Authors’ duties
The fundamental principle which the Editorial Board of Opolskie Studia Administracyjno-Prawne adheres to is that of scientific reliability. In order to observe it and also to maintain a high quality of the articles accepted for publication, the Board – being aware of its own responsibilities concerning the application of the principle – respects and executes respecting ethical principles with reference to both contributors of scientific publications and the cooperating Referees.
Authors’ duties
- Authorship of the work
The basic determiner of the standard of scientific works is their reliability. Accordingly, the contributors are obliged to present results of their research in an authentic, honest and reliable manner. The term authorship applies and is restricted to the persons who contributed substantially to the concept and realization of the research and interpretation of the research results being published.
A manifestation of scientific unreliability is violation of ethical principles in the form of ghostwriting or guest authorship. We come to deal with the former when it is someone else who made a contribution to the work submitted for publication, however their role has not been acknowledged or they have not been mentioned in acknowledgements included in the publication. Guest authorship, on the other hand, is the case where the share of a given person has been insignificant, yet the person’s name has been given as the author/co-author of the publication. Both ghost writing and guest authorship, being unethical phenomena, are unacceptable.
- Standards of publication
The articles submitted to the Journal must exclusively be original works, not submitted for publication and not published in another magazine, monograph or collective work. Neither can they violate the copyrights of the third parties. It is considered to be unethical to submit a scientific article that is a translation of a text already published or a text submitted to another journal. Submitting the same work of the scientific character for publication to a few publishers is unethical and unacceptable.
Objectivism is the criterion of evaluation of the work submitted for publication, as well as presentation of a scientific problem, which does not raise any doubts. Offering false statements or conscious giving untrue statements, likewise, manipulation of data, are unethical and unacceptable. Citation of statements, research results or data presented by other authors must be referenced or inserted in the form of a quotation, also referenced. The authors need to prepare their articles based on available literature of the subject, including the latest works and taking care of the methodological coherence, as well as high standards of the language used. As regards the formal aspect, the article that is submitted ought to be rendered in compliance with the recommendations included in “Instruction for authors”.
- Author’s contribution to the work
It is the author’s duty to declare their contribution to the work, which must be confirmed in a relevant statement available on the webpage. In the case where there are several authors who contributed to the preparation of the article submitted for publication, each of them is required to submit such a statement. Submitting the article for publication in the columns of Opolskie Studia Administracyjno-Prawne, each of the authors must extend their agreement separately in this respect in the form of the above-mentioned statement.
- Conflict of interests
The author submitting the manuscript for printing is obliged to notify the Editorial Board of all potential conflicts of interest, which may impact the results of the work.
- Access to data
Should the need arise, the author must be ready to submit unprocessed data to the Editorial Board, with reference to the article which is submitted for publication in Opolskie Studia Administracyjno-Prawne.
- Errors found following the submitting of the article
In the case where the author discovers an error or inaccuracy in their text after they have submitted the manuscript, they are bound to immediately inform the Editorial Board about the fact.
- Originality of the work
It is exclusively an original work which can be submitted to the Editorial Board by the author. Also, it is the author’s responsibility to make certain that the names of the authors cited in the work have been listed correctly and that the fragments of the quoted works have been referenced accurately.
- Prevention and detection of cases of plagiarism
All forms of plagiarism are treated as unethical and are unacceptable. In the case where the Editorial Board sees grounds for suspicion of plagiarism, it launches the investigation procedure with the participation of the Referees and the person who has submitted the work. In the case where illegal use of a text, data, statements or research results is confirmed, the work submitted for publication is rejected and the submitting author is notified of the fact in writing. If the addressee does not respond to the notification, the Board notifies the institution which the author is affiliated with.
Insertion, in the article, of extensive fragments of a publication which has already been published elsewhere, even though authored by the contributor himself/herself is treated as the so-called self-plagiarism (duplicate publication) and is unacceptable. In such a case the Editorial Board, in consequence of not satisfying the requirement of originality, informs the contributor of their decision to reject the article.