Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Ethnologia Polona is a peer-reviewed journal using double-blind peer review. We uphold the highest standards of publication ethics and take necessary measures against publication malpractice including plagiarism, falsification of data or misuse of third party material. Our ethics statements are based on the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics, as well as on the Code of Conduct for Journal Publisher. In order to provide our readers with transparency as to our ethics policy, we provide the following principles of Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

We expect all authors to read this statement before submitting any manuscript to this journal. These principles detail the responsibilities of all the parties involved in the publication process – editors, reviewers, authors and publisher - as well as the procedures for managing potential disputes.

Duties of Editors

1. Editors ensure that the evaluation of submitted manuscripts is based exclusively on their academic merits. The main criteria of a manuscript evaluation are: the study’s quality, clarity, innovative character, potential contribution to anthropological knowledge and relevance to the journal’s aim and scope. Editors assess submitted manuscripts regardless of their author’s gender, race, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious beliefs, political opinion or institutional affiliation. Their decision with regard to manuscript publication must be independent of any agencies outside the journal itself and government policies. The Editor-in-Chief has supervisory authority over the journal’s content and the editorial process.

2. Editors and the members of the editorial board assure the confidentiality of the whole publication process. This means that information about a submitted manuscript is viewed only by the author(s), reviewers, editors, and the publisher. It will not be disclosed to any third party outside the journal’s review process. All our editors have signed a non-disclosure agreement that legally prohibits sharing confidential information. The submitted research findings will not be disclosed until they are published in an open forum.

3. Editors and members of the editorial board take necessary measures to prevent conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest occur when conflicting or competing interests could bias editorial decisions.  By this term we refer to situations in which personal, financial, academic, political or religious considerations can affect objectivity:
-personal conflicts: editors guarantee that manuscripts will not be evaluated and edited by any editor who has collaborative, competitive or any other relation with any of the authors or institutions connected to the manuscript. In a case when an editor submits his/her own manuscript to the journal, full anonymity of the publication process will be ensured. The editor will not have access to records of his/her manuscript and the identity of the peer reviewers engaged in the publication process. However, members of the editorial team are discouraged form submitting their own articles to the journal; 
-financial conflicts: editors guarantee that they will not derive any financial benefits from a decision to publish or to reject a manuscript (for example salary, grants from a company interested in the results, honoraria, intellectual property rights);
-non-financial conflicts: unpublished materials submitted to the journal will not be used for the editors’ research purposes without the written consent of the author. In addition, if the manuscript qualifies for publication on the basis of its academic merits it will not be rejected even if it touches on controversial topics or opposes the editor’s worldview.

4. In case of any allegation of publication misconduct editors will undertake necessary measures to investigate and rectify it according to guidelines provided in the COPE Flowcharts and the relevant legal basis. Every reported unethical act of the publication process will be investigated, even if it is detected a long time after publication. The measures undertaken will correspond to the scale of the case in consideration, and may include publication of a clarification, retraction, correction, apologies or other relevant note in the journal, and in extreme cases legal action. Editors may withdraw a publication in the following cases:
- plagiarism: the paper presents someone else's work or ideas as its own without full acknowledgement; or there are no proper agreements, cross-referencing, or justification for using them in the paper concerned;  
- honest error: the evidence presented in the paper is based on miscalculation or experimental error; 
- data fabrication: data or results reported in the paper are invented
- unethical research: the research violates ethical norms (for example: the protection of its participants including humans and non-humans; confidentiality of research participants; research was conducted without participants' consent to take part in the study or awareness of its nature).

5. The Editor-in-Chief has the final decision about manuscript publication. This decision is based on the editors’ validation of the paper and the comments of at least two reviewers as well as legal requirements regarding plagiarism, libel and copyright infringement. The reviewing process is double-blind, which means that neither the author nor the reviewers know each other's identities. Editors must ensure a fair blind peer-review process and prevent any potential conflict of interests between the author and the editorial/review personnel. The manuscript should be prepared in a way which does not reveal the author’s personal data. Reviews are made by scholars who are considered experts in the field.

Duties of Reviewers

1. Reviewers participate in the decision-making process regarding the manuscript under consideration. They may:
- accept the work without requiring any significant changes in the manuscript;
- help author(s) improve their manuscripts by giving comments and guidelines according to which the manuscripts should be revised;
- reject manuscript when they have justified concerns about the paper’s academic merits, authenticity or the ethics of the research on which it is based.

2. Reviewers should be assigned appropriately to their area of interest and expertise. A selected reviewer should notify the editor if he/she feels unqualified to review the paper or will not manage to do it within the determined timeframe.

3. Reviewers are obliged to treat the received manuscripts as confidential documents. They must not be disclosed or discussed with anyone except those authorized by the editor. Moreover, the knowledge gained during the peer review process must not be used for the personal advantage of the reviewer. Reviewers must notify the editor in case of any potential conflict of interest with authors or institutions involved in elaborating the paper. They must resign from evaluation of a manuscript if they cannot provide an unbiased review.

4. Reviewers are obliged to conduct reviews in an ethical and accountable manner. They should provide written, explicit comments regarding the manuscript, based on constructive and informative critique of the submitted work. Comments must be presented in a clear, coherent form and supported by appropriate arguments. Comments should be objective and concern the academic value of the paper.

Duties of Authors

1. Authors must a submit manuscript that is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Submitting the same paper simultaneously to more than one journal is an infringement of publication ethics.

2. Authors must ensure that the article is their original work and that all references to other research and the contribution of other authors are clearly stated and detailed in the paper. This means that any works or words of any other researcher  have to be adequately quoted or cited. By submitting the article to the journal the author confirms that the manuscript represents the author’s contribution and has not been wholly or partly copied from someone’s else work.

3. All co-authors should be included in the paper, approve its final version and agree to its submission for publication. 

4. Authors should also identify other relevant forms of support and commitments. Information about all sources of funding for research must be included in the acknowledgments' section of the submitted manuscript (including the grant number or other reference number if applicable).

5. When relevant, authors must also state that the research protocol employed was approved by the relevant ethics committees and institutions.

6. If the author is aware of any possible conflict of interest that may influence research results or interpretation of manuscript he/she is obliged to notify the editors at the earliest stage possible. If the author is aware of the possible conflict of interest at the stage of submitting the manuscript, he/she should include it in the form of a statement in the manuscript.

7. In case of discovery of a significant error or inaccuracy in their work, authors are obliged to report it to the editors and cooperate with them during the procedure of rectifying the paper.

8. Authors should meet reporting standards in order to successfully publish their work. They should clearly describe the source and methods of obtaining data. The fabrication of results and making of dishonest or inaccurate statements is seen as unethical behaviour and may result in the rejection or retraction of a manuscript or publication.

9. Authors must also follow the peer-review process guidelines. They should prepare the manuscript in a way that does not reveal their identity. They should prepare two versions of the text. The first version should include all the information about the authors and the second version should be fully anonymised. Authors are also obliged to stay in touch with the editors and, whenever possible, promptly respond to their requests. If revision of the manuscript is necessary, the author should acknowledge all the reviewer’s comments and revise the paper accordingly in the determined time period. More about the publication process

Duties of the Publisher

The publisher must ensure the best scholarly practice and communication, as well as editorial freedom and autonomy. The publisher is obliged to monitor the implementation of ethical standards in the publication process and prevent publication misconduct. If publication misconduct is detected, the publisher should collaborate with the editors in taking appropriate measures to clarify the situation. There are no fees to download articles, nor are there any fees to submit, review or publish articles