Publication Ethics

Ethical Oversight

The AFM Publishing House of the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University has adopted and adheres to ethical principles consistent with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Elsevier.

Any cases of unethical conduct (including guest authorship, ghostwriting, data manipulation, plagiarism, text recycling, duplicate or simultaneous publication in different publishing houses) will be considered in accordance with the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
In cases which have not been described on these website, the Editorial Team abides by COPE guidelines and follows COPE Flowcharts.

Rules for Authors

1) Authors are required to familiarize themselves with the journal’s publishing ethics, the procedure for qualifying materials for publication, article requirements, and technical guidelines;
2) may submit only their own original texts for publication (see AI Policy). All borrowings (e.g., cited opinions, quotations, data in tables) in the text must be appropriately referenced;
3) are required to provide a reliable description of the research work performed and an objective interpretation of the results;
4) are required to include a list of all publications used in the preparation of the material (reference list), and to provide references to the relevant pages (exact page numbers) of the cited materials in the main text.
5) The author undertakes to actively participate in the work on the article/ monograph at the publication preparation phase (response to reviews, copyediting, etc.).
6) If serious errors or inaccuracies are discovered in the submitted text, the author should immediately notify the publisher so that these errors can be corrected during the editorial process.
7) If questions, disputes, or allegations of scientific misconduct arise in a published text, the author is obligated to respond to the discussion.
8) Any instances of unethical conduct (including guest authorship, ghostwriting, data manipulation, plagiarism, text recycling, duplicate or simultaneous publications in different publishing houses) will be considered in accordance with the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
9) No fees (APCs, Article Processing Charges) are charged for the editorial work and publication of articles in the journals of the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University.
10) Authors do not receive remuneration for the publication of the article.

Rules for Readers

1) The journal articles are published in Open Access. Content is available free of charge to individual readers and institutions.
2) Access to content does not require logging in.
3) All texts from the journals are published under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International (Attribution – Non-Commercial – No Derivative Works) electronic license, which means that works may be copied and distributed in any medium and format, provided:
– the author’s name and surname are credited;
– the content is not used for financial gain or monetary compensation;
– modified content is not distributed (e.g., adaptations, remixes).
4) The Editors invite Readers to discuss the published content. The Editors may publish the content of such debates or polemical articles in the journal.
5) The Editorial Office encourages Readers to report any detected instances of scientific misconduct, particularly ghostwriting, guest authorship, plagiarism, data falsification, data manipulation, incorrect or negligent research procedures, or violations of ethical principles in science.
Comments on articles and any concerns regarding scientific misconduct should be sent to oficyna@uafm.edu.pl.

Rules for Editors of the AFM Publishing House

1) The Editorial Team ensures the quality and accessibility of the scientific journals and monographs. It is guided by scientific integrity and impartiality and strives to raise scientific, editorial, and ethical standards.
2) ensures compliance with publishing ethics and counteracts plagiarism, abuse, and other unfair practices, such as ghostwriting and guest authorship;
3) evaluates submitted materials according to an established and transparent procedure and decides which texts will be published, based on the opinions of external reviewers appointed for this purpose.
4) considers the originality of submitted material, its scientific value, and its importance for the development of research in Poland and globally;
5) commercial considerations do not influence the Editorial Team’s decisions;
6) treats received materials as confidential and does not disclose information about submitted articles to unauthorized persons;
7) does not use unpublished articles without the written consent of the authors;
8) has the right to withdraw a publication after its publication if evidence emerges indicating unreliability or falsification of the research, methodological errors, plagiarism, or other violations of publishing ethics;
9) prevents conflicts of interest.

Rules for Reviewers

1) The reviewer is obligated to objectively evaluate the submitted article/ monograph chapter;
2) is obligated to refuse to review if a conflict of interest or lack of competence in the article’s subject matter is suspected;
3) should report any significant similarities between the reviewed text and other works known to them;
4) should indicate significant works related to the subject of the reviewed text not cited by the author;
5) may not use the reviewed work for their own personal needs or benefit;
6) is obligated to submit the review using the form within the specified deadline.
7) The review concludes with a clear statement regarding the rejection of the text, publication of the text without corrections, or the need for the indicated corrections.
8) Reviewed works are confidential and disclosure to unauthorized persons is prohibited.
9) The content of the review is not publicly disclosed.
10) The reviewer does not suggest adding links to their own works to the reviewed texts.
11) The author receives the reviews in an anonymous form. Direct interaction between the author and the reviewer is prohibited.
12) The reviewer does not use generative AI tools in the review process (see AI Policy).

Authorship and Contributorship

All persons listed as authors in the header of the submitted article must have made a real and significant contribution to the creation of the text (design, concept, planning, execution, interpretation of results).

A co-author of an article is anyone who wrote even a small part of it, made a creative contribution to its conception or layout, or participated in the design of the research. A person who performed administrative duties (e.g., the head of a research institution, a person obtaining research funds, a person collecting data or performing statistical calculations) is not considered a co-author. A consultant sharing their expertise also does not acquire the right to co-authorship.

The obligation to provide the names of all co-authors rests with the author submitting the article for publication (the corresponding author).

The names of co-authors should be listed in order of their contribution to the article (starting with the greatest contribution) or (in the case of equal contribution) in alphabetical order. After review and a decision to accept the article, changing the order of co-authors’ names in the header, adding or removing a co-author is only possible if irregularities are detected, in accordance with the procedures recommended by COPE.

The editorial office corresponds (e.g., regarding corrections) only with the author designated as the corresponding author. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors approve the final form of the article after review and editing.
Other individuals who had an identifiable influence (not meeting the criteria for co-authorship) on the final form of the work (e.g., general mentoring) should be listed in the “Acknowledgements” section at the end of the article.
Only human can be an author and co-author of the article. See the AI Policy

The author of the article undertakes to respond to reviews and editorial corrections within the deadline set by the Editorial Office and declares that, upon request, they will respond to any discussion or controversy.

Text Recycling/ Self-plagiarism

Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism, is when sections of the same text appear in more than one of an author’s own publications (overlap of text with an author’s own previously published work).
The editors of the AFM Publishing House will consider each case of text recycling on an individual basis, both in a submitted manuscript and a published article. The decision will depend on the degree and nature of the overlap.

For example, it may be appropriate to have overlap in a methods section of a research article (i.e. referring to a previously used method, with citation of the original article). However, undisclosed overlap, or overlap in the results, discussion, or conclusions is unacceptable. Where overlap is considered to be minor, authors may be asked to re-write overlapping sections, and cite their previous article(s). More significant overlap may result in rejection of the manuscript.

If text recycling is discovered in a published article, it may be necessary to publish a correction (when the original publication is not referenced in the subsequent publication; but there is still sufficient new material in the article to justify its publication) or to withdraw the article (when the recycled text reports previously published data and there is insufficient new material in the article to justify its publication).

Conflict of Interest Policy

Rules for Authors
Upon submission, Authors are required to disclose any conflicts of interest that could influence the research results or their interpretation. All funding sources must be disclosed in the article (including grant numbers or identification of other funding sources). The Editorial Office of the AFM Publishing House does not accept sponsored articles or articles containing product placement.

Rules for Editors
If an article is submitted by a member of the Editorial Office or the Scientific Advisory Board, the Editorial Office of the journal concerned makes every effort to maintain impartiality in the editorial and review processes. Whenever possible, the submissions related to this article are supervised by another Journal Editor, and the submitter is excluded from the decision-making process related to this article.
The AFM Publishing House does not appoint a member of its Editorial Board or the Editorial Office of any of its journals as a reviewer.

Rules for Reviewers
A double-blind peer review model is used, in which reviewers and authors do not know each other’s identities. Articles are submitted to reviewers in an anonymized form, without the authors’ personal data. However, if the content of the article itself allows the author to be identified (e.g., in the case of a very narrow, specialized topic), the reviewer must notify the Editor-in-Chief and sign a declaration of no conflict of interest or decline to prepare the review. Examples of situations in which a conflict of interest may arise between the reviewer and the author:
– direct personal or family relationships,
– professional authority/subordination,
– scientific rivalry,
– direct professional or scientific collaboration within the two years preceding the year the article was prepared.

Complaints and Appeals
Complaints and appeals can be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief at oaleksejczuk@uafm.edu.pl
In the event of complaints, grievances, or appeals, particularly those concerning a breach of the principle of impartiality, the Editorial Office:
– is obligated to register and archive them;
– requests a detailed description of the matter;
– is obligated to maintain the anonymity of the submitter unless they expressly consent to their identity being disclosed;
– is obligated to respond in writing within 30 days of receipt;
– will include in its response, at a minimum, an assessment of the matter and a description of the actions taken or planned by the Editorial Office in relation to the matter.

Intellectual Property

The Author submitting a text for publication declares in the statement that the article:
– is the result of the Author’s independent, original creative work,
– has been prepared with respect for all third-party rights and does not infringe any rights, including property and personal copyrights, as well as the personal rights of these persons.

If the article contains, in addition to the text, other works not created by the Author incorporated as additional material (e.g., photographs, illustrations, drawings), previously unpublished and not made available in any way, and whose publication requires consent for their use from the persons holding the rights to them, the Author additionally declares that they have obtained all necessary written consents for their publication, including for their reproduction and distribution in the article in question.

Authors are obliged to always indicate other publications and sources that they used in the creation of the article. When citing data or words of others, they should use appropriate citation markings (quotation marks and an appropriate cross-reference).

Anti-plagiarism Checking

All articles intended for publication in the journal are scanned for potential plagiarism using the anti-plagiarism system. There are no fixed percentage thresholds for plagiarism. Each report from the system is individually analyzed and assessed by the Editors. Any borrowing from another publication must be accompanied by an appropriate reference.

AI Policy

The Editorial Board of the of the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University recognizes both the rapid development of AI tools and their usefulness when used responsibly, as well as the risks and threats associated with them.

AI Tools: Assistive and Generative

Assistive Tools (Assistive AI)
Assistive AI tools suggest, correct, and enhance human-generated content (e.g., flagging spelling, grammar, and spelling errors, proactively suggesting the next word or phrase). Human-generated content enhanced with these tools is considered “AI-assisted.”

Generative Tools (Generative AI)
This term refers to tools such as ChatGPT, Copailot, or Dall-e that generate content in the form of text, images, or translations. Such content, even if subsequently significantly modified by a human, will be considered “AI-generated content.”

Authorship Policy

Generative AI tools may not be used to create or modify text or images in submitted articles. The AFM Publishing House does not accept articles generated by AI tools, in whole or in part.
Articles submitted to the journals of the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University must be authored by a human.
An AI tool cannot be considered the author or co-author of the article.
The submitting author must complete and sign the appropriate declaration, including an assurance that generative AI tools were not used to create or modify the article’s content (text or images):
“The author declares that the article is the result of their independent, individual work was created without using any generative artificial intelligence tools, in particular for generating the entire text or parts of the text, generating and modifying images, generating false or misleading citations or sources.”
Authors are fully responsible for the content and originality of the submitted text.
If a study referenced in the paper (e.g., a simulation) was conducted using generative AI tools, or if the use of AI tools is part of the research project or research methods, the author must indicate this fact in the publication (e.g., in a footnote) and provide a detailed description of the function and scope of these tools.
The AFM Publishing House allows authors to use assistive AI tools and does not require this information to be included in the submission or in the text itself.

Translation Policy

The AFM Publishing House editorial office does not accept articles translated in whole or in part by machine translation. We believe that available AI tools are still unable to replace human translators.
Only a human can be the author of a translation and is responsible for the quality of the translation.
Submissions of articles translated from the original language into another language must include information about the author of the translation.
Information about the author of the translation will be included in the published article.
If the author of the translation is the author of the article, this must be clearly stated in the submission.
The AFM Publishing House editorial office uses the anti-plagiarism system with AI-generated content detection.
Human translations using computer-assisted translation tools are permitted. Each such translation must be additionally reviewed and verified by a human to avoid errors resulting from misunderstanding the context and intentions of the author, as well as the specific nature of the original language.

Rules regarding the use of AI tools by the AFM Publishing House editors

The AFM Publishing House editors do not use generative AI tools to perform tasks related to the publishing process. All submitted articles are evaluated at every stage by a human, and all editorial work and correspondence are handled by a human.
The AFM Publishing House editorial team uses an anti-plagiarism system with AI-generated content detection. The system’s report is evaluated and verified by a human.

Rules regarding the use of AI tools by reviewers

Only human reviewers may author reviews.
The use of AI tools to generate reviews is prohibited. Reviewing a scientific article involves a responsibility that can only be attributed to a human. Reviewers should not use generative AI or AI-assisted technologies to create a review.
Reviewers are fully responsible for the content of the review.

Confidentiality

The submitted article is treated as a confidential document.
Editors and reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of the review process.
Editors and reviewers may not submit an article or parts thereof to generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot, as this may violate confidentiality and copyright. They may also not share information about submitted articles or their reviews with generative AI tools, even if this is only to improve spelling, style, and readability.