Statement on Publication Ethics (Publication Ethics Guidelines)
The statement of the journal entitled Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] on ethical standards and publishing malpractice has been prepared on the basis of the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) which are available on the website of https://publicationethics.org/, and the guidelines of the Elsevier publishing house.
The publication of the article in the journal subject to its review is an important element of the development of science. It also reflects the quality of the works prepared by the authors and the institutions they represent. Therefore, the Board of the journal presents these standards of ethical behaviour applicable to all parties taking part in the publishing process, that are authors, editors, scientific council, reviewers, secretaries and the persons from the circles associated with the journal. The objective of the Board of Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] is the continuous improvement of the journal through publishing top-quality scientific articles based on fair and ethical procedures for selecting and reviewing the submitted works.
Any and all persons taking part in the editorial process are obliged to observe the current legal status in the scope of copyrights, personal data protection and other common law regulations.
Obligations of the Editorial Council (the Scientific Council)
The Editorial Council (the Scientific Council) shall be composed of Polish and foreign representatives of science (the scientists affiliated with foreign scientific undertakings should constitute at least 50% of the composition of the Editorial Council) who hold at least the university degree of doktor [Doctor of Philosophy] and have the scientific achievements dating after being awarded the degree of doktor which constitute the author’s significant contribution to the development of a given scientific discipline. The Editorial Council (the Scientific Council) shall set the general direction for the research dealt with in the journal, and its tasks shall include in particular the following:
setting - in cooperation with the Board - the direction for the research undertaken by the journal and monitoring its performance;
monitoring the scientific level of the journal and its originality on an international scale;
taking care of popularisation of the results of the research published in Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] and promoting the journal in its scientific circles;
giving the opinions on individual cases when requested by the Board.
Obligations of the Editorial Board (Board)
Each editor shall be authorised to act on behalf of the Board, excluding the cases when the Publication Rules in Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] and these Publication Ethic Guidelines reserve some competence to the Chief Editor.
Decision on publication
The decision on forwarding the text for factual review is made by the Board after verifying whether the text fulfils formal requirements (cf. Publication Rules in Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] ), these Ethics Guidelines and whether it is in compliance with the profile of the subject matter of the journal. The text may be also rejected by the Board if its originality or scientific (factual) quality raise any serious and justified doubts. After the Board decides that the submitted text meets the criteria for factual review, the double-blind review is applied (the authors do not know the reviewers’ name and vice versa - the reviewers do not know the identity of the authors and other reviewers).
The decision about the publication of the work is made by the Board after the text receives the positive evaluation in the review procedure (its individual stages are described in Publication Rules in Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism]). If the need be, the Board may ask the Editorial Council (the Scientific Council) or its selected members to give the opinion in any individual case. The final decision about forwarding the text for review or its publication is made by the Chief Editor.
The submitted text may be rejected by the Board at any stage of its preparation for its publication if any lack of scholarly integrity by any of the authors is found or if any other ethics guidelines specified in these Publication Ethics Guidelines are violated.
Impartiality and fairness
Race, sex, sexual orientation, faith, origin, nationality or political beliefs of the authors of the text submitted for publication shall not influence their evaluation by the Chief Editor and other editors.
Confidentiality
Any and all information concerning the author which is held by the Board shall be confidential.
The editors shall observe the confidentiality obligation in the scope of any and all information connected with the submission and review of the texts. The information about the submitted work can be disclosed by the Chief Editor, the members of the Editorial Board and the Editorial Council only and exclusively to the author(s) of the text, reviewers, prospective reviewers, editorial consultants (e.g. translators) and the publisher. The reviewers shall have the access to the information connected with the submission of the text for publication in the scope determined by the applied double-blind review. The persons listed hereinabove who have received the information about the work shall not use the results, data, statements, opinions, analyses, etc. included therein until the moment of publication of a given article.
The information concerning the texts and their authors shall not be discussed with or disclosed to any third parties.
Disclosure of the conflict of interests
The editors shall observe the rule of objectivity. It is unacceptable that their personal beliefs or professional or institutional ties influence the opinion whether the text is or is not suitable for printing. Furthermore, they shall not use the information included in the submitted article for their own research purposes without the prior express consent given by its authors. If any conflict of interests is found which arises from the competition, cooperation or other relations with any of the authors or the institutions represented by them, then the decision on admitting the text to the review procedure and publication shall be made by one of the remaining editors or a member of the Editorial Council (the Scientific Council).
Claims by third parties
If there are any claims filed with the Board of journal Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] that the scientific publication ethics guidelines are violated, then the author(s) of the text submitted for publication shall be informed in writing about the claims with the request that they take a position on them. The failure to provide the answer or the answer which raises justified doubts shall result in sending the information about the case to the institutions that the authors are affiliated with and/or cooperate with.
Appeal procedure
If the author decides to appeal against the decision that the text is not forwarded for review or its rejected as a result of the negative review, the final decision on that case shall be made by the Chief Editor. After consultations with other editors and reviewers of a given work, the Chief Editor may change the earlier decision (provided that the requirement of obtaining two positive external reviews is in each case binding upon the Chief Editor).
Text correction
Without the consent of the author, the Board may make corrections in the text in the scope of inflection, syntax, orography and punctuation, as well as in the manner of referring to the literature in the footnotes and bibliography. Other changes can be made in the text intended for publication only when they are approved by the author.
Withdrawal of the text
If any factual error is found in the text or it is disclosed that even a part of the text has been prepared in violation of the author’s obligations stipulated in this Publication Ethics Guidelines (e.g. plagiarism or the so-called double publication) after the publication, then the Board shall make a relevant statement in that scope published on the website of the journal, and the text shall be withdrawn as far as the existing technical possibilities allow.
The decision about the withdrawal of the article shall be made by the Chief Editor.
Obligations of the Board in case of violation of any third parties’ rights
The Board shall be ready to publish any corrections, explanations, apologies, as well as to withdraw the publication (as far as the existing technical possibilities allow) in case of discovering the violation of copyrights (plagiarism, in particular), defamation or another unfair use of any third parties’ scientific achievements.
Author’s obligations
Requirements for submitted works
When submitting their work to Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism], the authors are obliged to attach the Author’s Statement to the text, in which Statement they confirm that they have read and observed these Publication Ethics Guidelines, and the text does not violate any third parties’ copyrights and has not been published or intended for publication in another journal. The authors shall be also obliged to disclose the existing conflicts of interests and sources of financing which may influence the content of the publication.
The text submission procedure, guidelines in the scope of formal requirements for preparation of the text and other elements of the publication, as well as the guidelines for notes and bibliography are available on the website of the journal.
Originality
The authors may present only their own original texts for publication. Otherwise, the work shall not be accepted for publication, and if such a fact is discovered after the publication - it may be withdrawn. Any form of plagiarism shall be prohibited, of which plagiarising the achievements, expressions, data, theoretical concepts or conclusions of other authors, or autoplagiarism consisting in repeated publication of the passages of own texts published earlier as the new works. It is also prohibited to send the text to other journals when the text has been submitted for publication in Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism].
The published text shall not be published in other sources without the written consent given by the Chief Editor and/or the Publishing House of the Wrocław University.
It is acceptable to publish a reprint or a translation of an article published earlier in Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism], and in such a case, that fact needs to be notified and the earlier consent of the Board is necessary. In such a situation, the publication should include a relevant note in that scope, and the author is obliged to submit the consent of the owner of the copyrights to the original version of the article given in writing.
Authorship of the text
The authors of the publication may be only the persons who have had a significant influence on the formulation of the concept, assumptions, research methods and development of the research idea. In the case of joint authorship, the authors shall be obliged to define the type and the scope of work contributed by each of the authors under the text. The authors shall be obliged to disclose the names of all persons that have contributed to the preparation of the article. The names and the description of the roles of the persons who participated in the preparation of the publication but cannot be considered its authors may be given in a part entitled “Acknowledgements” attached to the article.
The liability for the violation of the copyrights to the text shall be assumed by the author submitting it.
Scholarly integrity
The authors shall be obliged to present the results of their work in a transparent, reliable and fair manner. The publication of untrue or unverified information is unethical and unacceptable.
Particular forms of lack of scholarly integrity are ghostwriting and guest authorship:
ghostwriting occurs when the authors of the work do not credit a person who made a significant contribution to the creation of the publication - the said person has not been listed as one of the authors;
the unethical conduct known as guest authorship occurs when the author’s contribution is very small or the author has not contributed to the work at all but the said author is mentioned as the co-author of the publication.
The key criterion for the evaluation of the submitted text is the objectivity of analyses and the presentation of the research problem and the method of its development which is beyond any doubts and is verifiable by others. Untrue statements, falsified research results, data manipulation are considered as unethical and are not accepted.
The Board represents that the authors of the publication are fully liable for it, and that any and all discovered cases of lack of scholarly integrity shall be made public.
Any discovered signs and cases of the lack of scholarly integrity shall be made public and the information about them shall be transferred to relevant entities (the institutions hiring the authors, scientific associations, etc.).
Cited sources
In each case, when any statements, research results or data developed by other authors are cited in the text, such a passage should be annotated and/or placed as a quote. The authors should prepare the text based on a relevant literature on the subject, which is of key significance to the presentation of the research problem. The information obtained during a conversation or correspondence with any third parties may be cited in the text only after obtaining an express written consent of such persons.
The authors should provide the sources of presented data and cited views. The publications or words of other authors require appropriate quotation. The authors should also provide any and all inspirations which contributed to the creation of the work.
The authors shall be obliged to appropriately mark the passages quoted indirectly after another author. The situation when the author cites the publications that the author has not actually and personally read but the note made by the author alleges that the author has read them shall be also considered as the sign of lack of scholarly integrity.
Results of the research
The authors shall not publish or make available the personal data collected during the research without a written consent issued by a given person or their legal representative.
Disclosure of the conflict of interests
The evidence of the author’s ethical conduct and the highest editorial standards is the transparency of the information about the entities contributing to the creation of the publication (factual, actual and financial contribution, etc.).
When submitting the text, the authors shall be obliged to disclose any potential conflict of interests (of financial or other nature) which may influence the content of the submitted publication.
It is also necessary to notify of any and all sources of financing for scientific research as well as any other type of support for the preparation of the publication.
Errors in publication
If the authors find any error or inaccuracy in the work after its publication, they shall immediately notify the Board thereof to have it corrected, to enable the publication of the correction or to enable the withdrawal of the text.
Reviewers’ obligations
Review guidelines
Each scientific article submitted for publication is reviewed by two independent external reviewers. The double-blind procedure adopted by journal Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] guarantees that the author and the reviewers do not know the identities of one another. The authors have the right to read the anonymised results of the reviews.
The reviewers appointed by the Board of journal Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] are obliged to inform the Board that they do not give the opinion on the text due to the lack of relevant qualifications or time. In such a case, the Board shall appoint another reviewer within 14 days of being notified of the refusal to prepare the review.
The reviewer of the text submitted for journal Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] may received the remuneration for that after prior arrangements of its terms and conditions with the Publishing House of the Wrocław University.
Text evaluation criteria
When evaluating the text, the reviewers undertake to act with the utmost diligence and to follow the principle of improving the quality of science. The basic obligation of the reviewer is the objective evaluation of the text. The criticism arising from personal reasons is inappropriate. Any and all comments, evaluations and suggestions should be specified in a clear manner and supported with arguments.
The procedure of reviewing the articles in the journal is based on the recommendations of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education published in the document entitled Dobre praktyki w procedurach recenzyjnych w nauce [Good practices in review procedures in science] (https://www.archiwum.nauka.gov.pl/g2/oryginal/2014_02/307f933b1a75d6705a4406d5452d6dbf.pdf).
The review procedure should take into account the following criteria: scientific nature of the submitted text; originality of conducted research; manner of achievement of scientific objectives and clear presentation of the research problem; proper use of the literature on the subject; adequate justification of statements and conclusions, compliance with the profile of the subject matter of the journal.
The detailed guidelines of the review procedure adopted by the journal are included in the Publication Rules in Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] available on the website of the journal in the tab entitled “Dla autorów” [For authors].
Confidentiality
The reviewers are obliged to observe the confidentiality obligation in the scope of any and all unpublished works and material related thereto. The research results, data, opinions, statements included in the text submitted for publication cannot be used by the reviewer in the reviewer’s own research until the publication of the article.
Reviewers’ reliability
All reviewers need to be recognised specialists in the area to which the article refer, holding at least the university degree of doktor [Doctor of Philosophy]. During the preparation of the opinion, the reviewers are obliged to make every effort to reliably and objectively evaluate the value of the reviewed work. The reviewers comments and opinions which are returned to the authors should be impartial, concise and precise.
If the reviewer thinks that the reviewer does not have sufficient qualifications to evaluate a given work, the reviewer should refuse to prepare its review.
Time limit for preparation of the review
The Board of Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] expects the submission of the review within two months of accepting that task for performance. Before accepting the text for review, the reviewer should diligently assess the possibilities of preparing the review in the set time limit with taking into account the reviewer’s other professional obligations. If the reviewer needs additional time to give the opinion on the work, the reviewer shall immediately notify such a delay to any of the editors. The reviewers can also refuse to evaluate the work without giving any specific reasons.
Disclosure of the conflict of interests
The reviewers are selected from outside the unit with which the authors of the article are affiliated and they cannot be in the conflict of interests or in close personal or professional relations with the authors (subordination, blood relationships, direct scientific cooperation within the last two years preceding the preparation of the review).
If the reviewer thinks that giving the opinion on the text collides with the reviewer’s interest, the reviewer shall be obliged not to undertake the said activity. The conflict of interests may be connected with the issues in the scope of competence, finances and cooperation - personal or within the institution. The reviewer shall not use the information included in the reviewed text for the reviewer’s own purposes.
Originality
If any misuses have been identified in relation to the third parties’ intellectual property when reading the works, the reviewer shall be obliged to notify the Board of that. Having examined the case, the Chief Editor shall make the final decision concerning the publication or rejection of the text.
The reviewer shall inform the Board of any suspicion of ghostwriting, guest authorship and/or plagiarism or the so-called auto-plagiarism by a person submitting the text for publication with the specification of a passage/passages of the text which raise doubts.
Cited sources
The reviewer should identify any and all sources and publications which are important in the reviewer’s opinion and have not been included or cited in the work and shall inform the author of that.
Comments for authors
The reviewers shall provide the authors and the Board with their comments trusting that their joint activities will improve the quality of the evaluated work. The reviewer shall be obliged to provide the authors - via the agency of the Board - with clear, constructive and detailed comments, also in the case of the work which does not qualify for printing in the reviewer’s opinion. It is unacceptable that the comments are restricted only to informing the authors about the negative conclusions of the review without specifying the grounds for making such a decision.
Procedure in cases of suspicion of plagiarism, autoplagiarism, guest authorship and ghostrwitting
Any form of plagiarism is an unethical practice and is not accepted.
If there are any suspicions of plagiarism, the Board of journal Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] shall apply the verification procedure with the participation of the reviewers and the person submitting the text.
If it is confirmed that any text, statements, research results, data are illegally used, the author of the article submitted for publication shall be informed about the rejection of the text.
If it is found that the suspicions of plagiarism are justified, the notification is sent to the institution(s) with which the author cooperates and/or is affiliated.
In the case of finding the so-called autoplagiarism, that is when the author includes the passages of the author’s own text published earlier in the article submitted for publication without providing relevant information, the secretary of the Board - acting upon the authorisation granted by the Chief Editor and upon the consent of the Editorial Board of journal Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem [Studies on Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism] - informs the author(s) in writing about the refusal to publish the article due to the lack of the original nature of analyses.
The cases of guest authorship and ghostwriting are considered as unethical and are not accepted. If the suspicions of guest authorship and ghostwriting are found to be justified, the author of the article submitted for publication is informed about the rejection of the text due to the existing legal defects. The case is notified to the institution(s) with which the author cooperates and/or is affiliated.
Board secretaries’ obligations
The Board secretaries who act on behalf and upon the authorisation of the members of the Editorial Board shall deal with the correspondence with the authors and the reviewers. The secretaries shall be entitled to verify the formal requirements of the text and undertake to observe the confidentiality obligation in the scope of the information made available to them within the editorial process. If the author has any reservations as to the secretary’s decision, the author may appeal against it to the Board.
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