Ethical rules concerning publication in “Studia Pastoralne” are based on the following standards: A code of ethics for researchers developed by the Ethics Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences ((https://instytucja.pan.pl/index.php/kodeks-etyki-pracownika-naukowego); Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE: www.publicationethics.org); Publishing Ethics Resources Committee (PERK - Elsevier: https://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics).

According to these guidelines, the following entities engaged in publishing work are obliged to respect ethical norms in the process of publishing articles: authors, editors (theme, content and linguistics), scientific council, reviewers, and a publisher.

1. Responsibility and authors’ rights

An author of a publication is an individual who made a significant contribution to its concept, execution and a final interpretation of data. Everyone with an impact on the aforementioned elements should be listed among authors. Obtained financial support, as well as other types of support, should be enumerated accordingly. Order of a publication co-authors’ surnames depends on co-authors’ decision.

Use of publications of other authors as well as one's own publications should be documented in footnotes and bibliography accordingly. All forms of plagiarism and auto-plagiarism, that is use of other sources without appropriate crediting is unacceptable. Hidden or apparent authorship is unacceptable as well. In such cases the editorial team is entitled to reject an article, withdraw an article that has already been published, ask for publication of explanation and apologies or take appropriate disciplinary and legal actions.

Authors receive information concerning the approval of rejection of their texts. Authors are entitled to respond substantively to corrections suggested by reviewers and send their opinions to the editorial team.

2. Responsibility and reviewers’ rights

Submitted texts, after initial approval, are sent for review to two independent reviewers who have no conflict of interests with the author or authors. Should a conflict of interest exist, reviewers must inform the editors of the journal about it. The rule of mutual anonymity of reviewers and authors will be maintained (double blind review). Reviewers should decline reviewing any submitted text that significantly exceeds their academic experience and competence.

A review should include the clear conclusions of the reviewer that will allow the text to be published, rejected, or published after indispensable corrections reported to the editor and author.

Reviewers should inform the editorial team about any possible similarities between a reviewed text and content published prior that has not been credited in the reviewed text.

All information provided by the editorial team should be treated by reviewers as confidential. Reviewers cannot use information and terms presented in texts submitted for review before their publication, even if a reviewed text was qualified for publication with the authors’ written consent.

3. Responsibility and editorial team’s rights

The editorial team is responsible for keeping the highest ethical standards of the publication process. To fulfil this duty the editorial team controls all measures at every stage of publication on an ongoing basis and takes the required steps if necessary.

a. investigating cases of detected or reported unethical behaviour or suspected forbidden practice in research and/or scholarly publication (plagiarism, ghostwriting, guest authorship, falsification of research, use of copyrighted material without permission, etc.). Reports of ethical misconduct in academic publishing can be made by a member of the editorial board, a reviewer, a reader of the journal or any other person who has reasonable suspicions about the integrity of the text.

b. publishing appropriate corrections, errata, explanations, apologies and corrigenda where necessary.

“Ghostwriting” firewall

Pursuant to the guidelines of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education concerning protection of scientific publications against fraud specified as "ghostwriting” (somebody contributed significantly to an article, but his/her co-authorship is not revealed or his/her role is not listed in acknowledgements) and “guest authorship” (somebody’s participation in a publication is either negligible or non-existent and yet he/she is presented as its author/co-author), the Editorial Team takes the following steps:
a) the Editorial Team obliges authors of articles to reveal other people’s contribution to a publication by providing data concerning "their affiliation and contribution, i.e. information on who the author of the concept, assumptions, methodology, protocol, etc. is that were used while preparing the publication”;
b) the Editorial Team obliges the authors of articles to reveal sources of financing research related to a submitted publication;
c) the Editorial Team declares that information concerning revealed cases of deceptive actions will be reported to relevant academic and publishing institutions.

Submitted texts are assessed by the editorial team only in terms of their content. Assessment is not affected by factors such as: race, gender, religion, origin, citizenship, or political views of authors.

The editorial team, after getting acquainted with reviews, makes the final decision on approving or rejecting an article. While making a decision the following factors are taken under consideration: scientific value of the text, creativity of approach to the presented topic, transparency and consistency with the scope of the journal.

The editorial team is responsible for ensuring confidentiality regarding information related to submitted texts and their authors. Information concerning a specific article is available only to: an author, reviewers (although the author and reviewers do not know each other's names and surnames - double blind review), the editor-in-chief, the editor responsible for the specific edition of the journal or the editor responsible for the article, and a publisher.

Articles which are not published cannot be used by the editorial team in any other way and for any purposes that breach the author's intellectual property.

The Editor-in-chief is the appeal body for cases related to the ethics of authors, reviewers, and members of the editorial team of “Studia Pastoralne”.