ETHICAL PRINCIPLES APPLIED IN "STUDIA PHILOSOPHIAE CHRISTIANAE"

The ethical standards of Studia Philosophiae Christianae (SPCh) are modelled on the COPE Code of Conduct (Committee on Publication Ethics Code of Conduct). The journal Studia Philosophia Christianae applies the following rules to all persons and institutions involved in the publishing process (editors, reviewers, authors, publishers and readers). In the event of a breach of ethical principles, the Editorial Board of SPCh reserves the right to terminate cooperation with the offenders and to inform the institutions where these persons are employed of the reprehensible practices.

Editorial Board of SPCh:

• meets the expectations of authors, reviewers and readers
• ensures the content and formal level of published materials
• ensures the smooth functioning of editorial procedures
• takes all decisions on the publication of materials solely on the basis of substantive and formal criteria in accordance with ethical principles;
• shall promote freedom of scientific discussion and, where appropriate, allow for the publication of polemical contributions to articles published in the pages of the SPCh
• prevents ethical breaches
• makes public all requirements for authors of submitted texts
• provides authors with the possibility, even after the completion of the publishing process, to make corrections or even to withdraw the article from the journal website
• allows authors to publish an explanation or apology for their earlier publication
• informs readers about the funding of research the results of which are published in the pages of SPCh
• provides clear criteria for experts to evaluate peer-reviewed articles
• develops procedures to ensure the anonymity of reviews and to avoid conflicts of interest
• responds promptly to complaints and indicates a mechanism for appealing against editorial decisions
• maintains publication records

Advisory Board of SPCh:

• ensures that the scientific excellence of the journal is maintained
• monitors the activities of the Editorial Board in relation to the publication process and the development of the journal
• supports the Editorial Board of SPCh in setting directions and areas of research, the results of which are published in the journal
• promote the journal in the national and international scientific community
• as far as possible, supports the Editorial Board in all matters referred to it by the Scientific Council

Malpractice Policy

If allegations are made about material published in SPCh, the Editorial Board considers them and responds to those concerned by email to the address provided by the author when submitting the article. If the allegations concern the Editorial Board of SPCh, then the Editorial Board, having responded to them, shall forward them to the Dean of the Faculty of Christian Philosophy UKSW for consideration.

Authorship and originality

Each person submitting an article to the Editorial Board shall confirm his/her authorship of that article, as well as its originality, i.e. that it has not been previously published in any language or simultaneously submitted to any other editorial office. In the case of a co-authored work, the authors submit a declaration in which they define a specific percent contribution to the preparation of the article to individual authors and indicate the scope of work done by individual team members. This declaration is signed by the author who is submitting the article. Editorial Board particularly opposes reprehensible practices that violate ethical principles of scientific research in the form of the so-called guest authorship, ghostwriting, and plagiarism.

The SPCh editors will check the originality of the submitted articles, using the iThenticate system.

Principles of appealing against decisions of the SPCh Editorial Board

Authors who disagree with the decisions of the Editorial Boards may appeal against it to the dean of the Faculty of Christian Philosophy of UKSW. If the dean deems it appropriate, he/she may consult the opinion of the director of Institute of Philosophy. The dean is an ordinary appeal body and his/her decisions are final.

Conflict of interest policy principles

The Editorial Board attaches great importance to avoiding conflicts of interest in the publishing process. It is primarily a conflict of interest between: (1) authors and reviewers; (2) authors and members of the SPCh Editorial Board; and (3) that such a conflict does not arise as a result of a lack of information on research funding bodies the results of which are published in SPCh.

The Editorial Board takes appropriate measures to ensure the highest possible impartiality of the review process, i.e. reviewers do not know the authors’ personal details and vice versa. There is also no hierarchical family or institutional affiliation between them. In addition, an author submitting an article may request the Editorial Board to exclude from the evaluating process a person indicated by him/her providing appropriate justification.

In the case of hierarchical dependence between the author submitting an article and a member of the SPCh Editorial Board, that member of the Editorial Board is excluded from the decision process regarding the acceptance or rejection of the article. The same procedure applies if the author of the submitted text is a member of the Editorial Board. SPCh does not publish the texts of its Editorial Board members, with the exception of scientific reports.

In order to avoid conflicts of interest, the author is required to submit a statement about the entities financing the research, the results of which he/she submitted for publication in SPCh. This information should be made available to the reader through its disclosure in the published article.

All allegations related to the conflict of interest, arising both before and after publication, should be reported to the Editorial Board, which shall consider them and inform the applicant about the results. Subsequently, the parties have the right to submit objections to the dean of the Faculty of Christian Philosophy of UKSW.

Principles of sharing materials published in SPCh

Materials published in SPCh are available in printed and electronic form. The UKSW Press sells the printed version of the journal. The Editorial Board, in consultation with the UKSW Press, provides all published texts on the journal’s website, immediately after they have appeared in print. The editors share selected articles on their website, even prior to their publication. Materials available on the SPCh website have open access status and are made available under the terms of the Creative Commons licence (CC BY-ND 4.0 International) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/deed.en). Authors are allowed to deposit: (1) submitted version, (2) accepted version, and (3) published version of their articles in an institutional or other repository of the author’s choice, without embargo.

Principles of ethical guardianship

The Editorial Board attaches great importance to respecting ethical principles, especially the principles guaranteeing respect for privacy rights and the dignity of each person.

The Editorial Board also ensures compliance with the privacy policy and protects the personal data of persons cooperating with the Editorial Board. These data are used only for the purposes of the publishing process. Detailed information about personal data protection policy at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw is included in the information clause available on the website. Any breach of personal data protection can be reported via the UKSW website.

Intellectual Property Rights Policy

The policy regarding copyrights of articles published in Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University’s journals, is as follows: copyright of published articles is retained by the authors; however, they are obliged to sign an agreement on article publication by the UKSW Press. A model contract is available on the website. Materials made available on the SPCh website have the status of open access, under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-ND 4.0 International). Authors do not bear any costs associated with the publication of their articles, nor do they receive any financial gratification. They are entitled, however, to a free copy of the journal volume, in which their text was published.

Journal management principles

SPCh is a journal published by the Institute of Philosophy at the Faculty of Christian Philosophy at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. The Editor-in-chief and other members of the Editorial Board are appointed by the dean of the Faculty of Christian Philosophy after consulting the Philosophy Discipline Council at UKSW. All financial matters related to the functioning of the SPCh Editorial Board are taken by the UKSW authorities.

Evaluation principles

The article qualification process is subject to a three-step evaluation procedure:

(1) The Editorial Board performs a preliminary evaluation of the compliance of the submitted article with the journal’s profile, its originality, and fulfillment of formal requirements. Editorial Board shall provide authors with information on accepting their articles for further stages of evaluation within 10 days.

(2) Two independent, external (institutionally not connected with author) experts make substantive and formal evaluation of the submitted articles. As a rule, this process takes up to 30 days (in the summer period - July-August - up to 60 days).

(3) The Editorial Board shall decide whether to accept, reject or send the article to the author for improvement based on expert reviews. In case of radically different expert opinions, the Editorial Board may seek the opinion of the third expert and decide on the qualification of the article based on all reviews. This decision is made by voting by absolute majority of votes. In the event of an equal number of votes, the vote of the Editor-in-chief is prevailing. The Editorial Board shall decide on the article publication within 14 days from receiving the last review (if there are no significant corrections signaled by the reviewers) or 14 days after receiving the corrected version of the article (according to reviewers' suggestions) and inform the author about the decision.

The Editorial Board conducts periodical evaluation of the quality of reviews and develops guidelines for experts to improve the substantive level of reviews and standardize the criteria for articles evaluation.

A list of reviewers cooperating in the publication of specific volumes is published by the Editorial Board once a year on the journal’s website.

As far as possible, the Editorial Board members and persons involved in the publishing process participate in trainings raising their qualifications necessary to maintain a high organizational and substantive level of the Editorial Board’s activities.

The author may challenge the position expressed during the publishing process. The entity that resolves these types of issues is the SPCh Editorial Board. If the author disagrees with the Editorial Board’s decision, the matter is referred to the dean of the Faculty of Christian Philosophy, who presents his/her a position.

Principles of post-publication discussions and corrections

If the publication meets with justifiable criticism, the Editorial Board allows the author to withdraw or correct the article in an electronic version available on the SPCh website. The Editorial Board enables the publication of a polemical article in SEeB for those interested in public debate on the published text within the shortest possible period.