Publication Ethics

The editorial staff of “Forensic Science” calls for adherence to the principles of the Code of Ethics for Scientific Publications developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

 

Ethical obligations of the editors

The editor should consider all manuscripts submitted for publication without prejudice, evaluating each one properly, regardless of race, religion, nationality, or work place of the author(s).

Information is not allowed for publication if there are sufficient grounds which prove that it is plagiarized.

All materials submitted are subject to thorough selection and review. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject an article or return it for revision. The author is obliged to revise the article following the comments of the reviewers or the editorial board.

The editor’s decision to approve an article for publication is based on such characteristics as the importance of the findings, originality, quality of presentation, and relevance to the journal’s profile. Manuscripts may be rejected without review if the editor believes that they do not meet the journal’s profile. In making such decisions, the editor may consult with members of the editorial board or reviewers.

Ethical obligations of the authors

Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works; if the authors used the work or words of others, it was properly documented in the form of references or quotations in quotation marks.

Submitting the same article to more than one journal is considered unethical behavior and is unacceptable.

The article should be structured, contain sufficient references and be formatted in accordance with the requirements.

Unfair or deliberately inaccurate statements in the article constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

The corresponding author shall ensure that all co-authors have read and approved the final version of the article and have agreed to its publication.

The authors are fully responsible for the article’s content and for the fact of their publication. The editorial board does not bear any responsibility to the authors for any possible damage caused by the article’s publication. The editorial is entitled to withdraw an article if it turns out that someone’s rights or generally accepted norms of scientific ethics were violated. The editorial board notifies the author of retraction.

Ethical obligations of the reviewers

To ensure the unbiased evaluation of manuscripts, double-blind peer review is conducted.

If the designated reviewer is not sure that their qualifications correspond to the research presented in the manuscript, they should immediately return the manuscript.

The reviewers should properly explain and justify their judgments so that the editors and authors can understand the basis for their comments. Any statement that an observation, conclusion, or argument has been previously published should be supported by an appropriate reference.

The reviewer shall draw the editor’s attention to any significant similarities between the manuscript under review and any published article or any manuscript simultaneously submitted to another journal.

The reviewers shall not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in the relevant manuscript unless authorized to do so by the author.

All manuscripts are initially reviewed by the editors to assess their relevance to the journal’s subject area and requirements.

The editors do discuss rejected articles with the authors.

General duties and responsibilities of the Publisher

Publishing House “Helvetica” and the society on behalf of which it publishes shall ensure compliance with the standards outlined above. To this end, the relationship between publisher, editor and other parties should be clearly defined. The Publisher is obliged to:

Foster freedom of expression.

Moderate the peer-review process

Protect intellectual property and copyright.

Respect privacy of research participants, authors, reviewers.

Monitor submitted material to identify plagiarism, fraudulent data and overlapping content.

Monitor transparency and integrity (e.g., conflicts of interest, research funding, authorship/contributorship).

Publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

Prevent business needs compromising intellectual and ethical standards.

Make sure that all actors in the process work effectively towards the achievement of timely publication.

Plagiarism prevention policy

 All papers are subject to plagiarism check using StrikePlagiarism.com by the Polish company Plagiat.pl. We protect the rights of authors/co-authors and investigate allegations of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. If plagiarism is discovered after publication, the journal may publish a correction or retract the article.