Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement of POLONICA Journal

For all parties involved in the act of publishing (the author, the editors, the peer reviewer) it is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior. The ethics statements for our journal are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

1. Duties of the Editors

Fair play

Submitted manuscripts are evaluated for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The Editor‑in‑Chief and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an Editors` own research without the explicit written consent of the author(s).

Publication decisions

The Editor‑in‑Chief of Polonica is responsible for deciding which of the submitted articles should be published. The Editor-in-Chief may be guided by the policies of the journal’s Editorial Board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor‑in‑Chief may confer with other members of the Editorial Board or reviewers in making this decision.

1. Duties of peer reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

The peer reviewer assists the Editor‑in‑Chief in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communication with the author, may also assist the author in improving the manuscript.

Promptness

Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its timely review will be impossible should immediately notify the Editor‑in‑Chief so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with other except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable. Referees should express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. A reviewer should also call to the Editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published data of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider evaluating manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors.

1. Duties of authors

Reporting standards

Authors reporting results of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Originality and plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Parallel submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of a manuscript

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be named in an Acknowledgement section.

The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list of the manuscript, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

All authors should disclosure in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the journal’s Editor-in-Chief and cooperate with him/her to either retract the paper or to publish an appropriate erratum.

More situations (COPE standards)

Evaluating and accepting papers rules / reviewing procedure

With a view to obey to good editorial practices and to the Minister of Science and Higher Education’s statement from the 29^th of May of 2013 referring to criteria and procedures of evaluating scientific journals, we inform that the journal POLONICA applies the reviewing procedures compatible with the norms presented in the above-mentioned statement, i.e.:

• at least two independent reviewers are appointed to assess each paper; both of them are affiliated to scientific institutions different from the author’s institution;

• the authors and reviewers are not informed about each other’s identity (a double-blind review process) [...];

• written review includes unequivocal recommendation to accept or reject the paper for publication.

(in: Annex to the Minister of Science and Higher Education’s statement from the 29^th of May of 2013 “Criteria and procedures of evaluating scientific journals”, p. 6–7)

Procedure ensuring the originality of scientific papers

Moreover, in accordance to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education’s recommendations, we inform that:

• The author is obliged to reveal all the persons who have contributed in any which way to the final version of the paper. This proceeding is designed to avoid the situation called ghostwriting, i.e. concealing the participation in the work on the paper of persons different from the ones that appear officially in the paper’s headline. Every co-author of the paper should be named together with his institutional affiliation. An information specifying who was the author of the conception, assumptions, methodology etc. used during the preparation of the paper should be provided too. If the authors have been helped by third persons or institutions, these should be acknowledged in a footnote.

• Including persons who have not contributed to the paper among the co-authors (the so-called guest authorship) is an example of another procedure which is conflicting with scientific honesty.

• If the paper is related to any research project financed from a grant awarded by the National Science Centre or other institution or association, the author is obliged to give this information in a footnote together with the number of the grant.

• The person who sends the paper to the editorial board is fully responsible for providing truthful information mentioned above.

Each author receives one copy of the volume in which his / her paper has been published. Off-prints of papers are not provided.