Editorial Ethics

Relationships between authors, editors and reviewers in our journal are based on academic benevolence, objectivity of ratings and priority of scientific quality. The Editorial board of Visnyk of the V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University Series «Ecology» follows the principles of Code of Conduct for Editors as defined by the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE), in particular Code of Ethics of the scientists of Ukraine

FAIR PLAY

Manuscripts shall be evaluated for their scientific quality, regardless of author’s race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality or political opinions.

EDITORS RESPONSIBILITIES

The Editor-in-chief shall be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and consults with other editors or reviewers about the decision to publish.

Editors

have full authority to reject or accept the article, guided by objective scientific criteria and the conclusions of reviewers;
guarantee the quality of materials that they publish or approve for publication;
contribute to the correction of errors found or reject materials in the event that such correction is impossible for one reason or another;
should identify any conflicts of interest;
should ensure the confidentiality of information relating to submitted manuscripts;
undertake to defend the freedom of scientific expression;
should provide anonymity of reviewers.

If editors have suspicions about the authenticity, originality or ethical correctness of submitted paper, its publication is postponed until all doubts are eliminated. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

AUTHORS RESPONSIBILITIES

Authors must:

ensure that they have written truly original works;
have significant contribution to the research (if a paper has several authors);
guarantee obtained permission for use of copyrighted materials;
certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere and is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere;
identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript;
disclose in their manuscript any substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the assessment of their manuscript.

Information obtained by authors privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. By submitting an article to the editorial board, the authors agree that (in the case of publication in the paper version of the Journal) their text will be automatically published in the online version of the Journal (under open access).

REVIEWERS RESPONSIBILITIES

Reviewers must:

notify Editorial staff of any conflicts of interests that may determine their findings;
protect the confidentiality of information relating to the manuscript;
be objective and constructive in their reviews.

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an reviewers' own research without the express written consent of the author.

Retraction of publications

General Provisions

1. The scientific article text recall from a publication (retraction) is a mechanism for correcting the published information and warning readers about the matter that a published scientific article contains serious faults or erroneous data that cannot be trusted. The inaccuracy of the data can result from both a conscientious delusion and deliberate violations.

2. Retracement is also used to warn readers about instances of publications duplication (when authors submit the same data in several publications), plagiarism, and interest conflicts concealment that could affect the interpretation of the data or recommendations for their use.

3. The main goal of retraction is the correction of the published information and ensuring its integrity, but not the punishment of authors who committed violations.

Reasons and grounds for recalling an article

The grounds for recalling the article are violation of ethical principles of the journal.

The reasons for the recalling of the article include:

The presence of undue borrowings in a significant amount;
Duplication of the article in several editions;
Detection in the paper of fabrications or falsifications (for example, juggling research data);
Detection of serious mistakes in the paper (for example, results misinterpretation), which casts doubt on the scientific value of the material;
Incorrect authors composition (There being included the persons who do not meet the criteria of authorship or there is no one who is worthy to be considered as an author);
The conflict of interests (and other violations of the publication ethics) is hidden;
Re-publication of the article without the consent of the author;
Other violations of the ethical principles of the journal.

The grounds for the recalling of the article are:

The author's appeal for the article recalling;
Decision of the journal’s editor-in-chief.

The procedure for recalling an article

1. The decision for recalling the article is made by the editorial board of the journal on the recommendation of the journal’s editor-in-chief, containing information on the existence of an excuse for recalling the article specified by these rules. The decision to recall the article is made taking into account the author's response to the article, which justifies his/her position on the issue of recalling the article, upon receipt of this response.

2. If the author/team of authors find it necessary to recall the article, they appeal to the editorial office, explaining the reason for their decision reasonably. The editorial board responds to the authors and, if there are grounds for retraction, it independently retracts the text of the article.

3. If the editorial board decides to recall the article text on the basis of its expertise or the information received, the author(s) are informed of this and asked his/her opinion on the submission validity of the editor-in-chief on the article recalling. If the author/team ignores the editorial request, the editorial board has the right to apply to the Council for the Ethics of Scientific Publications and (or) to recall the publication without taking into account the author's opinion.

4. The decision to recall an article is made out in the minutes of the meeting of the journal’s Editorial Board.

5. By deciding to recall the article, the editorial board indicates the reason for the retraction (in case of detection of plagiarism - with reference to sources of borrowing), as well as the date of retraction. The article and the article description remain on the journal’s website as part of the corresponding issue of the journal, but the electronic version of the text is inscribed with the inscription "RETRACTED" and the date of retraction, the same note is placed in the article and in the table of contents of the issue.

6. The journal’s editor-in-chief sends the minutes of the meeting of the journal’s Editorial Board to the Council for the Ethics of Scientific Publications and the database of scientific information, which indicates the date of the meeting, the composition of the meeting, the results of the examination, an informed decision and the completed form:

Author's name and title of the article
The title of the publication from which the text is recalled
The initiator of the article's review
Grounds for recalling the article and the date of the decision
Link to the page on the website of the publication, on which information is given on the retraction
The output of the article and the DOI (if any)
Theme of the article

7. The author (the lead author in the case of collective authorship) is sent the minutes of the meeting of the journal’s Editorial Board with a formulation that justifies the reason for the article's recalling.

8. The journal’s editorial board, along with the decision to recall the article, may decide to impose a ban on the adoption of articles from the author of a retracted article for a certain period of time.

9. On the retraction of the article information is posted on the journal's website on the Internet.