Transparency and Best Practices

Commitment to Transparency

Notulae Scientia Biologicae is committed to transparent, responsible, and ethical scholarly publishing. The journal provides publicly accessible information about its ownership, publisher, editorial governance, peer-review process, publication model, copyright, licensing, fees, ethical requirements, and contact arrangements.

The journal follows internationally recognized principles relevant to publication ethics and responsible editorial practice, including the principles promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

Journal Identity

The journal’s aims, scientific fields, editorial priorities, and intended readership are described on the Focus and Scope page.

Ownership and Publishing

Notulae Scientia Biologicae is owned and published by the Society of Land Measurements and Cadastre from Transylvania (SMTCT), Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Administrative, technical, and billing services, including Article Processing Charge administration and invoicing, are provided by SMTCT PUBLISHING S.R.L.

Editorial Governance

The Editors-in-Chief have overall responsibility for the editorial process. Each manuscript is assigned to a handling Editor-in-Chief, who makes the final decision regarding its acceptance or rejection.

Section Editors and other assigned editors may coordinate manuscript evaluation, select reviewers, assess reports, communicate with authors and reviewers, request revisions, and submit reasoned recommendations to the handling Editor-in-Chief.

Reviewers provide independent expert assessments and recommendations. They do not make editorial decisions.

The names, institutional affiliations, roles, and available professional profiles of the journal’s editors are displayed on the Editorial Team page.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are based on scientific quality, originality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal, and the reliability of the evidence presented.

Decisions are not influenced by commercial interests, advertising, sponsorship, institutional affiliation, nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, political beliefs, or the authors’ ability to pay the Article Processing Charge.

The publisher does not interfere with reviewer selection, scientific assessment, or editorial decisions.

Peer Review

Scholarly manuscripts selected for external evaluation undergo double-blind peer review. The identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other during the review process.

Manuscripts selected for external peer review are normally sent to at least two independent experts. The journal seeks to obtain two or more substantive review reports whenever possible.

Reviewers are selected according to subject expertise, independence, availability, and absence of relevant conflicts of interest. Reviewer recommendations are advisory and are considered together with the journal’s scientific, ethical, and editorial criteria.

Full information is available on the Peer Review Process page.

Manuscripts Submitted by Editors

Manuscripts submitted by an Editor-in-Chief, Section Editor, other editor, Editorial Board member, or person closely associated with the journal are evaluated according to the same scientific, ethical, and peer-review standards as all other submissions.

The author-editor is excluded from manuscript assessment, reviewer selection, editorial correspondence, and decision-making.

Author Responsibilities

Authors are responsible for the originality, accuracy, integrity, completeness, and ethical conduct of submitted work.

Publication Ethics and Research Integrity

The journal does not tolerate plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate or redundant publication, inappropriate authorship, image manipulation, peer-review manipulation, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, false ethical approval, or other forms of research and publication misconduct.

Manuscripts may be screened using similarity-detection software. Similarity reports are interpreted by editors and are not used as the sole basis for a decision.

Allegations of misconduct are assessed confidentially and fairly. The journal may request explanations, original data, images, approvals, permits, authorship information, or other supporting evidence and may contact relevant institutions or authorities where necessary.

Detailed requirements are available on the Publication Ethics page.

Research Involving Humans, Animals, and Biological Material

Research involving human participants, human biological material, identifiable information, clinical records, animals, protected species, biological specimens, microorganisms, genetic resources, or field sampling must comply with applicable ethical, institutional, legal, biosafety, and permit requirements.

Manuscripts must identify relevant ethics committees, institutional review bodies, competent authorities, approval numbers, informed-consent procedures, trial registrations, permits, or other authorizations where applicable.

Authors should follow suitable reporting standards, including CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, CARE, ARRIVE, or other discipline-specific guidelines, where relevant.

Use of Generative AI

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors. Human authors remain responsible for all submitted content, including its accuracy, originality, data, references, images, analyses, interpretations, and conclusions.

Substantive use of generative AI must be disclosed where required. AI tools must not be used to fabricate or manipulate scientific content, reviewer identities, review reports, references, data, or images.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscript content or editorial correspondence to unauthorized external AI platforms.

Detailed requirements are provided in the Use of Generative AI policy.

Open Access, Copyright, and Licensing

All published articles are freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription fees, registration, or embargo periods.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal and publisher a non-exclusive right to publish, distribute, preserve, index, and make the article available.

Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits sharing and adaptation, including commercial reuse, provided that appropriate attribution is given and changes are indicated.

Publication Fees

The journal applies an Article Processing Charge of 300 EUR per accepted article. Payment may also be made in USD, representing the equivalent of 300 EUR at the applicable exchange rate.

No submission fee, review fee, supplementary page charge, or colour-figure charge is applied. No APC payment is requested before formal manuscript acceptance.

Payment does not influence peer review, scientific evaluation, editorial decisions, or acceptance.

Full details are available on the Publication Fees page.

Publication Schedule and Online First

The journal publishes four issues per year.

After peer review, final acceptance, copyediting, proofreading, metadata preparation, and technical production, accepted articles may be published in the journal’s Online First section.

Articles published Online First are peer reviewed, accepted, publicly available, and may be cited using their article information and DOI. When the corresponding issue is completed, the Online First presentation is replaced by the article’s definitive publication within that issue.

Publication information is available on the Publication Frequency page.

Persistent Identification and Discoverability

Published articles receive Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), and article metadata are registered and distributed through relevant scholarly infrastructure and discovery services.

Authors are encouraged to provide ORCID identifiers so that published works can be linked accurately to their scholarly profiles.

Information about journal coverage and discovery services is displayed only where inclusion has been confirmed.

Digital Preservation

The journal seeks to maintain the long-term accessibility and integrity of published content through its publishing platform, persistent identifiers, metadata registration, journal archives, and available digital-preservation arrangements.

Published issues and articles remain accessible through the journal’s public archive.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Personal information collected through the journal platform is used only for editorial, publishing, communication, administrative, preservation, and reporting purposes connected with journal operations.

Manuscripts, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, personal data, and unpublished research information are treated confidentially and are accessible only to authorized persons involved in the editorial and publishing process.

Further information is available in the Privacy Statement .

Corrections and Post-Publication Actions

The journal may publish corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions when errors, unresolved concerns, misconduct, or unreliable findings affect the published record.

Post-publication notices are linked to the original article and explain the reason for the action. Scientific content is not changed silently.

Retracted articles normally remain accessible and are clearly marked, except where removal is required for legal, privacy, confidentiality, or safety reasons.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers, readers, and other interested parties may raise concerns about editorial procedures, ethical matters, conflicts of interest, reviewer or editor conduct, published content, corrections, or retractions.

Appeals must identify a substantive factual error, procedural irregularity, relevant conflict of interest, or significant misunderstanding. Disagreement with scientific judgment alone is not sufficient grounds for appeal.

Appeals are considered by an Editor-in-Chief who was not directly responsible for the original decision or, where necessary, by an independent senior editor or suitably qualified Editorial Board member.

Contact and Accountability

Public contact information for editorial and administrative correspondence is available on the Contact page.

Concerns should be submitted professionally and should include sufficient information and supporting evidence to allow a fair assessment.

Journal Policies