ETHICS

Publication ethics

The Editorial Board of “Scripta & e-Scripta” is committed to providing the highest ethical standards at every stage of the publishing procedure. The journal subscribes to the Code of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In cases of possible authorial misconduct, including but not limited to plagiarism, falsification of data, or double publication, the Editorial Board will request an explanation and, where warranted, undertake appropriate steps according to the guidelines described in the COPE flowcharts (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). This may eventually include notification of the authorities at the author's institution, withdrawal of the article in question, and exclusion of any further submissions by the same author from the journal.

Editorial Procedure

The review procedure of “Scripta & e-Scripta” is based on double-blind peer review. Every text is subject to at least two reviews by expert peers.
Contributions to “Scripta & e-Scripta” are accepted at the following addresses: Anissava Miltenova, anmiltenova@gmail.com; Margaret Dimitrova, margaret.dimitrova@gmail.com; Elissaveta Moussakova, emoussakova@gmail.com.

1. Upon receiving a new submission, the Executive Editor (a member of the Editorial Board appointed to the issue), sends it to individual members of the Board for preliminary evaluation and to verify compliance with the journal’s ethics and conditions for further consideration.
2. All submissions are discussed by the Executive Editor and the other members of the Board to see if the minimum conditions are met for the submissions to be taken into consideration. All preliminarily accepted articles are assigned to two referees. 50% of the referees for any given issue of “Scripta & e-Scripta” must be affiliated with an institution outside the Republic of Bulgaria.
3. The Executive Editor and three members of Editorial Board are responsible for the review procedure, viz. sending review requests, collecting the referee reports, and informing the other members of the Editorial Board about the review process.
4. All referee reports are read by the Executive Editor and the Editorial Board. In case a submission receives two negative reviews, it is either rejected or a third reviewer is appointed. In case a submission receives one positive and one negative review, a third reviewer is appointed.
5. The Executive Editor and the three members of the Editorial Board (see above) sees that the anonymous referee reports are communicated to the authors; after a corrected version of the text is received, the Executive Editor and the members of the Board decide whether the author has implemented the reviewers’ recommendations satisfactorily.
6. The Executive Editor collects the accepted versions of the submissions, prepares the final table of contents and after the entire issue has been accepted for publication, delivers it to the publisher.;

Author Responsibilities

Reporting standards: Articles submitting to “Scripta & e-Scripta” should be the result of original research. The Abstract should contain an accurate account of the work performed and an objective description of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript.

Authorship, originality and plagiarism: Authorship credit should be based on substantial contributions to analysis and interpretation of primary sources and data, to the overview of the secondary literature, and critical revision and final approval of the text to be published. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list of the manuscripts and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Authorship credit should be extended to all colleagues who have contributed substantially to the ideas and work reported in the publication; colleagues who have not contributed substantially should not be credited as co-authors. In cases of co-authorship, the individual contributions of each author must be specified in the paper. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable, and in consequence, the texts of that kind will not be published in the journal. Plagiarism, data manufacturing and data falsification are unacceptable.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication: An author should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Parallel submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. Such texts will not be published in “Scripta & e-Scripta”.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest: All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or another substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editor to either retract the paper or to publish an appropriate erratum.

Availability of data: The authors may be requested to deliver the primary data gathered by them, and they should ensure that the positive answer to such a request is still possible sometime after the text is published.

Еxecutive Editor / Editor in Chief and Editorial Board responsibilities

Accountability: The Editorial Board of “Scripta & e-Scripta”, and its Executive Editor in person, are responsible for deciding which of the submitted articles should be published; they are also accountable for everything published in the journal. In making these decisions, the Board may be guided by the policies of the journal’s Editorial Board and is guided by the legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Board may confer with other editors or reviewers when making publication decisions. The Board should maintain the integrity of the academic record, preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards, and always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed. As the head of the Editorial Board, the Editor in Chief has the final decision on every stage of the procedure and he/she bears personal responsibility for every decision taken by the Board.

Thus, all the rules mentioned below are obligatory to the whole Editorial Board and the Editor in Chief in particular.

Fairness: The Editorial Board of “Scripta & e-Scripta” should evaluate manuscripts for intellectual content without regard to race, age, gender, sexual orientation/identity, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, academic position or degree, or political philosophy of the author(s). The Board will not disclose any information about an author to anyone. Identity of the author is not revealed to the reviewer until the publication.

Confidentiality: The editor and any editorial staff of “Scripta & e-Scripta” must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers (these shall be informed only about the title, length of the text and the abstract), other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure, conflicts of interest, and other issues: The Editorial Board of “Scripta & e-Scripta” will be guided by COPE’s Guidelines for Retracting Articles [DOI: 10.24318/cope.2019.1.4] when considering retracting, issuing expressions of concern about, and issuing corrections pertaining to articles that have been published. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

The Executive Editor of “Scripta & e-Scripta” is committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.

The Editorial Board of “Scripta & e-Scripta” should seek to ensure a fair and appropriate peer-review process. Editors should recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations: The Editorial Board of “Scripta & e-Scripta” should guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct. The Board should pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct. It should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper. If needed, the Board is always willing to publish the appropriate corrections, clarifications or apologies.

Rejection of the text: The Editorial Board of “Scripta & e-Scripta” refuses to publish the text if:

• it does not match the field, the chronological and geographical profile of the journal
• it constitutes plagiarism or violates copyright
• it does not meet scholarly quality standards or bears clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error)
• the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication or auto plagiarism)
• it reports unethical research
• it was not altered or corrected by the author(s) following the suggestions of the reviewers.

The author is officially informed by the Editorial Board if the text is not accepted due to the aforementioned reasons. Information should indicate the precise reasons for refusal.

Editors and editorial team members are excluded from publication decisions when they are authors or have contributed to a paper.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Peer review assists the Editorial Board of “Scripta & e-Scripta” in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communication with the author, may also assist the author in improving the manuscript. Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its timely review will be impossible should immediately notify the Board of “Scripta & e-Scripta” so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the editor.

Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable. Referees should express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published data of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider evaluating 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 submission.

For the matters, unspecified above COPE Ethical
Guidelines for Peer Reviewers should be effectively used.

Concerns & complaints: Anyone who notices any violations of the rules specified above or any unnoticed example of unethical behaviour, fraudulent research or misconduct is kindly asked to contact the Editorial Board and the Executive Editor immediately (amiltenova@gmail.com).

For further information, cf. the rules below and the sections: Guidelines for authors and guidelines for reviewers.