Rules of ethics in Collectanea Theologica

The rules of ethics regarding publishing in the Collectanea Theologica journal are based on the following standards:

(a) Code of Ethics of a Researcher, developed by the Commission for Ethics in Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences (https://pan.pl/etyka-w-nauce/),

(b) Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE: www.publicationethics.org),

(c) Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK – Elsevier: https://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics).

1. Responsibility and rights of authors

Any authorship or co-authorship of a scholarly publication must be based on a creative and significant contribution to research, meaning a significant participation in initiating a scholarly idea, creating concepts and designing research, significant participation in data acquisition, analysis and interpretation of results, and significant contribution to intellectual design and writing an article. All those who have made a significant contribution to the creation of an article should be listed as its co-authors. The intellectual contribution of other people who have made a significant impact on the published research should be appropriately marked. Obtained financial support, as well as other types of assistance, should also be appropriately marked. The order of the names of the co-authors of a publication depends on the co-authors themselves.

The use of the publications of other authors, as well as the authors’ own publications should be properly documented in footnotes and in bibliography. All forms of plagiarism or auto-plagiarism, so the use of other sources without their adequate acknowledgement in the scholarly apparatus, are unacceptable. Hidden or apparent authorship is also unacceptable. In such cases, the editorial board of the journal has the right to refuse to publish the article, withdraw an article that has already been published, request publication of clarifications and apologies, or take appropriate disciplinary and legal steps.

The authors usually receive information concerning accepting their texts for publication or rejecting them within two months. The authors, regarded as peers of the reviewers (the principle of peer review), have the right to take a substantive stance to the corrections suggested by the reviewers and provide the editorial board with their opinion.

For policy regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence, see the Ordinance of the Rector of UKSW.

2. Responsibility and rights of reviewers

The submitted articles, preliminarily qualified by the editorial board for the reviewing process, are submitted for review to two independent reviewers who have at least a PhD degree, and there is no conflict of interest between them and the author or the authors, for example, because of the work in the same academic unit, close scholarly cooperation, official dependence, or close personal relationships (relationship to the second degree, marriage). If such a conflict of interest occurs, the reviewers should inform the editors of the journal. The principle of mutual anonymity of the reviewers and the authors of the submitted article shall be preserved (double-blind peer review). In case the group of specialists in a given scholarly speciality is very narrow, there may be an exception to the above-mentioned rules.

Reviewers should refuse to review any submitted article that is significantly beyond their scholarly experience and competence.

A review must have a clear conclusion of the reviewer, allowing the admission of the article for publication, not allowing it to be published, or allowing it to be published after necessary corrections, notified to the editor and the author.

Reviewers should inform the editorial board about any possible similarity of the reviewed article to any previously published content, not acknowledged in the scholarly apparatus to the article.

Reviewers are required to keep confidential all information provided to them by the editorial board. The reviewers may not use the data or concepts contained in the articles provided to them before they are published, even if the reviewed article has not been accepted for publication, without the authors’ written consent.

Reviews are made free of charge.

3. Editorial responsibility and rights

The submitted texts are subject to an initial review performed by the editors of the journal. This assessment concerns in particular the compliance of the submitted text with the profile of the journal, its general substantive level, and the presence of the required formal elements.

The final classification of the text for publication is made by the editor-in-chief on the basis of his analysis of the reviews and the final version of the text sent by the author (after taking into account the corrections suggested by the reviewers). An important factor influencing the decision of the editor-in-chief is the amount of space available in the basic version of the journal. The editor-in-chief, before making a decision, may consult the members of the editorial board of the journal.

The members of the editorial board may not use the data or the concepts contained in the submitted texts before their publication without the authors’ written consent, even if the reviewed text has not been accepted for publication.

The editor-in-chief of the journal is the appeal authority in matters related to the ethics of the authors, the reviewers, and the members of the editorial board of Collectanea Theologica.