Use of personal data
Instructions to the reviewers
The reviewer should accept to review a manuscript when conflict of interest is absent. A confidence should be kept during the review process. Reviewers, in general, have one month for submitting their review. In case of major revisions, they may be asked for a second review of the revised manuscript. The specific term can be extended editorial system after personal communication with the Editors-in-Chief. The reviewer can decline the review if not within his/her field of expertise.
The review process is blind: the reviewer is aware of the authors’ names but should not sign his/her review.
The reviewer should provide a concise general comment on the paper, which evaluates the manuscript subject and states whether:.
The content is in line with the scope of the journals, presents new and original data and supports the study goal.
• The introduction is adequate and cited literature sources correspond to study subject.
• The material and methods are appropriate and ethical principles for handling animals are met.
• The statistical methods of analysis are appropriate.
• The way of data presentation and number of tables and/or figures are adequate.
• The interpretations and conclusions are in line with presented results.
• The language and grammar quality of the text are adequate (reviewers are not required to edit language and grammar).
• The reference list is adequate.
The reviewers should be coherent and consistent in attributing the comments and should be polite when giving them.
Role of the editors
The Associate Editors and Editors-in-Chief evaluation focus is on its scientific quality of the papers, compliance with the ethical guidelines and preserving confidentiality of reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief should not allow any conflicts of interest during the process of publication.
The Production Editor is responsible for manuscript’s copy-editing and proofreading in line with the TRAKIA UNIVERSITY PRESS style for the presentation of the content..
Research ethics
TRAKIA UNIVERSITY PRESS is an editorial board that respects neutrality in the evaluation of publications, not influenced by political decisions, geopolitical conflicts and territorial disputes. The Editors and Editorial board decisions are independent and not affected by the country of origin of the authors, religion, race, political or human rights issues.
Animal rights
The ethical standards for use of animals in experiments should be strictly followed. National legislation, ethical and regulatory principles should be taken into account. Information for the license for the experiments (approvals issued by institutional ethical committees) should be always provided. The required information should be included in the Material and methods part of manuscripts.
Informed consent
The owners of the animals have the right to allow or restrict publication of pictures or any personal data in the article. Therefore, informed consent is required prior to inclusion of such information in the study.
Conflict of interest
Conflict of interest is present when the editor/reviewer editor/reviewer has supervised any of the authors, works in the same university/research centre with authors, have a close family relationship, other professional or personal dependencies that may compromise their impartiality in the evaluation of the manuscript.
The authors are kindly asked to declare any possible conflicts of interest with the journal editors at the time of submission. The reviewers are carefully selected to avoid conflict of interest and they should inform the Editors if such conflict exists.
Appeal procedure
The constructive criticism with academic approach is more than welcome. Authors can defend their opinion by responding to the editorial comments but should not neglect critical remarks made during the evaluation process. Personal qualification from the part of the participants in the editorial process are not allowed. Authors can submit their appeal on editorial decisions to the Editorial Office of TRAKIA UNIVERSITY PRESS (bjvm@trakia-uni.bg; bjvm@uni-sz.bg) and must avoid direct contact with the Editorial Office of TRAKIA PRESS. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for contact with the authors during the evaluation process.
Publication misconduct, including plagiarism
Reviewers should inform the Editorial board if they are suspect for manipulation of the data; serious mistakes in or/and omission of important results; plagiarism. The details about the listed cases are given by COPE guidelines available at https://publicationethics.org/oversight. Submitted manuscript with detected plagiarism (already published ideas, data or text belonging to other scientists which are not among the authors) will be immediately rejected. A duplication of work is considered in cases when large parts of previous authors’ publications are re-used without references of the original publication. These cases are not tolerated by TRAKIA UNIVERSITY PRESS policy. If the article has been published and plagiarism or duplicate publication was detected after that, an announcement on the web page will be published and Editorial board will discuss the application of procedure of retraction.
Cases when misconduct of an article is applicable
The Editor-in-Chief has to be informed for deviation from the ethical rules of TRAKIA UNIVERSITY PRESS. Editorial board takes a decision if there is evidence for misconduct and keeps the case confidential. If the authors help to resolve the issue after its identification by the reviewers, the article is subjected to evaluation, otherwise it is rejected. The Editorial board can take a decision to restrict future publications by the author/s for five years. The guidelines of COPE guidelines are followed in these cases.
Cases when retraction of an article is applicable
By application of the rules outlined in the COPE Retraction Guidelines, an article can be retracted when there are significant errors in an already published article, declared by the authors or in the case of misconduct. The article can be retracted when the results have been previously published without proper reference or plagiarism has been detected. The decision for retraction of an article is taken by the Editorial board of TRAKIA UNIVERSITY PRESS after careful check of every case (information can be received by an editor; authors or readers). Such an article stays on the TRAKIA UNIVERSITY PRESS webpage of with a watermark “Retracted” and information for the retraction is published.
Cases with identified ethical concerns
Expression of concern can be considered when there is some evidence for improperly conducted experiments or published data. The work will not be published till the moment of case clarification. The authors and their institutions are encouraged to help in this process.
Erratum and Corrigendum
Erratum can be included in a printed issue if insignificant errors in a published article are found and require attention. The original PDF file can be replaced by the corrected PDF file. The errors do not concern the content of the article and its scientific quality. The changes in the article are listed at the end of the revised version.
It is not advisable to use an option to publish corrigendum when the mistakes in the article concern the scientific content (changes in authorship, mistake in the protocols, errors in tables or figures etc.). Corrigendum is published as a separate paper with DOI number different from the that of the original article. The decision for issuing an erratum or corrigendum is taken by the Editorial board.
Revised by June 2023