Ethics of scientific publications

Members of the editorial board of the scientific journal "ATU Design Science" adhere to the principles and norms outlined in the "Ethics of Scientific Publications”. These Publication Ethics have been developed by the international ethical standards established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), as well as the Ethical Principles of Publication for Scopus (Elsevier) Journals and the Code of Ethics of the ATU Scientist.

The Publication Ethics establish the norms, principles, and standards of ethical behavior for editors, reviewers, and authors. They also include measures to identify conflicts of interest, address unethical behavior, and provide instructions for the withdrawal (retraction), correction, and refutation of articles.

All participants in the publication process—including each author, scientific editor, reviewer, responsible secretary, and member of the editorial board—are required to unconditionally adhere to these principles, norms, and standards of publication ethics. Compliance with these ethical principles is crucial for ensuring the quality of the scientific journal and for fostering trusting and respectful relationships among all participants in the publication process.

Unethical behavior encompasses actions by authors, editors, or publishers, including independent reviews of their own articles, contractual or false peer reviews, reliance on agency services for publishing research results, false authorship, data falsification or fabrication, publication of unreliable pseudo-scientific texts, unauthorized transfer of manuscripts to other publications, sharing of authors' materials with third parties, copyright violations, breaches of confidentiality in editorial processes, manipulation of citations, and plagiarism.

Principles of Publication Ethics of Editorial Board Members

Members of the editorial board of the journal "ATU Design Science", responsible for the development, improvement of the journal, for the promotion of the journal in international databases, must follow the principles of freedom of opinion, satisfaction of scientific and professional needs of the authors and readers of the journal, prevention of the influence of commercial interests of the author, reviewer and publisher of the journal on the decision to publish materials; they must also take all possible measures to improve the quality of scientific publications, protect the confidentiality of information data at all stages of the publication process.

Equality of all authors. Members of the editorial board are responsible for making decisions on the publication of materials submitted by authors in the journal. Members of the editorial board must evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, political views of the authors or commercial considerations.

Decision-making for manuscript publication. The decision on which articles submitted to the editors should be published is made by the editorial board of the journal based on the results of checking for compliance with the requirements of formatting, plagiarism and the results of scientific peer review. When deciding to publish a manuscript, the editorial board is guided by the journal's policy and publication ethics, does not allow articles with signs of plagiarism, violations of the principles, standards and norms of scientific ethics and copyright infringements to be published.

Principle of confidentiality. During the manuscript consideration stage (prior to publication), editors and members of the editorial board must not disclose any information about the manuscript to anyone except the authors, appointed reviewers, and the publisher. All manuscripts received for consideration are treated as confidential materials. They should not be shared or discussed with third parties without the explicit permission of the scientific editor.

Members of the editorial board guarantee that rejected manuscripts will not be utilized in their own research without obtaining written consent from the authors.

Members of the editorial board are responsible for ensuring that articles with known signs of unethical behavior, plagiarism, excessive self-citation, or conflicts of interest are not published. If the principles of publication and/or scientific ethics are violated during the writing of an article, the scientific editor, upon the editorial board's decision, must retract the publication. Articles may be retracted either by the authors or by the editorial board. The editors will withdraw (retract) published articles in cases of violations of publication and/or scientific ethics, following the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). An article may be withdrawn/retracted in the following circumstances:

- if there is clear evidence that the data obtained are unreliable or were obtained as a result of illegal actions, such as data falsification;

- discovery of the fact of publication of the manuscript in another publication before its publication in the journal "ATU Design Science";

- detection of plagiarism in the article, including borrowing of figures, graphs, tables, etc.

- presence of gross errors in the article that can negatively affect other scientists and their research, for example, a miscalculation or experimental error;

- emergence of claims for copyright of the article or its individual parts by third parties;

- presence of information in the article that contradicts the principles, standards and norms of publication and/or scientific ethics.

In the aforementioned cases, the editorial board of the journal will conduct a thorough investigation, based on which the article may be retracted or withdrawn from publication. To formalize this process, an act of retraction will be drafted, confirmed, and signed by the scientific editor. A copy of this act will be sent to the author for correspondence regarding the article.

Once the retraction is finalized, the article will be marked as retracted on the journal's website, along with an explanation of the reasons for the retraction. Additionally, the editors will publish information about the retraction on the main page of the journal's website and will include details of the retraction in the next issue of the journal.

The editorial team is committed to responsibly, objectively, and carefully considering all justified requests related to violations discovered in published issues. The editors regard it as both a responsibility and a duty of authors and reviewers to promptly inform them of any errors or violations discovered after the publication of the material.

Principle of confidentiality. During the manuscript consideration stage (prior to publication), editors and members of the editorial board must not disclose any information about the manuscript to anyone other than the authors, appointed reviewers, and the publisher. All manuscripts received for consideration should be treated as confidential materials. They must not be shown or discussed with third parties without the explicit permission of the scientific editor.

Members of the editorial board ensure that rejected manuscripts will not be utilized in their own research without the written consent of the authors.

Consideration of claims of unethical behavior. Members of the editorial board shall individually consider each complaint regarding unethical behavior by the authors of both submitted manuscripts and published articles, regardless of when the complaint is received. They must take objective and appropriate measures in response to such claims. If the validity of the complaint is confirmed, the editorial board members have the right to refuse publication of the manuscript, terminate further correspondence with the author, issue appropriate refutations, and implement additional measures to address the unethical behavior of the authors.

Principles of publication ethics of the author

Authorship of the manuscript. The author who has made the most significant intellectual contribution to the preparation of the manuscript (in the case of multiple co-authors) is listed first among the authors. Each article must designate a corresponding author who is responsible for preparing the final version of the article, communicating with the editorial board, ensuring that all contributors to the study (if there are multiple authors) are included in the author list, and obtaining approval of the final manuscript from all authors prior to submission for publication. All authors listed on the manuscript are collectively responsible for the content of the work.

Principle of originality. The author(s) guarantee that the research results presented in the manuscript represent an original independent work and do not contain incorrect borrowing and plagiarism that can be identified during the process of checking the manuscript using the plagiarism check system.

Authors are responsible for the publication of articles with signs of unethical behavior, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, self-citation, falsification, fabrication, distortion of data, false authorship, duplication, conflict of interest and deception.

Principle of confirmation of sources. The author(s) undertake to correctly indicate the scientific and other sources that he/she/it used during the research. In case of using any parts of someone else's work and/or borrowing statements of another author(s), the manuscript must include bibliographic references indicating the author(s) of the original source. Information obtained from questionable sources should not be used in the preparation of the manuscript.

If the reviewers, scientific editor, or members of the editorial board have doubts about the authenticity or reliability of the research results, the author(s) are required to provide additional materials to substantiate the results or facts presented in the manuscript.

Correction of errors during the publication process. In the event of detection of errors and inaccuracies in the work at any stage of the publication process, the authors undertake to promptly notify the scientific editor and provide assistance in eliminating or correcting the error for publication on the journal's website. In the event of detection of gross errors that cannot be corrected, the author(s) must retract the manuscript/article.

Principle of compliance with publication ethics. Authors are obliged to comply with ethical standards related to criticism or comments regarding research, as well as with respect to interaction with the editorial board regarding review and publication. Failure to comply with ethical principles by authors is regarded as a gross violation of publication ethics and provides grounds for removing the manuscript from review and/or publication.

Principles of Publication Ethics of the Reviewer

The principle of objective review. The reviewer(s) of the journal «ATU Design Science» undertake(s) to conduct an objective expert assessment of the manuscript. Personal criticism of the author(s) of the manuscript is unacceptable. The reviewer must substantiate their comments and justify their decision to accept or reject the manuscript.

The nationality, religious affiliation, political or other views of the author(s) should not be taken into account and considered in the process of reviewing the manuscript by the reviewer(s).

The reviewer's contribution to editorial decisions. The expert assessment provided by the reviewer(s) plays a crucial role in the editorial board's decision-making process regarding publication. It also aids the author(s) in improving the manuscript. The decision to accept a manuscript for publication, request revisions from the author(s), or reject it is made by the editorial board based on the review.

The principle of timeliness of review. The reviewer is required to complete the review within the time frame specified by the editorial board, which should not exceed two months from the date of receiving the manuscript. If the reviewer is unable to meet this deadline, they must promptly inform the executive editor.

A reviewer who believes that their qualifications are not suitable or sufficient for evaluating the submitted manuscript must promptly inform the scientific editor and decline the review.

Principle of confidentiality on the part of the reviewer. A manuscript provided to the reviewer for evaluation must be treated as confidential. The reviewer may share or discuss its content with others only after obtaining written permission from the scientific editor and/or the author(s).

The information and ideas of the scientific work obtained in the course of reviewing and ensuring the publication process must not be used by the reviewer(s) for personal gain.

The principle of confirmation of sources. The reviewer should highlight any scientific works that may have influenced the research results of the manuscript but were not cited by the author(s). The reviewer is also responsible for informing the scientific editor about any significant similarities or overlaps between the manuscript under review and previously published works known to them. If the reviewer has reasonable grounds to suspect that the manuscript contains plagiarism, improper borrowing, falsified data, or fabricated research results, they should recommend against publication and notify the scientific editor of any identified breaches of publication and scientific ethics.

Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest, as defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), is a conflict situation in which authors, reviewers, or editorial board members have undisclosed interests that could influence their judgment regarding the published material. A conflict of interest arises when there are financial, personal, or professional conditions that could influence the scientific judgment of the reviewer and editorial board members and, as a result, the editorial board's decision regarding the publication of the manuscript.

The editor-in-chief of the journal must ensure that all participants in the manuscript publication process disclose any potential conflicts of interest.

The executive editor, editorial board members, and reviewers must disclose any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the editorial board's decisions. Editorial board members should recuse themselves from reviewing a manuscript if they have any competitive relationship with the authors related to the research results or if any other conflict of interest exists.

When submitting a manuscript for consideration to the journal, the author(s) must declare that the manuscript includes all sources of funding for the study and disclose any commercial, financial, personal, or professional factors that could create a conflict of interest related to the submitted manuscript. In the cover letter, if there is a conflict of interest, the author(s) may identify scientists who, in their opinion, may not be able to objectively evaluate their manuscript.

A reviewer should not consider manuscripts that may cause a conflict of interest arising from competition, collaboration or other relationships with any of the authors related to the manuscript.

In case of a conflict of interest with the content of the manuscript, the responsible editor must notify the scientific editor about it, after which the scientific editor delegates the checking and review of the manuscript to another editor/reviewer.

The existence of a conflict of interest among participants in the review process does not automatically lead to the rejection of a manuscript. All parties involved should strive to avoid conflicts of interest at every stage of publication. If a conflict of interest arises, the individual who identifies it must promptly notify the editorial board. This requirement also applies to any other violations of the principles, standards, and norms of publication and scientific ethics.