Editorial ethics

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Editorial Board of the journal complies with the ethical standards approved by the international scientific community. The Editorial Board uses the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Editorial decision-making

The Editorial Board is responsible for making decisions which of the submitted manuscripts will be accepted for publication. The Editorial Board makes the decision regarding a publication based on the journal’s policy, taking into account the current authors’ rights legislation and avoiding defamation and plagiarism. The editorial evaluation of the manuscript is independent of race, ethnicity and gender, religion, citizenship, or political views of the authors. Decision whether to publish an article or not is based exclusively on its scientific relevance, originality, clarity of presentation, and correspondence of the topic to journal’s specialization.

Confidentiality

All the Editorial Board members are responsible for disclosing any information about the submitted manuscript to individuals other than authors, peer reviewers, potential peer reviewers, or publishers.

Conflict of interest

The unpublished materials disclosed in the submitted manuscript cannot be used by the Editorial Board members for their own research without written permission from the authors.

Plagiarism, data falsification, and error correction

In case of an ethical complaint or a conflict situation regarding the manuscript or the published article, the Editorial Board should undertake reasonable countermeasures, together with the publisher, to restore the violated rights. If errors are revealed, the Editorial Board should assist in publishing corrections or refutations. Each reported case of unethical behavior will be considered, even if submitted several years after the article had been published.

The editorial board is guided by the following policy regarding the  retraction of publications (download .pdf).

REVIEWER RESPONSIBILITIES

Contribution to editorial decision-making

The review process is aimed at facilitating the Editorial Board in editorial decision-making and may also help the author to improve the manuscript.

Timeliness (promptness)

If a reviewer selected by the Editorial Board does not feel competent for reviewing the manuscript or feels that it is not possible to meet the deadline of the review, he/she should promptly notify the Editorial Board and decline to perform the review.

Confidentiality

Any material under review should be regarded as confidential. The material should not be shared or discussed with anyone outside the review process unless approved by the editor.

Objectivity standards

Reviewing should be objective. Subjective critique of the author is not allowed. Reviewer’s opinion should be stated clearly and supported by arguments.

Confirmation of the resources

The reviewer is responsible for determining the cases when the relevant publications have not been cited in the manuscript or listed in the References section. Furthermore, the reviewer should determine whether all the statements, conclusions, and ideas borrowed from other publications had the corresponding references. If the reviewer detects that the manuscript under review significantly coincides with or is similar to another known publication, he/she should notify the Editorial Board.

Disclosure of information and conflict of interest

Non-disclosable information and ideas must be regarded as confidential and cannot be used for one’s personal advantage. Experts should not review manuscripts if they have any possible conflict of interest due to competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with the manuscript authors, as well as companies or institutions related to the manuscript.

AUTHOR RESPONSIBILITIES

Credibility and study standards

If the manuscript is based on an original study, the authors must submit the reliable results of their work and an objective discussion of significance of the study. The manuscript should contain all the key data, accurate description of the study details and references in order to ensure reproducibility of the results. Data falsification or the intentionally invalid statements in the manuscript are regarded as unethical and are inappropriate.

Data availability

The Editorial Board can request the authors to submit raw data in addition to the manuscript. The author must be ready to provide public access to these data, provided that public access to the data violates neither confidentiality of the research participants nor rights of an individual or a company owning these data.

Originality, plagiarism, and citing the sources

Authors must submit only original studies. Authors must properly and accurately acknowledge the work of others. Publications that had significantly contributed to preparing the study or underlied its design should also be acknowledged.

Multiple, duplicate, or competing publications

In general, materials describing the contents of the same study should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the manuscript to more than one journal is considered unethical and inappropriate. Copyrighted materials that have already been published cannot be submitted to the journal. Furthermore, materials under consideration by the Editorial Board must not be submitted to be published elsewhere. When submitting an article, the author must inform the editor about all the previous presentations of the study that can be regarded as a duplicate publication. The author must notify the editor if the manuscript contains the information published by the author in previous reports or submitted for publication elsewhere. In this case, the new article should contain references to the previously published material.

Authorship criteria

Authorship is limited to the individuals that have made a significant contribution to 1) conception and design of the study; data acquisition and interpretation; 2) preparing the first draft of the article or editing the article to improve its quality; and 3) final approval of the manuscript for publication. Each author must participate in the study to an extent sufficient to take public responsibility for the corresponding part of the content of his/her article. Involvement consisting in funding or selecting material for the article is not sufficient reason for inclusion in the list of authors. General guidance of the research group is not sufficient for including in the list of authors.

All the authors must approve the final manuscript and its submission to the journal for publication.

Conflict of interest

When submitting an article to the journal, all authors must sign the form disclosing financial or any other substantive conflict of interest that can be considered to have influenced the study results or their interpretation. All funding sources of the submitted studies must be specified.

INVOLVEMENT IN THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

After the peer review process, the article can be sent to the author for improvement. Authors should be actively involved in the review process: promptly answer the questions and, if necessary, correct the manuscript in accordance with the reviewer’s comments.