Publication Ethics

The editorial board of “Journal of Musical Science” follows the principles of publication ethics adopted by the international scientific community and summed up in recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

A scientific publication is a minimal act of printed scientific communication which includes all major publication process participants – 1) author; 2) publisher; 3) reviewer, 4) chief editor, editorial board and editorial staff, 5) reader.

Printed scientific communication is defined by the peculiarities of scientific activity and communication in the scientific sphere, such as:

1) the necessity of disclosing the results of scientific research for extensive approbation by the scientific community;

2) strict prioritizing of achieving the scientific result, the evidence of which is the scientific publication, and strict adherence to author’s rights on the published text;

3) relative multitude, potential supranationality, and territorial vastness of the scientific community as a communication field which suggest the necessity and effectiveness of a printed form of communication combined with an Internet one;

4) highly-demanding format requirements.

Scientific publication ethics is a system of professional behaviour standards for the participants of the scientific publication process.

The ethical principles upheld by the journal’s editorial board highlight three important aspects of scientific publication and the positions of those major publication process participants mentioned above.

The first aspect concerns the conducted scientific research, the results of which are stated in the publication. A scientific research shown in the publication must have the following qualities: accuracy of results, scientific novelty, author’s direct involvement in the given research.

The second aspect concerns the published text: its authorship, scientific content and format.

The third aspect concerns the relationship among publication process participants: relation to scientific schools and fields, scientific priorities in the field to which the published text is attributed, personal relationships, including likes and dislikes.

The principles given below highlight all three aspects of scientific publication, determine behaviour standards for the main participants, comply with the journal’s policy, and act as a major constituent part of selection, review, and publication of scientific materials.

All publication process participants must observe the following ethical principles:

1.1. The priority is given to the significance of scientific content, accuracy of scientific results and novelty of published texts.

1.2. The information is considered confidential and, therefore, its usage before publication must be prevented.

1.3. Any conflict of interests should be avoided or, if arisen, resolved fairly.

1.4. All the proceedings must be in accordance with the journal’s editorial policy.

In the course of their work, the publisher is responsible for the publication process in the journal which renders it necessary to observe the following fundamental principles and procedures:

2.1. To make it possible for the publication process participants to fulfill their ethical duties in accordance with the given requirements.

2.2. To support the journal’s editorial staff in dealing with complaints about ethical aspects of the published material and to help negotiate with other journals and/or publishers if it helps editors perform their duties.

2.3. To make sure all the information received from the authors of publication or any other information is kept confidential before publication.

2.4. Not to turn the scientific publication procedure into commercial activity and not to strive for making profit.

2.5. To foresee the possibility of publishing certain amendments, explanations, rebuttals, and apologies if needed.

2.6. To allow the journal’s editorial staff to be able to exclude those publications containing plagiarism and inaccurate data.

2.7. To use the right to deny a submitted paper or to demand its refinement of the author if it has been executed with violation of the Rules adopted in this journal and approved by the Publishing house.

2.8. To make sure the journal is issued timely and regularly.

An author (or a group of authors) when presenting their material to “Journal of Musical Science” bears primary responsibility for the novelty, accuracy and independence of scientific research results, which suggests obedience by the following principles:

3.1. Authors of the article must present accurate results of the conducted research.

3.2. Authors must guarantee that the research results stated in the submitted paper are absolutely original. Borrowed fragments or statements must carry the name of the author and original source. Excessive borrowings and also plagiarism in any form, including non-formalized quotations or obtainment of rights for others’ research results, are non-ethical and unacceptable. If there is a borrowing without a link to its source, this will be regarded as plagiarism by the editorial board and serve as a basis for denial in publication.

3.3. Authors must include only accurate facts and data into their submitted papers; give enough information for other researchers to prove and repeat the experiments; restrain from using the information obtained privately without an open written permission; prevent fabrication and falsification of data.

3.4. Authors must not let the duplication of publications happen. If certain elements of the submitted paper have been published earlier, the author must give a link to this earlier work.

3.5. Authors must not submit to the journal a paper that has already been sent to another journal and is currently under consideration, and also an article already published in some other journal.

3.6. It is necessary to acknowledge the contribution of all people who have influenced the course of research in one way or another, in particular, there should be references in the article to works which produced a significant impact on the research.

3.7. Authors must abide by ethical norms when criticizing or objecting to other people's researches.

3.8. All people who have considerably contributed to the research must be listed as co-authors. Those who have not taken any part in the research cannot be listed as co-authors.

3.9. Authors must respect the work of the editorial board and reviewers and eliminate indicated flaws or present well-reasoned objections.

3.10. Authors must formalize their submitted papers in accordance with the rules adopted by the journal.

3.11. If the author finds any critical mistakes or inaccuracies in their article when it is under consideration or is already published, they must notify the journal’s editorial staff about it immediately.

3.12. Authors must be able to prove to the editorial board or the publisher that the original article is correct or must rectify critical mistakes if the editorial board or the publisher have found out about them from a third party.

The reviewer provides a scientific expert review of the author’ material, thus their actions must be objective and in accordance with the following principles:

4.1. The paper submitted for review must be considered a confidential document which cannot be shown to or discussed with third parties who are not authorized by the editorial staff.

4.2. When reviewing the submitted paper, reviewers must bear in mind that this paper is intellectual property of the author and is not subject to disclosure.

4.3. The reviewer must draw the chief editor’s attention to considerable or partial similarity between the reviewed paper and some other work, and also to the lack of references to statements, conclusions or arguments published earlier in other works by this or other authors.

4.4. The reviewer must point out those published which have not been quoted by the author.

4.5. The reviewer must give an objective and reasoned assessment of the research results and provide proper recommendations. No personal critical remarks to the author are acceptable.

4.6. The reviewer’s objections and suggestions must be objective and profound, aimed at increasing the scientific level of the paper.

4.7. The reviewer must make decisions on the grounds of solid facts and give proofs of their decision.

4.8. Reviewers are not allowed to make copies of the papers for their personal needs.

4.9. Reviewers do not have the right to use their knowledge of the work’s contents for their personal gain before its publication.

4.10. The reviewer, who, in their personal opinion, does not have enough qualification to review the paper or cannot be objective, for instance, in case they have a conflict of interests with the author or organization, must inform the editor about it demanding to exclude them from the process of reviewing that paper.

4.11. The article review is confidential. The reviewer’s full name is known only to the secretary in charge and the journal's chief editor. This information is not subject to disclosure.

In the course of their work, the chief editor, editorial board and editorial staff bear responsibility for selection, prepress and publication of authors’ works, which makes it necessary for them to observe the following fundamental principles:

5.1. The chief editor, editorial board and editorial staff seek to:

– constantly perfect the journal;

– follow the principle of the freedom of scientific opinions;

– prevent business or political interests from influencing the process of making decisions about any publications;

– make decisions about publications on the grounds of the following main criteria: the paper is in line with the journal’s subjects; the presented article is topical, ground-breaking and scientifically significant; the material is presented clearly; the results are valid and the conclusions are complete. The research quality and topicality are crucial for deciding on publication;

– take all sensible measures to ensure the high quality of published materials and protection of personal data;

– take into account reviewers’ recommendations when making the final decision about publication. The journal’s editorial staff are fully responsible for such decision;

– give reasons for their decision in case of accepting or declining the article;

– give the author of the reviewed material an opportunity to prove their research position;

– keep the decision made by the previous editorial board about the publication in case some of its members have been replaced.

5.2. When making their decision about publication, the journal’s chief editor, editorial board and editorial staff are guided by accuracy, scientific novelty, and scientific significance of the presented work.

5.3. The chief editor, editorial board and editorial staff must evaluate the scientific content of submitted papers regardless of their authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious views, background, nationality, social status or political preferences.

5.4. Information from submitted papers that has not been published cannot be used for personal purposes or passed to third parties without the author’s written permission. Information or ideas received while editing and connected with possible advantages must be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

5.5. The chief editor must not allow to publish the text if there are enough reasons to believe it contains plagiarism.

5.6. The chief editor together with the publisher must not ignore complaints concerning submitted papers or published material, and must take all the necessary measures to restore the violated rights in conflict situations.

5.7. The chief editor, editorial board and editorial staff must:

– make the article accepted for publication available to public.

– place the information about the author’s rights; the information about financial support of the research if such information is provided by the author.

– take measures to correct any content-related, grammatical, stylistic or other mistakes if they are found.

– finalize all editorial corrections with the author.

6. Conflict of interests

In order to avoid violation of publication ethics, it is necessary to eliminate the conflict of interests among all the parties participating in the publication process. The conflict of interests may arise when the author, reviewer or member of the editorial board have financial, scientific or personal relationships which might influence their actions. Such relationships are called two-part liabilities, competing interests or competing loyalties.

In order to prevent the conflict of interests and in accordance with the journal’s ethical norms, each party has the following obligations.

The editor is obliged to:

– pass the submitted paper over to another reviewer if the one who has been originally appointed has the conflict of interests with the author;

– request information about competing interests from all publication process participants;

– make a decision about publication of information stated in the author’s letter concerning the conflict of scientific and/or financial interests if it is not confidential and can influence the reader’s or scientific community’s evaluation of the published work;

– publish amendments if the information about the conflict of interests was received after the article publication.

The author is obliged to:

– state where they work and the financial source of their research.

The reviewer is obliged to:

– inform the chief editor about the conflict of interests (two-part liabilities, competing interests) and refuse to review the paper.

7. Infringements

In case there is any violation of publication ethics on behalf of the editor, author or reviewer, it is absolutely obligatory to investigate it. It concerns all published as well as unpublished materials. The editorial board must demand explanatory statements without inviting those parties who might have the conflict of interests with one of the sides.

If the material containing significant inaccuracies has been published, it must be immediately corrected in a form available for readers and indexing systems.