Publication Ethics and Academic Integrity

Ethics guidelines of the Editorial Board of "Visnyk of Kherson National Technical University"

General provisions

The ethical principles of the editorial board were developed based on the Recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics, International standards for editors and authors, and also Code of Ethics Scientist of Ukraine.

The editorial board of the journal adheres to the principles of academic integrity and ethics of scientific publications and requires their observance by all participants in the editorial and publishing process - authors, editors, and reviewers.

Authors of submitted manuscripts must guarantee that the presented research results are original, obtained as a result of their own scientific work, and have not been previously published in other publications or are not under consideration in other journals. All ideas, data, research results or text fragments of other authors used must be properly cited and accompanied by appropriate bibliographical references.

Any violation of academic integrity, including plagiarism, self-plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of research results, data manipulation, and misappropriation of authorship, is unacceptable. All submitted manuscripts are checked by the editorial board using plagiarism detection tools.

Reviewers must conduct expert evaluation of manuscripts objectively, impartially and confidentially, refraining from using the information received for their own purposes. Editors, in turn, ensure a transparent and impartial process for reviewing manuscripts, guided solely by the scientific value and quality of the submitted materials.

The editorial board does not accept for publication materials that contain offensive statements, manifestations of aggression or any discrimination, or incite interethnic and racial hatred, violate international legal norms and the current legislation of Ukraine.

In case of violations of the principles of academic integrity, the editorial board reserves the right to reject the manuscript, withdraw an already published article, or take other measures in accordance with the editorial policy of the journal and international standards of publication ethics.

The editorial board is not responsible for the opinions, judgments, results and conclusions made by the authors of the articles and published in the journal. They do not represent the point of view of the editorial board.

The editorial board of the journal is not responsible to the authors and/or third parties and organizations for possible damage caused by the publication of the article.

Ethical guidelines for editors

- editors take responsibility for everything they publish and thus, all submitted materials are subject to careful selection and peer review. Editors reserve the right to reject an article or send back for improving;

- editors should make fair and unbiased decisions independent from commercial consideration and ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process within a reasonable time;

- editors are entitled to reject a manuscript without peer-reviewing if it doesn’t meet the editorial policy, ethics and requirements for manuscripts;

- editors shall not provide information related to the content of a manuscript under consideration to other persons, except ones involved in the professional evaluation of this manuscript;

- editors are authorized to withdraw the electronic version of the article published in the printed version of the journal, if someone’s rights or generally accepted rules of scientific ethics are violated. The editors inform the author who provided the article and the organization where the work was performed about the fact of withdrawal of the article. Editors also publish a notice of the fact of withdrawal of the article in the next issue of the journal;

- editors allow distributing any articles or extracts from the journal in electronic social networks, but reference to the original source is mandatory. The third parties or organizations are prohibited to publish and / or distribute the journal materials in paper form and data storage devices.

Ethical guidelines for authors

- the research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation. Authors should mention dangerous manifestations and risks associated with the research;

- researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.

- researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere;

- a manuscript can involve scientifically grounded criticism of a paper of another researcher. The personal comments are not regarded as relevant;

- funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed. Authors should guarantee a lack of the contractual relations or
property considerations, which could influence the publication of information contained in a manuscript;

- authors should indicate the sources of cited information, which should be properly acknowledged and referenced.

Ethical guidelines for peer-reviewers

- if an appointed peer-reviewer is not confident that his qualification meets the level of research, he/she should give the manuscript back immediately;

- a reviewer should be impartial when evaluating a manuscript, its experimental and theoretical parts, interpretation and statement, as well as take into account the correspondence of the research compliance with the high scientific and literature standards. The reviewer should respect the intellectual independence of authors.

- a reviewer should take into account a possibility of the conflict of interests if a particular manuscript closely relates to the reviewer’s current or published paper. If there are doubts, the reviewer should refuse to review the manuscripts referring to the conflict of interests;

- a reviewer should assess a manuscript if he/she has personal or professional relations and if such relations can influence the impartiality;

- a reviewer shouldn’t show a manuscript under review others or discuss it with colleagues, only if the reviewer needs professional advice;

- reviewers should adequately explain and justify their judgments so that editors and authors can understand the reasons their comments are based on;

- a reviewer should indicate any cases of a lack of citations of the papers of other scholars, any significant similarity between the relevant manuscript and any published article or any manuscript simultaneously submitted to another journal;

- a reviewer should provide a review without undue delay;

- reviewers should not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in the manuscript without the consent of the author.

Policy on mandatory ethical approval of research involving humans, animals
or their biological materials, personal or confidential data

The journal accepts for consideration materials involving the participation of humans, the use of animals, their biological materials and/or personal/confidential data only if there is a written positive opinion from the ethics commission, bioethics committee or other authorized body.

Research involving people

Must be performed in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and submitted together with the decision of an independent ethics committee, containing the name of the committee, meeting protocol number, and date of approval. Research participants or their legal representatives must provide written informed consent to participate in the experiments.

Animal studies

Must be submitted with a decision of the bioethics committee (containing the name of the committee, meeting minutes number, date of approval), be performed in compliance with the 3R principles and comply with international standards, in particular the ARRIVE Guidelines (version 2.0). They must contain a description of the species, number of animals, housing conditions, inclusion/exclusion criteria and methods for minimizing suffering.

Research using human or animal biological materials

Must comply with the two previous points and contain a description of the type of materials, a documented origin of the materials, a description of their storage conditions, and comply with the law on personal data protection.

Personal and confidential data

Materials containing personal or confidential data may be published only if the requirements of applicable data protection legislation are met and the written informed consent of the data subject (or their legal representative) is available.

Authors must limit the use of personal data to the minimum necessary for scientific purposes and, where possible, use anonymization of information to prevent identification of individuals.

Authors are fully responsible for the legality of the receipt, processing and transmission of personal or confidential data, as well as for providing the editorial office with confirmation of receipt of relevant permissions and consents.

The editorial office of the journal has the right to refuse publication or require editing of materials if they contain personal or confidential data that may violate the rights, privacy or security of individuals.

Responsibility

If violations are discovered after publication, the journal reserves the right to withdraw the article, notify the institution where the authors work or the funding organization.