Publication Ethics

Ethics guidelines of the editorial board are based on the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics, as well as the principles of DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment).

Principles of professional ethics for the editor and publisher

In his/her work the editor takes responsibility for publishing the author’s works, which imposes the need to observe the following basic principles:

- While making a decision on publication, the editor of a scientific journal is guided by the reliability of data presentation and the scientific significance of the given work.

- The editor must evaluate the intellectual content of the manuscripts without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, social status, or political philosophy of the authors.

- Unpublished data obtained from manuscripts submitted for review should not be used for personal purposes or disclosed to third parties without the written consent of the author. Information or ideas obtained during editing and related to possible benefits must be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

- The editor must not allow information to be published if there is sufficient reason to believe that it is plagiarized.

- The editor, together with the publisher, must not leave unanswered claims concerning the considered manuscripts or published materials, and also, in case of a conflict situation, take all necessary measures to restore the violated rights.

Ethical principles for the reviewer

The reviewer carries out a scientific examination of the author's materials, as a result of which his/her actions must be impartial, which means the implementation of the following principles:

- A manuscript received for review should be treated as a confidential document, which cannot be transferred for review or discussion to third parties who do not have the authority to do so from the editor.

- The reviewer is obliged to give an objective and reasoned assessment of the presented research results. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable.

- Unpublished data, obtained from submitted for review manuscripts, should not be used by the reviewer for personal purposes.

- A reviewer who, in his opinion, does not have sufficient qualifications to evaluate the manuscript, or cannot be objective, for example, in the case of a conflict of interest with the author or organization, should inform the editorial board about this with a request to exclude him/her from the process of reviewing the given manuscript.

Ethical principles for the author of scientific publications

The author (or a group of authors) realizes that he/she bears the primary responsibility for the novelty and accurate results of a scientific research, which involves compliance with the following principles:

-The authors of the article must provide accurate results of the conducted research. Purposely false or falsified statements are not acceptable.

- Authors must ensure that the research results presented in the submitted manuscript are completely original. Borrowed fragments or statements must be issued with a mandatory indication of the author and the original source. Excessive borrowings, as well as plagiarism in any form, including incorrect quotations, paraphrasing or appropriation of the results of other people's research, is unethical and unacceptable.

- It is necessary to acknowledge the contribution of all persons who in one way or another influenced the course of the research, in particular, the article should include references to works that were important in conducting the research.

-Authors can not submit to the journal a manuscript that has been submitted to another journal and is under consideration, as well as an article already published in another journal.

 - The co-authors of the article must include all persons who made a significant contribution to the research. Among the co-authors, it is unacceptable to indicate persons who did not participate in the research.

- If the author reveals significant errors or inaccuracies in the article at the stage of its review or after its publication, he/she must notify the editors of the journal as soon as possible.

 

The Editorial Board recognizes research integrity as a fundamental basis of scholarly activity and does not tolerate any forms of misconduct that may affect the reliability, objectivity, and transparency of scientific results.

Research misconduct includes, in particular:

Fabrication of data
Inventing data, research results, or experiments and presenting them as real.

Falsification
Manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, or altering or selectively omitting data with the purpose of distorting research results.

Citation manipulation
Artificially increasing the number of references to specific sources, journals, or authors in order to enhance scientometric indicators; including irrelevant references; or deliberately ignoring significant sources.

Guest/Gift authorship (Artificial authorship)
Including as authors individuals who have not made a substantial intellectual contribution to the research, or excluding those who have made such a contribution.

Other violations
Plagiarism, self-plagiarism without proper disclosure, failure to disclose conflicts of interest, duplicate publication, and deliberate violation of peer review procedures.

 

In accordance with the principles of DORA, the Journal:

• evaluates manuscripts solely on the basis of their scientific quality, originality, methodological soundness, and contribution to the advancement of knowledge;

• does not use journal-based metrics (including the Impact Factor) as a criterion for assessing individual articles or the scientific quality of an author;

• does not encourage artificial inflation of citation metrics;

• supports the responsible use of scientometric indicators.