Peer Review Process

In its work the editorial board is guided by the COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for the journal editors.

The reviewing (expert evaluation) of submitted scientific articles is carried out to maintain a high scientific level of the journal and to select the most valuable and relevant scientific papers. The journal uses a Double-Blind Peer Review by two reviewers. This means that the reviewer does not know the personal information of the author / authors and simultaneously the author / authors do not know the personal data of the reviewer.

At first, the submitted to the editorial office scientific articles undergo initial control regarding the completeness and correctness of their registration and compliance with the Rules of the article design. Then the technical expert checks the submission text for malicious borrowings (plagiarism). After successfully completing these consecutive steps the primary expert review of a scientific article is carried out by the editor-in-chief or the deputy editor-in-chief.

The Editor-in-Chief (deputy Editor-in-Chief) determines the reviewer from the membership of the editorial board, who oversees the relevant scientific direction, for the submitted article. In the case of absence of a member of the editorial board – the curator of the respective direction, the Editor-in-Chief (deputy Editor-in-Chief) defines the external reviewer for the provided article. Reviewers (both members of the editorial board and external) should be known experts in the subject matter of the submitted manuscript and have published articles in the field of research (preferably during the last 5 years). The reviewers are guided by the provisions set forth in the following practice guidelines: Peer review processes.

The review period lasts from 4 to 12 weeks. Reviewers are sent a copy of the author's article and a questionnaire in which the reviewer must respond to the questions quoted therein and may provide comments on the article. Reviewers express an opinion on the possibility of publishing an article. After an expert evaluation of a scientific article, the reviewer may recommend the article for publication, or recommend the article for its publication after author's revision, taking into account the comments and wishes expressed, or do not recommend article for publication. The executed review is sent to the editor office by e-mail in the form of a scan copy. After receiving a review with reviewer's comments, authors of the article are given two weeks to respond to comments from reviewers and editors. In the case of one positive and one negative reviews of the article a third reviewer may be appointed and the editorial board makes decisions based on the conclusions of all three reviewers.