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Duties of Editors

• Publication decisions – when deciding whether to publish a paper, the Editors must take into account current legislation, including provisions on copyright.
• Impartiality and non-discrimination – submitted articles are evaluated on the basis of their intrinsic qualities. Issues such as gender, origin, age, religion, affiliation, academic rank and position, or political beliefs of the author(s) do not influence the assessment of articles in any way.
  
• 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.
• Monitoring ethical standards – The Editorial Board regularly monitors compliance with publication ethics in relation to scientific articles and takes measures to prevent practices that violate established standards.
• Compliance with legal and professional standards – all persons involved in conducting research and producing publications are required to comply with legal and professional ethics standards imposed by professional organizations and research funding entities.
• Fair play principle – articles submitted for publication are evaluated by the Editorial Board primarily in terms of their content, form, and technical aspects. Editorial decisions are based solely on scientific criteria, and factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, age, marital or parental status, disability, or political views of the authors do not influence the evaluation of submitted works.
• Submissions by Editors and Editorial Board Members – when a manuscript is authored or co-authored by a member of the Editorial Team or the Editorial Board, the selection of reviewers and all editorial decisions regarding that manuscript are handled exclusively by another member of the Editorial Team who is not involved in the submission. Manuscripts submitted by Editors or Editorial Board Members are not given any priority over other submissions and are subject to the exact same review process as any other manuscript. Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration of the author's own submission. In cases where no uninvolved Editor is available to manage the process, an external Guest Editor or a member of the Scientific Committee with no conflict of interest may be appointed for this purpose.
• Complaints, grievances, appeals – all complaints, grievances, and appeals are recorded and archived by the journal's Editorial Team. The complaint should describe the case in detail and indicate which content or actions it concerns. The Editorial office is obliged to maintain the confidentiality of the complainant's data, unless they decide to reveal their identity. Access to this information is restricted to the person submitting the complaint, authorized editors, and the publisher. The Editorial Team responds to complaints in writing within 30 days of receipt, presenting an assessment of the case and a description of the actions taken or planned in its course.
• Principle of scientific integrity – members of the Editorial Team are required to take all measures to ensure the scientific integrity of published works. To this end, they may make appropriate corrections, and in the event of suspected dishonest practices (e.g., plagiarism, falsification of research results) or other ethical violations, they have the right to decide to withdraw the article from publication. Any manifestations of scientific misconduct, in particular: ghostwriting; guest authorship; plagiarism; fabrication or falsification of data; manipulation of data; incorrect and negligent conduct of research, and violations of scientific ethics are unacceptable and must be immediately investigated and reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Team.
• Procedure in Case of Suspected Misconduct – The Editorial Board of the journal records and archives all cases of suspected misconduct. If such cases are detected, the editorial board encourages the reporting of the matter, preferably with a detailed description and indication of the content concerned. After receiving the report, the Editorial Board contacts the Author for clarification and then analyzes the evidence provided regarding violations of scientific integrity. On this basis, the Editorial Board decides to withdraw the article, introduce a correction or amendment, and, if necessary, inform the relevant institutions.
• Ghostwriting and guest authorship – ghostwriting occurs when someone makes a significant contribution to a publication but is not disclosed as one of the authors or is not mentioned in the acknowledgments of the publication. Guest authorship (honorary authorship), on the other hand, is a situation where someone who has made a minimal contribution to the creation of a publication, or has not participated in its creation at all, is nevertheless identified as the author or co-author of the publication. In order to maintain scientific integrity, the Editorial Board selects submitted articles, taking into account the prevention of ghostwriting and guest authorship practices. Such cases are considered a violation of scientific integrity and, if detected, the Editorial Board takes action to disclose them, including notifying the relevant institutions.
• Corrections, clarifications, and errata – The Editorial Board publishes corrections, clarifications, additions, or apologies as necessary. These are made available on the journal's website or in its published version. In accordance with the principles of publication ethics and the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), if the text does not qualify for withdrawal or minor corrections, the Editorial Board may publish an erratum, supplement, or correction.
  In the case of significant changes affecting the reception of the content or the determination of authorship, the supplement should be preceded by a correction from the Editorial Board, indicating the scope and reason for the changes.
• Principle of openness and permanent access – The Editorial Board provides free, Open Access to all Journal content for Users.

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Duties of Reviewers

• Editorial decisions – the Reviewer has to support the Editors in their decisions about the publication of a manuscript.
• Double-blind review – The journal applies the double-blind peer review principle, under which authors and reviewers remain anonymous to each other. Procedure Of Paper Reviewing here
• 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.
• Principle of scientific integrity – Reviewers are required to make every effort to comply with the standards and ethical principles related to the publication of scientific texts and to counteract practices that are inconsistent with these standards. In the case of suspected dishonest practices, such as plagiarism or falsification of research results, reviewers may make appropriate corrections or decide not to accept the text for publication
• Fair play – issues such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, origin, citizenship, age, marital or parental status, disability, and political beliefs of the Authors cannot influence the outcome of the review in any way. Texts submitted for publication are evaluated primarily in terms of their content, form, and technical aspects.

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Duties of Authors

• Rules regarding authorship – authors may be individuals or groups who have made a real and significant contribution to the work, including design, execution, and interpretation of results. All those who contributed to the final form of the article should be included as co-authors. The submitting author is responsible for obtaining the consent of all authors for the final version of the work.
  Persons whose contributions were minor (e.g., general mentoring, research coordination, data collection) may be listed in the Acknowledgments. The order of authors must be determined and accepted by all authors of the text. After publication of the text, changes to author information may be made in accordance with the procedures indicated by COPE. The Author undertakes to make editorial corrections, respond to reviews, and participate in discussions or debates at the request of the Editorial Board. The author also has the right to submit corrections to the text and expect them to be taken into account by the Editorial Board.
• Data sharing policy – Authors should be prepared to share raw research data upon request by the Editorial Board. Attaching data to articles is not mandatory; data may be archived in open repositories and properly cited, e.g., with a DOI.
• 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.
• Rules concerning errors in published works – If the Author discovers significant errors or inaccuracies in their text, they are obliged to immediately notify the Editorial Board of the journal in order to withdraw the text, prepare an errata, or correct the errors.
  By submitting an article for publication, the author declares that they will comply with the Editorial Board's request to provide explanations regarding any complaints, grievances, or allegations of scientific dishonesty concerning the published text.
• 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 guest 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.
• Text corrections and additions – During the editorial process, prior to publication, the author, editors, and reviewers may jointly correct the text through discussion. By submitting a text for publication, the author agrees to actively participate in discussions with the journal's editorial staff.
  The editorial board reserves the right to make corrections to the text after its publication without informing the authors, but this applies only to minor changes. Minor changes include, for example, formatting and spelling corrections. These are not significant corrections that affect the reception or scope of the presented content.
  Significant changes, such as withdrawing an article due to an error, adding or removing an author, or correcting data affecting the interpretation of research results after publication, may be implemented in accordance with the procedures indicated by COPE.
• Withdrawal of text by the Author – The Author has the right to withdraw the submitted text in the event of gross negligence on the part of the Editorial Office. In the event of significant delays, the Editorial Office shall inform the Authors of the reasons and the expected time of processing the article. Complaints and requests for withdrawal should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief.
  Ethical oversight compliance rules
  If the text concerns research on humans, animals, embryos, dual-use products, or sensitive data, the Author must provide the Editorial Office with a statement of compliance with applicable regulations and procedures.
• Respect for intellectual property rights – The Author declares that the article is original and does not infringe on the rights or personal interests of third parties. The Author must also obtain consent for the publication of images, statements, or works of persons used in the text.
• ORCID number – We recommend providing an ORCID identifier to ensure clear researcher identification.
• Charges – The journal charges an Article Processing Charge (APC), the amount of which is specified in the Charges tab.
• Only humans can be authors of scientific texts. AI tools cannot be considered authors or co-authors. 

• AI policy – The journal has a policy on the use of artificial intelligence and requires authors to submit a statement regarding the use of AI in the preparation of their article.

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Editorial Responsibility

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

Prevention of Scientific Misconduct

All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using the Similarity Check (iThenticate, Crossref) system.
The Editorial Board takes actions to prevent unethical practices such as plagiarism, self-plagiarism, multiple publication, ghostwriting, and guest authorship.

In the event of serious errors being detected, the Editorial Board may:

• publish a correction,
• retract the article,
• notify the relevant institutions about the breach of ethical principles.

Readers may report any concerns or suspicions of ethical misconduct to the Editorial Office each case is examined individually.

Contact the Editorial Office of the Journal

Any concerns regarding scientific integrity should be addressed to: acta_architectura@sggw.edu.pl