Ethical principles

Only original texts, not published in other journals, are accepted for review.

Ethical standards related to the publication process are the editor's priority. In order to counteract unfair publishing practices, the editors apply the principles set out by the COPE Committee on Publication Ethics, which are included in the COPE Code of Conduct, and by the European Association of Science Editors (EASE). These principles apply to editorial board, scientific council, authors, reviewers and publishers of the magazine.

Ethical principles applying to the editorial board
The editorial board of the journal carry out the initial evaluation and selection of articles submitted by the authors. Only the original, linguistically and methodologically correct papers are sent to further stages of the publishing process. If the initial opinion of the board is negative, the article is not sent for review and publishing. The editorial board notify the author in writing about its decision. Unpublished text, provided with relevant information, may be stored in the archives of the magazine, but shall not be used in any way without the author's consent. If the initial opinion of the board is positive, the article is sent for evaluation by two independent reviewers – the reviewing procedure is confidential and carried out in accordance with the standard of double-blind review process. The author is informed in writing about the results of all evaluations both done by the editors and the two reviewers.

At all stages of the review process of the paper received (by the editors and by the reviewers), only substantive and linguistic criteria are taken into account. The editorial board do not formulate any personal evaluations referring to the authors' nationality, religion or gender. The editorial board shall provide the authors with the possibility of reading the full content of the review; maintaining at the same time its anonymous character.

To ensure the originality and high quality of published articles, the journal uses the latest assessment procedures, including the  CrossCheck system. CrossCheck is a project submitted by CrossRef and iThenticate, which provides professional help in preventing publication of works infringing copyright or reflecting other scientific misconduct. It serves to compare documents with the world's largest database of scientific materials from various sources and numerous publishers. Papers in which borrowings from other authors are incorrectly cited or plagiarized will be rejected by the editorial board, and infringements of copyright or good scientific practice will be reported to the management of the institution employing the author.

Ethical principles applicable to authors
The author who submits a paper for publication is responsible for its quality and originality. Any form of scientific misconduct (e.g. citing the work of others without the appropriate footnote, concealing authorship or assistance from research funding institutions) will result in the rejection of the article by the editorial board. The author is also responsible for ensuring that the submitted article has never been published in the same shape before. If the paper presents a modified version of an older publication, this should be clearly indicated when sending the material. The editorial has the right to decide whether it will publish the paper or not. If so, it will be provided with information about the place and form of the first edition.
Collective works submitted for publication must have attached information on the actual number of authors, as well as their contribution to the paper (the affiliation of the authors and information on who is the author of individual parts of the paper, included theses, methodology, etc.). The author is also required to provide any information about the sources of funding for the publication, as well as the contribution of scientific or research institutions, associations and other entities to its creation. The author submitting the paper is primarily responsible for the accuracy of this information. In the case of multi-author work, each article should be accompanied by a hand-signed statement by the author that he/she agrees with the content of the work and guarantees the accuracy of the materials written by him/her.
The editorial board is obliged to remind that ghost-writing (hiding a significant contribution of an author in the creation of a publication) and guest authorship (submitting a person whose contribution to the work was negligible or non-existent) is considered as scientific misconduct, and so any identified cases of such behaviour will be revealed.  At the same time, we would like to inform you that it is the author submitting the manuscript who bears the main responsibility.
The editorial board will document any form of scientific misconduct, notably all cases of breaking and violating the ethical principles applicable in science.

Ethical principles applicable to reviewers
The reviewing procedure complies with the requirements of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, included in the guide Good practices in review procedures in science.
The reviewer should not be appointed to evaluate an article if there is any suspicion of a conflict of interest that results, for example, from cooperation or other relationships between the opinion maker and the author.
The reviewer is obliged to issue a substantive opinion on the article submitted. The opinion must not contain personal comments or value judgments not justified by substantive arguments. The evaluation done by the reviewer should include answers to questions asked in the reviewer's form (the editorial board is responsible for providing the reviewer with appropriate form). The review must end with a clear conclusion – positive or negative – regarding the publication of the reviewed article. In the event of divergent or contradictory opinions of the reviewers, the editorial board shall appoint a third reviewer or ask for the evaluation member of the scientific board of the journal specialized in a given field. The expert review obtained as a result of such a procedure is binding for the editorial board.
Review forms with the reviewers' signature and date of execution are collected in the archives of the journal.
The reviewer may not use the evaluated articles or their fragments for his/her own purposes without the author's written consent.