Privacy Policy and Data Sharing

Personal data collected from the contributors and independent peer reviewers may include: full name, work affiliation, professional credentials, contact details, ORCIDs, details of correspondence. Neither the Board, nor the editorial team have technical capacities to track data from third-party sources. The Editorial Board and the editorial team shall not attempt to track the IP addresses of any senders establishing communication with the journal. The Editorial Board and the editorial teams shall not use any personal data provided by authors and/or reviewers for own personal purposes, including those of purely research/academic nature.

Since authors’ work affiliation is integral part of articles’ indexation in the international databases and catalogues, this information is treated as open-source data and all the authors are strongly encouraged to provide it during the submission of their texts. Authors’ current work affiliation and contact emails are published on the first page of each article and are treated as part of open-access information. If any author would NOT like to see their email published - they shall inform the editorial team about this decision at least 3 business days prior to the date of the article going online.

The Editorial Board and the editorial team shall not share personal contact information (such as phone numbers, personal emails, skype names and the like) with third parties. Editors that are in direct communication with the authors (online and/or offline) are responsible for keeping all correspondence data confidential. Communication with the members of the Editorial Board and the editorial team using social networks is strongly discouraged. We ask all our authors, reviewers and reader to respect the privacy of our employees and partners and do not seek communication with them via the informal sources such as Facebook, Linkedin and the like.

If any person/organization receives an email from the Board or the editorial team due to technical error or human mistake - we ask them to delete the email as soon as possible and notify the editorial office at their earliest convenience.

The minimum term of any personal data retention is 1 calendar year since the day of the first contact. The editors of the journal maintain the right to delete any personal data on the authors and/or reviewers they consider unnecessary anymore.

If the Board and/or editorial team conduct a survey, authors/reviewers/readers participating in it would be informed in advance and would be asked to provide their permissions.

If you have a specific enquiry about how we collect and save data - please, contact our managing editor. If you want all your personal data be deleted from our internal database - please, contact our managing editor.

Editorial Code of Ethics - General Principles

The Editorial Board strictly follows all guidelines and recommendations issued by COPE - Committee on Publication Ethics (more details: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices). We have updated all our rules and internal regulations so that to fully comply with the GDPR policies.

Both Editorial Board and editorial team are strongly committed to maintain trustful relations with all the authors, current and prospective, as well as with all the reviewers.

High standards of research conduct and academic publishing shall always go first, prior to commercial interests and needs of the editorial team and publishers of the journal

The journal prefers to restrain from any sort of advertising activities as such and concentrate on academic publishing solely. In exceptional cases advertisement still can be published. The decision on advertisement publication shall belong to publishers, not editors of the journal. Published advertisement shall be directly related to the fields of academic research, higher education and conferences within the scope and topics of the journal itself.

Copyright and Open Access License

Authors submitting articles for publication warrant that the work is not an infringement of any existing copyright and will indemnify the publisher against any breach of such warranty. For ease of dissemination and to ensure proper policing of use, papers and contributions become the legal copyright of the publisher unless otherwise agreed.

 The following license will apply to the article: CC BY

 The CC BY license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

 The publisher will apply the Creative Commons Attribution Works 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY) to the Article for the purposes of publication in the journal on an Open Access basis. For further information, see the Open access options page. The full details of the license are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode.

Ethical Oversight

All editors - in-house, acting, managing and guest - are responsible for maintaining the balance of high-quality materials published, freedom of expression and academic integrity

Editors and publishers of this journal are expected to communicate following the principles of editorial independence. Despite the fact that editors are officially hired (or invited on the pro bono basis) to work in the editorial team, all decisions made by the editors are expected to be based solely on the quality and content of the provided texts and be independent from economic relations within the office or current political situation in the country/region.

Editors of the journal are responsible for revision of academic publishing rules and double-blind peer-review standards on the annual basis (at least once a year; additional changes can be introduced if the world standards and/or COPE regulations change).

Newer editors shall not reverse the decision of previous editors, unless there is an external complaint filed about plagiarism or other misconduct.

All editorial rules and academic standards imposed and followed by the Editorial Board are similarly applicable to both published and unpublished (still under consideration) texts.

Articles containing criticism of various previous works, encouraging academic debate and/or presenting negative results should be treated equally to more traditional types of articles describing authors’ own results. Articles of this sort are also subject to standard double-blind peer-review.

Any first-hand research must be scientifically valid and unbiased. The sample size must be adequate and the results must be presented clearly. Any potential ethical harm must be minimized, ethical standards, where appropriate, must be upheld.

To this end, if the research requires human participation in the form of surveys, trials, testimonials or other contributions, the authors must ensure that all participants have given their informed consent. If the authors intend to include a participant’s name, appearance or identifying features in the publication, they must clearly indicate as much in the consent form.  We ask all authors to include a blank consent form that they have used with their submission, as well as a translation if the original is in a language other than English (example of the consent form is available here). By submitting a manuscript for consideration in our journal, the authors are confirming their adherence to this requirement for all human participants they have engaged.

Authorship and Citations

All authors listed on the paper must have made a significant contribution to the article whether through writing, revising or critically reviewing it. All listed authors must have agreed to share the responsibility for the contents of the article and to participate in resolving any questions, complaints, or allegations regarding its accuracy or integrity.  All listed authors must have approved the order of listed authors, the version of the article submitted to our journal and the submission itself.

Should any authorship disputes arise, the journal editors cannot arbitrate them. The affiliated institution(s) or institutions where the work was conducted will be asked to step in.

The author(s) must declare any existing or perceived conflicts of interests, both financial and non-financial in nature. If there is a conflict of interest for a reviewer, they must inform the editors and recuse themselves. If there is a conflict of interest for an editor, they must inform the Editorial Board or Editor-in-Chief and proceed according to their instructions.

Articles must cite timely and verified literature relevant to the subject matter. The author(s) must refrain from excessive or inappropriate self-citation.

More information on authorship and citation is available in the  “Instruction for Authors” section.

Peer Review

Editors of the journal are responsible for determining whether the text fits the journal’s scope and general framework. The decision that the text does not fit either of them or both should be provided to the author(s) along with the explanation why so and (optional) recommendation on alternative publication options.

All manuscripts submitted to the Journal undergo double blind review, i.e. they are reviewed by two experts in the corresponding field, either members of the Editorial Board or recognized independent experts.

Editors of the journal are responsible for explaining the details on the double-blind peer-review procedures to both the authors and the reviewers. Every time the reviewer gets the text for a blind review, they also get a reminder on rules and procedures accepted by the editorial team.

Neither of the peer reviewers is given any information on the identities of the authors, their affiliations or other personal details. Likewise, no information on the reviewers is shared with the authors before, during, or after the peer review process.

Editors are responsible for making sure the peer-review process is properly encoded and that neither the author, nor the reviewer are able to detect the identities on the opposite side.

Originality of the ideas and importance/relevance of the research output presented in an article are treated as the top-priority criterion when the text is considered for publication.

Complaints, Retractions and Clarifications

At any point of time the authors of already published materials have the right to contact the editorial team with the request of retraction, publishing apology, clarification or correction. The editor shall fully support this decision of the authors, however, they may also request additional explanation before publication and/or retraction. The time and the issue of publishing additions/apology/clarification is to be determined by the editors depending on the technical capacities of the editorial office.

Editors shall be responsible for informing the international databases and catalogues on the cases of retraction. However, they cannot be responsible for the timing of the related updates in these databases and catalogues.

In case an author, a reviewer or a reader plans to file a complaint regarding the journal’s activities, they are kindly asked to contact the related editor as the first instance. In case the filer of the complaint disagrees with the decision and/or explanation provided by the editor - they are asked to contact the publisher. The publisher has the right to disregard the complaint if the filer did not try to settle the case with the editor first.

In case a complaint is filed by an author, a reviewer or a reader of the journal, the editors shall follow the appropriate COPE procedures, using similar cases described on the COPE site as the benchmark in the field.

All situations presented as the conflict of interests shall be resolved according to COPE regulations. In such situations, editors and/or publishers are expected to find a relevant case among those described on the COPE site and take action accordingly.

Allegations of Plagiarism or Other Misconduct

Types of misconduct include misrepresentation of professional credentials (e.g. affiliation, academic title), citation manipulation, image or data fabrication / manipulation, peer review manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, unethical research, plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) and others.

The integrity of the publication is paramount, therefore any misconduct will be treated with utmost seriousness in line with COPE guidelines.

In case the editors detect the case of plagiarism and have all the evidence to prove it - they maintain the right to contact the author’s employer, the related Ministry of Education and/or other appropriate authority (depending on a country and a specific case) and report the case of plagiarism.

In case plagiarism or other misconduct have been reported externally, the editors are expected to fully cooperate on the case and provide all evidence they have on the case, apart from the identity of the involved reviewers.