Ufa Archaeological Herald

In order to maintain the high standards of the scientific journal and to uphold the quality of research papers published in it, a peer-review procedure is applied. At the initial stage of the editing process the editorial board makes a list of reviewers based on their qualification and level of expertise in the relevant research area.

Then an executive secretary sends a formal letter from an official e-mail address (which could be found on the journal’s website) to each of the potential reviewers, inviting him or her to take part in the reviewing procedure.   

All scientific manuscripts received by the editorial office of the Ufa Archaeological Bulletin are initially checked by the executive secretary to determine whether they meet the aims and scope of the journal as well as the formal requirements for the research papers (number of characters, tables and figures, the format of the references etc.) Manuscripts that do not meet the standards of the journal are rejected without going through peer-review. Those judged to be of sufficient quality and of potential interest to the journal’s readership are sent for further review.

The Ufa Archaeological Herald employs a double-blind peer review system with at least two independent experts. Reviewers receive de-identified manuscripts from the editorial board with all authorship markers removed, including anonymized self-references and self-citations. Authors receive anonymized reviewer reports. All reviewer-author communication is mediated through the journal's editorial board using the journal's official email uav1998_editorial@mail.ru to maintain confidentiality and impartiality.

By accepting an invitation for review:

• The reviewer confirms his or her sufficient qualification and level of expertise in a specified research area required to provide a high-quality review.
• The reviewer pledges to follow the journal’s ethical principles: to provide a constructive, evidenced, clear and unambiguous peer review report, to avoid offensive comments or personal criticism of the manuscript’s author (authors).
• The reviewer guarantees to notify the editorial office if he or she comes across any published data without proper referencing or any other irregularities and / or have concerns about the originality of the reviewed manuscript. If necessary, the editorial office must be notified immediately in a written form via official e-mail.

The reviewer has to abstain from reviewing the manuscripts in which he or she has (or suspects to have) a conflict of interests. This may include: any sort of competition between the author and the reviewer, any relationship with the author (either personal or professional). If the reviewer has discovered a conflicting interest, he or she has to notify the editorial office of the journal as soon as possible in a written form via official e-mail.

Upon completion of the manuscript assessment, the reviewer has to write a detailed review report and submit this document to the editorial office of the journal. The report must contain one of the following recommendations to the editors about the manuscript’s publication:

• Accept for publication in the initial form
• Accept for publication after minor revision
• Accept for publication after major revision
• Reject for publication

All reports received by the editorial office are then anonymized and sent to the authors for further work. 

Overall, the Ufa Archaeological Bulletin publishes only those manuscripts, which have received at least two positive reviews. Although, the final decision about the publication of every manuscript is made by the chef editor and editorial board.

The retention period of reviewers’ reports is 3 (three) years since the date of submission.

The assigned time for review is no less than 2 months (60 days) since the moment of the manuscript’s submission to the reviewer.