Guidelines and ethics

Author guidelines

Before you start
For queries relating to the status of your paper pre decision, please contact the Journal Editorial Team.

Author responsibilities

Our goal is to provide you with a professional experience at each stage of the review and publication process. There are also some responsibilities that sit with you as the author. Our expectation is that you will:

• Respond swiftly to any queries during the publication process.
• Be accountable for all aspects of your work. This includes investigating and resolving any questions about accuracy or publication ethics
• Treat communications between you and the journal editor as confidential until an editorial decision has been made.
• Read about our research ethics for authorship. These state that you must:

o Include anyone who has made a substantial and meaningful contribution to the submission (anyone else involved in the paper should be listed in the acknowledgements).
o Exclude anyone who hasn’t contributed to the paper, or who has chosen not to be associated with the research.

Informed consent

Appropriate approval, licensing or registration should be obtained before the research begins and details should be provided in the report (e.g. Research Ethics Committee approval, national licensing authorities for the use of animals).
If requested by editors, authors should supply evidence that reported research received the appropriate approval and was carried out ethically (e.g. copies of approvals, licenses, participant consent forms).
Researchers should not generally publish or share identifiable individual data collected in the course of research without specific consent from the individual (or their representative).
Citations and referencing are important when writing any research; however, authors should be mindful of the following behaviours:

Self-citation

Authors should not indulge in excessive self-citations of their own previously published works. Included citations must be relevant, add value to the article, and should not be included just to increase the citation score of that author. Self-citing should be maximum 10 %.
If discussing methodologies or literature reviews, authors should keep their self-citations to a minimum.

'Citation pushing'

Citation pushing' is where an author includes superfluous or irrelevant references with the intention of boosting another specific individual’s citation score; this often occurs amongst groups of individuals who aim to boost each other’s citation scores. Editorial team of the journal take this behavior very seriously and will act in accordance with the guidelines set by the Publications Ethics Committee.

Research and publishing ethics

Research and publishing ethics guidelines

Our Publication Ethics is based on the Best Practice Guidelines for Conference Proceedings Editors and the position statements developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics COPE's Best Practice Guidelines.
We have also developed our research and publication ethics guidelines. If you haven’t already read these, we urge you to do so – they will help you avoid the most common publishing ethics issues.
All manuscripts submitted to journal ACTA PROSPERITATIS are subject to double blind peer review. We believe that using anonymous peer reviewers is the best way to get honest opinions on papers

Authors's responsibility

The Author declares that the manuscript is original and in its present form has not been published elsewhere in any form, that it has not been submitted to any journal/proceedings and that it will not be submitted to any other journal/proceedings, if it is accepted for publication in the journal ACTA PROSPERITATIS.

• The Author is responsible for the research they have been done and for the results described in the paper;
• If the article is a join work of several authors (co-authors), the Author who submits the article declares that any person named as author (co-author) of the Article is aware about the requirements of this agreement and has agreed to being so named;
• The Author warrants that the article does not infringe upon any copyright, contains no libelous or otherwise unlawful statements, and does not otherwise infringe on the rights of others;
• The Author transfers the copyright for this publication/article to the Publisher;

The Author has the rights to:
- Distribute non-commercially individual hard copies of the article to the interested parties, with proper citation to the published source.
- Use, after publication, part or the entire Article, providing a proper acknowledgement to the source and to the Publisher.

Reporting standards

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

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts 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 behaviour and is unacceptable. The author guarantees that the article and its materials are original, not previously published in Latvian or other languages.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should 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 made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who 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 on 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.
Therefore author/s should fill the Publishing Copyright Agreement and submit to email acta.prosperitatis@turiba.lv together with article.

Article Assessment

All manuscripts are subject to peer review and are expected to meet standards of academic excellence. If approved by the editor, submissions will be considered by peer reviewers, whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors.
Our Research Integrity team will occasionally seek advice outside standard peer review, for example, on submissions with serious ethical, security, biosecurity, or societal implications. We may consult experts and the academic editor before deciding on appropriate actions, including but not limited to recruiting reviewers with specific expertise, assessment by additional editors, and declining to further consider a submission.
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Plagiarism

Authors must not use the words, figures, or ideas of others without attribution. All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wording must be limited and be attributed or quoted in the text.
ACTA PROSPERITATIS uses Crossref Similarity Check and Turnitin to detect submissions that overlap with published and submitted manuscripts.
Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will be rejected.

Conflicts of interest

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.
Possible conflicts of interest include:
• A prior relationship between author and editor.
• A financial or personal interest in the outcomes of the research.
• Undisclosed financial support for the research by an interested third party.
• A financial or personal interest in the suppression of the research.

When submitting your work, you should include a note providing the background to any financial support for the research from third parties and highlight any other possible conflict of interest.
In all cases, we will follow the COPE guidelines. If we find there is a conflict of interest, the editor or reviewer will no longer be involved with your manuscript.