ublication ethics and editorial policy (COPE, DORA, FAIR, WAME)

1. PUBLICATION ETHICS ( COPE)

1.1. General principles

The publication ethics and editorial policy of the publication comply with the recommendations of the SORE and recognized international organizations in the field of publication ethics:

The editorial board is guided in its work by international ethical rules for scientific publications, which include rules of decency, confidentiality, supervision of publications, consideration of possible conflicts of interest, etc.

In its activities, the editorial board follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics: «Publishing Ethics Resource Kit» published by Elsevier.

The editorial board adheres to the following rules for supporting publication ethics:

• adherence to the basic principles of the publication: scientificity, objectivity, professionalism, information support of the most significant innovative research;
• unconditional loyalty to all subjects of the creative process who participate in the creation of the collection;
• use of blind review, involvement of objective, competent reviewers in the work;
• carrying out constant consultative work with authors aimed at fulfilling the requirements of international databases for the design and content of materials submitted for publication.

1.2. Making decisions about publications

The editorial board makes decisions on the publication of submitted articles. It is guided by a policy based solely on academic merit and the conclusions of the reviewers and adheres to rules regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism.

All participants in the review process (technical editor, editorial board, external reviewers) should not use unpublished information in their own research without the written consent of the author. The editor-in-chief should make appropriate decisions regarding the consideration of ethical complaints regarding the submitted manuscript.

Reviewers, together with the editorial board of the publication, must evaluate the intellectual content of manuscripts regardless of the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious views, origin, citizenship, or political preferences of the authors.

1.3. Confidentiality

The Technical Editor and the Editorial Board do not disclose information about submitted manuscripts (authors, topics, texts, etc.). Any manuscript received for review is considered a confidential document. The Technical Editor and the Editorial Board undertake not to disclose information about accepted manuscripts without necessity, except to authors, reviewers, other scientific consultants and the publisher.

1.4. Resolving conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials should not be used in any research by the technical editor, reviewers, or other persons involved in the review process without the written consent of the authors.

Technical editors, reviewers, and scientific consultants undertake to recuse themselves from reviewing manuscripts in the event of conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, joint, and other interactions and relationships with authors, companies, and other organizations related to the manuscript.

The editorial board undertakes to take appropriate measures in the event of conflict situations and claims related to manuscripts or published materials.

The editorial board may resolve claims or concerns about misconduct related to research or publications raised by readers, reviewers, or others. In addition, the publisher reserves the right to inform readers about the resolution of conflict situations.

1.5. Ethical requirements for research

Works involving human subjects submitted for publication must comply with the principles set forth in the Declaration of Helsinki “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects,” adopted by the 18th World Medical Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, (and all amendments thereto).

1.6. Ethical principles of the editorial board

These principles are developed in accordance with the COPE recommendations on the General Approach to Publication Ethics for Editorial Boards , the COPE recommendations on the Ethics Toolkit for Successful Editorial Board Activities , as well as the Code of Ethics for Scientists of Ukraine and contain the following:

• The editorial board considers monitoring the ethics of the provisions set forth in the articles to be one of the main aspects of its activities and the review process;
• The editorial board does not accept for publication materials that contain offensive statements, manifestations of aggression or any discrimination, or incite interethnic and racial hatred, violate international legal norms and the current legislation of Ukraine;
• The editorial board is not responsible for the opinions, judgments, results and conclusions made by the authors of the articles and published in this scientific publication. The authors’ results do not represent the point of view of the editorial board;
• the editorial board is not liable to the authors and/or third parties and organizations for any possible damage caused by the publication of the article;
• The authors are responsible for the absence of plagiarism or any other unfair use of the intellectual property of other authors, as well as for the reliability of information in the articles, the accuracy of names, surnames, and citations;
• The editorial board reserves the right to revise the above ethical principles of activity with the aim of improving them.

1.7. Ethical obligations of the editorial board:

• The editorial board bears ethical responsibility for everything published in the journal. Therefore, all materials submitted for publication undergo careful selection and review. The editorial board reserves the right to reject an article or return it for revision;
• the editorial board adheres to the principles of fairness and impartiality, makes decisions that are independent of commercial or other interests, and ensures a fair review process within a reasonable time;
• the editorial board may reject a manuscript without review if it believes that the work does not comply with the editorial policy of the scientific publication, its ethical principles, and requirements for manuscripts;
• members of the editorial board do not share information related to the content of the manuscript under consideration with other persons, except for persons participating in the professional evaluation of this manuscript;
• The editorial board has the right to withdraw a published article if it is found to violate someone’s rights or generally accepted standards of scientific ethics. The editorial board notifies the author who submitted the article and the organization where the work was performed about the fact of the withdrawal of the article. The editorial board also places a notice of the fact of the withdrawal of the article in the next issue of the publication;
• The editorial board allows the distribution of any articles from the journal or excerpts from them in electronic networks, but requires a reference to the original source of the publication. The publication and/or distribution of materials from the scientific publication by third parties or organizations on paper and hard electronic media is prohibited;
• The names and e-mail addresses of authors and readers provided during registration may be used by the editorial board solely for the purpose of sending notifications about the publication of new issues and for contacting authors in the process of preparing articles for publication. The editorial board does not in any case transfer users’ personal data to third parties or organizations.

1.8. The authors’ ethical obligations are developed in accordance with the COPE recommendations ( COPE Core Practices , Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing ) and contain the following:

• Research published in this scientific publication must be conducted in accordance with applicable laws and ethical standards. Any hazards and risks associated with the research must be clearly stated;
• Authors must present original research results, not plagiarize or manipulate data. All claims, results, and conclusions must be fairly presented and accurately described.
• Only those individuals who have made a significant scientific contribution to the research, analysis, and writing of the article should be listed as authors. All authors must agree on the final version of the manuscript and its submission.
• Authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships that may influence the results, their interpretation, or the presentation of the work.
• Simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to multiple journals and/or publication of the same work previously in another publication is considered unethical.
• Authors must retain raw data for a certain period of time after publication and be prepared to provide it for review upon request by the editors.
• If the study involves the use of humans or animals, authors should ensure that all procedures comply with relevant ethical standards and have approval from the relevant committees, and appropriately state this in the manuscript.
• If, after publication, authors discover significant errors, they are required to notify the editor and cooperate in correcting or retracting the article.
• The research may contain scientifically sound criticism of the work of another researcher. Personal criticism may not be considered appropriate;
• Authors must indicate the sources of the information used, including cited information, and cite them in accordance with the requirements of the scientific publication.

1.9. The ethical principles of reviewers’ activities are developed in accordance with the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers and contain the following:

• If the selected reviewers are not confident that their qualifications match the level of research presented in the manuscript, they should return the manuscript immediately;
• The reviewer must objectively assess the quality of the manuscript, the experimental and/or theoretical results presented, their interpretation and presentation, and determine the extent to which the work meets scientific and literary standards. The reviewer must respect the intellectual independence of the authors;
• The reviewer should consider the possibility of a conflict of interest if the manuscript is closely related to the reviewer’s current or published work. If in doubt, the reviewer should immediately return the manuscript without review, indicating the conflict of interest;
• Reviewers may not evaluate a manuscript with whose author they have a personal or professional relationship if such relationship may influence their judgment of the manuscript;
• The reviewer should not show the manuscript submitted for review to other persons or discuss it with other colleagues except in cases where the reviewer requires special consultation;
• Reviewers should justify their judgments so that the editorial board members and authors can understand what their comments are based on;
• The reviewer should point out any cases of insufficient citation by the authors of the works of other scientists, any significant similarity between this manuscript and any published article or any manuscript simultaneously submitted to another scientific publication;
• the reviewer must provide feedback without undue delay;
• Reviewers should not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript without the author’s consent.

By submitting materials for publication, authors agree that, if the materials are accepted for publication, they may be placed in electronic databases with the obligatory indication of authorship and preservation of copyright in full.

Sources of external information should be presented in the text of the work itself — in the form of lists of sources of literature (including personal previously published works of the authors). Authors are obliged to properly formalize borrowings in the form of quotations or references.

If the editor-in-chief receives information from a third party that the publication contains significant errors, the author is obliged to withdraw the work or correct the errors as soon as possible.

OTHER INTERNATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF THE JOURNAL’S EDITORIAL POLICY

The publication Scientific News of Dahl University supports international standards of academic integrity, transparency, and responsible evaluation of scientific results. In its activities, the editorial board is also guided by:

• the principles of the San Francisco Declaration on the Evaluation of Scientific Research (DORA https://sfdora.org/about-dora/ );
• principles of professional editing ( WAME );
• FAIR ( Findable-Accessible-Interoperable-Reusable ) principles , which promote openness, reproducibility, and accessibility of scientific materials.

2. DORA COMPLIANCE POLICY

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment ( DORA ) sets standards for a responsible, non-discriminatory, and objective approach to the evaluation of scientific activity.

2.1. Refusal to use journal metrics as the main evaluation criterion

The editorial board does not use the impact factor or other journal-oriented metrics as an indicator of the quality of individual articles.
The decision to accept a manuscript for publication is based solely on scientific value, originality, transparency of methodology, and quality of argumentation.

2.2. Priority of content over indicators

Manuscripts are judged on their content, not on the affiliations of authors, institutional prestige, or level of funding.
The editorial board encourages detailed descriptions of methods, data, and analytical procedures for objective evaluation of the research.

2.3. Support for various forms of scientific results

The journal recognizes the importance of not only full-text articles, but also research data, software code, methodological developments, representative materials, negative results, and replication studies.
All such materials are accepted for publication on an equal basis, provided that they meet editorial requirements.

2.4. Transparency of the evaluation process

Editorial decisions must be clearly justified.
Double anonymous peer review is carried out in accordance with the publication’s policy and international COPE standards.

2.5. Prevention of conflicts of interest

All decisions are subject to independent peer review.
Editorial board members do not participate in decisions regarding their own manuscripts or those of individuals with whom they have financial, family, or professional relationships.

3. FAIR POLICY

The FAIR principles aim to ensure the accessibility, reusability, and interoperability of scientific data and related materials.

3.1. Findable

Authors should provide complete metadata describing the research.
Data related to published results should be placed in repositories that provide permanent identifiers (e.g., DOI).

3.2. Accessibility (Accessible)

Data should be available in an open format or through a clearly described access procedure.
Access to data should not be limited by artificial barriers. In cases where full disclosure is not possible (e.g. due to ethical or legal constraints), authors are required to provide a reasoned explanation.

3.3. Interoperability (Interoperable)

Data should be presented in standardized formats compatible with international storage and analytics systems.
Authors should ensure the use of generally accepted metadata structures.

3.4. Reusable

Data and materials should be provided with a clear license for use.
Authors are required to provide a sufficient description of the research context, methods, and tools to allow third-party researchers to reproduce or reuse the data.

4. WAME COMPLIANCE POLICY

In its activities, the editorial board is guided by WAME recommendations on ensuring transparency of editorial processes, integrity of scientific publications, and a responsible attitude towards the results of scientific research. In particular, the editorial board of the journal:

• ensures the independence of editorial decisions regarding acceptance or rejection of manuscripts;
• adheres to the principles of objective and unbiased review;
• prevents conflicts of interest among authors, reviewers, and members of the editorial board;
• supports the principles of academic integrity and zero tolerance for plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification of research results;
• promotes transparency of editorial procedures and accountability of all participants in the publication process.

The journal’s editorial board is constantly improving its editorial policy in accordance with WAME recommendations and international standards of scientific publishing.

Authors’ obligations

• All authors must adhere to the DORA and FAIR principles when submitting materials for publication.
• The authors are responsible for the accuracy of the submitted data and compliance with ethical and legal requirements.

Editorial responsibilities

• The publication ensures responsible, objective, and non-discriminatory evaluation of manuscripts in accordance with WAME recommendations.
• The review, editorial decision-making, and publication processes are independent of any commercial or institutional influences, which is consistent with WAME’s principles of editorial independence.
• The editorial office provides technical conditions for hosting and verifying metadata, and also promotes the proper implementation of FAIR principles.