Ethics

PUBLICATION ETHICS

PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

With a view to ensuring scientific reliability the editorial board of CJF&A makes efforts to publish works that meet ethical norms applied in science. In accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education any cases of unreliability and dishonesty (e.g., ‘ghostwriting’ and ‘guest authorship’) identified by the editorial board will be documented and exposed by informing appropriate bodies (institutions employing authors).

Explanations of the terms ‘ghostwriting’ and ‘guest authorship’ as defined by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (source: http://www.nauka.gov.pl/):

‘Ghostwriting’ is qualified cases in which someone has made a substantial contribution to publication, without revealing his participation as one of the authors, or without being mentioned in the acknowledgments included in the publication.

‘Guest authorship’ (‘honorary authorship’) happens when someone did not contribute at all or hardly contributed to the creation of a publication; however, despite that fact his/her name is provided as an author/co-author of the publication.

In order to prevent such unfair practices each submitted article with more than one author should be accompanied by a declaration filled in and signed by the authors. The declaration is intended to eliminate cases of ‘ghostwriting’ and ‘guest authorship’ (the declaration is part of the submission form).

In the case of a submitted article which during its preparatory phase was supported financially by an external institution, the author is obliged to insert information about such a fact in the Introduction of the article.

ANTIPLAGIARISM PRACTICIES

When submitting the manuscript the author should declare that the paper is original and has not been published anywhere before and is not the subject of any qualification procedure for publication in any other journal of any other publisher. Authors must present all sources that have been used while writing the article. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain any needed permission to use material (a table, a figure, photographs, etc.) published elsewhere.

Additional element of the policy of screening for plagiarism is that the journal content is indexed in CrossCheck. It is the CrossRef initiative aimed at preventing scholarly and professional plagiarism.   

 

Duties of the Editorial Board

Peer review process

The editorial board chooses which of the articles submitted to the journal should be sent to two independent reviewers in accordance with a double-blind review. Based on the evaluations received from reviewers the editorial board decides whether the article should be accepted for publishing, rejected or returned to the author for revision.

The editorial board prepares and periodically updates the qualification criteria and a review form. The criteria and a review form are available at the journal’s website.

The editorial board do not disclose names of reviewers who evaluated specific publications.

Publication ethics

The editorial board makes efforts to publish works that meet ethical norms applied in science. In accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education any cases of unreliability and dishonesty (e.g., ‘ghostwriting’ and ‘guest authorship’) identified by the editorial board will be documented and exposed by informing appropriate bodies (institutions employing authors).

 

Duties of Reviewers

Disclosure and conflict of interest

The reviewer must sign a declaration on the non-occurrence of a conflict of interest (a conflict of interest is defined here as any direct personal relationship holding between the reviewer and the author, in particular, such relationships as kinship of the second degree, or marriage, relationships resulting from professional dependence or from any scientific cooperation conducted within two years preceding the year in which the review was made).

Standard of review

The reviewer is supposed to prepare a written review which explicitly states the conditions on which an article should be accepted for publication or informs of rejection. The review should contain clear and supporting suggestions if the amendments are needed.

Promptness

In the situation when the reviewer does not consider himself as an expert on a given topic or is not able to prepare the review in a given time they should inform the editorial board about this circumstances.

Publication ethics

 Reviewers should inform the editorial board about any detected cases of unreliability, dishonesty and unethical behaviour (e.g. ‘ghostwriting’, ‘guest authorship’, plagiarism, fabricated data).

 

Duties of Authors

Originality and plagiarism

The author has to declare that the paper is original and has not been published anywhere before and is not the subject of any qualification procedure for publication in any other journal of any other publisher. Authors must present all sources that have been used while writing the article. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain any needed permission to use material (a table, a figure, photographs, etc.) published elsewhere. 

Editorial requirements

The author should follow the editorial standards included in the Editorial requirements file. After receiving confirmation of acceptance for publishing, the author should send in a printed and signed Agreement with the author to publish an article.

Authorship of the article

The author has to declare that neither ghostwriting nor guest authorship (honorary authorship) occur in the work submitted for publication as well as indicate the percentage contribution of the authors in the creation of the work submitted for publication.

Peer review process

After the reception of the reviewers’ comments, the author is obliged to respond within a time period specified by the editorial board. Failure to meet a specified deadline will be deemed as resignation from publication.

Financial disclosure  

According to financial disclosure requirement the author has to present the information about the sources of publication funding, contributions from research institutions and other entities.

 

The journal’s ethical principles are based on Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors edited by Committee on Publication Ethics: https://publicationethics.org/