Ethical norms
REGULATIONS
ON THE PUBLISHING ETHICS OF
F.E. FALZ-FEIN BIOSPHERE RESERVE “ASKANIA NOVA” OF THE NAAS OF UKRAINE
The journal accepts articles that have not been published, meet the journal’s specialization and requirements, convey innovative and relevant findings and provide a positive review.
Ethical responsibilities of editors
1. Members of the editorial board headed by the chief editor are liable for making decisions on the publication of the scientific article, which is based on the principles of fairness and scientific importance.
2. The editors are responsible for the article’s compliance with requirements and recommendations.
3. The editors have the right to consult with the reviewer when making a final decision on the publication of the scientific article.
4. The editorial board shall not disclose information about the approved manuscripts, except for the authors, peer reviewers, potential peer reviewers and other scientific advisers.
5. The editor shall be impartial when considering all manuscripts submitted for publication and evaluate each manuscript properly regardless of race, religion, nationality, social status or affiliation of the author(s).
6. The editor is liable for the manuscript’s approval or rejection. A responsible approach and balanced approach to performing the duties means that the editor considers the recommendations of the peer reviewer, who has specific expertise, towards the manuscript’s reliability. However, the manuscripts can be rejected without peer review if the editor believes that they didn’t meet the journal’s profile.
7. The editor must protect the confidentiality of all material submitted to the journal and all communications with reviewers.
8. After the editor’s positive decision, the article is published in the journal and available on electronic resources of the journal (or establishment).
9. The editor’s responsibility and rights towards his manuscript shall be delegated to any member of the editorial board – a relevant specialist.
10. If the editor learned from a third party that a published work contains an error, the editor shall assist in publishing a notification, indicating the error, in the next issue and fix it, if possible.
11. The editorial board is not liable to the authors and/or third parties for the possible damage caused by article publication. The editors have the right to withdraw an article if it is found out that the article violated someone’s rights or agreed norms of scientific ethics. The editorial staff informs the author, the person who recommends the article, and an affiliation organization of the article’s withdrawal.
Ethical responsibilities of authors
1. Authors should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance.
2. Authors may be asked to provide the research data supporting their paper for editorial review
3. Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted and permission has been obtained where necessary.
4. Authors should cite publications that have influenced the reported work and that give the work appropriate context within the larger scholarly record. It is essential to minimize citations of works which are not relevant to the paper.
5. An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical behaviour and is unacceptable.
6. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study.
7. Authors are responsible for the content of articles and their publication.
8. An author is obliged to improve the article following comments of the editors or editorial board.
Ethical responsibilities of reviewers
1. Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and may also assist the author in improving the paper.
2. If a selected peer reviewer feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript should notify the editor.
3. Reviewers should consult the editor before agreeing to review a paper where they have potential conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
4. A peer reviewer should respect the authors’ intellectual independence.
5. Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers shall not share the review or information about the paper with anyone or contact the authors directly without permission from the editor. There are exceptions when a reviewer needs someone’s professional advice.
6. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Peer reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
7. A peer reviewer shall mark any insufficient citation of the works of other authors whose contributions have direct relation to the paper under consideration.
8. A peer reviewer shall give a review in a timely manner.
9. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in personal research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
Retraction policy
The Editorial Board follows retraction policy to warn readers about self-plagiarism (authors submit the same data in several journals), academic plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification, disguise the conflicts of interests, which would affect the interpretation of data or recommendations for their use. The retraction of the scientific article is the mechanism of correcting published data and alerting readers about articles with serious gaps or invalid content, incl. unreliable one. The publication of such data may be accidental or intentional misconduct.
The retraction’s goal is to inform readers about the article which contains unreliable data.
Based on the Recommendations of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), journal staff is guided by the below policy of retraction of previously published articles.
Editors should consider retracting a publication if:
it contains material or data without authorization for use;
the research findings have previously been published;
the article has serious errors (e.g., the misinterpretation of research findings) which call into question scientific value;
authorship is invalid (the inclusion of persons who do not meet the authorship criteria, or no one is worth being the author);
the author(s) failed to disclose a conflict of interests (as well as other violations of publication ethics);
the article was republished with the consent of the author(s);
there are other violations of ethics.
Grounds for initiating article retraction:
the author’s request to retract the article;
the request of the third parties (e.g., participants in the conflict of interests) who have evidence of the violations of academic ethics by the author of the article published in the journal;
the editorial board has found ethics violations by the article’s author.
The Academic Integrity Commission of National University of Water and Environmental Engineering decides about article retraction by relying on the decision of the Editorial Board.
Information on article retraction is available on the journal’s web-site.
The surname(s) of the author(s) and article title are kept in the contents of the relevant issue on the journal’s web-site, but reasons for retractions are specified.
The decision reasoning article retraction is sent to the author (s).
Approved by the Academic Council of the Biosphere Reserve “Askania Nova”
(Minutes No. 8 dated October 7, 2020)
