Publishing Ethics

General guidelines

Publishing ethics policy is the code of conduct and guidelines that should be followed by all participants in the academic publication process, including authors, reviewers, editors, publishers, distributors, and readers. The Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed journal «Novosti sistematiki nizshikh rastenii» («Novitates Systematicae Plantarum non Vascularium») adheres to the rules generally accepted by the international academic community, including the editors' and publishers' ethics, the ethics of academic peer-reviewing, the authors' ethics and also the requirements of the copyright law of the Russian Federation. We act in conformity with the following fundamental documents:

«COPE's Core Practices» (Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE);
Declaration of the Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers «Ethical principles of scientific publications»;
Provisions of Chapter 70 «Copyright» of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences as a publisher of «Novosti sistematiki nizshikh rastenii» («Novitates Systematicae Plantarum non Vascularium») takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously.

Ethical guidelines for editors

Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept a submitted manuscript.
Editors may reject a submitted manuscript without formal peer review if they consider it to be inappropriate for the journal and outside its scope.
Editors only accept the manuscript when reasonably certain.
Editors should not publish the information if there are reasonable grounds to suspect plagiarism.
Editors should make all reasonable efforts to process submissions on time.
Editors should avoid unconstructive criticism in reviews and make every effort to ensure that all Editorial Board members and reviewers provide constructive criticism.
Editors should avoid any bias in editorial decision-making.
When organizing the review process, Editors should take into account the opinion of the authors on undesirable reviewers if stated and thoroughly explained by the authors when submitting the manuscript.
Manuscripts submitted in violation of the rules for manuscript submission will be not registered nor considered for review.
Editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept.
Editors should consider research characteristics of the manuscripts regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnicity, nationality, social background or political beliefs of the author.
Previously unpublished data disclosed in the manuscript should not be used for personal purposes or forwarded to third parties without written consent of the corresponding author.
Information or ideas obtained in the course of the editing process leading to any type of benefit should be kept confidential and should not be used for personal advantage.
When serious errors are found, Editors will promote publication of corrections or a retraction of the published article.
Editors will preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
The Editor-in-Chief of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the submitted manuscripts should be published. The final decision is based on the results of the review, the opinion of the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the section, and, in particular cases, the consensus of the entire Editorial Board. The grounds for making a decision are relevance, novelty, reliability and importance of the study under consideration for the international scientific community, and preparation of the manuscript according to the Instruction for Authors.

Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers

In cases where a reviewer lacks the expertise required for the review of the manuscript or if he/she feels unable to provide an unbiased review (for example, because of conflicting interests with the author or affiliated institution), or knows that a prompt review will be impossible, the reviewer should inform the editor as soon as possible and decline to review the manuscript. When the reviewer is not able to evaluate properly a part of the manuscript, he/she needs to indicate this.
The manuscript submitted for peer review should be regarded as a confidential document, which cannot be transferred to third parties for review and discussion unless permission was obtained from the Editorial Board.
Peer reviewers should provide objective and sound evaluation of the conducted research, refraining from making personal comments about the author.
Previously unpublished data disclosed in the manuscripts shall not be used for a reviewer's personal ends.
Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funding organizations.
Reviewers should point out relevant published literature sources not cited by the authors.

Ethical guidelines for authors

All the main participants in the study should be indicated as authors. Each author must have made a significant contribution to the presented work. This may be conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, supervision, validation, visualization, writing the original draft, writing review and editing. It is important to remember that each author is responsible for the content of the article.
A corresponding author must be specified for manuscripts with several co-authors. The corresponding author is the only author responsible for correspondence between the authors and the Editorial Board, submission of the manuscript, organization of responses to the reviewers and editors, proof reading and acceptance of the final version of the manuscript.
Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process.
Authors should report valid research results, refraining from fabrication or falsification of data.
Authors should guarantee that the results presented in the submitted manuscript are original.
Authors must state that all data in the article are real and authentic (see Copyright Transfer Agreement).
All major contributors to the research should be listed as authors; those who did not contribute to the current research must not be listed as authors.
Any borrowed fragments and statements should be acknowledged and referenced, with an indication of its author and the source of the information.
Citation manipulation as well as plagiarism of any kind, including hidden or disguised quotations, paraphrasing or usurpation of copyright is unethical and unacceptable.
Authors should not submit manuscripts that are currently under consideration for publication in any other journal or have previously been published elsewhere.
All the authors are obligated to provide retractions or corrections of errors.

Publishing ethics issues

Monitoring/safeguarding of publishing ethics by the Editorial Board;
establishment of guidelines for retracting articles;
maintenance of the integrity of the academic record;
preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
publication of corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies promptly when needed;
no plagiarism, no fraudulent data.