Ghostwriting and guest authorship

To ensure the highest standard of papers published in the Scientific Papers of The Witelon Collegium, following the recommendations issued by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Editorial Committee puts a lot of weight on ethics in science and endeavours to implement procedures counteracting the phenomena of „ghostwriting" and „guest autorship". 

The Publishing House applies the principles of publishing ethics aimed at counteracting unfair publishing practices. Collegium Witelona Publishing House The State University in particular applies the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE - Committee on Publication Ethics).

„Ghostwriting" is a phenomenon consisting in concealing the identity of the person who made a substantial contribution to a paper, was its actual author or co-author. This term is also used with reference to a failure to acknowledge a person’s contribution to the publication of a paper in the manuscript.

„Guest authorship" refers to authors or co-authors who are listed in a manuscript despite having made little or no contribution to it.

To counteract the phenomena of “ghostwriting” and “guest authorship”, in case of papers written by at least two authors, we request the latter to submit a suitable statement specifying the extent of their individual contribution to the manuscript (attachment no. 6 – author’s/ authors’ statement).      

The author of the published work is obliged to sign a copyright publishing agreement and make a statement that the work has not been published so far and its content and illustrative material do not infringe the moral or property rights of third parties. If the work contains any third-party content or illustrative material, the author of the prepared publication is absolutely obliged to indicate the source, and in some cases obtain the written consent of the copyright holder. For infringement of copyrights of third parties, all legal and financial consequences are borne by the author.

Counteracting the phenomena of „Predatory Publishers" and „Predatory Journals"

The Publishing House has a policy of counteracting the practices of „Predatory Publishers” (predatory publishing houses) and „Predatory Journals” (predatory journals). Authors of monographs, chapters in monographs published by the Publishing House and scientific articles published in Scientific Papers of The Witelon Collegium, do not pay for their publication and do not receive royalties.