Ethical principles and countering unfair practices in publication of scientific papers in
Scientific Journal Warsaw University Of Life Sciences – SGGW
Problems of World Agriculture
All members of the editorial team of Scientific Journal Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW Problems of World Agriculture” within the scope of their respective duties are committed to observe high scientific and ethical standards and undertake all possible steps to avoid negligence. Papers submitted to the journal are evaluated by the editors and reviewers as regards their reliability, ethical standards and contribution to the development of science.
The journal Scientific Journal Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW Problems of World Agriculture” is in compliance with the code and international standards laid down by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) available on the website (https://publicationethics.org/).
Duties of Editors
Responsibility for publication of papers
Decisions on publication of papers are made by the editor-in-chief in consultation with the subject editors. These decisions are taken on the basis of indications and detailed evaluation of the manuscript by at least two reviewers, independent and anonymous to the author. When needed, the opinions of the journal’s Editorial Board and Advisory Board may also be considered. The decision is taken bearing in mind the risk of possible libel of third parties, breach of copyrights and other intellectual property rights, plagiarism or self-plagiarism and doubts concerning the authorship or co-authorship of the paper, such as ghostwriting and guest authorship.
Fair play
Papers submitted are evaluated based on content-related criteria and publication ethics. The assessment is not affected by personal factors, such as sex, religion, ethnic origin, nationality or political beliefs of authors.
Confidentiality
Members of the editorial team may not disclose any information on manuscripts submitted for publication to individuals other than –– authors, selected reviewers, authorised editors and representatives of the publisher.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials contained in submitted manuscripts may not be used by members of the editorial team in part or in whole without an explicit written consent of their authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained by the editors as a result of handling the manuscript shall be kept confidential and may not be used for their personal advantage.
The editors of the journal strive to ensure fair and substantive review. The editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts, in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, business organisations or institutions connected to the submitted manuscripts; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript. The editors of the journal require all collaborators to disclose significant conflicts of interests and to publish amendments when conflicting interests are revealed after the publication of the paper.
Responsibilities of Reviewers
Contribution to editorial decisions
The reviewers are tasked with providing support to the editors in making decisions on approval for publication, sending manuscripts back for corrections or rejection of papers. Opinions in this respect should be univocal. The review should also help the authors improve the quality of their manuscripts.
Promptness
Reviews shall be submitted on a deadline agreed in advance. When the reviewer is in conflict of interest or for other reasons (e.g. feeling unqualified to review the manuscript) cannot review the paper or meet the deadline for the review, the reviewer is obliged to immediately inform the editorial office of that fact.
Confidentiality
Manuscripts received from the editorial office are confidential. Except for communications with an authorised representative of the editorial team, it is unacceptable to disclose them to third parties or to discuss with them the contents or conclusions of the papers. The reviews are anonymous, which means that the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers of their papers and the reviewers should not know the identity of the authors. Reviewers are not allowed to disclose information on receipt of specific papers for review to any persons other than the editorial team.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them when improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inadmissible.
Reliability of sources
In their reviews the reviewers have to identify and indicate the sources that the authors failed to mention, although they should have. The reviewers also have to inform the editorial staff on a significant similarity, partial overlapping of the reviewed work with other publications, regardless of the author, or possibly on other unauthorised borrowings and suspected plagiarism.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and may not be used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who have declined the review invitation.
Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, business organisations or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein, should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted. The journal requires relevant statements to be signed.
Responsibilities of Authors
Reporting standards
Authors, presenting in their papers the results of empirical research, are obliged to reliably describe the performed research and objectively interpret results. Data constituting the basis for key conclusions should be presented in sufficient detail to allow for identification of data sources and to make it possible to repeat the research if needed. Intentional inaccurate or unreliable presentation, commenting and interpretation of data and research results is unethical and illegal. The authors should be prepared to provide unprocessed source data for the needs of review for a year after the publication.
Originality and plagiarism
The authors present for publication solely their own original papers, previously unpublished in whole or in vital parts, in any authorship variant. If the authors used the work and / or words of other authors, they should be cited or quoted appropriately.
Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors should not submit for consideration any manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behaviour and it is inadmissible.
Authorship of a paper
All persons mentioned as authors or co-authors should have a considerable contribution to the paper preparation, significantly contributing to its elaboration from the stage of an idea to the concept and execution up to drawing conclusions. Other persons that could have an impact on some important aspects of the paper can be mentioned as collaborators, but not co-authors of the paper. Ghostwriting and guest authorship are manifestations of scientific misconduct, they are unethical and illegal. Identified manifestations of such a misconduct shall be publicly disclosed by the editorial office and communicated to respective entities, especially parent institutions of the authors and alleged authors. Author submitting a paper are also obliged to make sure that all of the persons mentioned as co-authors approve of the final version of the paper.
Preventing conflicts of interest
The authors reveal in their paper all sources of project funding, contribution of institutions, organisations and other entities as well as other reasons for conflict of interest, which could have affected the interpretation or conclusions following from the paper.
Errors in published papers
When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors or publisher learn of an alleged or confirmed lack of scientific integrity, misconduct or plagiarism the journal editor will undertake all appropriate steps to clarify the problem and introduce corrections to the paper.
