Editorial Ethics and Policy
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The peer-reviewed journal "Lomonosov Soil Science Journal" strives to ensure high ethical and professional standards of publications.
1.2. The following standards of expected ethical behaviour are obligatory for all parties involved in the process of reviewing and publishing a scientific article: the author(s), the editor-in-chief, the editorial staff, the editorial board, the editorial council, reviewers and the publisher of the journal.
1.3. The Editorial Board complies with the Code of Ethics of Scientific Publications formulated by the Committee on Ethics of Scientific Publications (Russia, Moscow) and builds its work in accordance with regulations stated in the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for the Journal Editor (Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors) and the Code of Conduct for the journal Publisher (Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers), developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics – Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) http://publicationethics.org/
1.4. Publications in the journal are free of charge based on the results of: check for borrowings, double-blind peer review, signed license agreement with all authors of each published article. Free publication of all materials is held with a Creative Commons:Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
The terms of the license agreement of the author stipulate the conditions for the use of the manuscript by the author and the publisher before and after publication. Materials presenting content prohibited by the legislation of the Russian Federation are not allowed for publication.
2. TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
Ethics of scientific publications is a system of norms of professional behavior in the relationships between authors, reviewers, editors, publishers and readers in the process of creating, distributing and using scientific publications.
Plagiarism is the deliberate appropriation of the authorship of someone else's work of science or art, someone else's ideas or inventions. Plagiarism may be a violation of copyright and patent laws and as such may entail legal liability.
The author is a private person (group of persons), the creator of the original work.
The editor-in-chief is the person who heads the editorial office and makes final decisions regarding the preparation and publication of the journal, determines editorial policy, subject matter, selects reviewers, objectively evaluates the opinion of reviewers and makes the final decision on each article.
A publisher is an enterprise engaged in the preparation, production and release of printed materials.
The editorial board is a permanent advisory collegial body of a periodical publication, consisting of the editor-in-chief, editorial staff members, and executive secretary.
The reviewer is the author of the review, a critic who carries out a scientific examination of copyrighted materials, as a result of which his actions must be unbiased.
Reviewing is a necessary link in formal scientific communications, which is at the heart of the scientific approach.
A Сonflict of interest is a condition in which people have conflicting or competing interests that can influence an editorial decision as well as the interpretation of data in the presented article. A conflict of interest can be potential or perceived, as well as real ones. Objectivity may be affected by personal, political, financial, scientific or religious factors.
3. RESPONSIBILITIES AND RIGHTS OF AUTHORS
3.1. Submission of an article for consideration to the editorial board implies that it contains new scientific results obtained by the Author (a team of authors) that have not been published anywhere before.
3.2. Authors should be aware that they are personally responsible for the submitted text of the manuscript.
3.3. Research data should be presented as accurately as possible in accordance with the requirements for the design of scientific articles in the journal.
3.4. Recognition of primary sources.3.4.1. Authors should make sure that they have submitted the original work and that all references to works or citations to other authors are designed accordingly. Incorrect borrowing is considered both the presentation of someone else's work under the guise of one's own, and the paraphrasing of parts of someone else's work (without attribution), which is absolutely unacceptable and is considered an act of unethical behavior.
3.4.2. The author correctly cites his previous works and avoids self-quoting in the manuscript and artificially increasing the volume of publications.
3.4.3. The share of self-citation in one publication should not exceed 20% on average.
3.5.1. The author should not submit one article to different journals for consideration
3.5.2. The author should not submit an article previously published in the journal "Lomonosov soil science journal" for consideration to another journal.
3.5.3. The author should not write himself under different surnames in the same article.
3.6. The author correctly conducts correspondence with the reviewer through the assistant editor and responds to comments and observations, if they arise.
The editorial board pays attention to the correct authorship of the articles and does not accept both the excessive inclusion of authors who are not involved in the work and the exclusion fr om the list of scientists who have made a significant contribution to the work.
3.7.1. The journal "Lomonosov Soil Science Journal" adheres to the following authorship criteria:
1) significant contribution to the development of the concept or planning of scientific work or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of this work;
2) preparation of the manuscript draft or its critical revision with the introduction of valuable intellectual content;
3) final approval of the printed version of the manuscript;
4) acceptance of responsibility for all aspects of the work; the authors should also ensure that all issues related to the accuracy and integrity of any part of the work can be properly investigated and settled.
In addition to being responsible for those parts of the work that the author performed him/herself, he (she) must have an idea for which specific components of the work the other co-authors are responsible.
Individuals who do not meet all your criteria should be mentioned in the Acknowledgments section.
3.8.1. The Acknowledgements section may mention people who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship, for example: the ones supporting the study, acting as a mentor, assisting in data collection, coordinating the study, etc.
3.8.2. To correctly determine the contribution, the authors of the journal "Lomonosov Soil Science Journal" can use one of the COPE recommended schemes: General Guidelinesfor Authorship Contributions; CRediT – Contributor Roles Taxonomy
3.8.3. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the preparation of text should be limited to technical data management and editing of the text, and not to the discussion of the results and making conclusions. The use of the AI and its extent should be clearly stated. AI is not regarded as a co-author of the paper.
3.9. If the manuscript is submitted for consideration to the journal "Lomonosov Soil Science Journal" is submitted by the editor-in-chief, the manuscript is reviewed only by external experts.
3.10. All authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial or other conflict of interest that may affect the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the implementation of the project must be specified.
3.11. Working with Confidential Data
The right to privacy of persons or organizations involved in research is of paramount importance and should not be violated without their informed consent.
3.12. In all cases wh ere the study included experiments on animals, the authors should provide information on compliance with institutional and national standards for the use of laboratory animals.
3.12.1. Ethical oversight, including on the issues related with experimental animals’ treatment, is provided by the Ethical Commission consisting of the members of the Editorial Board.
3.13. If the Authors have discovered a technical or semantic error after the publication of the article, it is necessary to notify the editorial board as soon as possible.
3.14. Editorial board of the journal "Lomonosov Soil Science Journal" decides on the need to withdraw the article in cases of violations of editorial ethics: plagiarism is detected, publications of identical results in other journals are found, the article contains materials and data for the use of which permission has not been obtained, etc.
4. ETHICS OF THE REVIEWER
Reviewing is the most important component of the scientific communicationsystem, the main tool that formalizes the procedure for recognizinga newscientificresult in the academic community. The review is the only way for theauthortoconfirm the achievement of a scientific result and to consolidatetheauthor's priority.
4.1. Influence on the decisions of the editorial board
Reviewing assists the editor-in-chief and the editorial board in deciding whether to publish an article, and can also help the author improve the quality of the work through appropriate interaction between reviewers and authors.
4.2. Performance
All reviewers should comply with the ethics of scientific publications and identify cases of plagiarism and other acts of unethical behaviour. In addition, it is the responsibility of the reviewers to provide constructive feedback to the authors of the articles and the head of the editorial office of the journal.
Any selected reviewer who believes that their level of expertise in the subject area of the article is insufficient or does not have the time for a quick review should notify the editor-in-chief and refuse to review the article.
4.3. Confidentiality
Any manuscript received by a reviewer should be treated as a confidential document. The text of the manuscript should absolutely not be discussed with outsiders who are not related to the work of the journal.
4.4. Objectivity
The review should be carried out objectively. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable. Reviewers should express their compelling opinion clearly.
4.5. Recognition of original sources
The reviewer, if possible, needs to identify published articles that are relevant to the peer-reviewed article and not cited by the author. Any statement that any observation, conclusion, or argument has already been published should be accompanied by an appropriate bibliographic reference in the manuscript. The reviewer should also draw the attention of the editor-in-chief to the discovery of significant similarities or coincidences between the manuscript under consideration and any other published work that is in the field of his/her scientific competence
4.6. Disclosure policy and conflict of interest
4.6.1 Unpublished data obtained fr om submitted manuscripts cannot be used in personal research without the written consent of the author. Information or ideas obtained during the review and related to possible benefits should be kept confidential and not used for personal gain.
4.6.2. Reviewers should not participate in the review of manuscripts in case of conflict of interest due to competitive, joint and other interactions and relationships with any of the authors, companies or other organizations associated with the submitted work.
5. RESPONSIBILITY OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD
5.1. The Editorial Board headed by the Editor-in-Chief evaluates the incoming manuscripts, and also decides on the possibility of their publication, taking into account the opinions of reviewers. Decisions on publication are made based on the reliability of the work.
5.2. When evaluating submitted manuscripts, the editorial board takes into account their scientific value and intellectual content, as well as relevance and significance, and does not take into account race, gender, sexual orientation, religious preferences, ethnic origin, citizenship or political views of the authors.
5.3. The editor-in-chief, who has received convincing evidence that the statements or conclusions presented in the publication are erroneous, must inform the members of the editorial board about this in order to make changes, withdraw the publication, publish a statement, express concern or other actions appropriate to the situation.
5.4. "Lomonosov Soil Science Journal", represented by the Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board, undertakes not to use unpublished information in any of its own work without the written permission of the author.
5.5. If Editors, including the Editor-in-Chief, publish in the journal, they do not participate in the decision-making process for manuscripts wh ere they are listed as co-authors.
5.6. Special issues published in the journal follow the same procedures as all other issues. For each Special issue, a Guest Editor is assigned among the members of the Editorial Board. In specific cases, external Guest Editors may be invited upon the decision of the Editorial board. Such external Guest Editors should be outstanding experts in their field of science.
5.7. Responsibility of a member of the editorial board:
5.7.1.Reviewing incoming manuscripts according to their profile and in the absence of external reviewers.
5.7.2. Selection of reviewers for incoming articles, control of the process of reviewing incoming articles.
5.7.3. Making decisions about the possibility of publishing the article after all rounds of peer review. Decisions are submitted to the editor-in-chief, who makes the final decision on the possibility of publication
5.7.4. Invitation of authors and reviewers to cooperate with the journal.
5.8. A member of the editorial board may act as a guest editor for a special issue of the journal "Lomonosov soil science journal".
5.9. Information about the member of the editorial board is posted on the website of the journal "Lomonosov Soil Science Journal" with the necessary links to profiles in databases, affiliations and other necessary data.
6. RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PUBLISHER
6.1. The Publisher promotes the development of the norms and rules of publication and implements the best standards of publishing and scientific ethics.
6.2. The publisher does not influence the editorial policy of the journal.
6.3. The publisher provides legal support to the editorial board of the journal if necessary.
6.4. The publisher ensures the timely release of the next issues of the journal.
6.5. The Publisher publishes edits, clarifications and withdraws articles in which violations of scientific ethics or critical errors have been identified.
7. ORIGINALITY AND PLAGIARISM
The editorial ethics of the journal is based on strict compliance with all standards of conscientious research and data presentation.All articles submitted to the journal undergo a mandatory check for possible duplication and plagiarism through the “ANTIPLAGIAT” system, and papers with more than 20% text matching without proper references are rejected before sending them for peer review. If plagiarism is suspected, an appropriate investigation will be carried out.
8. DISPUTES
8.1. If there are disputes about authorship, processing of the article is terminated regardless of the stage (consideration, review, editing or printing preparation). After period, set by the editor-in-chief, the authors are unable to provide an explanation on these issues, the article is removed fr om publication with an appropriate explanation.
8.2. If a dispute has arisen in relation to a published article, the journal "Lomonosov soil science journal" publishes a correction, refutation or retraction of the article with an indication of the reason for making changes to the published document.
8.3. Editorial board of the journal "Lomonosov Soil Science Journal" expects that organizations affiliated with the author will be ready to participate in the investigation of authorship disputes.
9. COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS
The editors of the journal "Lomonosov Soil Science Journal" are attentive to complaints about the behaviour of editors and reviewers, which may relate to issues such as breach of confidentiality, undisclosed conflicts of interest, misuse of confidential information obtained during the review process. All complaints can be sent by e-mail vestnik.soil@org.msu.ru, they will be considered in the general order.
10. CONFLICT OF INTEREST
10.1. The Editorial Board considers as a serious violation the concealment of a conflict of interests by the authors, for example, if they received funding from a commercial organization interested in a certain result. In all cases wh ere the results of research may affect the income of authors, their relatives or the structures that finance them, the conflict of interests should be openly declared.
10.2. Obligations of authors when disclosing a conflict of interest
10.2.1. The author is obliged to notify the editor of a real or potential conflict of interest by including information about the conflict of interest in the relevant section of the article.
10.2.2. If there is no conflict of interest, the author should also report it. Example wording: "The author declares no conflict of interest."
10.3. Responsibilities of Reviewers When Disclosing a Conflict of Interest
Reviewers should inform editors of any conflict of interest that may affect their opinion about the manuscript, and they should independently refuse to review if there are grounds for bias.
10.4. Responsibilities of Editors When Disclosing a Conflict of Interest
10.4.1. Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts should waive editorial decisions if there are conflicts of interest or relationships that could create potential conflicts related to the articles submitted for consideration.
10.4.2. Editorial staff should not use the information obtained while working with manuscripts for personal purposes.
