PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

All parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the peer reviewers and the Editorial Board agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior. Our publication ethics and malpractice statements are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Publication decisions

The Editorial Board of Bulgarian Folklore is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal should be published or rejected. The decisions on publishing or rejecting articles are based on the peer reviewers’ appraisals, the journal’s publishing policy, and the requirements regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Fair play

The Editorial Board evaluates the manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political stances of the authors.

Confidentiality

The manuscripts submitted by the authors should be considered confidential documents. The Editorial Board members must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Members of the Editorial Board must not use in their research any unpublished materials and scientific ideas disclosed in a submitted manuscript without the explicit written consent of the author concerned.

Procedures for dealing with unethical behavior

Unethical behavior may be identified and brought to the attention of the Editorial Board at any time. Whoever informs the Editorial Board of such conduct should provide sufficient evidence for an investigation to be initiated. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

The Editorial Board should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published article. Such measures will generally include contacting the authors and giving due consideration to the complaints or claims made but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, depending on the misconduct’s seriousness. The authors should be allowed to respond to any allegations.

In cases of proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism, the Editorial Board will take appropriate measures to clarify the situation and amend the article in question. Such measures include the prompt publication of corrections, clarifications, apologies, or the retraction of the work in the most severe cases.

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists the editors in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the quality of the manuscript.

Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to evaluate the research reported in the manuscript or cannot provide the review on time should notify the Editorial Board and resign from reviewing the article.

Confidentiality

The manuscripts received for review should 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 clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgment of sources

Reviewers should notify the Editorial Board about a relevant published work that the author has not cited. 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

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with the authors or institutions connected to the papers.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

Publication and Submission fee

Manuscript processing fees are not required. Authors pay neither submission nor publication fees for their articles.

Reporting standards

Authors of original research papers should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its actuality and significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the papers. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Copyright

The copyright remains with the authors as per Bulgarian law; thus, they can decide about the eventual republication of their texts. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

The authors should obtain the necessary permission for the reproduction of any material already published. Authors should ensure they hold the copyright to whatever images, pictures or other material they reproduce in their articles.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data on which the paper is based for editorial review. Authors should be prepared to provide access to such data, if practicable, and should 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, this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publications

In general, an author should not publish papers 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.

Acknowledgment of sources

Authors should properly acknowledge all work of others used in the article and cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed to the reported study’s conception, design, execution, or interpretation. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where others have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Guest authorship and ghostwriting constitute unethical publishing behavior and are unacceptable.

Hazards and human subjects

If the work involves procedures or equipment with any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify them in the manuscript. Any experimental research submitted for publication that uses human subjects must secure their permission before or after the experiment if this is feasible. Permission statements must be retained for a reasonable time after publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts 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.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, the author should promptly notify the journal editor and cooperate with the Editorial Board to retract or correct the paper.