Publishing Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
The Publishing Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement of "Az-buki" National Publishing House are based on the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) и имат за цел въвеждането на добри практики и стандарти за етично поведение на всички участници в процеса на публикуване – автори, рецензенти, редактори и издател.
Всички представени за публикуване материали подлежат на строг процес на рецензиране от най-малко двама анонимни и независими рецензенти, които са експерти в научната област на конкретния ръкопис. Решението за публикуване се основава на значението и стойността на ръкописа, коментарите и препоръките на рецензентите и съответствието с изискванията и насоките на списанието.
Authors’ Responsibilities
Multiple, repeated or simultaneous publication
Ръкописите, предоставени за публикуване в списанието, трябва да бъдат оригинални изследователски работи, които не са публикувани преди това или представени за преглед в други списания. Подаването на един и същи ръкопис едновременно в две или повече издания е недопустимо.
Presenting the research
Authors must present accurate information for the submitted research and its results, as well as objective motivation for their significance. The manuscript must contain sufficient details and references, so as to accommodate potential recreation of its methodology and results.
Authorship of the publication
Само лица със значим принос по отношение на концепцията и изпълнението на научното изследване или участници в изработването на окончателния вариант на текста и подаването му за публикуване трябва да бъдат включени като негови автори.
Any and all changes to the list of authors must be approved by all authors, including the ones removed from said list.
Originality, plagiarism and citation
Authors must guarantee that they have written and submitted entirely original manuscripts and that they have adequately referred to all sources used in the research, as well as publications by other authors which have had significant impact on the research process.
Using others’ work, fully or partially, without accurately and scrupulously citing the course, is strictly prohibited.
Manipulation of citations
Няма да се приемат за публикуване материали, за които се установи, че авторите са включили цитирания с единствената цел да се повиши броят на цитиранията на определена авторска публикация или на статии, публикувани в определено списание.
In any manuscript self-citation must not exceed 20% of all sources cited. In case the percentage of self-citation is higher, the Editorial Board may request written justification from the authors.
Текущо ще се извършва проверка за наличие на прекомерно самоцитиране, за да се предотвратят манипулации или умишлено акцентиране върху съдържанието на определено списание. Допустимият общ процент на самоцитиране за всяко списание на Издателството е под 15% от общия брой цитати в рамките на един том. Всички случаи на неподходящо самоцитиране ще бъдат разглеждани своевременно и прозрачно, в съответствие с установените етични правила при публикуване.
Access to and saving data
Авторите могат да бъдат помолени да предоставят за редакционен преглед първичните данни от проучването си заедно с ръкописа, и трябва да са готови да направят публично достъпни тези данни.
Authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals after publication – with respect to the proprietary legal rights and data authorship.
Assistance in the peer review process
Authors are obligated to answer editors’ inquiries about the raw research data, clarifications on the manuscript’s text or authors’ rights, in a timely manner.
Авторите трябва да отговарят своевременно на коментарите на рецензентите, както и в срок от 14 дни от получаване на рецензията да коригират и отново да изпратят своя ръкопис след съобразяване с дадените коментари или да дадат мотивирано обяснение в писмена форма защо коментарите не са взети предвид.
Авторите се уведомяват за решението за публикуване или отхвърляне на ръкописа веднага след приключване на процеса на рецензиране.
Conflict of interest and financial support transparency
Авторите трябва да декларират всякакви възможни професионални, финансови или лични интереси от други страни или друг конфликт на интереси, който може да се тълкува като повлияващ на резултатите или тяхното тълкуване в ръкописа. Декларацията за потенциален конфликт на интереси е задължителна стъпка в процеса на изпращане на ръкописа. Материали с недеклариран конфликт на интереси, за които се установи по-късно, че такъв е налице, могат да бъдат отхвърлени.
The sources of funding (should there be any), whose support the text is prepared with, must be clearly stated.
Publication mistakes and corrections
Ако авторите открият значителни грешки или неточности в собствения си текст, тяхно задължение е незабавно да уведомят редакторите или издателя и да си сътрудничат с тях, за да коригират или при необходимост да оттеглят статията.
If a third party reports a significant mistake or inaccuracy in a published text, the authors are obliged to immediately correct or withdraw their manuscript, or otherwise provide the editors with proof of the text’s correctness.
Reviewers’ Responsibilities
Privacy
All manuscripts submitted for review are private documents and should be treated as such. They must not be shown to or discussed with other parties, which have not been authorized by the editor-in-chief. This rule also concerns reviewers who have declined an invitation to review a manuscript.
Timeliness
Всеки поканен рецензент, който се чувства неквалифициран да рецензира ръкопис, трябва незабавно да уведоми редакторите и да откаже поканата, за да даде възможност за избор на друг рецензент.
Всеки поканен рецензент се съгласява да рецензира ръкопис само ако е уверен, че може да върне рецензията в рамките на предложения или взаимно договорен срок, като информира редакторите незабавно, ако има нужда от удължаване на този срок.
Assistance in the decision for publication
The review assists the editors in taking editorial decisions and, through communication between the editors and authors, may help the authors improve their manuscripts.
Objectivity
The reviews must be objective and the conclusions must be clearly formulated and supported by arguments, so that authors may use them to improve their manuscript. Personal critique toward the authors is strictly prohibited.
Correctness in regard to the sources and ethical violations
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors and notify the editors – also of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript of which they have personal knowledge.
Reviewers must immediately notify the editors, should they find any irregularities, in case of uncertainty about the ethical aspects of the work, in case of knowledge of simultaneous submission of the manuscript in another journal or an already published article, or in case of suspicion of misconduct during the research itself or the writing and submission of the manuscript.
Conflict of interest and procedure transparency
Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript should immediately declare their conflicts of interest to the editors so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.
Unpublished material, described in the submitted manuscript, must not be used in any research by the reviewers without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas acquired during the process of reviewing must remain private and must not be used for personal reasons by the reviewers. This rule also concerns reviewers who have declined an invitation to review a manuscript.
Editors’ Responsibilities
Decision to publish
The editors of the journal accept and evaluate manuscripts based on their scientific merit (originality, clarity, topicality, relevance), regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, political or religious philosophy, social or institutional affiliation.
Преди да изпратят получения ръкопис за рецензиране, редакторите преценяват дали статията отговаря на профила и тематиката на списанието, дали е правилно подготвена и отговаря на основните технически изисквания. В случай че не отговаря на съответните изисквания, ръкописът се връща на автора(ите).
The editors guarantee that all submitted manuscripts that are being considered for publication are reviewed by at least two reviewers, who are experts in the respective field.
The editors should always consider the interests of the authors and the readers when working on publication improvement or making corrections when needed.
All decisions for editing or for the publication of a text are made by the Editorial Board with no outside interference.
Privacy
Editors and editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the people, directly involved in the evaluation and publication process - corresponding author, reviewers or the publisher.
The editors and the members of the Editorial Board will not use or distribute to third parties any unpublished information about a manuscript without the written consent of the authors. The information received in the process of editing the manuscript is considered confidential and will not be used for personal gain.
Conflict of interest
The editors declare that they will not participate in the process of evaluating manuscripts that can lead to a conflict of interest – including, but not limited to, competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with the author or the institution they’re affiliated with. In such cases the affected editor will ask another member of the Editorial Board to handle the manuscript.
Ethical violations and complaints
The editor is obligated to take the appropriate course of action in case of submitted complaints, concerning the ethical aspects surrounding a submitted manuscript or a published article. This includes contacting the author of the article и thorough examination of the submitted complaint.
In case the complaint is upheld, recommended courses of action include publishing corrections, retraction of the article, a statement of opinion, refuting the complaint, etc.
Publisher’s responsibilities
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation. If necessary, this includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or - in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work.
The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining own digital archive.
The publisher commits to guaranteeing the autonomy of editorial decisions with no interference by advertisers or other commercial partners.
The publisher assists in communications with other journals and/or publishers, provided this benefits the publishing activity.
The publisher collaborates with other publishing houses and organisations in the creation of standards for publication ethics.
Identifying and handling misconduct
Plagiarism
Plagiarism in all its forms is considered unethical and inappropriate behavior. All manuscripts sent for publication are examined using specialised instruments (such as StrikePlagiarism) to discover potential similarities between the submitted materials and other publications. The journal reserves the right not to publish a text which, upon examination, reveals a degree of similarity higher than 20%.
If plagiarism is discovered during the review process, the manuscript may be rejected.
Ако бъде открито плагиатство след публикуване, ще се проведе разследване и ще бъдат предприети действия в съответствие с политиките на Издателството.
Fabrication and falsification of data
Materials for which it is discovered that the authors have fabricated or falsified the results, including the manipulation of images, will not be accepted; if such violations are discovered in already published articles, those articles will be retracted.
Manipulation of citations
Няма да се приемат за публикуване материали, за които се установи, че авторите са включили цитирания с единствената цел да се повиши броят на цитиранията на определена авторска публикация или на статии, публикувани в определено списание.
Preprints
The author may freely share the manuscript in the version which was originally submitted to the journal for consideration. Should the text be accepted, after publication the author must add to the shared manuscript the name, volume and number of the journal in which the text has been published.
Copyright and access policies
By sending a text and/or an illustration to the Editorial Board, the author agrees to give up the rights of their announcement, publication and distribution with the purpose of promoting the publishing house’s other journals, to the publisher – "Az-buki" National Publishing House.
The author agrees to give "Az-buki" National Publishing House the exclusive rights to use any text and/or illustration published in the journal for the duration of three years, regardless of the territory on which the publisher has the right to use the text in accordance with Bulgarian Copyrights law.
The version of the manuscript accepted for publication, as well as the published version in PDF format should not be distributed freely, including through academic and social networks aimed at sharing the results of scientific research (e.g. ResearchGate.net and Academia.edu).
Печатната и онлайн версията на списанието се разпространяват чрез абонамент.
Open access is provided for the contents of every first issue of the journal for the respective year, as well as for the abstracts and keywords of the articles.
Should the author (or the institution they represent) wish for their article to be accessible to all readers as a full text, the journal can accommodate that through its webpage – after the payment of a protection fee that covers the costs associated with the article.
Publication fees
Publication in the journal is free for both the authors for and their scientific or educational organisations.
Advertisement policy
The journal permits restricted, adequate and occasionally targeted advertisement on its final pages. The advertisements must be independent form the editorial decisions and clearly discernible from the content of the article.
The editors reserve the right to reject or retract any advertisement that raises suspicion of contradicting the ethical principles or the good practices of scientific publication.
Списанията се публикуват от Национално издателство „Аз-буки“, което е второстепенен разпоредител с бюджетни кредити към Министерството на образованието и науката. Редакционната независимост се спазва стриктно, а стратегията и практиките на публикуване са изцяло отговорност на главния редактор и на редакционната колегия. В това и във всяко друго отношение не се вземат предвид търговски съображения.
