EDITOR-IN-CHIEF'S CODE OF ETHICS
Editor-in-chief:
1) decides to publish the article solely on the basis of expert assessment by independent reviewers and the editorial board members' opinion;
2) reports confidential information about the presented manuscript only to authors and reviewers;
3) removes from consideration the presented article if there is a conflict of interest;
4) takes adequate response measures upon receipt of a complaint of an ethical nature against the submitted manuscript or published article (informing the author, discussion of the complaint against the editorial board, publication of corrections);
5) if necessary, recommendations on citation of works are based on their scientific significance, with the aim of improving the presented material.
Forcing authors to quote a journal is unacceptable.
REVIEWER'S CODE OF ETHICS
Reviewer:
1) agrees (reports this to the editor) to review only those manuscripts for which he has sufficient knowledge to evaluate, and which he can recense in a timely manner;
2) provides the journal with accurate and truthful information about its personal and professional knowledge and experience;
3) respects the confidentiality of the review and does not disclose any details of the manuscript or review during or after review to anyone, except those persons authorized by the journal;
4) does not use the information obtained in the course of the review for its own benefit or that of other persons or organizations, or to harm others or discredit others;
5) does not directly contact the authors without the prior permission of the journal;
6) informs the editorial board of possible conflicts of interest and apply for advice to the journal if he is not sure whether the existing situation constitutes a conflict of interest or not;
7) does not allow the content of the review to be influenced by the origin of the manuscript, nationality, religious affiliation, political or other views of its authors, or commercial considerations;
8) writes the review objectively and constructively, refraining from hostile or inflammatory statements, and from defamatory or humiliating comments;
9) understands that, as a researcher, he himself needs conscientious reviews of his colleagues, and therefore performs the review in good faith;
10) should be specific in its criticism and confirm with solid evidence and appropriate references its general conclusions, such as «this work was done earlier», to help editors form correct assessments and decisions while respecting objective treatment of authors;
11) in the review he reports a reasoned listing of positive qualities of the material, a reasoned listing of defects of the material, a general assessment of the material and a recommendation for the editorial board.
PUBLISHER'S CODE OF ETHICS
Publisher:
1) defines relations between publisher, editors and other participants of contractual relations, forms effective policy of journals and mechanisms of its execution, distributes information about policy of journals;
2) respects the right to confidentiality and confidentiality of personal information (e.g. for research participants, authors, reviewers);
3) protects intellectual property and copyright;
4) promotes the independence of editors;
5) collaborates with other publishers and industry associations, including ethical concerns, error tracking, and publication of rebuttal;
6) enforces the Code of Behavior for journal editors;
7) remains faithful to the principles of scientific honesty;
8) assists the parties (e.g. agencies, grantees, government entities) responsible for investigating unfair research and publication practices and, where possible, assists in resolving these issues;
9) assists editors in publishing revisions, explanations and withdrawal of unfair articles;
10) ensures timely output of journal issues.
EDITORIAL BOARD'S CODE OF ETHICS
The editorial board assists authors in improving the quality of works submitted to the editorial board of the journal through scientific review and literary editing of articles. The editorial board undertakes to make fair and impartial decisions independent of commercial interests and to organize a process of objective review.
Editorial board:
1) respects the honour and dignity of authors, correctly conducts correspondence, ensuring benevolence, helping authors, if necessary, to select a profile journal;
2) respect confidentiality by not disclosing information about the manuscript submitted to the editorial office of the journal to third parties, except reviewers. Correspondence with the author is confidential, as is the content of negative reviews, which are reported only to the author;
3) considers all manuscripts submitted for publication without prejudice to their authors and does not disclose to anyone information about manuscripts received by the editorial office, except reviewers and editorial staff;
4) assigns a «blind» review to ensure an impartial review of the manuscript;
5) reviews are confidential documents used in the editorial board's decision to publish an article. The decision to publish the editorial board is guided by the expert assessment of reviewers, the reliability of the data submitted and the scientific significance of the work in question;
6) ensures that reviewers are aware of review rules;
7) organizes peer review aimed at rapidly publishing high-quality research while maintaining a rigorous but benevolent process of expert evaluation. Rejected materials are returned within a month due to insufficient studies or lack of relevance during the review process;
8) adopts editorial policy ensuring maximum transparency and full reporting to the author; If the review and review process takes longer, the authors are notified by e-mail;
9) protects the integrity of publications by making corrections, if necessary, and issue justified waivers to those whose manuscripts do not comply with the «Code of Ethics of Scientific Publications»;
10) protect the rights of third parties against unauthorized use of materials (plagiarism) - persons found to be plagiarism are deprived of the possibility to publish in the journal. The editorial board of the journal can make public cases of plagiarism on its pages that have become known to it;
11) regulates editorial conflicts of interest and takes into account information received from the author on conflicts of interest, including administrative, research and financial, related to his work when organizing reviews and deciding on the publication of the relevant manuscript.
12) if the manuscript is rejected or sent for revision, the editorial board shall submit to the authors the justification of its decision;
13) publishes an error message signed by the persons who found it, if sufficient evidence of error of published materials is found;
14) does not allow printing of materials with incorrect references and incorrect borrowing.
AUTHOR'S ETHICAL CODE
1) the author, who submitted the manuscript of the article to the editorial office, assumes responsibility for novelty, reliability of the results of scientific research, for reliability of contact information, agrees with the publishing license agreement;
2) copyright is reserved for authors: the article accepted for publication is placed in the public domain;
3) the article should contain only original material reflecting authors' results of the completed studies, which are not published or transferred to other editorial offices; performed according to generally accepted standards of scientific reporting;
4) it is permitted to publish the same article in other editions if it is translated into another language only with authors and publishers' consent for re-publication and with mandatory reference to the first edition;
5) when quoting works and/or fragments of the text of other authors, they shaould be executed with appropriate references to published works;
6) the editorial board may reject an article that violates intellectual rights of third parties, rules of scientific ethics or contains information, restricted access, with notification of authors and the organization that sent the article;
7) authors should give an objective assessment of the state of the solved problem, based on the analysis of previous publications, describe the methodology of work, reliability of the obtained results, gives an accurate description of the proposed ways of solving the set tasks and show the significance of the study;
8) a series of articles that publish the results of the comprehensive study should be organized in such a way that the reader can obtain an exhaustive understanding of both the structure of the study as a whole and each aspect of it covered in the relevant article;
9) the authors should, in good faith and within the time limits set by the editorial board, eliminate comments on the article made by the editorial board and/or reviewers. If they disagree with reviewers' views, they give reasonable objections on the merits of the reviewer's comments;
10) if the analysis of the state of the problem is based on confidential information (personal communication, review of manuscripts, grants, etc.), this information cannot be published without the consent of the persons who are its sources;
11) the author may inform the editorial board about conflicts of interest, including administrative, research and financial, related to his work. The Editorial Board should take this information into account when organizing a review and deciding to publish the relevant manuscript;
12) the author knows that publication under his name of a foreign manuscript (its parts), quoting or recounting of its content without reference to the source of borrowing, as well as other forms of illegal appropriation of the results of foreign research are considered as plagiarism. Plagiarism in any form is contrary to scientific ethics and unacceptable;
13) authors, at the end of article, as a rule, express gratitude to all who to some extent made a contribution to work, but does not answer criteria of authorship (for example, the persons which provided purely technical assistance, the help in writing of article or heads who provided only the general support). Financial and material support is noted;
14) at the end of the manuscript, the co-authors indicate the actual contribution of each co-author in the performance of the work (this in particular should be indicated in the documents when defending the dissertation).
