Editorial Policies

Aims and Scope

Vestnik of Samara State Technical University. Technical Sciences Series journal is a peer-reviewed open access scholar journal that provides a platform for original theoretical/experimental articles and reviews in all areas of engineering sciences to promote the theory and practice between student, engineering, and academic communities. The journal's scope covers a wide spectrum of subjects including the following fields::

  • System analysis, control and information processing
  • Automation and control of technological processes and production
  • Information, measuring and control systems
  • Electrical engineering complexes and systems
  • Electrotechnology and Electrophysics

 
 

Peer Review Process

The Journal publishes submitted manuscripts that have undergone the internal peer review process handled by the Editorial Board Members or the Editor-in-Chief. The manuscript undergoes a double-blind peer review process, which means that the identity of the authors and reviewers is blinded to each other. A supplementary material (if exist) is also subjected to peer review. The Editorial Board has the right to reject articles that do not fit Aims and Scope of the journal or are not prepared in accordance with the journal's requirements and guidelines.

Policies related to the peer review process

  1. Reviewers are appointed by the Editor-in-Chief or Deputy Editor-in-Chief. Scientific peer review is performed by external experts or Editorial Board members working in scientific fields corresponding to the topic of the article and having publications on the subject. Invitation of reviewers recommended by the author is also possible. The Editorial Board can involve from 1 to 3 experts in reviewing one manuscript.
  2. A reviewer has the right to decline a manuscript reviewing for any reason, including a potential conflict of interest. In such a case, the reviewer must declare the identified conflict of interest.
  3. The reviewer interacts with the article as a confidential material, strictly observing the author's right to non-disclosure of information contained in the article before publication.
  4. The review should contain a qualified analysis of the article, objective reasoned evaluation and reasonable conclusion with a recommendation to choose one of the following options: - accept to publication; - minor revision; - major revision; - rejected.
  5. Reviewers are signed as anonymous persons for authors.
  6. An article sent by the Editorial Board for revision after peer review and corrected according to the reviewer's comments should be returned to the Editorial Board within 30 calendar days from the date of its receipt by the authors, in this case the first date of receipt will be retained. An article returned to the editorial office after deadline will be given a new date of receipt.
  7. The initial review period can be up to 30 days. In the case of any delay, authors will be informed of the reason for the delay and they have the opportunity to withdraw their manuscript if they wish.

Final decisions about a manuscript

  1. Manuscripts that have received positive reviews are forwarded by the Executive Secretary to the Editorial Board for further consideration. The decision on publication is made by the Editorial Board of the Journal on the basis of expert evaluations of reviewers, taking into account the compliance of the submitted materials with the thematic focus of the journal, their scientific significance and relevance.
  2. In the case of a negative decision, a negative review will be sent to the author, clearly stating the reasons for the rejection of publication. An article that has been rejected will not be accepted for reconsideration.

 

Publication Frequency

The journal is published 4 times a year.

 

Open Access Policy

The publications in the Journal are available to all interested from the moment of publication. Therefore, this journal provides immediate Gold Open Access (in accordance with Budapest Open Access Initiative) to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. In addition, the editorial board believes that it provides free public access to the results of research and contributes to the advancement of science.

Free Full-text access to all articles can be observed via several websites (https://journals.eco-vector.com/1991-8542/, www.elibrary.ru) and mobile applications for iOS® (available in AppStore). All accepted articles publish with the Creative Commons International license (CC BY) for more freely distribution and usage worldwide.

 

Archiving

The journal uses the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) to digitally preserve all the published articles. The PKP PN is a part of LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) program offers decentralized and distributed preservation, seamless perpetual access, and preservation of the authentic original version of the content.

Also, the journal makes full-text archives on the Russian Science Electronic Library (http://elibrary.ru/)  and Cyberleninka platform.

 

Indexation

The journal articles are indexing in:

  1. Scholar.Google.com,
  2. eLibrary.ru,
  3. Russian Science Citation Index,
  4. lens.org,
  5. openalex.org,
  6. scilit.net,
  7. semanticscholar.org.

 

The journal is integrated in CrossRef and FundRef search systems.

The issue details are publishing in ULRICH’S Periodical Directory.

 

Publication Fee

The journal is published at the expense of publisher. The journal does not have article processing charges (APCs). The journal does not have article submission charges.

 

Authorship criteria

The authors of the publication are those individuals who have made a significant contribution to the conception, development, execution and/or interpretation of the results of the presented research, as well as to the process of writing the manuscript (including scientific and stylistic editing and formatting in accordance with the requirements of the journal).

The individual designated as the first author in the list of co-authors should be the principal investigator responsible for overseeing the preparation of the manuscript and should possess a comprehensive understanding of the scientific work. It is also expected that the first author will act as the 'correspondence author', assuming responsibility for communicating with the journal's editorial board and readers once the article has been published.

Those who have made significant contributions to the manuscript and the research may be included as co-authors. In cases where study participants have made notable contributions to a specific aspect of the research project, they should be acknowledged as having made significant contributions to the study.

The first author is responsible for ensuring that all participants who have made significant contributions to the study are listed as co-authors. Furthermore, the author must confirm that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the final version of the paper and agree to its submission for publication.

 

Publication ethics and related editorial policies

Journal's policies on authorship and contributorship

 

 Authorship must be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work reported. In order for the authorship to be considered valid, the following criteria must be met:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
  • Final approval of the version to be published;
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

We encourage the authors to propose only one corresponding author for their article. The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal requirements, all registration documentation are fulfilled.  It is also possible that these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors.

Any further contribution details (e.g., equal contribution) must be included in the contributors or acknowledgement sections at the end of the article.

The authors confirm that all authors included on a paper fulfil the criteria of authorship. Furthermore, we require confirmation that no other individual who meets the authorship criteria has been omitted from the list of authors.

 In the case of any discrepancy among authors, we adhere to the recommendations set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

 

How the journal will handle complaints and appeals?

 

According to the COPE recommendations (COPE Council. COPE Complaints and Appeals focus — English https://publicationethics.org/news/cope-education-subcommittee-focus-complaints-and-appeals) the handling complaints and appeals is to be conducted in a transparent, fair, and objective manner. This entails adherence to the journal's stated policy on handling such matters, as well as communication with all relevant parties, including the provision of information regarding the process to be followed and updates throughout the process. The use of neutral and professional language in all such communications is essential, as is avoiding all forms of conflict of interest in the investigation process, both real and, even more importantly, perceived. In some cases, this may require that the complaint is monitored by an independent oversight committee or other objective third party.

 

How the journal will handle allegations of research misconduct?

 

Research misconduct encompasses various aspects of unethical practices, including fabrication, falsification, citation manipulation, or plagiarism in producing, performing, or reviewing research and writing an article by authors, or the reporting of research results. When authors are found to have been involved with research misconduct under preparation and submission of their manuscript, Editors have a responsibility to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the scientific record.

In cases of suspected misconduct, the Editors and Editorial Board Members will use the COPE best practices to assist them to resolve the complaint and address the misconduct fairly. This includes an investigation of the allegation by the Editors. A submitted manuscript that is found to contain such misconduct will be rejected. In cases where a published paper is found to contain such misconduct, a retraction may be published and will be linked to the original article.

The first step involves determining the validity of the allegation and assessing whether the allegation is consistent with the definition of research misconduct. This initial step also involves determining whether the individuals alleging misconduct have relevant conflicts of interest.

If there is a possibility of scientific misconduct or other significant research irregularities, the allegations will be communicated to the corresponding author, who will be asked to provide a detailed response on behalf of all co-authors. After the response is received and evaluated, additional review and involvement of experts (such as statistical reviewers) may be obtained. In cases where misconduct is unlikely to have occurred, clarifications, additional analyses, or both, published as letters to the editor, and often including a correction notice and correction to the published article are sufficient.

 

Journal's policies on conflicts of interest

 

All participants in the peer-review and publication process should consider and disclose all relationships that could be a potential source of conflict of interest (financial relationships (e.g., employment, consulting, copyrights, patents, or paid peer review, personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual convictions).

All authors have to disclose all financial and personal relationships that influenced or could affect their work, indicating it the Copyright Agreement and in the text of the manuscript:
- The presence or absence of a conflict of interest for all authors;

- Sources of support for this work (funding), including sponsors, if any, - also an explanation of their role in developing the research plan; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; drawing up a report; deciding on submitting a report for publication; or a statement that the source of support was not involved; 

Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the manuscript.

The Editorial Board Members should not handle manuscripts and make editorial decisions when there is a conflict of interest or relationship that may create a conflict of interest. Such cases include when the Editorial Board Member is a co-author of the considered manuscript or has collaborated with the authors in the past 5 years.

 

Journal's policies on data sharing and reproducibility

 

Authors may share their work after publication, but they must acknowledge that it was originally published in the Journal. The Journal recommends that data (research data, raw data, processed data, algorithms, etc.) used in the preparation of a manuscript should be deposited in an available repository that allows their maximum reuse.

 

Journal's policy on ethical oversight

 

The policy of the Journal concerns the oversight on how the ethical principles are observed is based on the mutual trust of the publication process participants and the hope for the obligatory observance of all the principles of publication ethics.

We focus on the СОРE definition, of Ethical oversight, namely “Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices”. Based on this definition, the Editorial Board of the Journal works under the issue of observing the ethical principles.

The Journal will be bound to consider the appeals from the Ethics and Oversight Committee for professional and scientific activity concerning the non-observance of the ethical principles by our authors. We are also ready to consider other appeals in case they are not anonymous and substantiated.

 

Journal's options for post-publication discussions

 

The correspondence provides access to the post-publication conversation. If any readers have any concerns about any of the published items, they can write a letter to the Editor-in-Chief. Errata, corrigenda, and retraction can be used to correct any errors or mistakes detected in the article.

 

Journal's policies on corrections and retractions

 

Changes in the article accepted for publication, which went through the stages of peer review and prepress (publication online first is included), fall into one of three categories:

Publisher Correction (Erratum),

Author Correction (Corrigendum).

Decisions about types of correction are made by the Journal's editors, sometimes with the advice of reviewers or Editorial Board Members. This process involves consultation with the authors of the paper, but the editors/ Editorial Board Members make the final decision about whether an amendment is required and the category in which the amendment is published.

Publisher Corrections (erratum) is published in case of an error (typo, missed change) introduced by the journal in production, which is significant and affects the understanding of the article by the reader. Corrections are not published for simple, obvious typographical errors.

Author Corrections (Corrigendum). If the authors consider it necessary to make corrections after the publication of the article (corrigendum), they are required to submit a written request (by email) to the editorial office of the journal, accompanied by a justification. The final decision on the publication of the correction (corrigendum) is made by the editors of the journal and members of the Editorial Board after assessing the impact of the change on the scientific accuracy and significance of the published article. In some cases, the identification of serious errors and inconsistencies in the published article may require retraction of the article.

According to the recommendations of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE Council. COPE Retraction guidelines — English.  https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4 ), the withdrawal of the text from the publication (retraction) is possible to correct the published information and notify readers that the publication contains serious flaws or erroneous data that cannot be trusted. Data inaccuracy may be due to misunderstanding or intentional violation.

Retraction is also used to warn readers about cases of redundant publication, plagiarism, peer review manipulation, reuse of material or data without authorization, copyright infringement or some other legal issue (eg, libel, privacy, illegality), unethical research, and/or a failure to disclose a major competing interest that would have unduly influenced interpretations or recommendations.

According to the COPE Retraction Guidelines, the Editors of the Journal consider the retraction of a publication if:

  • Clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of a major error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error) or as a result of fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation)
  • Detection of incorrect overlaps (plagiarism) in the publication;
  • The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)
  • It contains material or data without authorization for use
  • Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (eg, libel, privacy)
  • It reports unethical research
  • It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process
  • The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (aka, conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.