The publishing process

The yearly editorial calendar constitutes the frame of our publishing process. First, it shall be evaluated and accepted by the Publishing Board, hereafter referred to as the Board. Then it shall be approved by the Deputy Rector for Scientific Affairs and Foreign Cooperation, hereafter referred to as the Deputy Rector.

Publications submitted to our Publishing House which have not been specified in a particular yearly editorial calendar can be published upon request from the Board or the Deputy Rector. These include especially monographs, conference-related or post-conference materials and additional printing of coursebooks.

Publications to be included in a yearly editorial calendar can be submitted by didactic staff, thematic editors and heads of particular organisational units. This is not equivalent to approval, but merely to setting aside the necessary financial resources to be used in the event of their publication.

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).

We implement the policy of counteracting the unethical practices adopted by „Predatory Publishers” and „Predatory Journals”. We do not charge any fees or remunerate any authors for the publication of their monographs and chapters of monographs by our Publishing House or their articles in the Scientific Papers.

To counteract the phenomena of „Ghostwriting” (which consists in concealing the identity of the person who made a substantial contribution to an article, even though they were its actual authors or co-authors) and „Guest autorship” (acknowledging a particular person in a publication even though they made little or no contribution to it) authors are obliged to submit a suitable statement specifying the extent of their contribution to a particular publication (attachment no. 6).

The Author(s) prepare their publication in accordance with the „Paper Preparation and Structure Guidelines" (attachment no. 7) and submit it to the Secretary in a printed version or on an electronic medium (e.g. CD). Subsequently, the Secretary submits a copy of the publication to the relevant Thematic Editor, who serves as its first reviewer in terms of content and requests the Publishing House to start its publishing procedure.

Stages of the publishing process:

The Thematic Editor or Content Editor of a special publication or Scientific Paper submits it to the Secretary, together with an application for the opening of the publishing process (attachment no. 8). The aforementioned application shall contain the addresses of the independent reviewers deriving from institutions non-affiliated with the author(s) of the article to be reviewed, holding a doctor’s degree or higher, with some academic achievements in the branch or discipline of science relevant to that of the article in question. Monographs and articles published in the Scientific Papers are reviewed by 2 reviewers whereas other publications by at least 1 reviewer. Attachment no. 9 contains the Polish version of the review form, and attachment no. 10 – the English one. The publishing process is initiated by the submission of the application for the opening of the publishing process;

The Secretary of the Publishing House sends a printed copy of the publication to the reviewer(s), together with a form of the commission contract with the transfer of copyright (attachment no. 11), a form of the commission contract bill with the transfer of copyright (attachment no. 12a or attachment no.12b) and a form of the declaration for tax and insurance purposes (attachment no. 13);

In the case of articles receiving one positive and one negative review, the third one will be decisive as to whether they will eventually be published or not.

Articles submitted for review mustn’t contain any information allowing for an identification of their author(s) or their affiliations. We respect the “double blind review” rule, with the authors and reviewers remaining anonymous to one another. 

Following the reception of the review and a printed version of the publication, containing the comments made by the reviewer, the Chief Editor familiarises himself with the content of the review, he submits its original version to the Publishing House and sends its copy and the printed version of the publication to the relevant thematic editor, who, having familiarised themselves with their content, subsequently, sends them to the author(s);

The author is obliged to submit the publication, corrected in accordance with the reviewer’s suggestions, to the Secretary of the Publishing House. It shall be in a printed and an electronic version, following the Paper Preparation and Structure Guidelines; apart from that, the authors are obliged to submit a written response to the review(s) of their publications;

The decision concerning the actual publication of a particular work and its circulation figures is made by the Deputy Rector, following consultation with the relevant thematic editor;

The Secretary of the Publishing House delivers the contract to the author(s) for signing. It can be concluded between the author(s) and the Chief Editor: the commission contract with the paid transfer of copyright (attachment no. 14), the commission contract with the unpaid transfer of copyright (attachment no. 15), or between the author(s) and the Chief Editor and Co-Editor: the commission contract with the paid transfer of copyright (attachment no. 16), the commission contract with the unpaid transfer of copyright (attachment no. 17),

The Secretary also delivers to the author(s) the form of the declaration of intellectual property of the entire publication or its parts and the visual materials contained in it (attachment no. 6);

• The selection of people or economic entities providing the services connected with the preparation of the publication for printing (i.a. technical editing, proofreading, typesetting, etc.) and the printing house is made by the Head of the Promotion and Publishing Department, hereafter referred to as the Head of the Department. The aforementioned decision is taken in compliance with the provisions of the Public Procurement Law and the regulations under cooperation agreements signed by our Publishing House with Co-Editors;
• In the case of works approved for publication, the Publishing House may perform preliminary calculations of the costs involved, if requested to do so by the ordering unit;
• A scientific publication card is issued (attachment no. 18) by the Promotion and Publishing Department, where the Head of the Department registers all the successive stages of the publishing process, providing such details as the dates and names of people responsible for them. The Chief Editor or Deputy Rector express their final approval of a publication on the card before it is printed;
• The Editor(s) can consult the author(s) at all the particular stages of the publishing process; obligatory author’s proofing takes place after the editorial work and computer typesetting are completed, and it shall be performed in accordance with “The Proofing Guidelines for Authors” (attachment no. 19). Authors may obtain a draft copy of their publication from the Publishing House in order to make some final corrections, but it should be returned within a specified time period
• Publications which are ready for printing are sent to the printing house. The entire printing process is monitored by the Promotion and Publishing Department. The copies of the publication are then deposited in the warehouse;
• The final settlement of the actual costs involved in the publication of a particular work and unit price setting constitute the last stage of the publishing process.

Before the termination of the publishing process, authors are obliged to write an abstract or a note about their publication in Polish and English or another world language, to be used by the Publishing House for promotional purposes (e.g. on Internet websites);

The final settlement constitutes the basis for issuing a financial document for the ordering unit, in accordance with the rules applied by Collegium Witelona;

The copies of the publication are stored in suitable conditions and distributed under the supervision of the Promotion and Publishing Department;

Additional printing rules:

• the Chief Editor or Deputy Rector presents a proposal for additional printing to the author, based on suggestions from the Thematic Editor or customer demand levels;
• the Deputy Rector or Chief Editor take the decision concerning the number of copies to be printed, following consultation with the Head of the Promotion and Publishing Department,
• the publication is included in the yearly editing calendar,
• the authors are informed about the date of additional printing of their publication and the number of copies to be printed.

Republishing rules:

• the authors inform the Publishing House about their work on a corrected, supplemented or revised edition of their work on the application for publication form, which shall be submitted together with the application for inclusion in the yearly editing calendar;
• if the authors change more than 30% of the content of their original publication (including the visual material), the publishing process proceeds is the same way as in the case of new publications; if they change less than 30% of the content of their original publication, the work shall be sent for external reviewing and the decision concerning its actual publication and the number of copies to be printed shall be made by the Publishing Board or Chief Editor, following consultation with the Thematic Editor and Head of the Promotion and Publishing Department;
• the author signs a publishing contract with the Publishing House;
• Witelon Collegium has the preferential right to publish the scientific or didactic works written by its own staff under their contractual obligations. It also has the right to publish its students’ diploma papers. Collegium Witelona is obliged to sign a publishing contract with the author within 6 months of the reception of a positive review of a particular work, constituting a prerequisite for its publication, otherwise the preferential right to the publication shall expire. The aforementioned right shall also expire if the work is not published within 2 years of the signing of the publishing contract;
• the Deputy Rector is entitled to take the decision to abandon the preferential right to the publication of a particular work;
• the Publishing House and Promotion and Publishing Department are responsible for the organisation of the publishing process and distribution of the scientific and didactic publications written by our staff;
• Witelon Collegium acquires copyright to particular publications upon signing the publishing contract with their authors. Our publications constitute our own property. They bear their individual ISBN numbers (books) and ISSN numbers (magazines). The books carry the following notice: “COPYRIGHT by Collegium Witelona Uczelnia Państwowa”.