Ethical standards
Editorial policy and publishing ethics (for details see the file) of the "Geosystems of Transition Zones" Journal are based on the requirements of modern law copyright, on the traditional ethical principles of Russian and international scientific periodicals, formulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and are formed taking into account the ethical standards of editors and publishers and best practice guidelines for journal editor (Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors), with consideration to the Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Publications. and è the Declaration «Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications» adopted by the Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers (ASEP).
The requirements of compliance with publication ethics in the preparation and publication of the Journal concern all participants of the editorial and publishing process – founder and publisher, authors, editors, reviewers, members of the editorial board.
Editorial board and editors undertake to:
• ensure confidentiality of material received from the authors; not to use unpublished data taken from submitted manuscripts for personal research or for other purposes without the authors’ distinct written permission;
• timely and objectively consider the material submitted to the Journal, decisions on their acceptance to the publication should be based only on their academic merit and novelty, regardless of the personality of the author, his citizenship, racial, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, religious and political beliefs;
• not admit to publication the material with established signs of plagiarism, copyright and ethics violations;
• not publish the material that do not correspond to the scope of the Journal, and do not contain new results and new information in comparison with previously published works;
• comply with the policy of disclosure of conflict of interest on the part of all participants of the publication process;
• ensure an honest and efficient process of independent peer-reviewing;
• respond adequately (right up to retraction of the article) in case of ethical claims concerning submitted or published material;
• publish the corrections to the published article as soon as possible or retract the work, if significant errors are found.
Peer-reviewer, agreeing to review the material, should:
• decline to review if there is an obvious conflict of interest affecting the perception and interpretation of the manuscript material;
• inform the editor about the noticed violations of ethical norms of scientific work in the reviewed material;
• give an objective and reasoned assessment of the manuscript submitted for review without discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin of the authors. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate;
• respect the confidentiality of any material under review; not discuss them with colleagues; not use the information obtained from the article for personal and commercial advantage;
• notify the editors of the discovered substantial similarity or coincidence between the manuscript and another published work in the area of scientific competence of the reviewer; draw the author attention to significant published works corresponding to the scope of the article and are not included in the bibliography of the manuscript.
Author, submitting the material to the editors, should:
• be fully responsible for the accuracy of the facts stated in published material, accurate citation of scientific works used in the research and article writing, the presence of correct links and the appropriate permissions for using borrowed elements (illustrations, text, or primary data).
• not concurrently submit the material to different publications. Publishing a manuscript largely devoted to the same study in more than one journal is unethical behavior and unacceptable;
• not allow copying or paraphrasing of essential parts of other people's works (without giving a reference), as well as republishing of their own articles, book chapters, scientific conference reports (including those posted in electronic publications), sections from published scientific reports, etc. Doctoral and candidate theses presented in databases or scientific archives are not considered prior publications. If this manuscript uses elements from another publication, the authors should indicate the significant difference between the works and identify a connection with the research results presented in the previous work. The editors may accept for consideration an unpublished work posted on the website, or previously published as a whole or partially in another language, provided that the author informs the editors that such material exists;
• disclose any potential conflict of interest that, in the author's opinion, may directly or indirectly influence the publication process;
• indicate all people who have made a significant contribution to obtaining the research results presented in the submitted material as coauthors; the help of other persons in the article preparing should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section;
• indicate in the manuscript all sources of financial support for the conducted research, on the results of which the submitted material is based;
• clearly and unambiguously describe the methodology for performing the work (if we are talking about an experiment) so that its results can be confirmed by other researchers;
• accurately indicate information about the used literature sources in the reference list;
• cooperate with the editor and publisher, shortening, expanding and correcting the article, if necessary, based on the comments and recommendations of reviewers and the Editorial Board;
• provide open access to additional data related to the manuscript upon request of the editor; in any case, keep this data for 3–5 years after publication;
• take part in the process of reviewing of the articles by other authors in this Journal;
• if significant errors or inaccuracies are found in published material, promptly notify the editors about this to make a joint resolution on the form of presentation of objective information. If the editors or publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains significant errors, the author, if he does not provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper, is obliged to promptly correct the errors or retract the paper.
Founder and Publisher:
is responsible for the proper presentation of research results to the public, especially in terms of the ethical aspects of the publications set out in this document;
adheres to the principles and procedures that facilitate professional and ethical responsibilities of the authors, Editorial Board, editors and reviewers of the "Geosystems of Transition Zones" Journal in accordance with these requirements;
Provides material and technical support and equipment for publishing activities, arranges the provision of services in the field of advertising, legal assistance, etc.; bears all costs related to publishing and distributing the Journal.
Promotes advanced training of editorial staff, helps the Editorial Office to interact with other organizations to ensure the functioning and development of the Journal.
Disclosure of conflict of interest
The presence of conflict of interest cannot be the reason for manuscript rejection, but the participants in the manuscript preparation for publication (author, editor, peer-reviewer, publisher) should inform the Editorial Office about the potential reasons for conflict of interest. Authors should disclose financial or other existing competing interests that might be construed as affecting the presented results and/or conclusions.
The authors have the right to indicate in the cover letter the names of those experts, who, in their opinion, should not be sent the manuscript for review due to a potential conflict of interest. This information is strictly confidential and is taken into account by the editors when organizing the review.
Any peer-reviewer or editor who has conflict of interest must decline to review this manuscript.
The editors consider any received signal about a violation of publication ethics and draw up a reasoned decision based on interaction with all participants in the preparation and publication of this work either on the signal fallacy, or on the measures on prompt elimination of this violation, up to retraction of the published article.
Borrowings and plagiarism
In order to comply with copyrights and ethical norms, the manuscripts submitted to the editors are checked for uniqueness by means of the Antiplagiarism system. In the case, when the editors have the grounds for more detailed checking, additional tools are involved to search for borrowings.
Unauthorized borrowings, plagiarism in all forms (from copying or rephrasing essential parts of other people’s works without attribution to presenting the results of other people’s research as their own), as well as self-plagiarism (duplication of essential parts of the published works without corresponding references) is unethical and unacceptable.
Any copyright infringement is dealt with in accordance with the COPE procedure.
When plagiarism or self-plagiarism become evident after the publication, the article may be retracted.
Actions of the editors when the errors and deviations from ethical norms are found in the published article. Article retraction.
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his or her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the editors and cooperate with them to correct or retract the paper. If third-party claims, that a published work contains a significant error, the author is required to correct or withdraw the paper or provide evidence of the correctness of the article.
If errors affecting an article perception, but not distorting the stated research results, are found in the text, they can be corrected 1) by replacing the pdf-file of the article and the error indication in the article file and on the article page on the journal website; 2) by issuing a separate amendment notice named Correction, indicating the imprint of an article published with errors; as well as posting information about the error in the follow-on issues of the journal.
If substantial errors are found in the text of the article (errors distorting the results of the study, illegal borrowing of a significant degree, duplication of the article in multiple journals, author (authors) misconduct associated with falsification and/or fabrication of data, incorrect composition of the authors, other violations of publication ethics) the Editorial Board has the right to retract an already published article in accordance with the Declaration of the Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers (ASEP) and the COPE Retraction Guidelines and decline further cooperation with the authors whose behavior does not comply with the ethical standards established in the Journal.
The retraction of an article can be initiated by an editor, peer-reviewer, author, organization, or private person by written request to the Editorial Office of the Journal.
Editorial Board make a decision to retract the article. The decision of the Editorial Board with the justification of the reasons for the retraction (in case of plagiarism, indicating the sources of borrowing) and the date of retraction is sent the author (lead author in case of co-authorship) and the initiator of the retraction. The authors may disagree with the position of the editors, but this does not negate the editors' right to conduct the procedure.
The retracted article is not removed from the Journal issue, but is labelled as "RETRACTED", the same mark is placed in the issue table of contents. The article page on the site contains information about the reason for the article retraction.
The fact of retraction is reported to the Council on the Ethics of Scientific Publications of ASEP, to the scientific database in which the journal is indexed, and to the organization to which the author is affiliated. A list of retracted articles indicating the reasons for retraction is posted on the Journal's website.
All documents related to a particular case of ethics misconduct (signal letters, explanations of authors, reviewers, editors, decisions of the Editorial Board, etc.) remain deposited in the Editorial Office for 5 years.
