be published. The Editor adheres to the Editorial Policy and operates within the confines of the applicable legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

The Editor reserves the right to decide not to publish submitted manuscripts in case it is found that they do not meet relevant standards concerning the content and formal aspects. The Editorial Staff will inform the authors whether the manuscript is accepted for publication.

The Editor must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. If an Editor feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, the selection of reviewers and all decisions on the manuscript shall be made by the Editor with no conflict of interest.

The Editor shall evaluate manuscripts for their scientific content free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias.

The Editor and the Editorial Staff must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

Editors and the Editorial Staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during, and after the evaluation process.

AUTHORS' RESPONSIBILITIES

Ethics Statement

The authors guarantee that their manuscript is their original work, that it has never been published before, and that it is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. Submission of the same manuscript to another journal is considered misconduct and will result in the manuscript being rejected by Metallurgical and Materials Data. Please keep in mind that posting preprints to preprint servers or repositories does not constitute prior publication. When submitting a manuscript, authors should include information about preprint posting. This must include a link to the preprint's location. If the submission is accepted for publication, the authors must update the information associated with the preprint version on the preprint server/repository to reflect that a final version has been published in the journal, including a DOI that links directly to the publication.

If a manuscript has been previously submitted, authors should provide information about the previous reviewing process and its outcome. This allows authors to explain how subsequent revisions took previous reviews into account, as well as why certain reviewer comments were ignored. Information about the author's previous reviewing experience is advantageous to the author because it frequently aids editors in selecting more appropriate reviewers.

If a submitted manuscript is the result of a research project, or if a previous version was presented as an oral presentation at a conference (under the same or similar title), detailed information about the project, the conference, and so on must be provided in the Acknowledgement section. A paper that has previously appeared in another journal cannot be reprinted in Metallurgical and Materials Data.

Each author is responsible for ensuring that manuscripts submitted to Metallurgical and Materials Data are written with ethical standards in mind. The authors affirm that the manuscript contains no false or illegal statements and does not infringe on the rights of third parties. Should any compensation claims be made, the Publisher will not be held legally responsible.

Reporting standards

Metallurgical and Materials Data is dedicated to serving the research community by including enough information in all articles to allow others to replicate the work. A submitted manuscript should include enough detail and references to allow reviewers and, ultimately, readers to verify the claims made in it. Falsifying claims on purpose is a violation of ethical standards.

Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must ensure that they have permission to make the content public from all parties involved. Authors are also exclusively responsible for the contents of their data/supplementary files. The authors confirm that data protection regulations, ethical standards, third-party copyright, and other rights were followed during the collection, processing, and sharing of data.

Authors who wish to include previously published figures, tables, or other materials must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s). Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to be the authors' work.

Authorship

Only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission should be listed as authors; on the contrary, all contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission should be listed as authors. If individuals other than the authors were involved in critical aspects of the research project and manuscript preparation, their contributions should be acknowledged in a footnote or the Acknowledgements section.

To be named on the author list, one must have: made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND contributed to the drafting of the work, or critically revising it for important intellectual content; AND provided final approval of the version to be published; AND agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy of the work are addressed.

Authors may be added or removed during the editorial process if a reasonable explanation is provided to the editorial team and publisher. Attempts to introduce "ghost," "gift," or "honorary" authorship will be considered misconduct.

Acknowledgment of Sources

Authors must properly cite sources that have had a significant impact on their research and manuscript. Without the express written consent of the information source, information obtained in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties, in reviewing project applications, manuscripts, and similar materials, may not be used.

When citing or making claims based on data, authors should provide the reference to data in the same way as they cite publications. We recommend the format proposed by the FORCE11 Data Citation Principles [Data Citation Synthesis Group: Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles. Martone M. (ed.) San Diego CA: FORCE11; 2014 https://doi.org/10.25490/a97f-egyk].

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a clear violation of scientific ethics when someone assumes another's ideas, words, or other creative expressions as their own. Plagiarism can also be considered a violation of copyright law, which is punishable by legal action.

Plagiarism is defined as copying or paraphrasing portions of another author's work word for word or almost word for word without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation marks); copying equations, figures, or tables from someone else's paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.

Please note that all submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism using iThenticate - plagiarism detection software.

Any paper which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected, and the authors will be barred from submitting to the journal in the future.

If plagiarism is discovered in a previously published paper by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under the Retraction policy, and the authors will be barred from submitting to the journal in the future.

Conflict of interest

Any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may have influenced the presented results or their interpretation should be disclosed in the manuscript. If there is no conflict of interest to declare, the standard statement 'No competing interests were disclosed' should be added.

A competing interest could be non-financial or financial. Individuals receiving funding, salary, or other forms of payment from an organization, or holding stocks or shares from a company that may benefit (or lose) financially from the publication of the findings; individuals or their funding organization or employer holding (or applying for) related patents; official affiliations and memberships with interest groups relating to the publication's content.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author's responsibility to notify the journal Editor or publisher as soon as possible and to work with the Editor to retract or correct the paper.
The authors agree to follow the Metallurgical and Materials Data Editorial Policies by submitting a manuscript.

ORCID

All authors submitting a paper are required to register an account with Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID). ORCID numbers should be added to the author data for all authors and co-authors upon submission and will be published alongside the submitted paper if it is accepted.

ORCID registration creates a unique and persistent digital identifier for the account, allowing for accurate attribution and increasing the discoverability of published papers, ensuring that the correct author receives credit for their work.

Funding information (if applicable)

If a paper is the result of a funded project, authors should specify funding sources in accordance with their contracts with the funder.

REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Reviewers are expected to provide timely written, competent, and unbiased feedback on the scholarly merits and scientific value of the manuscript.

The reviewers evaluate the manuscript for its conformity to the journal's profile, the relevance of the investigated topic and methods used, and the originality and scientific relevance of the information presented in the manuscript.

Reviewers should notify the Editor if they have reasonable suspicions or knowledge of potential ethical violations by the authors. Reviewers should identify relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and notify the Editor if they are aware of significant similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. Reviewers should also notify the Editor if they become aware of a parallel submission of the same manuscript to another journal.

Reviewers must have no conflicts of interest with regard to the research, its authors, or its funding sources. If such conflicts exist, reviewers must notify the Editor as soon as possible.

Any selected reviewer who believes they are unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that timely review is impossible should notify the Editor immediately.

Reviews must be conducted objectively, without personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should provide clear and well-supported arguments for their views.

Manuscripts for review must be treated as confidential documents. Without the express written consent of the authors, reviewers may not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts. The information and ideas presented in manuscripts must be kept confidential and not used for personal gain.

Peer Review Process

Metallurgical and Materials Data, is a diamond open-access journal that is free of charge and open source. We understand that the work of our reviewers is voluntary and we greatly appreciate their efforts. To express our gratitude, we will publish an annual list of distinguished reviewers, offer discounts on conferences organized by the publisher, and publicly acknowledge their work to services, such as ORCID. Reviewers play a crucial role in the expansion of the scientific community and the reliability of data obtained through scientific papers. By thoroughly evaluating and providing constructive feedback on the work of authors, reviewers help to ensure that only high-quality, rigorous research is published. This helps to maintain the credibility and integrity of the scientific community and the data it produces, and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field.

The papers submitted to the journal are subjected to peer review, which is conducted anonymously: the type of review is single-blind peer review. Each manuscript will be reviewed by a minimum of two experts in the field. The goal of the peer-review process is to assist the Editor in making decisions about the paper and also to provide feedback to the authors to help improve the quality of their work.

The peer review process is typically completed in two weeks; if the reviewer believes he will be unable to complete the review in the allotted time, he must notify the editor.

The selection of reviewers for submitted papers is at the discretion of the editors. The reviewers must have knowledge and expertise in the subject area of the manuscript, and should not be from the authors' institution or have recent joint publications with the authors.

The identity of reviewers remains anonymous to the authors before, during, and after the evaluation process. Reviewers act independently of one another and do not know each other's identities. In cases where the decisions of two reviewers are not in agreement, the editor may assign additional reviewers.

The editorial team is responsible for ensuring that reviews are of high quality and objective. If there is any doubt or question about the objectivity or quality of a review, additional reviewers may be assigned.

The editorial team/board/guest editors may submit their own papers to the journal. However, if an author is associated with the journal, they will be removed from any editorial responsibilities related to that paper and another team member will be assigned to oversee the peer review process.

Post-publication discussions

Metallurgical and Materials Data encourages post-publication debate either through letters to the editor or on an external moderated site, such as PubPeer.

PROCEDURES FOR DEALING WITH COMPLAINTS AND APPEAL

Anyone may report suspected unethical behavior or misconduct to the editors and editorial staff at any time by providing the necessary information/evidence to initiate an investigation.

Investigation

The editor / Editor-in-Chief will consult with the Section Editors / Editorial Board on decisions regarding the initiation of an investigation.
During an investigation, any evidence should be treated as strictly confidential and only made available to those strictly involved in the investigation.
The accused will always have the opportunity to respond to charges brought against them.
If it is judged at the end of the investigation that misconduct has occurred, then it will be classified as either minor or serious.

Minor misconduct

Minor misconduct will be dealt directly with those involved without involving any other parties, e.g.:

Communicating to authors/reviewers whenever a minor issue involving misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards has occurred.
A warning letter to an author or reviewer regarding fairly minor misconduct.

Major misconduct

The Editor / Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Section Editors / Editorial Board, and, when appropriate, further consultation with a small group of experts should make any decision regarding the course of action to be taken using the evidence available. The possible outcomes are as follows (these can be used separately or jointly):

Publication of a formal announcement or editorial describing the misconduct.
Informing the author's (or reviewer's) head of department or employer of any misconduct by means of a formal letter.
The formally announced retraction of publications from the journal in accordance with the Retraction Policy (see below).
A period-specific ban on submissions from a particular individual.
Referring a case to a professional organization or legal authority for further investigation and action.

When dealing with complaints and appeals, the editorial team will rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): COPE flowcharts.

RETRACTION POLICY

The infringement of the legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder, or author(s), the violation of professional ethical codes, and research misconduct, such as multiple submissions, duplicate or overlapping publication, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data and data fabrication, honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to the mixing up of samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is found subsequently to be faulty), unethical research or any major misconduct require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.

For any retracted article, the reason for retraction and who is instigating the retraction will be clearly stated in the Retraction notice. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by Metallurgical and Materials Data: in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

RESEARCH DATA POLICY

Metallurgical and Materials Data encourages/requests authors to share research data that are required for confirming the results published in the manuscript and/or enhance the published manuscript under the principle ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary. We accept supporting software applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound or video clips, large appendices, data tables, and other relevant items that cannot be included in the article.

Authors may submit data (or data sets) together with the manuscript through our journal management system. In this case, the data will be made available to reviewers and published once the manuscript is accepted for publication online (e.g. on the general-purpose data repository: Zenodo, or Dryad). Each data file will be assigned a DOI, enabling the data to be cited the same way as traditional publications. Note that these materials will not be copy-edited or typeset: their appearance and format are entirely the author's responsibility.

Alternatively, authors may deposit relevant data in a FAIR-compliant repository – institutional, disciplinary, or general-purpose. If you need assistance in finding a FAIR compliant repository, check this link: https://repositoryfinder.datacite.org/. Authors should also provide via the repository any information needed to replicate, validate, and/or reuse the results / of their study and analysis of the data. This includes details of any software, instruments, and other tools used to process the results. Where possible, the tools and instruments themselves should also be provided.

Exceptions: We recognize that openly sharing data may not always be feasible. Exceptions to open access to research data underlying publications include the following: obligation to protect results, confidentiality obligations, security obligations, the obligation to protect personal data, and other legitimate constraints. Where open access is not provided to the data needed to validate the conclusions of a publication that reports original results, authors should provide the relevant access needed to validate the conclusions to the extent their legitimate interests or constraints are safeguarded).

Ethical and security considerations

If data access is restricted for ethical or security reasons, the manuscript must include:

a description of the restrictions on the data;
what, if anything, the relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB) or equivalent said about the data sharing; and
all necessary information required for a reader or reviewer to apply for access to the data and the conditions under which access will be granted.

Data protection issues

Where human data cannot be effectively de-identified, data must not be shared in order to protect participant privacy unless the individuals have given explicit written consent that their identifiable data can be made publicly available.

In instances where the data cannot be made available, the manuscript must include:

an explanation of the data protection concern;
any intermediary data that can be de-identified without compromising anonymity;
what, if anything, the relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB) or equivalent said about data sharing; and
where applicable, all necessary information is required for a reader or peer reviewer to apply for access to the data and the conditions under which access will be granted.

In addition, data may/should be linked to from a Data Accessibility Statement within the submitted paper, which will be made public upon publication. If data is not being made available within the journal publication, a statement from the author should be provided to explain why. When depositing data for a submission, the below should be considered:

The repository the data is deposited in must be suitable for this subject and have a sustainability model.
The data must be deposited under an open license that permits unrestricted access (e.g., CC0, CC-BY). More restrictive licenses should only be used if a valid reason (e.g., legal) is present.
The deposited data must include a version that is in an open, non-proprietary format.
The deposited data must have been labeled in such a way that a 3rd party can make sense of it (e.g., sensible column headers, descriptions in a readme text file).
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, the studies must have been approved by an appropriate Ethics Committee. The identity of the research subject should be anonymized whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardians).
A ‘Data Accessibility Statement’ should be added to the submission, prior to the reference list, providing the details of the data accessibility, including the DOI linking to it. If the data is restricted in any way, reasoning should be given.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

Metallurgical and Materials Data is an Open Access journal. All its content is available free of charge. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, and search the full text of articles, as well as establish HTML links to them, without having to seek the consent of the author or publisher.

The journal does not charge any fees at the submission, reviewing, and production stages.

SELF-ARCHIVING POLICY

Authors can deposit the author’s preprint, author’s postprint (accepted version), and publisher's version (PDF) of their work in an institutional repository, subject-based and general-purpose repository, author's personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, LinkedIn, etc.), and/or departmental website prior or during the submission process, at any time after the acceptance of the manuscript and at any time after publication.

Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided and links must be made to the article's DOI and the license.

Full versions of issues are Archived at The digital repository of the National Library of Serbia: http://repozitorijum.nb.rs/repozitorijum.aspx?issn=2956-1787

Copyright and licensing

Authors retain the copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the non-exclusive right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media. Articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Authors can enter separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the published paper (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.

METADATA POLICY

The journal metadata are freely accessible to all, and freely reusable by all, under the terms of the Creative Commons Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license.

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editors and Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. Publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Acknowledgment

The publisher of Metallurgical and Materials Data is grateful to Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL) for assistance in modifying the Journal Policy. The policy was inspired by:

Principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing. Directory of Open Access Journals. https://doaj.org/apply/transparency/ (accessed 2023-01-06).

Core practices. COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics. https://publicationethics.org/core-practices (accessed 2022-12-10).

Policies. Open Research Europe. https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/about/policies (accessed 2022-11-08).

Journal Policies. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. https://www.glossa-journal.org/site/journal-policies/ (accessed 2023-01-06).