Guideline for reviewing articles submitted to the Editorial Board of the Journal «International and Political Studies»

 

General provisions

This Guideline standardizes the procedure for peer-reviewing the articles submitted to the Editorial Board of the journal International and Political Studies.

In this Guideline the terms mentioned below are used in such meaning:

Author – person or group of persons (team of authors) who prepared a scholarly article based on a previously undertaken study and submitted it to the Editorial Board of the Journal.

Editor-in-chief – a person who heads the Editorial Board and makes the final decision on journal publication.

Science editor – a person who ensures the quality of scholarly articles which are published in the Journal, and contributes to the promotion of the Journal impact factor.

Responsible editor/secretary – a person who is responsible for planning and preparing well-timed and high-quality content for publication.

Editorial Board – Journal managerial body that provides a package of measures on content preparation and Journal publication. Editorial Board guarantees academic coherence and maintains the Journal status, and provides high-quality independent reviewing.

Members of the Editorial Board should be no less than seven scientists who have a scientific degree in one of the specialties that correspond to the scientific specialization of the edition in accordance with paragraph 5 of “The Procedure for Forming Catalogue of Scientific Specialized Publications” dated 15.01.2018, № 148/31600. Each of these experts including the Editor-in-chief should have no less than three publications for the last five years or no less than seven publications (articles, monographs, chapters of monographs that correspond to the scientific specialization of edition) for the last fifteen years including no less than one for the last three years published at least in two different editions which are included in Web of Science Core Collection and/or Scopus, or should have monographs or chapters of monographs edited by international publishers which belong to the categories A, B or C after the Research School for Socio-Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment (SENSE) classification. Within the Editorial Board, there must be no less than three scientists whose primary employment is any Ukrainian academic institution or higher education institute, and there must be at least one expert whose primary employment is any foreign academic institution or higher education institute. In order to become a member of the Editorial Board, an expert has to express his written consent. An expert can be a member of no more than three editorial boards of editions from the Catalogue.

Journal Editorial Board members are presented on the Journal website.

The referee (or peer reviewer) is an expert who acts on behalf of the Journal and carries out scientific expertise for the articles submitted to the Journal in order to decide whether the articles are suitable for publication in the Journal. The referee can be a person who holds the scientific degree of Philosophy Doctor or Doctor Habilitated and conducts research after his or her specialty, and has for the last three years no less than one publication in editions included in the Catalogue, or in foreign editions included in Web of Science Core Collection and/or Scopus, or has monographs or chapters of monographs edited by international publishers which belong to the categories A, B or C after the Research School for Socio-Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment (SENSE) classification.

Working party – group of persons from among the members of the Editorial Board consisting of no less than four people, who approve the decision to recommend an article for publication. Group members are appointed by Editor-in-chief before the work on the next issue begins.

All the articles submitted to the Editorial Board of the Journal shall be reviewed.

The articles of the Editorial Board members, of the scientists who have the significant scientific groundwork in a relevant field, as well as the articles written on request of the Journal, go through standard peer-reviewing. Under such circumstances, the decision about the publication of an article is taken by the working party, by a majority of votes (the Editor-in-chief has the casting vote).

While reviewing the referees shall follow the requirements of the Journal Code of Conduct specified and recommended by the Committee of Scientific Publication Ethics. Referees shall be objective and non-biased.

The author submits to the Editorial Board of the Journal an article that complies with all the requirements of the Journal. Any article which does not comply with the requirements mentioned above shall not be registered and allowed for publication. The author will be informed of that.

Before the reviewing the Managing editor/secretary of the Journal:

Examines the manuscript for compliance with the remit of the Journal with general requirements for specialty publications.

Determines the level of originality of the author’s text with the help of the program (StrikePlagiarism.com by the Polish company Plagiat.pl). If the original text works out less than 70 percent the article will not be admitted for further reviewing and will be returned to the author.

Encodes the article (assigns registration number and impersonalizes data about the author of the article).

Encoded article via email is sent to referees who were chosen by the Managing editor of the Journal.

The article is examined by one of the members of the Editorial Board (single-blind review – a reviewer knows an author but an author does not know a reviewer).

After that, the article is sent for examination by an independent expert in the relevant field of knowledge. This is a so-called double-blind review when neither author nor reviewer knows each other. In such a case, the peer-reviewing procedure is anonymous both for the author and referee.

Within 5 consecutive days starting from the day when the article was received the referees shall estimate the possibility of peer-reviewing taking into consideration their own qualifications, the announced topic, and the absence of the conflict of interests. Upon the existence of any private (material or non-material) interest which can potentially influence the referee’s unprejudiced decision, a reviewer should inform the Managing editor, and if there is any conflict of interests or other noes for reviewing the Managing editor shall decide to appoint another referee. The referee should give reasons for refusing to review an article.

Within 20 consecutive days starting from the day when the article was received referee should present a conclusion on whether the article can be published in the Journal. If it is necessary the deadline may be extended to 25 days. The referee should inform the Managing editor of that.

Based on the results of reviewing the referee fills out a standard form (hereinafter – a form of article review – Appendix 1 in this Guideline) where he or she draws one of the following conclusions:

to recommend the article for publication
to send the article back to the author for correcting and finalizing
not to recommend the article for publication.

The completed form of the article review is sent to the Managing secretary of the Journal. Reviews signed by a referee with an ordinary or digital signature should be stored in the editorial office for at least three years.

The Managing editor/secretary informs the author of the results of the peer review via email.

If a referee draws a conclusion on correcting and finalizing the article the Managing editor/secretary with the approval of the Editor-in-Chief sends the article to the author with the list of the referee’s critical remarks, questions, and comments. The term finalizing is determined by the Editor-in-chief and should not exceed 5 consecutive days beginning from the day when the author receives the article.

The updated article is sent by the author with a covering letter in which he or she replies to all the referee’s critical remarks and questions, and explains the correctives made throughout the contents of the article.

The updated article is sent again to the referee for the conclusion. Within 5 days referee should draw one of the following conclusions:

to recommend the article for publication
not to recommend the article for publication.
If the article receives one positive and one negative conclusion from the referees, the final decision on publication is made by the Science editor.

If the author disagrees with the referee’s opinion he or she has a right to present a well-grounded statement to the Editorial Board of the Journal. Under such circumstances, the article is investigated by the working party which examines in depth the referee’s and author’s opinion. The working party may send an article for additional review to another expert. The working party reserves the right to decline the article if the author is not able or willing to accept the comments of the referee(s). The author is informed of any resolution.

The final decision on publication is made by Editor-in-Chief or by the working party if the situation so requires. The Managing editor/secretary informs the author about the decision.

The article to be published is given to the Managing editor. Insignificant stylistic corrections which do not affect the contents of the article can be made by the editor without the author’s prior consent. The article layout with the corrections is sent to the author provided that he or she applies for that. If there are quite a lot of stylistic corrections which may affect the contents of the article, the updated text should be approved by the author.

Successfully refereed articles would be elaborated by the Managing editor and form the next issue of the Journal. It is signed by Editor-in-Chief and recommended for publication by the decision of the Academic Board.