Journal Policy

1. Publishing Ethics

The editorial board of “Aspects of Music” adheres to the Core Practices promoted by the Committee of Publication Ethics and follows the guidelines set out in the COPE Guidelines. Publishing ethics include, among others, procedures in cases of suspected plagiarism, ghostwriting, guest authorship, and duplicate publication.

Editorial board responsibilities:

• Assessing the scientific value and linguistic correctness of texts, ensuring equal treatment of all authors.
• Selecting reviewers to guarantee a completely impartial evaluation of submitted articles.
• Making decisions about acceptance or rejection of manuscripts without undue influence.
• Ensuring the anonymization of the review process and sharing information about submitted texts only with the author and reviewers.

Authors’ responsibilities:

• Submitting only original works, not infringing on the copyrights of others, not previously published or submitted to another publisher.
• Providing permission from copyright holders for all materials included in the text, including illustrations, scores, etc., ensuring the right to reproduce them has been secured.
• Disclosing any potential conflicts of interest with reviewers of the manuscript.

Submission of a manuscript is equivalent to the author’s declaration that all stages of research were conducted ethically and scientifically, in accordance with the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.

Reviewers’ responsibilities:

• Preparing a thorough and substantive review with a clear conclusion.
• Submitting the review within three weeks of receiving the manuscript.
• Informing the editorial office of refusal to prepare the review within seven days of receiving the manuscript.
• Reporting any conflicts of interest to the editorial office.
• Informing the editorial office of identified cases of plagiarism, self-plagiarism, ghostwriting, or guest authorship.

Review form

2. Ghostwriting

To counteract cases of ghostwriting, the editorial board applies the following measures:

• Requires the author to submit a written declaration of authorship of the article submitted for publication and a statement that the article has not been previously published (statement template).
• Obliges the author to provide information about the sources of funding for the research resulting in the publication.
• For articles prepared by more than one author, requires specification of each author’s contribution to the publication.

The editorial board declares that it will document detected cases of scientific misconduct, especially ghostwriting, and will disclose them by notifying the authors’ employing institutions or other relevant bodies.

3. Open Access Statement

“Aspects of Music” is published in full open access under the CC BY 4.0 license, with authors retaining full copyright. Since volume 9 (2019), articles have been published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. The editorial board does not charge any fees to authors. Every online article is identified by a DOI. Full issues are submitted to journal databases and digital repositories: Polona, Academica; CEJSH — The Central European Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities; Index Copernicus — IC Journals Masters List; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text — Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale; PBN — Polish Scientific Bibliography; PON — Platform of Open Science.

4. Copyrights and Archiving

Authors of texts accepted for publication in “Aspects of Music” are required to sign a license agreement granting the Publisher a non-exclusive, royalty-free license for an indefinite period to use the work in the fields of exploitation specified in the agreement.

5. Privacy Statement

Personal data and email addresses entered on the “Aspects of Music” journal website will be used for the purposes of publishing this journal, communicating with authors, and enabling readers to contact authors. They will not be made available to third parties beyond this scope.

6. Peer Review Process

1. The editorial board of “Aspects of Music” applies a double-blind peer-review process, anonymizing both the author and reviewer using codes.
2. Each submission is reviewed by two independent external reviewers, including those from outside the author’s affiliated institution.
3. A unified review form is used for articles submitted for publication, in Polish or English.
4. The review ends with a clear recommendation: acceptance, acceptance with major revisions, or rejection.
5. Publication requires two positive reviews. In doubtful cases, a third reviewer is appointed.