Quarterly Disability – issues, problems, solutions

Guidelines on good publication practice defined to counteract unfair publishing practices, in particular in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

The Editorial Office of the scientific Quarterly "Disability - issues, problems, solutions" (ISSN 2084-7734), published by the State Fund for the Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons, applies the principles of publishing ethics in order to counteract unfair publishing practices, in particular those defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and recommended by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Rules of publication ethics applicable to the Publisher:

1. The aim of the Quarterly is to promote national and global knowledge of disability in the Polish society. The publisher publishes peer-reviewed scientific articles that make a significant contribution to the development of science in the field of broadly understood rehabilitation of people with disabilities. In addition, it conducts a publishing policy that contributes to the dissemination of research-based knowledge about disability in the international arena.
2. The Publishing Board (Editorial Team, Programme Council and Publisher) decides whether to accept the publishing proposal for the plan, taking into account the journal's profile, its subject matter, originality and usefulness for the recipients (representatives of science, representatives of the government and local government administration who implement the State policy in the field of broadly understood rehabilitation of disabled people on the daily basis and practitioners who actively participate in the implementation of this policy, i.e. entrepreneurs and third sector representatives).
3. 3. The publisher shall use all available measures to prevent plagiarism and the publication of false data.
4. The publisher counteracts such negative phenomena as ghostwriting (ghost authorship - omission from the list of authorship of the persons who created the publication) and guest authorship (guest or courtesy authorship - assigning authorship to persons who did not participate in creating the work).
5. The publisher requires the Authors of the publication to disclose the contribution of individual Authors to its creation with the main responsibility being borne by the Author submitting the work.
6. The publisher requires information on the sources of financing the publication, the contribution of scientific and research institutions, associations and other entities.
7. The publisher shall document all manifestations of scientific unreliability, in particular breaches and violations of the rules of ethics in force in science, and the institutions employing the Authors and all the institutions concerned shall be informed of any detected cases.
8. The publisher undertakes to respect the authors' personal copyrights, and in particular to respect the right to authorship and to decide on the method of marking the authorship, taking care of the reputation and good fame of the Authors and the work.
9. The publisher shall pursue an independent and impartial publishing policy.
10. The publisher makes decisions about accepting the works for printing in an open and transparent manner.
11. The publisher ensures a reliable and professional publishing process, including the editorial process.
12. The publisher maintains high editorial standards.
13. The publisher ensures the confidentiality and security of personal data processing.

Ethical principles binding on the Authors:

1. Authors are obliged to provide the publisher with an original work that cannot constitute in any part of the plagiarism, i.e. the appropriation of someone else's work, data or ideas in whole or in part, without this being indicated in the text, and auto-plagiarism (duplication of publications), i.e. the publication of one's own work in whole or in part in more than one publishing house.
2. The authors declare that they have read with the Publisher's Code of Publication Ethics.
3. The authors declare that the submitted work is an original work, not infringing on third party rights, prepared independently and not published anywhere before.
4. Illustrative materials of other people used by the Authors must be  appropriately marked.
5. Texts of other authors used in the work should be appropriately marked.
6. All publications used must be listed in a list of sources (attachment bibliography).
7. In the case of collective works, the Author submitting the manuscript for publication is obliged to specify the authorship of individual fragments of the work.
8. Authors may voluntarily withdraw from the publishing process a text submitted for publication without any consequences until it is submitted for review by the reviewers. In case of withdrawal of a positively reviewed text submitted to the publishing process, the Authors undertake to compensate the Publisher for the costs incurred to the review procedure.
9. The texts submitted by the Authors are published on the basis of free copyright publishing license granted to the Publisher, regulating all copyright issues. Failure to submit a declaration of granting a free license to use the work makes it impossible to publish the article in a journal.
10. The Author assures that the copyright in the work granted to the Publisher under a free license on the date of its acceptance by the Publisher shall not be restricted by any third party rights, and that the use and disposal of the work by the Publisher shall not infringe on the personal rights or the rights of third parties.

The rules of reviewing scientific publications are presented in the tab entitled "Review procedure".

Obligatory statements for the Authors of publications in the Quarterly are presented in the tab entitled "Information for Authors".

Assistance and advice on compliance with publishing ethics is provided in the Code of Conduct of the Publishing Ethics Committee.

Polish version of the translation of COPE standards.

Evaluation of the quality of scientific activity - Guide of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Ghostwriting firewall

Integrity in science is one of the foundations of scientific quality. Readers should be assured that the authors of publications present the results of their work in a transparent, fair and honest way, regardless of whether they are the original authors or have used the help of a specialized entity (a natural or a legal person).

What is a ghostwriting firewall?

Transparency of information regarding the contribution of entities to preparing a publication (content-related, material, financial input, etc.) is the proof of an ethical attitude of a researcher as well as high editorial standards of the journal which publishes his/her work. It is also a manifestation of good practice and social responsibility. 

“Ghostwriting” and “guest authorship” are practices that violate the ethical norms accepted in research. “Ghostwriting” is the process whereby a person makes a substantial contribution to a publication, without revealing their share in the work as one of the authors or without being credited in the acknowledgements to the publication. “Guest authorship (or honorary authorship)” is a situation in which a person listed as an author/co-author of a publication has contributed little or not at all to the creation of the publication, and yet is mentioned as its author (co-author).

To prevent cases of “ghostwriting” and “guest authorship”, the Editorial Office should  introduce relevant procedures specific to the represented field or discipline of science or implement the following solutions:

1. The Editorial Office should require from the authors to disclose and notify the Editor of the contribution of all individual authors in the creation of the manuscript submitted for publication (with their affiliations and information on contributions from each author regarding the study concept and design, the assumptions, methods, and protocols used in the preparation of the paper, etc). The corresponding author holds the main responsibility for providing correct information in this respect.
    
2. The Editorial Office should clarify in "Information for Authors" section that “ghostwriting” and “guest authorship” are examples of scientific misconduct. Any such detected cases will be revealed and the relevant bodies (affiliate institutions, scientific societies, associations of scientific editors, etc.) will be notified.
    
3. Authors are required to disclose information about the sources of funding of their publication as well as about the contribution of research institutions, associations and other entities (“financial disclosure”).
    
4. The Editorial Office should document all forms of scientific misconduct, especially violations of the rules of scientific ethics.

All persons indicated as authors must have substantial contribution in the preparation of the manuscript so as to be able to take responsibility for its content. It is unacceptable to indicate a person whose contribution to the manuscript is insignificant or none ("guest authorship") as the author (co-author). If the manuscript is prepared by more than one author, the contributions of all individual authors to its preparation should be presented, indicating their participation in: A - preparation of the research project; B - collecting data and conducting research; C - statistical analysis; D - interpretation of the results; E – preparation of the manuscript; F - literature search. Group members who do not meet these criteria should be mentioned with their consent in the acknowledgments section.

It is unacceptable that a person who has made a significant contribution to the preparation of the manuscript is not disclosed as a co-author or mentioned in the acknowledgments section ("ghostwriting"). The Corresponding Author is responsible for the author’s list. Not following the above rules will be considered as scientific misconduct and unethical practice. All violations of ethical standards in science will be documented and disclosed by the Editorial Office and interested institutions, scientific societies and editorial offices of other scientific journals will be informed about such practice.

Authors should provide the information on the sources of research funding and preparation of the manuscript. The participation of scientific and research institutions or other entities in conducted research and preparation of the manuscript for publication should also be stated.

Authors must disclose and describe the existence of all conflicts of interest (including financial issues) about which the Editorial Office or readers may think that they relate to the presented research or other material. All conflicts of interests should be described in the attached form which will be treated by the Editorial Office as confidential until the manuscript is accepted for printing. At that time the Editorial Office may publish relevant information along with the article.

Materials that have already been published or are described in the article ready for printing or publishing in electronic media cannot be sent for publication in the Quarterly. The publication of abstracts in conference proceedings is not considered as a previous publication. In case of publishing of materials that have already been published, if this fact was disclosed after the publication of materials in the Quarterly, the Editorial Office will publish relevant information on paper as well as online.