Ethics Policies
Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Policy
This statement explains the ethical behavior of all parties involved in the act of publishing an article for its journals, i.e.: the author, the Editor in Chief, the reviewer and the publisher. This statement is based on the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
DUTIES OF EDITORS
A decision on the Publication of Articles
The Editor-in-Chief of "Infectious Diseases – Infektsiyni khvoroby" Journal responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The Editor-in-Chief may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and subjected to such legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The Editor in Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
Fair play
Manuscripts shall be evaluated solely on their intellectual merit without regard to authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.
Confidentiality
The Editor-in-Chief /editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by anyone who has a view of the manuscript (while handling it) in his or her own research without the express written consent of the author.
DUTIES OF REVIEWERS
The contribution of Peer Review
Peer review assists the Editor in Chief and the editorial board in making editorial decisions while editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.
Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript or unable to provide a prompt review should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.
Confidentiality
Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with, others except as authorized by the Editor in Chief.
Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. There shall be no personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgment of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that had been previously reported elsewhere should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the Editor in Chief’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Confidentiality
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
Conflict of Interest
Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
DUTIES OF AUTHORS
Reporting standards
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain enough detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
Data Access and Retention
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review and should be prepared to provide public access to such, if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
Originality and Plagiarism
Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others this must be appropriately cited or quoted.
Plagiarism, data fabrication, and image manipulation are not tolerated in the "Infectious Diseases – Infektsiyni khvoroby" Journal submissions.
Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source.
Reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotes and the original source must be cited. If a study's design or the manuscript's structure or language has been inspired by previous works, these works must be explicitly cited.
If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may publish a correction or retract the paper.
Multiple Publication
An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Acknowledgment of Sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study.
Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; the creation of new software used in the work; and/or writing or substantively revising the manuscript. In addition, all authors must have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even those in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature. Note that acquisition of funding, a collection of data, or general supervision of the research group do not, by themselves, justify authorship. Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments.
More detailed guidance on authorship is given by the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Corresponding Author
The corresponding author is the author responsible for communicating with the journal for publication. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Acknowledgment of Funding Sources
Sources of funding for the research reported in the article should be duly acknowledged at the end of the article.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR PROCEDURES
Misconduct and unethical behavior may be identified and brought to the attention of the editor and publisher at any time, by anyone. All allegations should be taken seriously and treated in the same way, until a successful decision or conclusion is reached.
An initial decision should be taken by the editor, who should consult with or seek advice from the publisher, if appropriate. Evidence should be gathered while avoiding spreading any allegations beyond those who need to know.
Outcomes (step by step)
Informing or educating the author or reviewer where there appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards
Publication of a notice detailing the misconduct. A formal letter to the head of the author's or reviewer's department or funding agency.
Formal retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the journal and Rejection of any contribution from the authors for an individually defined period.
Reporting the case and outcome to a professional organization or higher authority for further investigation and action.
Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review
Initial Checks
All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a professional in-house Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal, including those for human and animal experimentation. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief (for 7 days).
Peer-Review
The journal’s policy supports international high standards of the peer review process transparency. The Journal "Infectious Diseases – Infektsiyni khvoroby" follows a double-blind peer review process: follows a double-blinded process of peer review: authors and reviewers do not know each other's names. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.
In the case of regular submissions, in-house assistant editors will invite experts, including recommendations by an academic editor. These experts may also include Editorial Board members and Guest Editors of the journal. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. Reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past five years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.
Editorial Decision and Revision
All the articles, reviews and communications published in Journal "Infectious Diseases – Infektsiyni khvoroby" go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. Reviewers estimate the manuscript’s scientific level and filling the "Review Form", where specify their remarks and comments to the authors and recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor and Section Editors. All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.
The in-house editor will communicate the decision of the academic editor, which will be one of the following:
Accept Submission: The article is ready for publication and accepted without changes.
Revisions Required: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point by point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Usually, only one round of major revisions are allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
Resubmit for Review: If additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions, the manuscript will be rejected, and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted.
Decline Submission: The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.
Author Appeals
Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments. The Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Editorial Board member. The academic Editor being consulted will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.
In the case of a special issue, the Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief who will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage will be final and cannot be reversed.
Production and Publication
Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, Ukrainian or English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and, publication on the website.
RESEARCH ETHICS
Research Involving Human Subjects
When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/ ), revised in 2013. According to point 23 of this declaration, approval from an ethics committee should have been obtained before undertaking the research. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be cited in the Patients and Methods Section of the article. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a symptom). Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.
Example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."
Written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). Patients’ initials or other personal identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting to "Infectious Diseases – Infektsiyni khvoroby" Journal. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible, e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation where they are not relevant to the conclusions. To respect patients’ and any other individual’s privacy, please do not send signed forms. The journal reserves the right to ask authors to provide signed forms if necessary. Alternatively, you may provide a detailed justification of why informed consent is not necessary.
Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research
The editors will require that the benefits potentially derived from any research causing harm to animals are significant in relation to any cost endured by animals and that procedures followed are unlikely to cause offense to the majority of readers. Authors should particularly ensure that their research complies with the commonly-accepted '3Rs': 1. Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible, 2. Reduction in the number of animals used, and 3. Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize the harm to animals.
Any experimental work must also have been conducted in accordance with relevant national legislation on the use of animals for research. For further guidance, authors should refer to the Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental or other Scientific Purposes (1986). Manuscripts containing original descriptions of research conducted in experimental animals must contain details of approval by a properly constituted research ethics committee. As a minimum, the project identification code, date of approval and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be cited in the Methods section.
Research Involving Cell Lines
Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines the provenance should be stated, and references must also be given to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.
Research Involving Plants
Experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild) including the collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. We recommend that authors comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oriza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened or endangered species this can be waived but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.
Editors reserve the rights to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.
Authorship
Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; the creation of new software used in the work; and/or writing or substantively revising the manuscript. In addition, all authors must have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even those in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature. Note that acquisition of funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group do not, by themselves, justify authorship. Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments.
More detailed guidance on authorship is given by "Infectious Diseases – Infektsiyni khvoroby" Journal. Any change to the author list should be approved by all authors including any who have been removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication.
