ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

On average, manuscripts are evaluated in 6 days, reviewed in 17 days.

The journal is published once a year, in January. Therefore, the time from submission to publication depends on the submission date, and articles submitted closer to the publication date may appear in the next year’s issue.

This is an open access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES APPLICABLE TO THE JOURNAL

In terms of good practices and principles of publication ethics, the Editorial Board follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct

In order to facilitate the cooperation of authors and reviewers with the editorial board of the Acta Albaruthenica journal, we are publishing the main ethical principles that direct our activities.

Authors are required to inform the editorial team of the name of any AI tool used, as well as to explain the purpose and manner of its use during the preparation of the article.
AI may be used for language editing and technical formatting of the bibliography, but not for generating the content of the article itself.

Authorship policy

Publication is free of charge for all authors. An author may submit only original texts for publication. The research and/or information of other researchers used in the publication should be marked to indicate that it is a citation. All articles sent to Acta Albaruthenica are checked through the iThenticate anti-plagiarism system. Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, or falsification of data are unacceptable.

Authors submitting multi-authored texts for publication are obliged to disclose the contribution of individual authors to its creation (including the authors’ affiliations and information on who is the author of the concepts, assumptions, methods, protocol, etc. applied in the creation of the text).

Hostwriting and guest authorship are considered scientific misconduct and any detected cases will be uncovered, including the notification of relevant entities, such as institutions employing the author, scientific societies, associations of scientific editors, etc. Buying or selling the authorship of scientific works, regardless of whether they have been accepted for publication, is unacceptable.

The procedure in case of suspicion of plagiarism, autoplagiarism, data falsification, hostwriting and guest authorship is as follows:

http://www.ebib.pl/pliki/25/full_set_of_polish_flowcharts.pdf

Principle of equal treatment

Race, gender (including pregnancy and gender identity), sexual orientation, religion, origin, citizenship, age, marital or parental status, disability, and political beliefs of the authors do not affect the assessment of the texts in any way. Texts are evaluated only in terms of their content.

Principle of compliance with legal and ethical requirements in relation to authors participating in research.

Prevention of conflicts of interest

Unpublished texts, confidential information and ideas must be kept secret and may not be used by the editorial staff of the journal or any other person participating in the publishing process without the written consent of the authors. Authors, reviewers, and editors are obliged to disclose conflicts of interest.

Standards for Authors

Scientific reliability: Article authors are obliged to present an account of the research performed and an objective discussion of its results. Articles should contain sufficient information in order to identify the sources used, as well as to permit others to replicate the research. Presenting and interpreting data and research results that is not compliant with the ethical publication standards is unacceptable and may result in article removal.
Originality of the paper:Authors may submit only their own, original works. The research and/or data of other scholars used in the work should be appropriately and clearly cited or quoted. Plagiarism or data fabrication is unacceptable.
Data access:Authors may be asked to provide the research data which is not cited in the text. They are obliged to provide access to such data, also after publication.
Avoiding authors’ competing interests: Authors should not publish texts presenting the same research in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscripts to more than one journal constitutes unethical behaviour.
Authorship of the paper:

– Authors submitting a manuscript by several authors are obliged to disclose contributions made by particular authors (including their affiliation address and the level of the contribution, i.e. information on the authors of the concept, assumptions, methods, protocols, etc. used during the preparation of the manuscript).

– Ghostwriting and guest authorship are treated as scientific misconduct; all detected cases shall be disclosed and a notification shall be sent to relevant institutions, such as institutions employing the authors, scientific societies, associations of scientific editors, etc.

– Authors submitting a manuscript are obliged to ensure that all those who have made contributions agree on the final form of the manuscript.

Source reliability:Authors are obliged to cite in an attached reference list all publications which have been used when preparing the article.
Errors in the paper:Should (an) author(s) discover any significant errors or inaccuracies in their paper, they are obliged to notify the Editorial Board immediately in order to withdraw the paper or correct the errors.

Roles and responsibilities of the Authors:
The Journal follows the CSE guidelines that define the Authors’ roles The Author-Editor relation is founded on confidentiality.

− The Corresponding Author is responsible for managing all queries and communication between the Journal and the Authors, including making corrections, providing feedback, and providing necessary permissions.
− Authors provide a statement confirming the originality of the submitted study.
− They disclose the originality of the content, their actual contribution to the study, conflict of interest, and funding.
− They follow the Journal’s or the Publisher’s guidelines concerning the reuse of any copyrighted material and provides the material’s proper attribution. This includes the Author’s own work as well.
− They should be aware of any data sharing responsibilities required by the funding agencies (please see the Journal’s policy on data sharing).
− In the case of research involving humans, confidential materials and any other information protected by legal regulations, Authors must provide appropriate consents and permissions.

The Journal follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines and defines the Author as a person who has made a significant intellectual contribution to the study, drafted or reviewed it critically for important intellectual content, given the final approval of the article to be published and is accountable for all aspect of the work related to the accuracy and integrity of any part of the work. One has to meet all the four criteria to be defined as an Author.

The Corresponding Author confirms that all the individuals listed as Authors have contributed significantly to the research presented in the submitted article. The Corresponding Author also confirms that all individuals listed as Authors have contributed to the entire manuscript.

Contributors
Individuals who do not meet all the four criteria of authorship cannot be listed as Authors. A proper acknowledgement of their input should be provided in the manuscript. As per the ICMJE guidelines. Such individuals may be responsible for:
a) the acquisition of funding,
b) general supervision of a research group or general administrative support,
c) writing assistance,
d) technical editing,
e) language editing,
f) proofreading.

In the case of individuals who have contributed unequally to the work, the Editors recommend that detailed information on their contribution be provided.
The Journal strongly supports the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) when describing each Contributor’s specific role. More information on CRediT can be found at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/leap.1210

Changes to Authorship
If the Authors request that an Author be removed or added after the manuscript has been submitted or published, they provide an explanation of the requested change and a signed agreement from all the listed Authors, including the Author who is to be removed or added. Changes to Authorship are allowed only before the acceptance of the manuscript and only if approved by the Editor. The Editor may agree to introduce changes to the Authorship. This includes name changes, addition,
removal, or rearrangement of the Authors after the article has been accepted for publication. Such requests will result in a suspension of the manuscript until the issue is resolved. In the case of an already published material a corrigendum is released.

AI Authorship
Upon submission of an article, the Journal requires the Authors to disclose whether they have used artificial intelligence AI-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators). The Authors who have used such technology specify, in the cover letter or within the submitted work, the details of such usage. The use of AI for writing assistance should be disclosed in the acknowledgment section.

Unaccepted Authorship
There are three types of authorship that are considered unacceptable:
a) Ghost authors who contribute substantially but are not acknowledged.
b) Guest authors who make no discernible contributions.
c) Gift authors whose contribution is based solely on a tenuous affiliation with a study.
The Journal follows the definitions of inappropriate authorship as specified by the Council of Science Editors: https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/2-2-authorship-and-authorship-responsibilities.

Conflicts of interest / Competing interests
All Authors must disclose any conflict of interest defined as a financial or personal relation with other individuals or organizations, activities or positions that can bias the submitted article. Such conflict includes but is not limited to the matters of familial kinship, employment, consulting services, honoraria, and funding.
Conflict of interest also refers to any of the above-mentioned relations between Authors and the Journal’s Editors, Reviewers, Editorial Board, Editorial Office, as well as the Publisher. Authors are advised to disclose any potential conflict of interest before submitting the manuscript or during the editorial procedure. The Journal will also acknowledge the post-publication disclosure. Competing interest among the Journal staff, including Editors, Board, staff members and the Publisher, will be disclosed, if applicable, on the Journal’s website.

Data and reproducibility
Research data typically refers to digital, machine-readable files and can be defined as the results of experiments and observations that validate the research. The Journal encourages Authors to post their data in standard formats that can be accessed and re-used by others. The Journal follows the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets (FAIR) principles. It supports data integrity and encourages Authors to share the data associated with their research and any other information that supports it. The Journal also encourages Authors to share their data on social media, repositories, and personal and institutional websites.
The Journal supports the TRUST principles for digital repositories and encourages Authors to place the data in one of the repositories listed in OpenDOAR. Authors should also follow institutional and, if applicable, the funding body’s guidelines when choosing the platform to share their data. Authors are also encouraged to cite the data in their manuscript or indicate how to access the data by providing the DOI or access number. The Journal encourages Authors to share the VoR (Version of Record) and the AAM (Author Accepted Manuscript) together with the data associated with the research. The Journal encourages Authors to consult https://www.howcanishareit.com/ in order to determine how the published article can be shared.

Intellectual property
All Authors are required to accept the License Agreement terms and conditions. The Corresponding Author provides a signed agreement upon submission/after acceptance. By submitting the manuscript, the Corresponding Author, also on behalf of all the Authors, agrees that:
– the work is original,
– it has not previously been published and is not currently under consideration for publication
elsewhere,
– all copyrighted material (e. g. block quotation or extracts) is properly acknowledged and the
Author has obtained permission to use it. Since 2025 the Journal is published in an Open Access model CC BY-NC 4.0, which allows for redistribution, reuse, and adaptation with attribution to the Authors (before 2025, it was a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL license). Sharing is defined as copying or redistributing the article or its parts through any medium and in any format for any purpose (without commercial purposes). Adapting is defined as remixing, transforming, and building upon the published material for any purpose (without commercial purposes). Users can freely access and use the published articles when appropriate credit is given to the original publication and on the condition that they will not apply any legal terms or technological measures to restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Authors retain the right for the published material. Authors grant the Journal a non-exclusive licence to publish their articles. If Authors are not permitted to retain the copyrights to the manuscript, they should contact the Editorial Office before submission.

Plagiarism, duplicate publication, and fabrication
Only original work can be submitted. All quotations need to be appropriately indicated and referenced. Any unacknowledged copying of large chunks of text, misattributing the original authorship (including ideas, arguments, results) will be treated as plagiarism. According to the Office of Research Integrity such practices include, but are not limited to theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and a substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work: https://ori.hhs.gov/ori-policy-plagiarism. When paraphrasing or summarising publications by others, Authors have to proceed with due care. Text recycling is not allowed and will be treated as self-plagiarism (as per COPE guidelines: “sections of the same text appearing in more than one of an author’s own publications”). Duplicate/redundant publication occurs “when an author intentionally or unintentionally republishes his or her own work without informing the editor of the previous publication (…) and refers to publication of an article’s content, which has substantial overlaps with one΄s paper already published in print or electronically.” without proper references. (F. A. Habibzadeh and M. Winker, “Duplicate Publication and Plagiarism: Causes and Cures.” Notfall Rettungsmed 12, (2009), 415–418. DOI: 10.1007/s10049-009-1229-7). The Journal is part of the Similarity Check service (https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/) and uses an anti-plagiarism tool (iThenticate) to verify the originality of the submitted manuscripts. In the event of a plagiarism detection, the Editors will immediately reject the manuscript
and they may, depending on the case, take further steps according to the COPE guidelines. Already published articles will be retracted or marked as plagiarised.

Prepublication

Any fragment of work which has been already copyrighted to a third party, published, posted or reposited in the form that has been submitted to the Journal will be considered as pre-publication and consequently will not be published. The Journal can publish a manuscript that has been uploaded on a preprint server or has a DOI only if a significant amount of new data or original material is added. Preprint is not considered as prior publication only if the work fulfils the following definition: “a
complete scientific manuscript (often one also being submitted to a peer-reviewed journal) that is uploaded by the authors to a public server without formal review” (Jeremy M. Berg et al., ”Preprints for the Life Sciences.” Science 352 (2016), 899-901. DOI:10.1126/science.aaf9133).
The Journal allows to republish a conference paper only if a full disclosure and citation is provided.