Journal Policy

REVIEW POLICY

All articles submitted to the editorial board undergo a review procedure. This procedure is focused on the most objective assessment of the content of a scientific article, determining its compliance with the journal requirements, and provides for a comprehensive analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the article materials. Only articles of a high professional level, substantiated in their conclusions, and original in their analysis of the chosen scientific problem are accepted for publication.

A manuscript that does not meet the topic or requirements of the publication may be immediately rejected by the editor-in-chief.

The editorial board supports world standards for the transparency of the peer review process, therefore it practices double anonymous review of manuscripts: the author and the reviewer are not informed of each other's names. All their personal data are previously removed from the text of the articles and file properties.

Articles submitted to the journal are sent for review to two independent experts. Reviewers read the abstract of the article, after which they agree or refuse to review the material.

If there is a conflict of interest, the reviewer must refuse to review and notify the editorial board of this (within 2–3 days).

Reviewing the article lasts up to two weeks (14 days) from the moment the article is received for consideration, after which the reviewer sends the manuscript of the article to the editorial office with his own comments and conclusion or fills out the standardized form "Reviewer's Feedback".

After completing the main review form, reviewers choose one of the proposed recommendations:

- Accept submission - the submission is ready for publication and is accepted without changes
- Needs correction - accepted if the author takes into account the specified comments
- Return for re-review - revision and re-review are required
- Send to another publication - the subject of the submission is suitable for another publication
- Reject submission - the submission does not meet the requirements of the publication
- See comments - none of the previous recommendations are met

After the review process is completed, all relevant information is sent to the author. The author finalizes the manuscript and uploads its new version to the journal system with the corrected text highlighted. If the manuscript has not been returned or the reasons for the delay have not been notified to the editorial office, it is removed from the queue and deleted.

Reviewers re-examine the revised manuscript and provide a recommendation on the possibility of its further publication.

If the reviewers reject the article, the editorial board sends a written notification to the author.

The final decision on the possibility and appropriateness of publication is made by the Editor-in-Chief, and if necessary, by a meeting of the editorial board as a whole.

Appeal procedure:

If the author disagrees with certain comments of the reviewer, he has the right to send an appeal to the editorial board in the format "reviewer's remarks - author's comment". This document is sent to the reviewer and, together with the editorial board, an appropriate decision is made regarding the manuscript.

In the event that the reviewers choose mutually contradictory resolutions regarding the submitted manuscript (accept/reject), the editorial board together with them considers all the comments to agree on a position on the further publication of this material.

If a decision cannot be made, the editorial board appoints an independent expert.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY AND TERMS OF USE OF COPYRIGHT OBJECTS

Publications of the journal are distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Users have the right to freely read, download, copy and print the submitted materials, search the content and refer to the published articles, distribute their full text and use them for any lawful non-commercial purpose (including educational or scientific) and with a mandatory reference to the authors of the works and the original publication in this journal.

Budapest Open Access Initiative

Journal Open Access Declaration

Introduction. The Internet has fundamentally changed the practical and economic realities of the dissemination of scientific knowledge and cultural heritage. It now offers a chance to create a global and interactive representation of human knowledge, including cultural heritage, and to guarantee universal access to it. We are aware of the obligations that are associated with the challenges of the Internet as a new functional environment for the dissemination of knowledge. It is obvious that these changes will significantly modify the nature of scholarly publications and the existing system of assuring their quality. In line with the spirit of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Charter for European Cultural Heritage Online and the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, we sign the Berlin Declaration to promote the Internet as a functional tool for the global scientific knowledge base and its implementation in human activities, and to identify the measures that scientific management, research institutions, funding agencies, libraries, archives and museums need.

Purpose. Our mission of disseminating knowledge will not be complete if information is not widely and reliably accessible to society. New opportunities for knowledge dissemination, not only through traditional media, but also through the Internet within the new paradigm of open access, should be supported. We define open access as a comprehensive source of human knowledge and cultural heritage, which has been previously approved by the scientific community. In order to realize the vision of a global and accessible representation of knowledge, the future network must be sustainable, interactive and transparent. Content and software tools must be freely available and interoperable.

Defining contributions to open access. Organizing open access as an important procedure requires active commitments and contributions from every producer of scientific knowledge and bearer of cultural heritage. Contributions to open access include the results of original scientific research, primary data and metadata, primary sources, digital representation of pictorial and graphic materials, educational multimedia materials.

Open access contributions must satisfy two conditions:

1. The authors and copyright holders of such contributions must grant all users free, irrevocable, full and fair access to use, distribute, transmit and display the published works; prepare and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for responsible purposes; present copyright attributes (the standards of the scientific community will continue to provide a mechanism for copyright protection and responsible use of published works, as is the case now), and the right to make small numbers of printed copies for personal use.

2. The full version of the work and all appendices, including a copy of the permission as specified above, must be placed in an appropriate standard electronic format, in at least one online repository (so published), which uses appropriate technical standards (compatible with the definitions of the Open Access Archives Initiative Protocol) and which is maintained by an academic institution, scientific community, government agency or other authoritative organization that strives for open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability and long-term archiving.

Supporting the transition to the electronic open access paradigm.

The journal is interested in further promoting the new open access paradigm for the benefit of science and society, so we hope to contribute to progress by:

- supporting our researchers and grantees in publishing their work in accordance with the principles of the open access paradigm;

- supporting cultural heritage holders in openly accessing their resources via the Internet;

- developing tools and pathways for evaluating contributions to open access and online journals to support standards of quality assurance and good scholarly practice;

- ensuring that open access publications, once they have been properly reviewed, are posted as quickly as possible;

- ensuring the benefits inherent in contributions to open access infrastructure through the development of software tools, ensuring content, creating metadata or publishing individual articles.

We clearly understand that the process of moving towards open access is changing the distribution of knowledge in accordance with legal and financial aspects. Our editorial board intends to find a solution that supports the further development of existing legal and financial schemes in order to accelerate the optimal use and open access to knowledge.

POLICY OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND PUBLICATION ETHICS

Prevention of plagiarism

The editorial board defines the phenomenon of plagiarism as follows:

Plagiarism is the publication, in whole or in part, of someone else's work under the name of a person who is not the author of this work.

Self-plagiarism is the repeated publication by the author of his own scientific texts that are significant in volume and identical in form and content without indicating the fact of their previous or simultaneous publication.

Textual plagiarism is the full or partial borrowing of fragments of text (not altered or modified) that are present in articles, theses, reports, monographs, manuscripts of qualification works, etc.

Actions that characterize the process of plagiarism:

- passing off someone else's work as your own;

- copying another person's words or ideas without citing their work;

- intentionally omitting a reference from the list of sources;

- providing incorrect information about the source (for example, a "broken" reference);

- changing the order of words while maintaining the general structure of the sentence and without citing the source;

- copying a large amount of text or ideas with references to sources that together make up the majority of the article.

Plagiarism is classified into the following categories:

- exact copying without changes (Copy & Paste) and without proper bibliographic registration of borrowed fragments;

- copying with changes in linguistic, lexical and technological interpretation (with rearrangement of words, replacement of letters, numbers);

- translation from another language;

- borrowing ideas.

Procedure:

All manuscripts submitted to the editorial office are checked by the editor for uniqueness using the Strikeplagiarism text matching service at the initial review stage.

In cases of plagiarism, the manuscript is rejected.

All responsibility for the reliability of information in the articles, the accuracy of names, surnames and citations lies with the authors of the submitted materials in accordance with the current legislation of Ukraine (the Law of Ukraine "On Copyright and Related Rights").

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND EDITORIAL POLICY OF THE PUBLICATION, WHICH COMPLIES WITH THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION ETHICS (COPE)

Main provisions

- Reviewers and editors are obliged to carry out an impartial review of manuscripts, observing confidentiality, and to declare in advance the presence of a conflict of interest.
- The editorial board carefully considers all controversial situations and violations; if necessary, makes corrections or removes materials.

General duties and responsibilities of the editorial board

- The editorial board of the journal in its work relies on the developments of the Committee on Publication Ethics (Committee on Publication Ethics, Great Britain), the Elsevier publishing house (Netherlands) and other foreign editorial associations and information systems.
- During the editorial and publishing process, it provides technical and informational support to the journal users.
- Guarantees the confidentiality of materials submitted to the journal throughout the editorial and publishing process, takes into account the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On the Protection of Personal Data" and the general data protection regulations GDPR.
- Takes into account the comments and suggestions of readers, authors and reviewers on ways to improve the publication.
- The editorial board promptly responds to any complaints regarding the work of the journal and guarantees the resolution of all problematic situations.

Cooperation with readers

- The editorial board ensures proper information to readers and the distribution of newly published content.
- Guarantees that all published scientific materials have been reviewed by qualified experts.

Cooperation with authors

- The editorial board provides authors with detailed instructions on the editorial and publishing process, informs about the deadlines for accepting materials and publication dates of issues.
- Authors are provided with a detailed description of the review process; in case of any deviations from the described process, the editors are obliged to provide the author with an explanation.
- The editorial board determines the criteria for evaluating materials and selects reviewers for each individual manuscript.
- Sends detailed comments from reviewers to authors.
- The editorial board reserves the right to make minor literary editing and corrections of texts while preserving the author's style.
- The editor's decision to accept/reject a manuscript is based on its relevance, novelty, compliance with the scientific direction and requirements of the journal.
- If the manuscript contains many controversial points (for example, negative feedback on the quality of the article from both reviewers, the article has not been finalized by the author taking into account the reviewers' comments), the editorial board cannot approve it for publication.
- In case of disagreement of the author with the editorial decision, the journal declares a mechanism for appealing to the editorial board.
- At the author's request, the manuscript can be withdrawn from consideration and archived in the journal system (with the subsequent possibility of resuming submission to the queue). To do this, the author must contact the editor with a request.

Cooperation with reviewers

- The editorial board provides reviewers with detailed instructions on how to work in the journal system.
- The editorial board asks the reviewer to indicate the presence of possible competing interests before agreeing to review the material intended for review.
- The editorial board asks reviewers to report all cases of plagiarism.
- Sends a message to reviewers thanking them for their contribution to the work of the journal.
- Ensures that the qualifications of all reviewers correspond to the level of a professional publication, and adjusts their composition if necessary.
- Terminates cooperation with reviewers who provide reviews of poor quality or with constant delays.
- Uses a number of sources (not only personal contacts) to identify potential reviewers (specialized industry databases).
- Ensures that the review process is fair, objective, unbiased, and timely.
- Adapts the review process to the needs of users and allows each reviewer to review the submission in the most convenient way for him.
- Confidentiality. Reviewers are not entitled to disclose the data presented in the manuscripts before their publication.

Author status

The list of authors should indicate individuals who have made a significant contribution to the scientific research presented in the article. Academic status, position, or other indicator of seniority should not determine the order in this list; the order of authors should indicate the relative leadership and the amount of contribution of researchers to this scientific work.

The author of the manuscript is considered a researcher who participated in all of the following stages of article preparation:

- formulation of the idea of ​​conducting the study and statement of the problem and objectives of the study;
- development of the concept and design of the manuscript, collection of data, their analysis and interpretation;
- drafting the article or its critical scientific review and correction;
- approval of the final version for publication.

Each author is personally responsible for the content of the article. If the work is carried out by a large group of scientists, the list of authors must include those who meet the above criteria and add the name of the group.

Funding of the research or general supervision of the work of the group does not constitute authorship.

Change of authors. If, for any reason, changes are required to the list of authors between submission and publication, the submitting author should contact the editors and provide the reason for the changes.

Use of artificial intelligence. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT from OpenAI, do not qualify as authorship. The author is responsible for the article, and this cannot be adequately applied to LLMs. The use of LLMs in research should be properly documented in the “Methods” or “Acknowledgements” section of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

Conflicts of interest (CI) are factors that negatively affect objectivity or may be perceived as interfering with the review process, editorial decision-making, publication, and presentation of the manuscript.

Conflicts of interest may arise with respect to individuals or organizations, and are divided into the following categories (but are not limited to):

Personal COI:

- Personal relationships (e.g., friends, family members, current or former supervisors, opponents) with individuals involved in the submission or review of manuscripts (authors, reviewers, editors, or editorial board members);
- Personal beliefs (political, religious, ideological, or other) related to the subject of the manuscript that may interfere with the objective publication process (at the stage of submission, review, editorial decision-making, or publication).

Professional COI:

- A reviewer or editor is a colleague of the author who participated in or observed the conduct of the given research.
- Membership in organizations that lobby the author's interests.

Financial CI:

- Research grants from any sponsoring organizations: governmental, non-governmental, scientific research or charitable institutions;
- Honoraria, gifts and rewards of any kind.

All persons related to the manuscript, including authors, editor, reviewers and readers who comment and evaluate this material, must declare the presence of a conflict of interest:

If, in the opinion of the editor, there are circumstances that may affect the impartiality of the review, the editorial board does not involve such a reviewer.

The editorial board reserves the right not to publish the manuscript if the conflict of interest declared by the author jeopardizes the objectivity and reliability of the assessment of the research.

If the editorial board detects the presence of a conflict of interest that was not declared upon submission, the manuscript may be rejected. If an undeclared conflict of interest is discovered after publication, the article may be corrected or deleted, if necessary.

Access and use of materials and data

The authors agree that all materials presented in the publication are freely available and can be used by other researchers for scientific non-commercial purposes under the terms of the Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0).

Supporting data (data sets, software applications, photo, audio, video materials) that highlight and complement the content of the study may be additionally placed in institutional repositories or on other Internet resources, which must be referenced in the article. If the author does not have the opportunity to use such a resource, the materials can be uploaded to the journal as “Supporting files” when submitting the article.

If there is doubt about the reliability of the data provided in the published article, and access to them is closed, which makes it impossible to verify them, readers can contact the editorial office to further contact the author, check and make corrections.

At the request of the editorial board, authors must provide open access to all data and materials presented in the article, if this does not violate the confidentiality rules related to anonymous surveying of people during the study.

Corrections and additions

- If necessary, the editorial board makes the necessary corrections and clarifications to the content, publishes refutations and apologies.
- The editorial board may make minor edits and clarify the content of the article that improve its content, but do not significantly change its structure as a whole. To do this, you must send a request to the editorial board.

Manuscript submitted to several editions

When submitting, authors must confirm that the uploaded manuscript (or another similar one) is not currently submitted for consideration and publication to another journal. If a similar work has already been submitted or published in another journal, the editorial board will not consider such manuscripts.

Intellectual Property

- The editorial board responds to signals related to intellectual property issues and works to prevent potential violations of the current legislation of Ukraine on intellectual property and copyright.
- The editorial board monitors that the results of scientific research published in the journal are carried out in accordance with international recommendations.

Plagiarism

- The authors are responsible for the reliability of information in the articles, the accuracy of names, surnames and citations.
- In cases of detection of plagiarism, the authors of the submitted materials are responsible.

PROCEDURE FOR CONSIDERING COMPLAINTS ABOUT VIOLATIONS OF ETHICAL NORMS

The journal considers complaints about possible violations of academic integrity and publication ethics in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine, the requirements of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the recommendations of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).

1. Filing a complaint

Complaints about plagiarism, self-plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, unlawful authorship, conflict of interest or other ethical violations are submitted to the editorial office in writing (by e-mail) with substantiated evidence.

Anonymous appeals may be considered if there are sufficient grounds for verification.

2. Review procedure

The editorial office:

- registers the complaint and conducts a preliminary analysis of its validity;
- if necessary, creates a working group or involves independent experts;
- ensures the confidentiality of all participants in the process;
- provides the party against whom the complaint is filed with the opportunity to provide an explanation.
The review is carried out objectively, impartially and within a reasonable time.

3. Possible decisions

Based on the results of the review, the editorial board may:

- reject the manuscript;
- request corrections or clarifications;
- initiate a second review;
- retract the publication with the publication of a corresponding notice;
- notify the institution where the author works in case of confirmation of significant violations.

4. Principles of review

The procedure is based on the principles of:

- presumption of integrity;
- evidence;
- confidentiality;
- non-discrimination;
- respect for the parties’ right to provide explanations.

POLICY ON THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (hereinafter referred to as AI) AND TECHNOLOGIES WITH ITS SUPPORT

The Editorial Board of the journal recognizes the potential of innovative technologies in scientific activity, but emphasizes the priority of academic integrity and authorial responsibility. The editorial board does not object to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and technologies by authors, such as ChatGPT, Gemini AI, Claude AI, Grok, DeepSeek AI, etc., provided that international standards of publication ethics are strictly observed.

The use of AI within the journal is regulated by the recommendations of the Committee on Scientific Publication Ethics (COPE) Author-ship and AI tools, the provisions of  The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in writing (Elsevier) and the Recommendations on the Use of AI in Scholarly Communication of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE).

Authors’ responsibilities and declaration

Declaration of use. Authors are required to officially notify the Editorial Board about the use of AI tools in the process of preparing the manuscript in a cover letter. The following should be detailed directly in the text of the article (in the “Methods” section or in a separate declaration of use):

- specific methods of using AI (data collection, linguistic correction, data visualization, creation of graphs/charts, etc.);
- ensuring proper reference to the generated content.

Authorship criteria and responsibility. AI tools do not meet the criteria of authorship and cannot be indicated as the author or co-author of a scientific article. Authors bear full personal responsibility for:

- the reliability and objectivity of the information provided;
- compliance with copyright legislation;
- absence of plagiarism and adherence to the principles of academic integrity;
- the content of the manuscript as a whole.

Restrictions on use. The use of AI should remain under the full control of the researcher. It is strictly forbidden to use AI technologies to create:

- the main text of the work;
- formation of original research results and scientific conclusions;
- statistical analysis and modeling of data.

Ethics for reviewers and editors

In order to ensure confidentiality and expert quality of evaluation, the Editorial Board establishes the following rules:

Prohibition of the use of AI in review. Reviewers are strictly prohibited from using AI to evaluate the content of the article or generate the text of reviews.

Confidentiality. Manuscripts are confidential documents. It is prohibited to upload the texts of articles (in whole or in part) to AI systems due to the risk of disclosure of the content and violation of the rights of the authors.

Decision-making. Editors do not use AI technologies to assess the scientific value of works or make any editorial decisions. The editor is responsible for the course of the editorial process and the final decision on publication.

Sanctions for non-compliance with the policy

In the event of detection of the fact of the use of artificial intelligence without proper declaration, the Editorial Board reserves the right to:

- reject and return the manuscript at any stage of consideration;
- initiate the procedure for the withdrawal (retraction) of an already published article.

The Editorial Board periodically reviews and improves this Policy in accordance with the development of AI technologies and the updating of international standards of scientific communication.