1. Introduction
1.1 The Journal "Modern issues of biomedicine" and its Publisher, the North-Caucasian Federal Research-Clinical Center, follow principles of the integrity of publications in scientific journals, the relevant provisions of authoritative international associations such as Elsevier, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP), establishing standards of ethical behavior of all parties involved in the publication (authors, editors, reviewers, publishers, and the scientific community of the Journal). The Journal, with the help of comprehensive, objective and honest review, tends to select for publication only those materials related to scientific research of the highest quality.
1.2. The Publisher of the Journal does not only supports scientific communications and invests in this process, but is also responsible for compliance with all current recommendations in the published work.
1.3 The Publisher undertakes to supervise scientific materials.
1.3. All publications are licensed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
2. Duties of Editors
2.1. Fair play
The Editor evaluates submitted manuscripts for their intellectual content (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and its relevance to the Journal’s scope without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation.
2.2. Confidentiality
Editors and the Editorial Board will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone except authors, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers and the Publisher, as appropriate.
2.3. Disclosure and conflicts of interest
2.3.1. Editors and the Editorial Board members will not use unpublished data disclosed in a submitted manuscript without the Author’s explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas from a submitted manuscript must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
2.3.2. Editors will recuse themselves from considering a manuscript in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript. In such cases, editors ask for help of co-editors, editorial assistants or cooperate with the editorial staff rather than review the manuscript in question by themselves and make publication decisions.
2.4. Publication decisions
The Editor is personally and independently responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted should be accepted and published, working in cooperation with the Editorial Board. The validity of the manuscript in question and its scientific value must always be the basis for publication decisions. The Editor may be guided by the policies of the Editorial Board and constrained by such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor may also confer with other editors and reviewers in making this decision.
2.5. Publication supervision
The Editor who has provided convincing evidence that the statements or conclusions in the paper to be published are wrong should inform the Publisher about making a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant.
2.6. Involvement and cooperation in investigation
The Editor (in conjunction with the Publisher and/or society) is to respond appropriately to ethical concerns related to reviewing manuscripts or published papers. Among measures that can be taken are communication with the Author of the manuscript the reasoning of a corresponding complaint or claim, as well as contacting relevant organizations and research centers.
3. Duties of Reviewers
3.1. Contribution to editorial decisions
Peer-review assists editors in making editorial decisions and, through corresponding communication with authors, may assist authors in improving their manuscripts. Peer-review is an essential component in formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of scientific endeavor. The Editorial Board of the Journal shares the view of many that all scholars who wish to contribute to the scientific process have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.
3.2. Promptness
Every invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors of to decline the invitation to review.
3.3. Confidentiality
Any manuscripts suggested for review are confidential documents and should be treated as such. They must not be shown to or discuss with others except as authorized by the Editor.
3.4. Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Reviewers should form their observations clearly with supporting arguments. Personal criticism of the Author is inappropriate.
3.5. Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has been not cited by the authors. Any statement that is an observation, derivation or argument that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
3.6. Disclosure and conflicts of interest
3.6.1. Reviewers should not consider manuscript in which they have conflicts of interests resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript. They should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.
3.6.2. Unpublished data disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without a written consent of the authors. Information or ideas obtained through the review process must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage.
4. Duties of Authors
4.1. Manuscript requirements
4.1.1. Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed, followed by an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. The manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical publishing behavior and are unacceptable.
4.1.2. Review and research papers should be accurate and objective, while an editorial opinion should be clearly identified as such.
4.2. Data access and retention
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study for editorial review, should be able to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases) if possible, and should in any event be prepared to keep this data for a reasonable period of time after publication.
4.3. Originality and plagiarism
4.3.1. Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works. If they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited.
4.3.2. Plagiarism takes many forms: from “passing off” another’s paper as the author’s own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms is unethical publication behavior and is unacceptable.
4.4. Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
4.4.1. Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
4.4.2. Publication of some kinds of articles (e.g. clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided that certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary publication. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication. Further detail on acceptable forms of secondary publication can be found at www.icmje.org.
4.5. Acknowledgement of sources
Authors must acknowledge the work of others and cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence or discussion with third party, must not be used or reported without explicit written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.
4.6. Authorship of the manuscript
4.6.1. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the reported study. All those who also made at contribution to the study, should be listed as co-authors. All persons who have participated in certain substantive aspects (such as technical help, writing and editing assistance, general support) of the research project but do not meet the criteria of authorship should be acknowledged/listed as contributors.
4.6.2. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list and verify that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.
4.7. Hazards, human or animal subjects
4.7.1. If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript.
4.7.2. If the work involves the use of animal or human participants, the authors should ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) have approved them. Authors should also include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with all the human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed.
4.8. Disclosure and conflicts of interest
4.8.1. All authors should disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript.
4.8.2. Examples of such potential conflicts that must be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/ registrations, grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.
4.9. Fundamental errors in published works
When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the Editor or the Publisher to retract or correct the paper. If the Editor or the Publisher learns from a third party that a published paper contains a significant error or inaccuracy, it is the Author’s obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the editors of the correctness of the paper.
5. Duties of the Publisher
5.1. The Publisher should follow the principles and procedures to assure the observance of ethical rules by editors, reviewers and authors in accordance with these requirements. The Publisher should ensure that potential advertising or reprint revenue has no influence on editorial decisions.
5.2. The Publisher should extend support to editors of the Journal when handling ethical complaints concerning a published paper and facilitate communication with other journals and/or publishers if it can help the editors to perform their duties
5.3. The Publisher promotes good practices of conducting research and implementing industry standards to improve ethical guidelines, retraction and correction procedures.
5.4. The Publisher must provide specialized legal review and counsel if necessary.
5.5. Dealing with unethical behavior
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the Publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work. The Publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
6. Adoptions and plagiarism
The Editorial Board considering the paper may run the manuscript through the Antiplagiat system. In case of identifying numerous borrowings, the Editorial Board will act in accordance with COPE guidelines.
7. Policy of submitting preprints and postprints
As a part of the submission process, authors are required to confirm that the submitted manuscript was not previously published. After a manuscript has been published in “Modern issues of biomedicine” we suggest that the link to the article on Journal's website is used when the article is shared on personal or public websites.
Prior to acceptance and publication, the authors may make their submissions available as preprints on personal or public websites.
8. Journal archiving
Publications of the Journal are deposited and available in Elibrary.ru – the Russian scientific electronic library.
This section was prepared in accordance with materials of Elsevier, as well as materials of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP).
Elsevier guidelines:
www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/publishing
www.elsevier.com/publishingethicskit
COPE guidelines:
https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines
ICJME guidelines:
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/
ASEP guidelines (in Russian):
https://rasep.ru/for-members/biblioteka-anri/275-polnye-rekomendatsii-po-podgotovke-sajtov-zhurnalov