Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement 

 Journal of "Problems of Information Society" and its academic editors are committed to fair and professional dealing in all aspects of our publishing operations. It is required to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher. Our publication ethics and publication malpractice statement is mainly based on the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers.

Duties of Editors

Publication decisions

The editor of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding calumny, copyright violation and plagiarism. The editor may consult with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play

An editor will at any time assess manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not unveil any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the members of the editorial board for their own research purposes without the author's explicit written consent. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.

Duties of reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

The peer-reviewing process assists the editor and the editorial board in making editorial decisions and may also serve the author in improving the paper.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should inform the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

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

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views obviously with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should detect 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 paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Unpublished materials unveiled in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer's own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal benefit. Reviewers should not consider 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.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Authors of original research should introduce an accurate account of the work accomplished, as well, as an objective discussion of its importance. Underlying data should be represented exactly in the paper. A paper should encompass sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or deliberately inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior are unacceptable. Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial 'opinion' works should be clearly identified as such.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been properly cited or quoted. 

The editorial board refuses to publish the article if the text does not refer to the original source. The editorial staff analyzes any case of plagiarism. If plagiarism is detected at any stage by the editorial board or reviewers, the author (s) are notified of the need to rewrite the text or refer to the original source.

The plagiarism percentage is calculated by the software and is also estimated by the editorial board.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. As a whole, an author should not submit a previously published paper for consideration in another journal.

 Acknowledgement of sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been significant in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, for example in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Authorship of the paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be approved or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should unveil in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be divulged. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be unveiled include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

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 duty to promptly alert the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to withdraw or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly withdraw or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.