Publishing ethics

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Responsibility of the editorial staff

The editor decides which of the manuscripts sent to the journal will be published. The editor assesses a manuscript irrespective of race, gender, sexual orientation, creed or political beliefs. The decision about the acceptance of a manuscript is based exclusively on the importance, originality and clarity of the manuscript and its relevance to the journal. The editorial staff verify originality of submissions to exclude plagiarism.

The editor and editorial staff may not reveal any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone except for the authors, reviewers, publishing editors or publishers.

Unpublished manuscripts may not be used by the editor or other members of the editorial staff for their own research purposes without the author's written consent.

Responsibility of the reviewers

The reviewing process helps the editor and editorial staff to make editorial decisions, and may help the author to improve their work.

Any potential reviewer who feels insufficiently qualified to review a manuscript or knows that its quick review will not be possible should report it to the editor and withdraw from the reviewing process.

Received manuscripts are kept by the editorial staff as confidential documents. They cannot be revealed or discussed with third parties.

Reviews are written in an objective manner. Personal criticism of the author is unaccepted. In their reviews, the reviewers must support their views with objective arguments.

Reviewers should point out cases when an earlier published work related to the manuscript being reviewed has not been indicated in the manuscript or references. Reviewers are obliged to inform the editor about each case known to them personally when there is too much similarity between the text being reviewed and any other text that has already been published.

Information or ideas obtained as a result of a review must remain confidential and may not be used for personal gain. Reviewers may not review manuscripts when conflict of interests exists. A conflict of interests arises when a reviewer reviews works of authors with whom the reviewer remains in direct relations due to competitive research or close cooperation.

Obligations of authors

The author of a research study should prepare a detailed description of the study. Essential data should be accurately presented in a manuscript. A manuscript should contain sufficient amount of details and references so that other researchers could repeat the research. Conscious use of inaccurate information is unacceptable and constitutes unethical behaviour.

Authors should be prepared for potential request for access to research data used in a manuscript, if practicable. It is recommended that such data be stored (e.g. using institutional repositories), unless the data is protected by separate laws.

Only completely original works can be submitted by authors for publication. Publications that had a significant impact on the nature of the work being reviewed should also be scrupulously cited. Plagiarism is not tolerated.

A manuscript describing the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal is an unacceptable behaviour.

Authors of a manuscript are persons who made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution or interpretation of the research. All the people who made such a contribution should be named as co-authors. At the same time, ineligible persons may not be mentioned as the authors. The final version of a manuscript should be approved by all the co-authors.

All authors should reveal all forms of support which may be interpreted as having an influence on research findings. In particular, all sources of financial support for the project should be revealed.