The editorial team of the journal Geoinformatica Polonica invites submissions of scientific papers, whether research-oriented or review articles, constituting critical reflections on contemporary issues within the broad field of geoinformatics – both on a local and international scale.

Geoinformatica Polonica is an annual journal with articles published in English.

Authors should submit their work electronically to the Editorial Office via the journal Editorial portal.

Upon receiving the reviews, Authors should send a copy of the revised work to the Editorial Office in accordance with the reviewers' comments and provide a written response to the reviewers' remarks. The condition for accepting an article for publication is the receipt of two positive reviews. If one negative review is received, a third Reviewer is appointed. The final decision on which articles will be earmarked for publication is made by the Editor-in-Chief.

There are no fees required for submitting, reviewing, publishing, and processing an article.

To submit a proposal for an article to the journal, one must click the "Submit Text" button on the Geoinformatica Polonica website. Authors who do not have an account in the system should register on the website of the Editorial Panel. After completing the registration form, an email containing a password and confirming the correctness of the provided email address will be sent to the Author's email address.

Upon logging into the system and clicking the "text submission" button, five tabs will appear to input the necessary elements of the article, namely:

Point 1. Start

In this field, Authors should confirm the copyright statement and information that the text meets the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author guidelines. Authors can also select the language they wish to use on the platform and write a brief message to the Editor.

Point 2. Upload file

At this stage, Authors should upload files to be submitted to the publisher:

• Manuscript (in .doc or .docx format) containing: Authors' personal data: first names, surnames, ORCID numbers, affiliations, as well as Authors' workplace addresses: postal and internet, created according to editorial notes (guidelines.docx) and formatted according to the template (template.docx).
• Files containing graphic material, such as drawings, charts, maps, and diagrams, in appropriately high resolution (resolution of 300 dpi or higher) – popular formats are accepted, but tiff, jpeg, png are preferred…

Point 3. Enter metadata

Authors should provide: authors' names and email addresses, article title, abstract, and keywords – in English, and in the case of Polish-speaking Authors, also in Polish. The abstract should contain from 200 to 400 words. Authors should provide 4 to 6 keywords.

Point 4. Confirm

This stage of the procedure confirms that the submission has been placed on the server and is ready to be sent. To finally approve the submission of the article to the editorial office, Authors should click the "Finish submitting text process" icon – then, a confirmation of receipt of the work will be sent by the system to the email address provided by the Author during registration (which does not imply that the work has been sent for review or accepted for publication).

Point 5. Next steps

This tab contains information about the completion of the text submission process.

Articles submitted to the Editorial Office in a format adhering to the editorial guidelines (guidelines.docx) should include:

• Title of the paper (title) in English and Polish.
• 4–6 keywords (keywords) in English and Polish, helpful for indexing and searching.
• Abstract of the paper (abstract) in English and Polish, containing necessary information about the paper: objectives, materials and methodology, main results, and conclusions; the abstract should be devoid of citations; the length of the abstract should be between 200 and 400 words.
• Main text of the scientific paper, in English, comprising chapters: Introduction (introduction with objectives, research hypothesis, and literature review), Materials (description of used data and study area), Methods (description of applied research methods), Results (presentation of results), Discussion (discussion), Conclusions or Summary (conclusions or summary), and References (bibliography).
• Tables in Microsoft Word program, with content in English, along with captions in English (Table 1) and Polish (Tabela 1) placed as close as possible to their first citation; the width of the table should not exceed 17 cm.
• Figures with the English text along with captions in English (Fig. 1) and Polish (Ryc. 1) placed as close as possible to their first citation.
• Bibliography created according to the Vancouver numerical system.
• Statement on research funding (funding statement).
• Any acknowledgments for any support provided that is not covered in other parts of the paper and relates to the author's contribution or funding, such as administrative or technical support.

The text of the paper should be written in Times New Roman 12 pt font, in the template (template.docx) in Microsoft Word, with the use of text highlighting allowed, e.g., italic and bold text, but without underlining letters, words, or sentences. The total length of the article should be from 10 to 15 pages. Transliteration of text into Latin alphabet letters is required.

During text input, the following rules should be observed:

• Do not end individual lines with the Enter key.
• Do not use paragraph indentation with the tab key and spaces.
• Individual paragraphs can be separated by inserting a single blank line.
• Do not manually hyphenate words.
• Do not justify individual lines of a paragraph using the space key.
• Do not separate letters in words (e.g., t i t l e).

Figures, plots, maps, and schemes should not exceed the size of: 17 cm width and 19 cm height. Bitmap images saved in gif, tiff, jpeg format should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. The following graphic file formats *.CGM, *.PCX, *.CDR are also acceptable. Authors of publications are responsible for obtaining permission to publish data, drawings, or photographs that are already copyrighted.

Units: SI units (International System of Units) should be used, e.g., m³·s^–1 (not m³/s). If possible, imperial, customary American, and other units should be converted to SI units.

Equations: Equations should be editable by the editorial team – saved in Microsoft equation editor or MathType add-on. Equations should be numbered consecutively in parentheses, on the right side.

Symbols for physical quantities in equations and references to them in the text should be written in italics, while algebraic symbols should be written in regular font.

The list of references should contain a minimum of 10 items. It is recommended to cite literature relevant to the research topic. Bibliographic entries should be transliterated into Latin alphabet characters.

The bibliography should be created according to the Vancouver numerical system.

In this case, the literature should be numbered according to the order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and placed individually at the end of the manuscript. In the text, after the citation, a number (or numbers) should be placed in square brackets, which refers to a specific citation (or several citations) in the bibliography at the end of the document. For example: "…here is the cited text [1,3-5]" or "…according to Kowalska [2]"...

The list of references should be compiled in accordance with the order of citations in the text (i.e., according to the order of citations in the text) in the following manner: author's surnames, initials of names; year of publication. If multiple works by the same author are published in the same year, each work should be designated with lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.) after the year. The citation should include the title of the work, abbreviated bibliographic details of the publication, place of publication, volume number, issue number, and page numbers, for example:

Article

Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.

Chapter in a Book

Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, 2007; Volume 3, pp. 154–196.

Book

Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, 2008; pp. 154–196.

Unpublished Work

Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. Abbreviated Journal Name year, phrase indicating stage of publication (submitted; accepted; in press).

Presentation at a Conference

Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D.; Author 3, E.F. Title of Presentation. In Proceedings of the Name of the Conference, Location of Conference, Country, Date of Conference (Day Month Year).

Thesis

Author 1, A.B. Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Degree-Granting University, Location of University, Date of Completion.

Website

Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year).

Articles submitted to Geoinformatica Polonica should be written in correct and understandable English and require only minor English language editing before publication – the journal provides minor language editing in English by a language editor.

Before submitting the article for publication, there is an option for paid translation of submitted specialized articles from Polish to English, as well as correction of article content taking into account the reviewers' comments. To do this, please contact the Language Editor.

The author should copy the licensing agreement from this page (tab "Agreements and Forms"), and then complete and print out the agreement, with the author's handwritten signature, and send it through the Editorial Panel.

The personal data of the author contained in the agreement are processed for the purposes of its implementation and for the time necessary to implement the agreement, and after that time until the limitation period expires, which may be raised in connection with it. Data may be transferred to entities providing technical and IT support on behalf of the Data Administrator, which is the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. The data subject has the right to request access to personal data, their rectification, deletion or limitation of processing, as well as the right to transfer data and the right to lodge a complaint with the President of the Office for Personal Data Protection. In all matters concerning the processing of personal data, please contact the Data Protection Inspector: iodo@pau.krakow.pl. Detailed information is available on the PAU website. 

Preliminary Evaluation

Manuscripts received are first checked by the Editorial Office in accordance with the requirements and policies of Geoinformatica Polonica. Incomplete manuscripts that are not prepared according to the journal's guidelines may be returned to the Authors with suggestions for revisions. Authors receive a reference number upon registering the manuscript with the Editorial Office. The editor reviews each received manuscript and then: sends it to Reviewers, rejects the manuscript, or returns it to the Authors with suggestions for correcting the presentation of data.

As part of the submission process in the Editorial System, Authors confirm the originality of the article, the validity of authorship, the transfer of copyright, and compliance with the review process. The Editorial Office applies an anti-plagiarism procedure. The Editorial Office should inform the author of the expected maximum processing time for the article.

Reviewer Recommendation

Authors may recommend potential Reviewers. However, if the Editors of Geoinformatica Polonica identify a violation of the conflict of interest rule, such reviewers will not be considered. Reviewers are also asked to report any conflicts of interest. Authors may also exclude the names of potential Reviewers they wish to exclude from the review process at the initial submission stage. The Editorial Office will consider these requests as long as they do not interfere with an objective and thorough evaluation of the submission.

License Agreement

Geoinformatica Polonica requires signing a licence agreement. This means that the copy rights are not transferred to the journal (assignment of rights), but non-exclusive licence is granted. In practice, that means that the authors preserve their copyrights to their texts even after signing the agreement. The manuscript shall be revied only after signing the licence agreement.

Review Process

Registered manuscripts, after passing the preliminary verification, are sent to at least two independent Reviewers outside the author's institution for scientific evaluation. The review process in Geoinformatica Polonica is confidential (double-blind), meaning that the Author and Reviewer remain anonymous to each other. The review is in written form and ends with a clear recommendation for either acceptance for publication or rejection of the article (notice via Editorial Portal).

During the manuscript evaluation, the Reviewer considers the following aspects:

• Does the title of the paper correspond to its content?
• Do the obtained results contribute to expanding existing knowledge?
• Are the applied methods appropriate, and is the material used for research sufficient?
• Are the results properly interpreted and statistically processed, and are they adequately presented in tables and figures?
• Has a literature review been conducted to familiarize the reader with the current state of knowledge on the research problem?
• Have units of measurement been correctly applied?
• Does the abstract capture the essence of the work?
• Is the article written in correct and understandable English?

Upon receiving the reviews, Authors should consider all suggestions from Reviewers and additionally respond in writing to all comments, especially those with which they disagree (if any). Reviews are not publicly disclosed. Review reports are available to Authors (after making them anonymous) and to the Editorial Office of the journal. There is no direct interaction between Authors and Reviewers.

Acceptance

If one of the two reviews is negative, the Editor-in-chief refers the article to a third Reviewer. To assist the Editor-in-chief in making the final decision regarding the acceptance of the article for publication, the Reviewer should provide as much information as possible. A review that clearly presents both reasons for and against publication has equal or even greater value than a review containing only a direct recommendation.

The Editor-in-Chief informs the Authors of one of the following decisions:

• the manuscript may be accepted with minor revisions,
• the manuscript will be reconsidered after major changes - in this case, the acceptance of the manuscript will be reconsidered after the Author(s) submit the revised text along with detailed responses to the Reviewer's comments (within the time specified by the Editor).
• the manuscript is rejected but the Editorial Office encourages resubmission after further experiments – this situation may occur when the article requires additional experiments or calculations to support the conclusions,
• the manuscript is rejected, if the article contains serious flaws, lacks any original contribution, and is rejected without the possibility of resubmission to the journal.

If the manuscript is rejected, Authors have the right to appeal if they believe that Reviewers did not understand or appreciate certain points of the manuscript - in such a situation, the Editorial Office will decide whether there are grounds for reconsidering the manuscript.

The Author is obliged to send the proofread manuscript within the deadlines given by the Editors.

After final acceptance, the manuscript will undergo professional editing, English language editing, author proofreading, final corrections, pagination, and publication on the Geoinformatica Polonica website.

Withdrawals

The manuscript may be withdrawn by the Authors (if researchers realize that there is an error in the text) or by the Editorial Office, which determines that the research has been previously published elsewhere (without reference in the text), the conclusions are unreliable, the text violates copyright, the Authors have violated professional ethics procedures or have not complied with legal regulations, or when the principle of conflict of interest of Authors, Reviewers, or Editors has been violated. The article may be withdrawn by the Author until the author proofreading of the text is completed.