Ufa Archaeological Herald

As an academic peer-reviewed journal the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» is committed to maintain the highest standards of publication ethics and to follow strict ethical guidelines adopted by both international and Russian scientific communities. In particular, the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» adheres to:

1. The Core Practices developed in 2017 by the Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE),
2. The ethics guidelines available online at the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK) website launched by Elsevier publishing company,
3. The declaration «Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications» developed in 2016 by the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP).

With reference to the abovementioned materials, the editorial board of the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» does not tolerate any kind of unethical behavior and scientific misconduct such as data fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. The editorial board requests all members of the publication process including submitting authors, reviewers, editors and publishers to adhere to the standards of publication ethics and to promote high-quality research. 

In order to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding the editorial board encourages all interested parties to familiarize themselves with the ASEP Declaration «Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications» ( https://rassep.ru/sovet-po-etike/manifesty/deklaratsiya/ ).

Ethical standards for publication of scientific articles

• All manuscripts submitted to the editorial office of the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» are screened by the chief editor, who may consult other members of the editorial board. Editorial decision on each manuscript is made based on the evaluation of its originality, actuality, scientific importance and relevance to the journal’s aim and scope. The initial screening also includes checks on the authorship, legality and plagiarism.
• The manuscripts submitted to the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» must not be previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere.
• The chief editor and the editorial board of the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» reserve the right to decline the manuscripts the authorship of which raises strong doubts.
• The chief editor and the editorial board undertake obligations to carry out unbiased review and selection of the manuscripts for publication. All manuscripts submitted to the journal are judged on their own merits, without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, social status and political views of the submitting authors.
• The editorial board of the journal undertakes to keep confidentiality of all information obtained in the course of manuscripts’ submission and peer-review process.
• All submitted manuscripts are kept confidential during the editing process. Members of the editorial board undertake not to use information presented in any of submitted manuscripts for their personal advantage and not to share the content of submitted manuscripts with any third party outside the editing process.
• The editorial board aspires to notify the authors about any changes and corrections made in the submitted manuscripts in the course of the editing process.
• The chief editor and the journal’s publisher undertake not to leave unanswered any allegations concerning the submitted manuscripts or published articles. If the editorial board discovers any misconduct or a conflicting interest, they will take all necessary steps to resolve the problem and to restore the rights, which have been violated.
• In case of identification of any errors or inaccuracies in the published articles or other journal-related materials, the editorial board undertakes to publish necessary corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies.
• Members of the editorial board undertake to abstain from editing or reviewing the manuscripts if they have a conflict of interests (e.g. any sort of competition, cooperation or other relationship) with the authors or reviewers of these manuscripts or any companies and organizations related to the editing process.  

Ethical standards for peer-review process

• The chief editor and the editorial board are ultimately accountable for the confidentiality of the peer-review process. All manuscripts submitted to the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» follow a double-blind peer review procedure (reviewers receive blinded manuscripts without any signs of the authorship; authors receive anonymized review reports).
• The editorial board ensures strict adherence to the ethical guidelines in the course of the peer-review process. We inform reviewers that they have an obligation to express their views clearly with supporting arguments and to avoid any derogatory comments or personal criticism of the authors.
• If the reviewer find outs that he/she does not have the level of expertise required to provide a high-quality review of the manuscript or if the reviewer discovers any conflicting interest with the author of the manuscript, he/she must promptly notify the chief editor about the problem and abstain from the reviewing process.
• Reviewers undertake to notify the editorial board if they come across any published statements, facts, observations or results without proper acknowledgement in the manuscript under review.
• Reviewers are accountable for notifying the chief editor and the editorial board immediately if they notice substantial and significant similarities between the manuscript under review and any other published or unpublished article. 

Ethical standards for submitting authors

• Authors submitting their manuscripts to the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» must ensure that they submit their original work and properly acknowledge the work of others. Any statements, claims, arguments, results and conclusions that have been previously published by other researchers must be accompanied by a relevant citation.
• Authors should be informed that excessive citation and plagiarism in any form (using another person’s work as the author’s own, paraphrasing substantial parts of someone’s articles without proper citation, presenting results from research conducted by others without acknowledgement) constitute unethical publishing behavior and are unacceptable.
• Authors are responsible for obtaining informed consents from colleagues, participants etc. required for inclusion of their personal data in the submitted manuscript. This responsibility must be confirmed in the Author Agreement.
• Authors must notify the editorial board if the submitted manuscript or its alternative version has already been published or is considered for publication in another journal.
• Authors are requested to declare all sources of finding used to conduct the submitted research and potential conflicts of interests associated with this funding in the Author Agreement.    
• Authorship of the manuscript should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception or design of the research or to the collection, analysis and interpretation of the research data.  All people who have made a substantial contribution to preparing the manuscript should be listed as co-authors.  
• Publication of the final (submitted) version of the manuscript must be approved by all co-authors.
• If the author discovers a serious error or inaccuracy in his/her published article or the manuscript under consideration for publication, he/she is obliged to promptly notify the editorial board about the problem and cooperate with the chief editor or the publisher in course of correction or retraction process.
• If the editorial board receives convincing evidence from a third party that a published article contains significant errors or inaccuracies, it should promptly notify the author about the problem. The author’s duty is then to retract or correct the article as quickly as possible.
• Authors must exercise sound judgment and avoid personal criticism in discussing other people’s research work in their manuscripts. The editorial board reserves the right to decline the manuscripts violating this requirement or to make changes to the style of the manuscript.  

The editorial board of the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» considers unethical:

• When authors or co-authors review or make attempts to review their own articles.
• When authors involve paid agency assistants in writing of their manuscripts not acknowledging their contribution.
• When people who made little or no contribution to a particular research are listed as the manuscript’s authors or co-authors. Such practices constitute violation of authorship rights and ethics and are unacceptable.
• When editors or reviewers of the «Ufa Archaeological Bulletin» transfer the submitted manuscript to another journal without notifying its authors about the procedure. 
• When editors or reviewers reveal the details or share with third parties any information related to the manuscripts under consideration for publication. Such actions violate the authorship rights and the principles of confidentiality. 
• All forms of citation manipulation including excessive self-citation and «honorary» citation.
• All forms of plagiarism, data fabrication and falsification. 

Duties of editors in case ethics violation discovery:

The chief editor and the editorial board of the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» are fully accountable for the quality of the journal’s content. Therefore, we are committed to thoroughly investigate all allegations of ethics violations by editors, authors or reviewers of the journal. Investigation could be carried out prior to publication of the manuscript (since the moment of its submission to the editorial office) as well as after the article’s publication. If the editorial board receives a credible allegation of ethics violation by the journal’s author, editor or reviewer, it will promptly contact all involved parties and ask for substantiating information, arguments and clarifications keeping the process confidential in order to avoid the conflict of interests. 

Allegations of violation of the ethics guidelines may include:

• Allegations of inappropriate use of published articles, graphic materials and images;
• Allegations of plagiarism (deliberate use of statements and results from another person’s work without permission and proper acknowledgement); 
• Allegations of duplicate publications; 
• Allegations of inclusion of fabricated or falsified data in the manuscripts submitted for publication; 
• Allegations of authorship misconduct etc. 

Actions in case of ethics violation discovery:

If you suspect that an author, editor or reviewer of the «Ufa Archaeological Herald» has violated the ethics norms, please notify the editorial board about your suspicions in written form. Reports and complaints could be sent by e-mail to the journal’s official address: uav1998_editorial@mail.ru or by post to the journal’s legal address: 450054, Russian Federation, Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa, ul. Prospekt Oktyabrya 71, letter Y, Y1 – to the chief editor of the «Ufa Archaeological Herald».

A complaint report must contain:

• concise and clear statements describing the main points of the complaint (all relevant names and dates as well as a brief description of the action forming the basis of complaint)
• factual proof of violation of the ethics norms
• personal data of the author of the report (name, surname and contact details)
• easily readable text

Each report containing complaints against the author, reviewer or editor of the «Ufa Archaeological Bulletin» is registered by the executive secretary in the incoming mail journal. Once the complaint report is received, the chief editor forms a committee of 4 experts (2 members of the editorial board and 2 members of the editorial council) chaired by the chief editor or his/her deputy chief editor. Then, the committee conducts a review of the received complain to determine whether the violation of the ethics norms has actually occurred and to decide what actions should be taken to resolve the issue. The reviewing procedure is carried out in accordance with the International publication ethics guidelines and in compliance with the principles of confidentiality, fairness and impartiality. 

Actions of editors in case of ethics violation discovery prior to publication:

While working with the manuscripts submitted to the «Ufa Archaeological Herald», the editorial board may discover cases of unethical behavior that must be considered, such as inappropriate format of citation, plagiarism, data falsification and fabrication, incorrect authorship etc. If the editorial board discovers or is presented with the evidence of such problems, it will contact the author of the manuscript in written form and ask to comment on the situation. If the issue has occurred as a result of a technical error, then the author is given the opportunity to correct the manuscript under consideration. If the amount of text copied without proper acknowledgement exceeds the permitted limits, this is considered a serious violation of publication ethics. In such cases, the plagiarized manuscript could be rejected by the editor and returned to the author. 

The editorial board may receive a report from the reviewer raising ethical concerns about the manuscript. In such case the executive secretary sends a letter to the author of the manuscript, notifying him/her about the issue and asking for clarifications. If the author provides a written response to the allegations of ethics violation containing detailed and convincing arguments, then the chief editor has the right to refuse to accept the reviewer’s complaint. If the author does not respond to the editorial queries or fails to provide a satisfying, argumentative answer, the chief editor accepts the reviewer’s complaint and notifies the author and the reviewer about the same. 

Actions of editors in case of ethics violation discovery after the publication:

       If the editorial board discovers or is presented evidence that a published article contains violations of ethics standards, it is obliged to make corrections to the original manuscript and its copies in the fill-text databases using all available ways so as to maximize awareness of the journal’s auditory. 
       If the published article contains fundamental errors that cannot be corrected, than the editorial board makes a decision to retract the article. 
      If the editorial journal receives a credible evidence of serious ethics violations in the published article, the executive editor informs the accused author in written form about the received complaint and notifies him/her about the length of complain processing period. The processing period should not exceed 90 days. The final decision of retraction is made during the editorial board meeting and described in the meeting protocol. The protocol must include the detailed reasons of retraction and its date. After the decision is taken to retract the published article, the author of the article is notified about this decision in written form. He/She is also provided with the anonymized copy of the meeting protocol. Even if the article has been retracted, its text will be retained in the electronic version of the journal accompanied by the «retracted» sign and date of retraction the table of contents section and on top of the article.