PUBLICATION POLITICS

Copyrights

Copyrights constitute a set of rules that govern one of the most important areas of intellectual property rights. The copyright, set out in the Polish Act of 4 February 1994 on Copyright, specifies who is entitled to copyright protection. It grants the owner of copyrights a set of exclusive rights, however, it also provides for exceptions from the said protection, in order to serve the public good. The Act of 4 February 1994 on Copyright and Related Rights. The purpose of copyrights is to protect works. A work – any manifestation of creative activity of individual nature, established in any form, regardless of its value, purpose and manner of expression (Article 1(1) of the Act on Copyright and Related Rights). Since its creation, a work becomes automatically protected by law. The law sets out the manner in which others may use the work. Copyrights divide into moral rights and property rights. Moral copyrights are inalienable and always enjoyed by the authors. They also protect the relation between the author and their work, and, in particular, guarantee: 1) authorship of the work, 2) that the work is always to be signed with the author’s surname or pseudonym (unless they choose to remain anonymous), 3) inviolability of the content and form of the work and its fair use, 4) the right to decide on the first making the work available to the public and 5) the right to supervise the use of the work. As a rule, author’s property rights are enjoyed by authors of their work, but the entitled person has the right to assign the rights to other entities. It allows managing the work within the so-called fields of exploitation. The author may allow others to use the work by granting them a license or selling it under a signed agreement. When an author’s property rights transfer agreement has been concluded, these rights are solely enjoyed by the party acquiring the rights. The acquiring party has the exclusive right to use the work and receive remuneration. By signing a license, the author retains all their rights and they only grant the licensee the permission to use the work within a specified scope, referred to in the license terms and conditions. A license may be exclusive or non-exclusive. Copyrights allow the author to withdraw from or terminate the agreement due to their “own material interests”. However, when the author is unable to demonstrate such an interest, termination is allowed on general terms and conditions. It should be noted that author’s property rights are effective throughout the entire life of the author and also: 70 years after their death; 70 years from the first publication of the work if the author is unknown or the rights are exercised by someone else than the author; 70 years from the date of its creation and in the case that a work has never been published before – 50 years from the date of the first broadcast with household audio/video devices as well as preparing phonograms and videograms. Works to which property rights have expired are entered into the so-called public domain.

Open Acces & Licenses

Open Access means the absence of technical and legal restrictions concerning the use of scientific materials posted on the publicly accessible Internet. This assumes further use of these materials in compliance with copyright laws on permitted use or under an unlimited free licence of Creative Commons. Main Open Access development directions are open repositories and peer-reviewed Open Access journals. Recognizing the need to ensure the highest standards of science and taking care to follow good practices in carrying out and disseminating research results, the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (KUL; the Publisher) took efforts, in 2017, to prepare the academic community and the University's infrastructure for adopting a policy of openness with regard to scientific publications and research data, based on the Resolution of the Senate of 22 June 2017 on taking action to develop an open access policy regarding access to scientific publications and research results, in accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education provided in the document titled Directions for Open Access development (2015).

These actions involved, inter alia, the development of infrastructure that supports Open Access publications, namely:

• the KUL Institutional Repository (2018) and
• the KUL Platform for Journals (2019)

The Regulation of the Rector of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin of 3 April 2018 on the collection, processing and dissemination of electronic versions of doctoral dissertations admitted for public defence at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin introduced the obligation that doctoral dissertations be collected and made available in the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Institutional Repository. In 2019, the Rector of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin issued the Regulation of 10 May 2019 on the introduction of the Publishing Policy of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin for 2019-2021. The Regulation recommends that academic works of KUL scholars be made available in the Open Access model with the application of the Creative Commons licence, and with the use of existing infrastructure (for journals that means the KUL Platform for Journals, and for monographs – the KUL Institutional Repository). The tasks of monitoring, supporting the achievement of and maintaining high scientific position of KUL publications and disseminating the results of academic research, especially in the open access model, are carried out by the Department of the Repository and Publication Positioning at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Publishing House, this being done by coordinating work related to the creation, maintenance and development of infrastructure that makes open access possible, promotion and advisory services, as well as training with regard to open access policy. The next step entails the development of a document for institutional open access policy to academic publications including research data.

The Publisher does not require that editorial boards of journals decide on a certain license, however, it recommends the CC BY and CC BY SA licenses, which are in line with the guidelines of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests Policy

Conflicts of interest are relationships that entail professional subordination and economic dependence as well as social relations, which can affect impartial assessment of the merits of the text. The editors require the author to make a statement on the lack of conflict of interest and provide information that will help to prevent such conflict. The authorship of a work should be limited to persons who have made a significant contribution to the text. Results of research may not be published in more than one journal. Submitting a paper for publication is understood as a declaration that the text has never been previously published anywhere, including in electronic form, and that it has not been submitted for publication in other journals nor is a part of a non-serial publication, such as a monograph. The authors assume collective responsibility for their work. The authors should also provide the editorial board with information on the sources of financing of the publication, contribution of academic research institutions, associations and other entities (“financial disclosure”). The editorial board decides which papers will be published, takes care to ensure the quality of published material and, if necessary, is ready to publish a revision, erratum or correction if need be. The editorial board accepts responsibility for all the content featured in the journal. The editorial board uses the Open Journal System, which allows to follow a comprehensive, electronically-based editorial process, within which the editor, reviewer and the author of the text may carry out a discussion and make corrections at each stage of the publication process. Reviewers may not use the reviewed texts for their own needs and benefits. If there is a conflict of interest between reviewer(s) and author(s) of the text, such reviewers should be excluded from the review procedure.

Policy for Dealing with Allegations of Research Misconduct

The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, as the Owner and Publisher of academic journals of the University, to ensure the highest quality of its publications and to prevent unfair publication practices (plagiarism, autoplagiarism, ghost-writing, guest authorship or courtesy authorship) applies the principles of publication ethics which are in compliance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin provides its journals with support in this regard, in the form of: 1) a system that checks the similarity of texts – iThenticate (http://www.ithenticate.com/): the system checks similarity with 91% of most often quoted journals and provides the option to view the content of papers, makes it possible to detect a potential plagiarism before embarking on the review process and solve the problematic issues; Final Similarity Reports provide certainty that the published papers are original. The content of journals is indexed within the Crossref - Similarity Check initiative, the purpose of which is to prevent academic and professional plagiarism; 2) Open Journal Systems (OJS) – a platform for managing the publishing process and for publishing journals online. OJS provides mechanisms that make it possible to: hold a discussion between the author and the editor and between the editor and reviewers; revise, correct or withdraw papers after their publication; 3) in the event that unfair research practices are detected, the Publisher encourages the editorial boards to use the solution map, available in the form of COPE flowcharts (https://publicationethics.org/resources/translated-resources/polish-all-flowcharts). Moreover, the Publisher also provides expert legal assessment of the situation and advice on unfair publishing practices. Members of the editorial board are obliged to take care to ensure scientific integrity of the published works. If dishonest practices are suspected, the editors are obliged to withdraw the text from publication and to take steps to explain and remedy the situation. The detected cases of transgression of ethics (plagiarism, falsification of research results, manipulation of research results, inventing research results, etc.) should be reported in writing to the journal’s Editor-in-Chief. The report may be submitted by a member of the editorial board, reviewer, reader of the journal or any other person who holds suspicions as to the integrity of the text. The editorial board acts in compliance with the principles formulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In the event that transgression of ethical principles concerns a text that has already been published, the editors will remove the paper from the website, providing information on the reasons for withdrawal and, in the case of a text published in print, the editors will publish an appropriate statement in the next edition of the journal. The editorial board will notify of the matter the author, the institution he/she is affiliated with, reviewers, the aggrieved persons and also, if necessary, other ethical oversight bodies. If ethical transgressions in the text are minor, it will be possible to republish the corrected text. If there is a conflict of interest within the editorial board, the report should be submitted to the Publisher (repozytorium [at] kul.pl).

Business Model

The business model of the journals of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin is based on external funding (e.g. grants of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education) and the institutional support of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, which means that there is no charge for papers published in the journals on the CzasKUL Platform, and costs of publication, reviewing, archiving etc. are covered by the Publisher. The journals do not publish paid advertising. Editors attend training sessions on, among others, efficient management of scientific journals, database applications or publishing on the CzasKUL Platform. Costs of training sessions are covered by the Publisher.

Code of Ethics

Rules applicable to Authors

1. Principle of scientific integrity

The author is obliged to conduct and present scientific research in a reliable way and to interpret it objectively. The text should disclose sources of data and information that will allow the research to be replicated.

2. Principle of originality

The text should represent the intellectual property of the author. Plagiarism, autoplagiarism, falsification and making up data and research methods are inadmissible. If the author has made use of other works, these should be properly referenced in order to remove any doubts concerning the authorship of the work or any part thereof. Information obtained privately (e.g. in a conversation, correspondence, discussion) may not be used without the written consent of its author.

3. Principle of data availability

The editorial board does not collect research data and the presentation of the research data management plan does not constitute a requirement that must be met in order for a paper to be published. However, in certain circumstances authors may be asked to provide research data, also after the publication of their paper.

4. Principle of preventing conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest are relationships that entail professional subordination and economic dependence as well as social relations, which can affect impartial assessment of the merits of the text. The editors require the author to make a statement on the lack of conflict of interest and provide information that will help to prevent such conflict.

5. Principles of authorship

The authorship of a work should be limited to persons who have made a significant contribution to the text. In order to prevent cases of academic dishonesty, such as "ghost-writing” and "guest authorship”, all persons who have made a contribution to the publication should be mentioned as co-authors. All authors must approve the final version of the work and agree to its publication. In their written statement, the authors indicate their contribution to the creation of the work submitted. All persons who have taken part in certain important aspects of creating the work (e.g. language verification) should be identified. If there are others who participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be mentioned, for example, in the “Acknowledgements”. The authors assume collective responsibility for their work. The authors should also provide the editorial board with information on the sources of financing of the publication, contribution of academic research institutions, associations and other entities (“financial disclosure”).

6. Principle of source reliability

The publications that influenced the author’s work should be properly quoted. Information obtained privately may not be used without the written consent of the author. 

7. Ethical supervision

If the scope of the published consent covers research on humans and/or animals, the author should provide the consent of the Ethics Committee or another appropriate authorisation for such research.

8. Principles concerning errors in published works

If the author notices significant errors in their publication, they should immediately notify the Editor-in-Chief. An erratum, annex or correction should be published in cooperation with the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher, or the publication should be withdrawn.

9. Principle of avoiding multiple, redundant or concurrent publications

Results of research may not be published in more than one journal. Submitting a paper for publication is understood as a declaration that the text has never been previously published anywhere, including in electronic form, and that it has not been submitted for publication in other journals nor is a part of a non-serial publication, such as a monograph.

Principles concerning members of the Editorial Board

1. Responsibility

The editorial board decides which papers will be published, takes care to ensure the quality of published material and, if necessary, is ready to publish a revision, erratum or correction if need be. The editorial board accepts responsibility for all the content featured in the journal.

2. Principle of fair play

The papers are assessed on the basis of their merits and importance for the journal, regardless of the affiliation of the author of the work, their nationality, ethnicity, political views, gender, race or religious denomination. 

3. Principle of confidentiality

The editorial board of the journal is under the obligation to keep confidential any information related to the editorial process.

4. Complaints and appeals

A complaint against the Journal and/or the Editorial Board should be in writing or, if it concerns the journal or the conduct of the editorial board members – to the Editor-in-Chief; if it concerns the conduct of the Editor-in-Chief, the complaint should be addressed to the Publisher and sent in cc to the Editor-in-Chief. The Publisher is under the supervision of the Vice-Rector for Science and Education of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. The subject of the complaint may be, for example, the infringement of the interests of the complaining party, negligence, protracted response or lack of response in the matter on the part of the editorial board. The complaining party should receive written information on the resolution of the matter submitted within 30 days of the complaint.

5. Verification of materials already published and prevention of conflicts of interest

The editorial board may withdraw a paper from publication or make a decision to correct materials that have already been published. Unpublished materials may not be used in the publishing process without the written consent of the author.

6. Discussion and corrections

The editorial board uses the Open Journal System, which allows to follow a comprehensive, electronically-based editorial process, within which the editor, reviewer and the author of the text may carry out a discussion and make corrections at each stage of the publication process.

7. Decisions concerning the publication

The decision to publish or not to publish the text is made by the editorial team. The decision of the editorial team is determined, first of all, by the academic merits of the text and its compliance with the thematical scope of the journal.

8. Principle of scientific integrity

Members of the editorial board are obliged to take care to ensure scientific integrity of the published works. If dishonest practices are suspected, the editors are obliged to withdraw the text from publication and to take steps to explain and remedy the situation. The detected cases of transgression of ethics (plagiarism, falsification of research results, manipulation of research results, inventing research results, etc.) should be reported in writing to the journal’s Editor-in-Chief. The report may be submitted by a member of the editorial board, reviewer, reader of the journal or any other person who holds suspicions as to the integrity of the text. The editorial board acts in compliance with the principles formulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org. In the event that transgression of ethical principles concerns a text that has already been published, the editors will remove the paper from the website, providing information on the reasons for withdrawal and, in the case of a text published in print, the editors will publish an appropriate statement in the next edition of the journal. The editorial board will notify of the matter the author, the institution he/she is affiliated with, reviewers, the aggrieved persons and also, if necessary, other ethical oversight bodies. If ethical transgressions in the text are minor, it will be possible to republish the corrected text. If there is a conflict of interest within the editorial board, the report should be submitted to the Publisher.

Rules applicable to Reviewers

1. Cooperation with the editorial team

Reviewers participate in the editorial process at the review stage and have an influence on the decisions made by editors with regard to the publication of the text. They also may, in consultation with the authors, decide of the final shape of the paper.

2. Principle of timely performance

Reviewers are required to meet a set review deadline. The reviewer should immediately inform the editorial board of the reasons for delays or of withdrawal from reviewing the text.

3. Principle of confidentiality

Only authorised persons, i.e. the editors, authors and reviewers have access to the reviewed works.

4. Principle of objectivity

The review should concern only substantive and formal aspects of the text. Any remarks concerning the authors are inadmissible.

5. Principle of source reliability

The reviewer should disclose all cases that indicate the similarity of the reviewed work to other works and indicate which works have not been referenced by the author.

6. Principle of preventing conflicts of interest

Reviewers may not use the reviewed texts for their own needs and benefits. If there is a conflict of interest between reviewer(s) and author(s) of the text, such reviewers should be excluded from the review procedure.

Rules applicable to the Publisher

The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, as the Owner and Publisher of academic journals of the University, to ensure the highest quality of its publications and to prevent unfair publication practices (plagiarism, autoplagiarism, ghost-writing, guest authorship or courtesy authorship) applies the principles of publication ethics which are in compliance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin provides its journals with support in this regard, in the form of: 1) a system that checks the similarity of texts – iThenticate (http://www.ithenticate.com/): the system checks similarity with 91% of most often quoted journals and provides the option to view the content of papers, makes it possible to detect a potential plagiarism before embarking on the review process and solve the problematic issues; Final Similarity Reports provide certainty that the published papers are original. The content of journals is indexed within the CrossRef - Similarity Check initiative, the purpose of which is to prevent academic and professional plagiarism; 2) Open Journal Systems (OJS) – a platform for managing the publishing process and for publishing journals online. OJS provides mechanisms that make it possible to: hold a discussion between the author and the editor and between the editor and reviewers; revise, correct or withdraw papers after their publication; 3) in the event that unfair research practices are detected, the Publisher encourages the editorial boards to use the solution map, available in the form of COPE flowcharts (https://publicationethics.org/resources/translated-resources/polish-all-flowcharts). Moreover, the Publisher also provides expert legal assessment of the situation and advice on unfair publishing practices.

Peer Review Process

Reviewing texts intended for the journals of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin is based on the double-blind review. All articles are reviewed by two academic staff members, who are specialists recognised in the area that the reviewed article focuses on. Reviewers have different affiliation than the author and do not know the author’s identity. The opinion of the reviewer is presented to the author anonymously. If the reviewers have conflicting opinions, the editorial board can refer the text to another reviewer. The review procedure follows the recommendations of Committee on Publication Ethics included in the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers (http://www.kul.pl/files/387/Peer_review_guidelines.pdf) end MNiSW recommendations described in the pamphlet Good practice in review procedures in science (https://www.archiwum.nauka.gov.pl/g2/oryginal/2014_02/307f933b1a75d6705a4406d5452d6dbf.pdf).

Anti-plagiarism system

To prevent plagiarism, the editorial boards relies on an anti-plagiarism system https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/ which uses the iThenticate software (http://www.ithenticate.com/) by Turnitin – a global provider of technology services for science and education. The system allows to check the alleged similarity of the text in question with billions of Internet sources and texts deposited by publishers who use Similarity Check. Plagiarism constitutes an infringement of personal copyrights whereby a person is appropriating someone else's work in its entirety or in part and publishing it under their own name. Copying one’s own work in order to expand the author’s scientific output represents an act of autoplagiarism. Plagiarism is a punishable act. If plagiarism is detected, the editorial board will notify the institution with which the author is affiliated, the reviewers and the person(s) whose rights have been infringed. In addition, the editorial board will withdraw the published text and post information of the fact on the journal’s website and/or in the printed version.

Research data

By research data, the Publisher means materials of factual nature recorded in the form of numbers, text, graphics or sound, generally considered by the scientific community to be necessary for the evaluation of the results of scientific research. The editorial boards does not collect research data and the presentation of the research data management plan does not constitute a requirement that must be met in order for a paper to be published. However, in certain circumstances authors may be asked to provide research data, also after the publication of their paper.

Archiving

Texts are archived on the OJS platform and in the KUL Institutional Repository. Our OJS system uses OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) protocol to export metadata. The KUL Institutional Repository (ReKUL) provides journals with the following features: dissemination in open access and long-term storage; description of the document using metadata in compliance with the Dublin Cor standard; document protection by assigning persistent digital resource identifiers in the Handle system; possibility to send and disseminate files saved in various formats and do it loss-free, both for single files and file sets; possibility to store research data in single files or file sets; possibility to select Creative Commons licence in order to enable open access; possibility to indicate an alternative document location using URI, ISSN or DOI; possibility to use the mechanisms of Open Access Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), which allows to integrate with search engines and databases; possibility to track statistics concerning the deposited documents.