Acta Scientiarum Polonorum. Architectura (ASPA) follows the international ethical guidelines applicable for scientific publications and defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The guidelines are provided below:

Duties of editors:

Publication decision – when deciding whether to publish a paper, the Editors must take into account current legislation, including provisions on copyright.

No discrimination – as far as the fight against discrimination is concerned, the Editorial Team fulfils its obligation to comply with relevant laws effective in Poland.

Confidentiality versus transparency and conflicts of interest – Editors may not disclose information about a submitted manuscript (including the content of the review) to any third parties. The journal follows the double-blind review principle, which states that the names of Authors are not to be revealed to Reviewers and vice versa. The Reviewers are not recruited from among people who are professionally subordinate to Authors of the manuscripts or who maintain some other personal relationships with them (provided that the Editors know about such relationships).

Without the consent of the Authors, Editors and Editorial Staff may not cite, quote or otherwise refer to the content of articles that have not yet been published.

Reviewer’s Duties:

Editorial decisions – the Reviewer has to support the Editors in their decisions about the publication of a manuscript.

Timeliness – the Reviewer is to declare whether they can complete the review within the deadline set by the Editors. In case the Reviewer decides that they cannot complete a review within the specified deadline, they should notify the Editors about the potential delay.

Objectivity – reviews must be written in an objective way. Personal criticism of the Author is considered inappropriate. Reviewers are required to support their views with appropriate scientific arguments. Reviewers’ remarks should be constructive and to the point.

Confidentiality versus transparency and conflicts of interest – the content of a review should be treated as a confidential document. Information obtained from a review cannot be used for personal gain.

Verification of sources – the Reviewer must inform the Editors of any suspicion of copyright infringement in the reviewed manuscript and pay attention to shortcomings or errors in the footnotes.

Author’s duties:

Appropriate attribution of authorship – authorship should be limited only to those who contributed to an article significantly. People who contributed to an article to a lesser extent should be listed as collaborators in the acknowledgement section.

Disclosure of funding sources – the Author is obliged to disclose all the sources of funding for projects in their paper, as well as any contributions of research institutions, associations, and other entities.

Conflict of interest – it is a duty of the Author to disclose conflicts of interest that may affect the results and interpretation of their work.

Ghostwriting and quest authorship - the Editorial Team believes that “ghostwriting” and “guest authorship” constitute academic dishonesty. Every such case, once discovered, will be exposed and met with consequences – including sending notifications to relevant parties (institutions that employ the Author, scientific societies, etc.).

“Ghostwriting” is considered to occur when someone who has made a significant contribution to a publication does not reveal themselves as one of the Authors, or their role is not mentioned in the publication’s acknowledgement section.

“Guest authorship” is considered to occur when an Author’s contribution is minor or, in extreme cases, equal to zero, and yet their name appears in the heading of the article.

Providing data – if Authors are requested to provide unprocessed data used in the paper submitted for publication, they are obliged to comply.

Multiple publications – the Editorial Team considers it unethical and impermissible to submit the same paper simultaneously to more than one journal.

Originality, plagiarism, and verification of sources – Authors are only allowed to submit their own manuscripts to the journal. The manuscript should, by way of citations, identify the sources that influenced the manucsript submitted for publication. Authors must make sure that the names of the cited authors are correctly given. Authors may not use confidential information without the consent of relevant authorities.

The Editorial Team is obliged to document any instances of scientific dishonesty, especially breaches and violations of ethical principles in science.