Publishing Ethics

The Science Journal of NBI-Technologies is committed to upholding international standards of publication ethics that are presented, in particular in recommended guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

The prevention of unethical publication practices (malpractice, stating unreliable information and other forms of research misconduct), the ensuring the high quality of academic publications, public acceptance of an author’s research results are the responsibilities of the editor or any editorial staff, the author, a reviewer, publishers, as well as institutions involved in the publication operation. All the aforementioned ones are required to follow ethical standards, norms and regulations and to take all rational measures to prevent their violation.

PUBLICATION DECISIONS

The editor is responsible for

- further development of the journal;

- abidance by the principle on freedom of expression;

- striving for meeting requirements of readership and authors

- elimination of business and political influence on decision making about publications;

- making decisions based on the principle of justice and fairness, ensuring transparency at all stages of editor’s activities;

- withholding the information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than corresponding authors, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate;

- evaluating manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy of authors;

- making decision about publication materials following the spectrum of criteria such as relevance to the journal’s scope and content, topicality, novelty and scientific significance of a submitted manuscript; language clarity; scientific certainty of research results and completeness of conclusions;

- accepting all rational measures for ensuring the high quality of publication materials and data privacy protection. If a published paper is subsequently found to have errors (contextual, grammatical, stylistic or any other ones) or major flaws, the editor should take responsibility for promptly correcting the written record in the journal. The editor assures that all measures will be taken to eliminate errors.

- taking into consideration reviewers’ recommendations for acceptance or rejection for all manuscripts they receive. The editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published;

- justification of a final decision on acceptance or rejection;

- providing the author of the peer-reviewed article with the opportunity to explicit an authorial research standpoint;

- preserving the decision on acceptance in case of rotations in the editorial staff;

- supporting discussions and giving the opportunity for expressing opposing opinions;

- not using information contained in unpublished articles for editor’s research purposes.

Author responsibilities

Authors acknowledge to having submitted to The Science Journal of NBI-Technologies

- to submit only original articles;

- to guarantee that textual or graphic information publications/submissions having been published by the author prior or by other authors is cited ethically and to present the justification of inclusion of the aforementioned material through a written permission in the usage. There must be full and prominent disclosure of the original source; otherwise it is regarded as plagiarism;

- to present an accurate account of the work performed and original data obtained. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper avoiding private sources, without written permission. The authors should not give false information or fabrication results;

- to guarantee that duplicate or redundant publications/submissions have not occurred (the application letter should contain the information that the article is to be published). If the submitted manuscript builds on previously published articles, authors are encouraged to enclose citations and show the difference between the new submission and the prior printed articles and indicate the contribution to the paper. Submission to more than one journal is considered unethical.

- to follow the ethical standards whilst criticizing and commenting in regard to other authors’ research work;

- to observe the principles of bioethics in research work with animals in testing;

- to inform immediately the editorial board or the publisher about the glaring error in the published paper;

- to ensure the evidence of the correctness of the submitted article to the editorial board or the publisher and to correct errors if third parties inform the publisher;

- to enlist all co-authors of the article.

The author has the right to appeal against the editorial board’s decision in line with the established procedures (indicated in the appendix to the part “Reviewing”)

Reviewer responsibilities

The reviewer giving opinion on the scientific merit of the paper submitted to The Science Journal of NBI-Technologies is invited to provide the following:

- to give objective and impassionate decisions;

- to ensure confidentiality policies, i.e. manuscripts must not be shown or discussed with others, except as authorized by the editor;

- not to use the information obtained in the course of expertize for self-profit;

- to notify the Editor-in-Chief and to excuse himself from the review process if any expert feels unqualified to review the research reported in the manuscript and knows that he cannot meet the deadline;

- to express opinions based on factual information and prove decisions adopted;

- to attract the Editor-in-Chief’s attention to significant or fractional similarity of the manuscript with any other paper, as well as the absence of references to ideas, conclusions and arguments in the papers published by the author seeking submission or other authors;

- to include specific opinions on the paper suggestions for its improvement;

- not to use the unpublished manuscript for private research gain.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The potential conflict of interest ought to be avoided in the process of reviewing and publishing the submitted manuscript. Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial, scientific or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (bias) or might appear to influence, his or her actions (such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). 

To prevent the conflict of interest and according to the ethical rules of the journal each party involved in the publishing process is required to comply with the following guidance.

The editor should:

- appoint another expert referee in case if there is a conflict of interest between the initially appointed reviewer and the manuscript author;

- ask all the parties for information about the potential competing interest that may arise in the publishing process;

- make a decision on publishing the information from the author’s letter concerning the conflict of scientific or/and financial interest in case the information is not confidential and can influence the estimation of the published paper by the reader’s or scientific community;

- ensure the publication of a correction if the relevant information about the conflict of interest arises after the publication of the article.

The author should:

- mention all known and potential sources of the conflict of interest in his/her covering letter;

- disclose the employment, institutional affiliations and the source of research funding;

- confirm the absence of the conflict of interest in the cover letter.

The reviewer should:

- inform the editor-in-chief about the presence of the conflict of interest (double bindings, competing interests) and recuse himself / herself from reviewing the manuscript.

VIOLATION

If the violation of publication ethics occurs there must be initiated an obligatory investigation no matter whether it is on the part of the editor, the author or the reviewer. It expands both on published articles and unpublished manuscripts from the date of publishing the document. The Editorial Board should demand an explanation without appealing to the individuals that might have the conflict of interest with the parties involved.

If the material containing errors was published it should be immediately corrected in the form available for the readers and index systems.

Appendix 1

The standard format of a cover letter

Dear authors! Submitting to The Science Journal of NBI-Technologies enclose a cover letter, please. The body of the cover letter should contain the following information:

- information about the author (authors)

- the insurance of the article originality, absence unreliable information and plagiarism;

- the commitment not to submit the manuscript to another journal;

- presence / absence of the potential conflict of interest with the editorial team;

- information about the research funding, noting the confidentiality or the essentiality of publication;

- information for the section Acknowledgments if any;

- the author’s consent to follow the principles in the section Publication Ethics of NBI-Technologies.