PUBLISHING ETHICS
We follow the guidelines announced by the Committee on Publication Ethics: COPE and the Council of Science Editors (CSE) and support their ethical publishing principles. These guidelines apply to the journal’s editors, authors and reviewers. The journal also adheres to the Lithuanian Institute of History Code of Academic Ethics (https://www.istorija.lt/data/public/uploads/2020/07/lii-akademines-etikos-kodeksas-patvirtintas-2016-06-22.pdf). When assessing possible transgressions, the journal follows COPE structural flowcharts.
PUBLISHER’S ETHICS AND LIABILITY
The Lithuanian Institute of History is responsible for organising the publishing process and the journal’s financial management and strategy.
The Lithuanian Institute of History recognises the scientific honesty, objectivity and independence of the journal’s Editorial Board, authors and reviewers, i.e., it does not interfere in the assessment or selection of scholarly papers.
The Lithuanian Institute of History guarantees the Editorial Board, reviewers and authors direct access to its directors and the opportunity to inform them of potential conflicts.
The Lithuanian Institute of History guarantees confidentiality of stored journal-related documents.
The Lithuanian Institute of History guarantees the implementation of conflict of interest management, academic honesty and other procedures.
PUBLISHING MALPRACTICE POLICY
In the case of suspected or proven academic transgression, dishonest publication, plagiarism or autoplagiarism (duplicate publication, redundant publication), the publisher, in close cooperation with the editors, takes all necessary measures to clarify the situation and correct the article under deliberation. This may take the form of a short announcement about a typing error or in more serious cases, complete dissociation from the dishonestly submitted article, eventuating in its withdrawal.
We allow for the possibility of correcting errors when the error was made by the author. Also, in the case of a printing error, the journal publishes a corrected version. Rejection of an article is not considered in those cases when only minor corrections – for language or non-fundamentally inaccurate writing – are required.
The rejection procedure begins when the journal receives information that certain discoveries presented in the publication or the conclusions are erroneous, or if the content of the publication was plagiarised. Any resulting outcomes will abide by COPE (Committee on Publications Ethics) guidelines.
SIMILARITY CHECK PROCEDURE
The Editorial board actively seeks to stop any scholarly or professional plagiarism, therefore a similarity check procedure is performed prior to reviewing. Special similarity checking and plagiarism prevention tools are used to screen for duplication of information in the submitted manuscripts and identification of authorship. Manuscripts arousing suspicions of plagiarisation are rejected immediately.
If plagiarism is determined already after publication, the guidelines for cases of illegitimate publications are followed.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Conflicts of interest arise when there are grounds to believe that matters unrelated to research may influence the neutrality and objectivity of an article or its assessment. The accountable persons must be informed in advance of any possible conflicts of interest regardless of whether they had any influence on the research or not, so that a reasoned decision may be made. Conflicts of interest may be institutional (when one of the parties is related in some way to an organisation which has an interest in a particular result from the research), financial (when authors receive or expect benefit or other positive gains or perks relating to the object of research, or when an organisation is interested in certain research results), personal (close personal links), etc.
On behalf of the journal, we guarantee that in many cases, the honest declaration of interests does not prevent the article from being printed or from being included in the review process.
If any doubts arise, please inform the editors of possible conflicts of interests or discuss this matter with the Editorial Board. If a conflict of interest relating to the submitted publication is not announced in advance, yet comes to light later on in the review process, the article could be rejected. Printed articles may have to be reassessed.
It is the duty of the Editorial Board to investigate potential conflicts of interest relating to articles submitted for publication between the article’s author and reviewers (including positive or negative information about the authors, relationships with them or the institutions they represent, as well as any funding issues) and to ensure that they will not have any influence on the publication’s acceptance or rejection.
AUTHORSHIP AND AI TOOLS
The journal is in agreement with the COPE position regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in scientific research:
COPE position statement, February 13, 2023 https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author
The journal abides by the “Guidelines on the Ethical use of Artificial Intelligence in Science and Education”, confirmed by the Ombudsperson for Academic Ethics and Procedures of the Republic of Lithuania, No. V-14, April 29, 2024 (https://e-tar.lt/portal/lt/legalAct/56254af0061111efbcbfb318996800a8 )
As with all content being presented to the journal, the author(s) must ensure that they have permission to use all third-party content incorporated into their submitted material, including that gained using AI.
ARCHIVING
The Lithuanian Institute of History digital archive is designed to ensure the safe and reliable protection of digital resources, their accessibility and long-term preservation. This archive makes use of modern technology and strict security measures so as to protect and effectively manage digital resources.
Our digital content protection policy encompasses the following measures:
Internal institutional servers and back-up copies
All digital resources are kept in our internal servers, which are constantly maintained and monitored. Back-up copies are regularly made to ensure data security and to secure against data loss; they are kept in our local server infrastructure. The creation of back-up copies is automated to ensure that renewed data copies will always be available.
Digital resource publicisation
Digital resources are presented on the institution’s website, which is protected by modern security measures complying with Lithuanian national standards. This platform ensures that users can safely and conveniently access digital resources without worrying about data security issues. The institution’s website information is kept in Lithuania’s university servers.
Cooperation with libraries
When new digital resources are released, their copies are shared with our partner libraries (the Martynas MaÅžvydas National Library of Lithuania, etc.). This process ensures that the institution’s digital resources can be accessed by a wide circle of users via various institutions, thereby contributing to cultural and historical heritage preservation and the creation of data archive copies.
Cloud servers
In order to ensure greater reliability and accessibility, digital resources are also uploaded to cloud servers via a special platform (open.istorija.lt). Cloud computing ensures that our data will be protected from physical server failure and will be accessible from anywhere in the world. This allows ensuring continual access and the rapid restoration of data in the event of a fault/failure.
We guarantee that our digital resources are safe and accessible to users everywhere and all the time. All online connection-related security measures are different and are not interrelated. In the event of possible failures data accessibility will be preserved, along with rapid data restoration.
We do not plan to stop publishing this journal. If for any unfavourable circumstances we will be forced to suspend the journal’s publication, the manuscripts published therein will be stored online and will be accessible to readers for at least the next ten years, and for an unlimited time the journal or copies of its articles will be in libraries.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Research published in this journal must comply with national and international ethical standards governing archaeological practice: European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) Code of Practice (https://www.e-a-a.org/EAA/About/Codes.aspx), European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage (Revised) (1992) (https://rm.coe.int/168007bd25), UNESCO conventions on cultural heritage protection. If the archaeological excavations were conducted in the territory of Lithuania it also must follow these regulations: Republic of Lithuania law on protection of Immovable Cultural Heritage (https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/TAIS.326112?jfwid=), Management of Archaeological Heritage (https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/TAIS.405666).
Archaeological research involving human skeletal remains, mummified remains, and burial contexts must comply with national heritage laws and ethical guidelines. Authors must provide evidence of legal permission for excavation, study, or publication of human remains.
Excavations must be legally authorized by national heritage authorities. No research will be accepted on illegally traded antiquities. Studies must cite museum records, excavation permits, or other provenance documentation.
AUTHOR'S ETHICS
Authors must follow the high ethical standards set for journal authors authorised by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Any ethical transgressions will be taken very seriously, and decisions will be made following COPE guidelines.
The journal features original articles that have not been published in other publications. The journal does not under any circumstances accept or tolerate instances of research misconduct, such as: plagiarisation of academic publications, plagiarisation of scientific results and conclusions, fabrication or falsification, suppression of data, or the repetitive printing of scientific papers (autoplagiarisation). Exceptions can be made only for those new articles that fundamentally supplement earlier publications. The author or authors’ collective must provide information about the repeated use of material.
On the first page of text, the author must provide information about the financial sources for their scientific research and article writing, the declaration of which is compulsory.
The work of other individuals must always be properly acknowledged. The journal does not tolerate instances of authorship misconduct – pseudo authorship, imitation authorship, ghostwriting, unidentified authorship, gift authorship, honorary authorship, mutual admiration authorship, mutual support authorship, self-plagiarism, text-recycling, etc. In order to avoid such cases, authors are advised to follow the instructions in COPE and CSE documents (https://publicationethics.org/files/2003pdf12_0.pdf; https://publicationethics.org/files/ghost-authorship-submitted-manuscript-cope-flowchart.pdf;
https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/publication-ethics/).
All researchers mentioned in the list of authors share collective liability for their research results and the article’s content. All individuals having significantly contributed to the writing of the article must be included in the list of authors, ranking them according to their extent of involvement in conducting the research and writing the text, not by alphabetical order. The individual who contributed most to the publication’s preparation must be named as the first author. If all the authors think that their contributions are of equal weight, this must be indicated in a footnote, in which case the authors are listed according to alphabetical order. When the typed text is submitted for printing, no further changes can be made to authorship or the order in which the authors are listed.
Authors must ensure that all data used in the article is reliable and accurate. Comprehensive footnotes and information must be provided so that other researchers may repeat the study or check its validity. Authors are liable for providing the necessary and correct reference notes in their manuscript, and that the presented research data, results, citations, references, visual and (or) other material is not fabricated, falsified or manipulated. Failure to indicate literature or sources that were used (including illustrations, tables and other appendices) is prohibited. Information gained in conversations, correspondence, discussions or using the manuscripts of third parties can be presented only with the prior permission of these individuals, indicating their name, surname, and the date the information was sourced.
Before presenting an article for publication, authors must gather the necessary permission from research participants to give the journal’s publishers the chance to use any related data so as to protect the research participants’ rights to privacy.
We trust that authors will use inclusive language. The content of publications should not contain any words that would imply that some people are better than others in terms of culture, race, sex, ability, disability, sexual orientation or nationality. It is recommended to avoid using terms in authors’ texts that offend, or that disparage or alienate certain groups.
REVIEWERS' ETHICS
Reviewers must adhere to the high ethical standards for academic journal reviewers authorised by COPE and CSE (https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers-cope.pdf; https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/2-3-reviewer-roles-and-responsibilities).
Reviewers must inform the Editorial Board about the limits of their competency. They need not have expert knowledge of all aspects of the text’s content, yet they should only agree to act as a reviewer when their education and knowledge is sufficient to perform a professional assessment. In other cases, reviewers should refuse to review the suggested text.
Reviewers must give the journal’s Editorial Board advance notice of any possible conflict of interest relating to the articles suggested for their assessment, including instances of earlier collaboration with the author or authors’ collective, direct subordination, financial circumstances or a personal stance on the material to be published.
Reviewers must honour the independence of authors, and provide a correct, objective, constructive, unbiased, argument-based and clear opinion about the article’s quality and scientific value. The reviewer’s comments should highlight the positive aspects of the text under review, present any shortcomings in a constructive manner and point out the parts needing improvement so that the author may improve their manuscript.
Personalised or unfounded criticism from reviewers is not acceptable under any circumstances, and in the event of receiving such offensive personal remarks in the review, it is annulled by the Editorial Board which then organises a new review process of the submitted article.
Reviewers are not obliged to search for potential acts of scientific misconduct, however, they must draw the Editorial Board’s attention to improper scientific misconduct behaviour, such as document falsification, authorship abuse, plagiarism, manipulation of images, unethically performed research, duplicate publication or autoplagiarism, if such becomes apparent during the review process or at any other moment in the publication process. Accusations of acts of scientific misconduct must be based on evidence.
Honest error is not a scientific violation, however, we would ask reviewers to help in identifying errors and informing the Editorial Board of their presence. The journal offers authors and reviewers the possibility for correction.
If reviewers are aware of an earlier scholarly paper that is directly related to the submitted article, they can recommend and suggest to the author the possibility of including its material in their work. However, the reviewer cannot do this for their own benefit. Demands or obligations to include citations from reviewers’ works into papers under review are considered improper behaviour.
Reviewers are strictly prohibited from taking academic, financial, personal or any other possible gain from the review process. Reviewers are strictly prohibited from using material from texts under their review for their own purposes, including their publications and any educational processes.
ETHICAL POLICY FOR EDITORS
The editors declare that they adhere to the general principles of equal opportunity, conflict of interest management and confidentiality during the course of the journal’s preparation and publishing process:
- the submitted articles are assessed according to their scientific value, regardless of the authors’ race, sex, religious beliefs, origins, citizenship, political views or any other potentially discriminatory aspects;
- the editors honestly and objectively assess the submitted manuscripts without bias or preconviction regarding academic or personal views;
- the editors organise the review process, honestly communicating with the author and reviewers;
- if members of the Editorial Board submit their own articles or studies to journal, they are considered and reviewed in accordance with the same procedures, only the author (the Editorial Board member) is not given information about the process. In exceptional cases when an article is submitted by the editor in chief, the review process is organised by their deputy or another authorised member of the Editorial Board.
- the editors cannot make decisions regarding the publication of their own or existing or former students’ articles. In such cases, the review process is organised by a member of the Editorial board that has no conflicts of interest, while the author does not participate in the editorial board’s meeting on the deliberation of the publication of such texts;
- the Editorial board ensures the confidentiality of the submitted article and all material sent to the journal, including correspondence with the reviewers. All information provided in the article is confidential until the text is published. In special cases, after consultation with the publisher, the editor-in-chief can pass on limited information to the editors of other journals, institutions or organisations that are examining cases of improper academic behaviour, though only information necessary for this investigation;
- the Editorial Board does not tolerate any conflicts of interest (institutional, financial, personal, etc.);
- the opinions and ideas of the author of the article published in the journal may differ from those of the Editorial Board.
AUTHOR'S RIGHTS AND LIABILITIES
Articles are published in „Lietuvos archeologija“ free of charge. No submission or publication fees apply to authors, nor is any financial reimbursement made for published texts. All authors of texts published in separate issues of the journal have the right to receive one printed copy of that issue free of charge.
The journal publishes original, hitherto unpublished scholarly articles. The authors of articles and other texts published in the journal may be established or early career scholars as well as doctoral students. When submitting the manuscript to the journal, the author confirms that they are authorised by any co-authors to enter into such agreements, and guarantees on behalf of their co-authors and themselves that:
- he (she) has every right to enter into this agreement and act according to the outlined rights. He (she) is the sole author of the article and has every right to enter into this agreement and grant rights to the Lithuanian Institute of History without violating any other obligations.
- the article is an original work and does not violate the rights of any authors or other third parties.
- the article does not contain any illegitimate information, defamatory claims, disinformation or data that if published would violate contractual, confidentiality or anonymity obligations.
- authors agree with the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License contract, according to which the article published in the journal is licensed and gives the Lithuanian Institute of History the right to publish the hitherto unpublished original manuscript, including the summary, which is one of its inseperable parts, all related additional material and later error corrections, if such were needed, in the journal, as per Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC-BY-4.0). The author retains all copyright and neighbouring rights. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
- when disseminating the article, its author(s) must be referenced, along with the title of the printed article, the journal and DOI (digital object identifier).
- users are free to do the following with material presented in the article: share – copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially; adapt – remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
- the author must inform the Editorial board if the article has been submitted to another publisher.
RESEARCH TRANSPARENCY
The Lithuanian Institute of History abides by the provision that, whensover possible, all data relating to the research presented in the submitted article should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR). It must also be possible to share this data. Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit the data underpinning their research in appropriate repositories. For all submissions, any data required to understand and verify the research in an article must be made available on submission. Authors should deposit their data in an appropriate repository and provide a link in their submission file.
PRIVACY
The names, surnames and email addresses shown on this journal’s website will be used only for purposes indicated by and relating to this journal, and will not be made public for any other purpose or transferred to any third parties.
For matters relating to authors’ rights concerning personal data, or in the event of questions about personal data protection, please contact us via any of the channels listed below:
Lithuanian Institute of History
17 Tilto St, LT-01101, Vilnius
Ph./Fax (8~5) 261 4436, email: istorija@istorija.lt
CORRECTIONS AND DISCUSSION AFTER PUBLICATION
Corrections will be published alongside the original electronic article. Revised manuscripts will be available next to the original manuscript, ensuring readers always have access to the most up-to-date version. All article versions will be linked to the same DOI. The journal follows COPE guidelines for corrections, re-reviews, or updates after publication.