Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement of Acta Biologica Universitatis Daugavpiliensis

The ethics statements of Acta Biologica Universitatis Daugavpiliensis are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core practices (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices). All parties involved in the publishing (authors, reviewers, editors, publisher) should respect and agree with these standards.  

1. Publication and authorship

All manuscripts submitted to Acta Biologica Universitatis Daugavpiliensis will be managed by journal’s editorial board. The editorial board consists of editor-in-chief, associate editors-in-chief, associate editors and technical assistance. 

The peer review process of each submitted manuscript is as follows:

1.  Manuscripts initially are evaluated by a consortium of editor-in-chief and associate editors-in-chief. Manuscripts can be directly refused or passed to associate editors in specific research field;
2. Associate editors select the appropriate reviewers who are not part of the Acta Biologica Universitatis Daugavpiliensis editorial board for the corresponding manuscripts and send manuscripts for evaluation;
3.  During two weeks reviewers send their evaluation and suggested decisions for the manuscripts back to associate editors. Associate editors review the reviewer evaluations and suggest the decision about manuscripts to consortium of editor-in-chief and associate editors-in-chief;
4. Editor-in-chief is giving the final decision of each manuscript after taking into account the recommendations and argumentation of associate editors as one of the following options: accept, minor revision, major revision, reject with resubmission, reject).

All submitted manuscripts before publishing will be peer reviewed by at least two reviewers who are experts in the area of the particular manuscript. During the peer review process, the following aspects of each manuscript will be evaluated: research significance, relevance, originality, readability and language.

The possible decisions of reviewers about manuscripts are: accept, minor revision, major revision, reject with resubmission, reject. Rejected articles will not be reviewed again. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted. The first decision about the manuscript is sent to author(s) within two months after the initial manuscript submission.

Acta Biologica Universitatis Daugavpiliensis accepts only original research work that was not published before, except conference abstracts or summaries. No plagiarism, copyright infringement or presentation of fraudulent data is allowed. Acta Biologica Universitatis Daugavpiliensis editorial board checks each submitted manuscript for plagiarism with WCopyfind program Under Gnu Public License (https://plagiarism.bloomfieldmedia.com/software/wcopyfind/). All submitted manuscripts should include a list of used references.

Acta Biologica Universitatis Daugavpiliensis copyright belongs to the Institute of Life Sciences and Technology, Daugavpils University. Authors are publishing in Acta Biologica Universitatis Daugavpiliensis for free. All published articles are open access and after publication immediately available to anyone.

Advertising in Acta Biologica Universitatis is allowed that is clearly related to promote biological science events or other activities and that does not influence the journal publishing process and decision-making.

2. Author responsibilities

Authors must certify that the manuscript:

• is their original work;
• is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere;
• has not previously been published elsewhere.

Each author is obliged to participate in the peer review process and provide retractions or corrections of mistakes. All authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the current research, contributed to the manuscript writing or revision with important intellectual content and agreed to the final version of the manuscript. Authors should mention all sources of financial support for the work. Authors are obligated to notify the editor(s) of any conflict of interest.

Authors should present the precise work and results which lead to the description of the significance of the work. The work of the authors should be repeatable. The references should be precise and relevant to the research. Any inaccurate assertion is unethical and unacceptable.

If authors have presented information gained privately from conversations or similar communication, it should not be included in a manuscript without the written permission of the source.

Authors may be asked for the data presented in the manuscript for editorial review purposes.

If authors used the work or any written expression of others, it should be approriately cited. Authors should be aware that plagiarism takes many forms from copying words from other author works to claiming results from other author research. Plagiarism is unethical and should not be tolerated.

If authors used the involvement of humans or animals in their research, authors should ensure that it was done in accordance with the Regulation of Daugavpils University ethical Committee of Research in Biology and Medicine (RDURBM). RDURBM was prepared based on the Law of Scientific Activity Republic of Latvia,  the Law of Animal Protection and the Ethical Code of Scientist in consent with Latvian Academy of Sciences and Latvian Science Council. RDURBM operates according to WMA Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/) and guidelines for the treatment of animals in behavioral research and teaching (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347217303214?via%3Dihub).

Author obligation is to take part in the peer review process and cooperate with editors by responding promptly to requests for clarifications or other issues related to the submitted manuscript before the given deadline.

If authors have found significant mistakes in their published work, they are obligated to inform journal editors or publisher and cooperate with them. If editors or publisher find from the third party about the errors of the published work, it is author responsibility to correct these errors or provide evidence of the correctness of the errors to journal editors.

3. Reviewer responsibilities

Each reviewer evaluates the described research significance, relevance, originality, readability and language in the manuscript.

Information regarding papers is confidential and material under review should not be shared or discussed with anyone outside the editorial board of the journal. All reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.

It is expected that reviewers:

• express their views clearly with supporting arguments;
• identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the author;
• will inform the associate editor’s attention in case of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge;
• will not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

If the invited reviewer thinks that is unqualified to review the manuscript or will not be able to review it in a certain time period should immediately notify editor(s) and decline the reviewing process. The rapid reviewer answer will save editor time to search for alternative reviewer.

Reviewers will not use unpublished information from the submitted manuscripts for their own research without the clear written acceptance of authors. This applies also to invited reviewers who declined their invitation.

4. Editor responsibilities

Editors have responsibilities toward the authors, the peer reviewers, the journal readers and the scientific community. They guarantee the quality of the papers, relevance to the journal scope and the integrity of the academic record without regard to the author race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Editors do not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members. Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers and have a clear picture of a research funding sources.

The editor-in-chief makes the final decision to reject or accept an article by taking into account research importance, originality, clarity, relevance to publication scope, and ensure that all research material conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines and associate editors-in-chief recommendations. Editor decisions about editing and publishing manuscripts are not influenced by the policies of governments or other agencies outside the journal.

Editors publish errata pages or make corrections when needed and act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.

Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions. They should have proof of misconduct and not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason.

Editorial board members will not use unpublished information of the submitted manuscripts for their own research without the author clear written acceptance. If editors find a conflict of interest in the manuscript, they will ask another editorial board member to handle the manuscript.

5. Duties of the publisher

In case of plagiarism or other scientific misconduct, the publisher in collaboration with editors will take all suitable measures to find out the situation and change the specific article. This can be done by publication erratum or withdrawal of the specific article.

6. Access of the Acta Biologica Universitatis Daugavpiliensis

The publisher of the journal guarantees free access to anyone and permanent availability and preservation (in case if journal will no longer be issued) of the journal in a digital archive.

Published material can be used for further references (reproducibility) only if the appropriate citation is provided (author(s) name(s), year, name of the article title, journal title, volume, number, page number).