Informatyka, Automatyka, Pomiary w Gospodarce i Ochronie Środowiska

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

(based on Elsevier recommendations and COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors)

Ethical guidelines for journal publication

The publication of an article in the double-blind peer-reviewed journals published by IAPGOS is process of permanent knowledge improvement. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Double-blind, peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviour for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society of society-owned or sponsored journals.

IAPGOS takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognise our ethical and other responsibilities.

Informatyka, Automatyka, Pomiary w Gospodarce i Ochronie Środowiska is committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, Editorial Board will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful to editors.

The Editorial Team does not use the AI or AI-assisted technologies to make decisions requiring critical thinking or creating any other substantive opinion.

Conformance to standards of ethical behaviour is therefore expected of all parties involved: Authors, Editors, Reviewers, and the Publisher.

Principles for Authors:

Authors should present an objective discussion of the significance of research work as well as sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the experiments. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. Review articles should also be objective, comprehensive, and accurate accounts of the state of the art. The authors should ensure that their work is entirely original works, and if the work and/or words of others have been used, this has been appropriately acknowledged. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. Submitting the same manuscript  or articles describing essentially the same research to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. The corresponding author should ensure that there is a full consensus of all co-authors in approving the final version of the paper and its submission for publication. All authors should disclose 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 disclosed. 

The principles governing the functioning of the Publishing House and the Editorial Teams:

Editors should evaluate manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit. An editor must not use unpublished information in the editor's own research without the express written consent of the author. Editors should take reasonable responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper.

The principles for Reviewers:

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments, so that authors can use them for improving the paper. Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process. 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. 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 paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Artificial Intelligence Policy:

For Authors:

The AI cannot be credited as an author or co-author of the manuscript, nor cited as an author.
Authors confirm that they are fully responsible for the article’s content. Furthermore, they confirm that if AI-based support tools have been used, the manuscript text has been verified by a human, who is obliged to carefully review the text created with AI and correct it if needed.
Any use of AI tools in the research or writing of the article has been transparently disclosed in the manuscript, including the used tool's name and version (e.g. in the section Methods, Acknowledgements, or a dedicated AI declaration). 
Authors who use AI technology should describe in the submitted work how they used it (for example: writing assistance, data collection, statistics and/or comparison analysis, figure generation). 
Dedicated AI declaration should include the following elements: "Content Affected + AI Tool + Purpose of AI Use + Human Oversight". 

For Reviewers:

The reviewer must not use AI to make decisions requiring critical thinking or create any other substantive opinion about the manuscript.
The reviewers base their reviews on their scientific and expert knowledge.
The reviewers are not allowed to utilise Generative AI tools during the manuscript review process (in particular, by pasting parts of the original text into AI queries, since it violates the authors' copyrights).
If reviewers suspect the unacknowledged use of generative AI tools in a manuscript under review, they are required to notify the editorial board.

For Editorial Board:

The editorial board reserves the right to review submitted texts, including the use of AI tools. To investigate any suspected misuse of AI generators, the editors will take the necessary steps to verify and clarify any concerns. The editors use tools designed for this purpose and software equipped with appropriate security measures to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of the manuscript and its content are maintained.

Detailed principles concerning publishing ethics described by the COPE are available in the COPE Flowcharts.