Language:

Publication ethics

The Editorial Board of the “Foreign Languages in Tertiary Education” journal adheres to the principles of publication ethics adopted by the international academic community and formulated by the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE).

Ethical Principles followed by the Editor-in Chief

The editor-in-chief is responsible for publishing research papers and, therefore, follows the principles enumerated below.

The Editor is guided by the significance of the author’s contribution and the trustworthiness of the data presented.

The editor estimates the academic value of the paper irrespective of the author’s race, gender, religious beliefs, background, citizenship, social position or political preferences.

The data provided in the papers under examination shall not be used for personal aims or shared with other persons without the author’s consent.

The editor shall not endorse the publication of a paper if there are grounds to suspect plagiarism. No paper can be published if either of the following forms of unethical borrowing are found:

plagiarism as wrongful appropriation of another author‘s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions and the representation of them as one’s own original work;

– self-plagiarism. If an author uses excerpts from his/her previous publications (whether word-for-word or paraphrased), references must be made. Reproducing parts of one’s earlier publications can only be used, sparingly and laconically, as a preliminary to making new conclusions.

There should be no paraphrasing of another person’s paper without due references. A considerable amount of paraphrased borrowing (100 words and more) shall be treated as plagiarism.

There should be no distortion of the original author’s message, whether the text referred to is cited word-for-word or paraphrased.

No pictures, charts, etc. can be borrowed from another person’s work without due references.

The editor-in chief can consult the other members of the editorial council and editorial board, as well as external experts, while making a decision about accepting the manuscript for publication.

Ethical Principles followed by the reviewers

No research paper is accepted until reviewed and recommended for publication. The peer reviewing is done by the members of the editorial board, by the editors or, if necessary, by external experts.

A reviewer commits him/herself to being unbiased. Therefore, reviewers are expected to:

– see if they have sufficient expertise to evaluate the paper and can do it without undue delay;

– refuse to review the paper if they feel their judgment might be prejudiced;

– treat the material reviewed as confidential information not to be disclosed, during or after the reviewing, to any unauthorized persons;

– make sure not to use the information received to one’s own advantage or the advantage of other persons or organizations and not to discredit or cause damage to other persons;

– review the paper in an objective and constructive manner, refraining from any belligerent, provoking or humiliating comment;

– inform the editor of being unable to review the paper in time;

– inform the editor if they have found errors in the paper, are concerned about the author’s ethics, or have discovered too much similarity between the manuscript reviewed and another document;

– make sure there is no conflict of interests and the evaluation of the manuscript is totally based on the quality of the research.

The reviewer shall not suggest that the author should make a reference to the reviewer’s own publications.

Ethical standards for authors

Researchers submitting a paper for publication thereby guarantee that each of the authors made a sufficient contribution to the research and that no person who deserves authorship has been omitted from the list of authors.

The co-authors are equally responsible for the content of the manuscript.

The accuracy of the data should be checked at every stage of writing the paper to guarantee their authenticity.

The originality of the text submitted for publication should be at least 80%.

Should an error or inaccuracy be detected, the author(s) shall notify the editor immediately.

The authors shall cooperate with the editors if the manuscript requires editing, cutting, or elaborating.

The authors are responsible for the precision of citations and references whenever they make use of other authors’ ideas, whether cited or paraphrased.

The authors shall avoid irrelevant self-citation, as well as pre-arranged mutual citation, which is considered unethical.

Any changes in the list of authors should be endorsed by every author, including those deleted from the list.

The authors make a commitment that the manuscript is not submitted to any other journal and that it has not been published previously.

The authors should notify the editor if they refuse to edit their paper after receiving a tentative approval with a list of shortcomings to be eliminated.

The authors should notify the editor of any conflict of interests.

The authors should specify the sources of funding the research (grants, projects etc.), if any.