Publishing Ethics

All participants in the editorial process are guided by the publication ethics rules outlined in this section.

Before sending articles to the editorial office, authors should make sure that the prepared materials meet the requirements specified in this section and the requirements for submission, content and design of the article.

If there are signs of possible violations, the editorial office will follow Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and may reach one of the following decisions/actions:

Request necessary revision

  

Reject research paper

  

Retract already published papers

Duplicate Publication

Work submitted for publishing must be original and not previously published. Also, research cannot be submitted to or be considered for publishing by more than one academic journal.

Authorship

When identifying possible problems with authorship or misconduct by authors, we are guided by the warning signs defined by COPE.

We are following International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria and guideline to define authorship.

Take note!

  • If a participant does not meet listed above criteria, he/she should not be included in the list of authors.
  • If a professional writer or, translator was involved in the writing of the manuscript, his/her qualification as an author is carried out according to the established authorship criteria.
  • In case of multiple authors, the corresponding author must specify the individual contribution of each of them in accordance with the Contributor Roles Taxonomy CrediT system. Each contribution must be specified in the Cover Letter form and submitted along with the article manuscript.

Unethical authorship practices can lead to article retraction and more serious consequences (for example, the author's loss of reputation). The editorial board identifies the types of authorship problems according to the COPE guidelines.

Guest or Gift authorship   Ghost authorship

A guest author — is a person who is added, with or without their knowledge, to make the author list look more impressive despite having no involvement with the research

  

A gift author is a person who did not make a significant contribution to the research or publication (and could have instead been acknowledged for their role) or someone not involved with the research who is added as a favor or out of appreciation or perceived courtesy to take advantage of his/here status and gain favor.

  

A ghost author is someone who is omitted or deleted from an author list despite qualifying for authorship.

Take note!

  • Gift authorship is often transactional and bestowed for the purpose of mutual professional enhancement  (e.g., including colleagues on papers in return for being listed on theirs or for other career benefits).
  • Omitted authors may have been named in an acknowledgement instead of the author list.

We consider all the mentioned types of problems with authorship as unethical misrepresentations in the list of authors.

Plagiarism

We only accept research articles based on author’s own research and written in author’s own words (e.t. are original). Any use of the ideas, words, or work done by someone else without proper citing, will be considered plagiarism.

When identifying plagiarism, the Editorial Board is guided by the classification of its forms and varieties defined by в the COPE guidelines.

Direct Plagiarism

  

Paraphrasing

  

Self-plagiarism

Use of exact text, sentences, paragraphs in a document from work of other authors or slightly alter someone else’s ideas to present them as your own without appropriate citation or acknowledgement.

  

Rewording of ideas or paraphrasing work of other researchers without proper acknowledgement or proper citation (including “Patchwriting”).

  

Reusing parts of your own previously published work without proper citation.

Take note!

  • Borrowing from the author's own works is justified only if it is necessary to obtain new results and conclusions in the research. At the same time, an appropriate reference must be made to such a text.
  • The use of figures or tables without proper design (acknowledgements, references) and without the owner's permission to use them (in case of licensing restrictions) is also considered plagiarism.

All cases of plagiarism will be investigated by the editorial office following the COPE guidelines.

To assess the originality of the work, we check each submission by the UniCheck, followed by an expert study of the results.

If the text match is minor or not critical, the editors may ask the authors to revise the article.

Copying pictures, graphs, and tables without proper attribution (citation or quotation marks) or without authorization to use could also be considered plagiarism.

Editorial office reserves the right to use its own format to notify author about found similarities (describing or using screenshots).

Complaints about plagiarism in published research

If allegations of plagiarism are received regarding a published article, the editorial board will carefully study the situation before deciding on further actions.

We are under no obligation to discuss individual cases of alleged plagiarism with third parties, and reserve the right not to take any further action if the complainant is anonymous or uses threats or other inappropriate behavior.

Citation Manipulation

Authors, submitting manuscripts of articles for review by the editorial board, should be aware of the unethical nature of citation manipulation and avoid such citation practices.

When identifying plagiarism, the Editorial Board is guided by the classification of its forms and varieties given in the COPE guidelines.

Excessive self-citation

  

Coercive citation

  

Unnecessary Citation

Self-citation, which is not determined by the needs of the research, but is used as a means of increasing the scientometrics indicators of the author's works

  

Proposals to cite or refer to the works of other authors, which, in the opinion of the editor or reviewer, will improve the ideas presented in the work, which do not have adequate justification

  

Include unnecessary or irrelevant citations or references to inflate the journal's impact factor and artificially boost the journal's or researcher’s reputation

Take note!

  • Self-citation is allowed only in cases where it is necessary to support new research (to help reach new conclusions or support new results).
  • If you feel forced to include references to someone else’s work, please immediately reach out to Publication at sed@ieu.edu.ua.

If such unethical behaviors are uncovered, we will take actions in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

Data Falsification / Fabrication And Manipulation

Data fabrication and manipulation may impact research integrity and is unethical.

Files containing images may not be changed or in any way altered that may cause any misinterpretation (for example, change the image to enhances presenter’s position).

In the case of data presented in the article is suspected to be inaccurate, we reserve the right to investigate and request data from original source. If investigation does not yield sufficient evidence of data integrity, we reserve the right to reject such submission and may institute necessary action based on the COPE guidelines.

Conflict of Interest

All authors, reviewers, and editors must report all potential conflict of interest. Authors must report all instances that may have influenced their own research, may have influenced the review process, or may have impacted publishing. Even if you are unsure whether certain situation create conflict of interest, please reach out to editorial staff or the Publication prior to submission for clarification.

Authors must include information on third party financial support of your research and any other situations that may create potential conflict of interest in the Cover Letter.

If you foresee that an editor may have a conflict of interest, please notify the Publisher via email sed@ieu.edu.ua), so we could ensure independence in reviewing your work.

Any editor or editorial board member who decided to submit his/her own article for publication as author or co-author will be removed from the editorial process.

We will follow the COPE guidelines to resolve any conflict-of-interest cases.

Ethical Considerations in Research

When writing an article, authors must adhere to appropriate international and national procedures regarding the following:

  • medical testing on humans and animals;
  • data protection;
  • privacy rights;
  • other generally accepted procedures that exist at the time of submission of the article.

Authors must provide the editor with all consent forms received as supporting documents. In case of non-compliance of the research with mandatory procedures, the Editorial Board will act in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

Confidentiality

The SED uses double anonymized peer review process. Therefore, we ask all parties to maintain complete confidentiality and not disclose author and/or reviewer identity.

Take note!

  • It is extremely important for an author to ensure his/her manuscript does not contain any personal identifiable information. To simplify this process, we developed a form that would help the author to separate all personal metadata from the text of an article.
  • Please be careful when citing your own work: self-citation may allow the reviewer to identify the author.
  • The editorial office will verify and remove all personal identifiable information prior to submitting for peer-review and after receiving comments from reviewers that need to be forwarded to the authors.