Editorial Policy and Ethics

Basic Principles of Editorial Policy and Publication Ethics

Overview
Free Access Policy
Copyright and Licensing
Aims and Scope
Peer-review Policy
Publication Ethics


Overview
The editorial board of the journal “Finno-Ugric World” (hereinafter — the Journal) is committed to generally accepted ethical principles of Journal publications. The editors support Code of Ethics of Journal Publications, developed by Committee on Ethics of Journal Publications (Moscow, Russia), and Declaration of the Association of Journal Editors and Publishers “Ethical Principles of Journal Publications”.
The editorial policy is based on ethical norms of the work of editors and publishers written in Code of Conduct and Guidelines for Best Practice for the Editor of the Journal, developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics.
The Editors shall be open for cooperation with professional scientific associations and industry-specific communities to ensure high quality work of scientists.
The editorial board does not provide paid services. All publications in the Journal are free. The editorial board does not charge the authors for the preparation, download and printing of materials.
No fast-track publication of articles is offered. Papers are accepted for publication on an ongoing basis.
The editors shall never impose citing papers, which were previously published in the Journal, on the authors, for the purpose of improving its scientometric indicators, as well as shall not provide other journals or specific authors with such “help”.


Free Access Policy
The Journal adheres Free access policy. All content is available and free of charge to all users and / or their institutions.
The “Finno-Ugric World” is an open access Journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
The data storage policy, which is aimed at selecting, storing and providing access to the archives of the Journal, includes the following objectives: compliance of archiving materials with state standards for archiving; registration and publication of articles according to professional standards; provision of wide access to the archived material to support publishing practice.
All articles published in the Journal are stored in the Russian State Library, the scientific library and on the publisher’s server, as well as being made available free of charge on the Journal’s website.


Copyright and Licensing
The authors retain copyright holder exclusive rights over their articles and assign copyright to the Journal. Non-exclusive rights to use the papers of the Journal belong to National Research Mordovia State University as a founder and publisher.
The Journal publishes any author, if he presents a material not released before and not supposed to be published simultaneously in other journals. Receipt of articles for publication is effected permanently.
Creative Commons License All the materials of the “Finno-Ugric World” journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Free reproduction of the Journal’s materials is allowed for personal, information, research, academic or cultural purposes in accordance with the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. When quoting, a link to the Journal is required. Other types of reproduction are only possible following the written agreement of the copyright holder.


Aims and Scope
The Journal seeks to develop Finno-Ugric Studies, dissemination of their languages, folk culture and arts, and the history in the territory of the Russian Federation and abroad. In order to fulfil these aims the Journal welcomes the articles on the various aspects in linguistics, literature, culture, history and ethnography of the Finno-Ugric peoples. It also regularly includes the information about important sciences events, seminars, symposiums and conferences relevant to the Journal.

To achieve the aims and scope, the Journal carries out the following activities:

  • to introduce relevant scientific research and development for all interested readers;
  • to publish, present and disseminate latest information and best practices of Russian and foreign authors;
  • cooperation with researchers, academic and research centers of the countries of residence of Finno-Ugric peoples, i.e. Russia, Hungary, Finland and Estonia;
  • dissemination of the work of NGOs of Finno-Ugric peoples;
  • increase of the publications of national authors, rating of Russian academic and research institutions and raise of level of national publications in the world academic and research community according to their citation index;
  • strengthening of the popularity and credibility of the Journal, increase of the number of subscribers.

The target audience of the Journal is represented by academics of tertiary education institutions, research institutes, representatives of State Body and local self-government, NGOs, and representatives of culture and arts of the Finno-Ugric regions of the Russian Federation, Finland, Hungary and Estonia.


Peer-review policy

In order to maintain high quality of the articles published in the Journal follows a double-blind peer review process (the reviewer does not know the author(s) of the manuscript, the authors of the manuscript do not know the reviewers) for all the received materials.
The relevant manuscripts are forwarded to reviewers who can be a member of the editorial board or an independent expert recommended by a member of the editorial board. The review is mandatory and becomes an integral part of the assessment conducted by the editorial board to determine the relevance and the topicality of the materials.
Considering reviewing an important link in ensuring the exchange of scientific information, the Editors require that the reviewers adhere to the principles of confidentiality, objectivity, impartiality, clarity and argumentation of expression, respect for the principle of acknowledgement of the primary sources. Reviewers shall express their views clearly, giving relevant arguments. Information or ideas obtained during the review shall be treated as confidential and not be used for personal purposes. A review is a necessary as the main document of the expert examination conducted by the Editors to determine compliance of the material with the thematic focus of the Journal.
The reviewers are notified that the manuscripts are the subject of the belonging to of the authors and their data cannot be disclosed. The reviewer reserves the right to refuse to review the manuscript if there is the conflict of interest, or in case of other reasons.

  • The review should contain the answers to the following questions:
  • “Is the manuscript relevant to the Journal?”;
  • “What is the relevance, originality and significance of the manuscript?”;
  • “If Reference list complete and well-representative?”;
  • “What are the theoretical and methodological bases of the research?”;
  • “Is the paper comprehensive for the target audience in terms of language, style, visualization of tables, diagrams, figures and formulas?”.

After reviewing the manuscript, the following recommendations can be possible:

  • the manuscript is recommended for the publication (upon the decision of the editorial board);
  • the manuscript is recommended for the publication after revision (The editors forward the review to the author in order to reconsider the manuscript, or reasonably (partially or completely) refute it. The revised manuscript is re-directed to be reviewed again according to the general policy of the Journal);
  • the manuscript requires additional review by another expert (the manuscript is submitted for additional review to another reviewer);
  • the manuscript is not recommended for publication (the author is informed of the refusal to publish).

The editors shall not accept negligent reviews written carelessly and merely for form’s sake as well as anonymous reviews.
The editors shall not require external reviews from the authors, including reviews of scientific advisers and consultants, as well as extracts from the minutes of the meeting of the department. The Editors shall not carry out contractual review or pseudo-review.
A review is not sufficient for the acceptance of the manuscript for publication. The final decision is taken by the editorial board of the Journal. The decision to publish is based on the originality, credibility, scientific significance and overall relevance of the work in question.
The original of the review is kept in the editorial office for 3 years and, if necessary, can be forwarded to Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
The review period is 2–4 weeks, but it can be extended upon the request of the reviewer. The original reviews are scanned and forwarded to the editor via E-mail.


Publication Ethics
The requirements of compliance with publication ethics in the preparation and publication of the Journal concern all participants of the editorial and publishing process – authors, editors, reviewers, members of the editorial board, founder and publisher.

The Founder (Publisher) of the Journal in their activities shall:

  • make sure that all participants of the scientific publication process comply with the publication ethics principles of the Journal;
  • assist the editorial staff in reviewing claims to ethical standards of pub-lished materials and provide support when interacting with other scientific periodi-cals, if it facilitates the editorial staff work;
  • always be ready to publish rebuttals, apologies, explanations in the Journal and to present such information on the official website of the Journal, if required;
  • not prevent the editorial staff from rejecting papers containing plagiarism, compilation, pseudoscientific facts, falsification and fabrication of data, etc.;
  • not consider scientific publication in the Journal a commercial project and not seek profit;
  • ensure that the Journal’s issues are timely released.

In its activities, the editorial board shall:

  • consider all the materials submitted for publication in the Journal objectively and without prejudice;
  • show respect to intellectual work of authors;
  • take into account the opinion of the reviewers and recommendations of the editorial staff when making final decisions on publication of a paper.

In their professional activities, the Editors (the editorial staff of the Journal) are guided by the principles of scientific character, objectivity, professionalism, impartiality, and confidentiality of the editorial process.
The editorial board of the Journal does not accept plagiarism, as it is unethical and unacceptable. Plagiarism monitoring is conducted by “Anti-plagiarism” software system. Papers must use only genuine scientific data. In case of citing other researchers, appropriate references must be made. Papers with instances of compilation or plagiarism shall not be published.
The editors shall immediately respond to a request of a citizen (or their legal representatives) or an institution to refute information untrue and defamatory for their honor and dignity published in the Journal. The editors shall withdraw unfair publications from the scientific space and prevent the Journal from publishing papers containing pseudoscientific facts, plagiarism, compilation or falsification of data. The editors shall not publish pseudo-scientific, knowingly inaccurate or falsified information in the Journal.
The editorial board interacts with the authors maintaining mutual respect and honesty.

The Journal’s editorial staff in their activities shall interact with authors and other participants of the scientific publication process based on the principles of fairness, courtesy, objectivity, honesty and transparency; take all measures to ensure high quality of papers published in the Journal; keep confidential the information obtained in the course of work on copyrighted material and not use it for the purpose of receiving any benefit; help make the review process at the Journal fair, timely, thorough and correct.
The editors shall publish information concerning corrections, rebuttals, and review articles in case the need arises, shall not publish the final version of any article without the consent of its authors.

The author shall ensure that the materials submitted to the Journal comply with the principles of reliability, validity, fairness, balance, originality, transparency and have no traces of ‘guest’, ‘gift’ or anonymous authorship.

When submitting materials to the Journal, the author shall:

  • understand that their research should be carried out at a high level, carefully, in accordance with ethical and legal standards;
  • present their research results honestly and without fabrication, falsification, or incorrect paraphrasing of the ideas of other researchers, unwarranted data and citation manipulation;
  • describe their scientific ideas clearly and unambiguously, follow the rules of presentation of scientific papers;
  • immediately notify the editorial staff of the Journal in case of errors or any omissions in their materials on the stages of submission, admission or publication. The author shall cooperate with the editorial staff of the Journal in case amendment, reduction or withdrawal of the work is necessary;
  • cite only the works they acquainted themselves with;
  • describe the results of their study objectively and fully in the context of previous studies. The author shall recognize the contributions of those individuals who influenced the course of the study and observe ethical principles when there is a need to criticize or comment on the scientific ideas of other researchers;
  • not send to the Journal materials submitted simultaneously to other periodicals as well as materials, which, in most part, have already been published or are under consideration as an article or part of another paper, including those in other languages;
  • guarantee originality of the research results contained in the materials sent to the editorial staff of the Journal. Borrowed data, tables, formulas, drawings or ideas shall have obligatory indication of authorship and the original source;
  • specify all sources of funding for the study, including information about the sponsor of the study (if any);
  • specify the individuals who contributed to the study as co-authors. The author shall not include individuals who took no part in the study as co-authors;
  • respect the work of the editorial staff, editorial board and reviewers of the Journal, eliminate the specified shortcomings or make strong arguments to refute the comments in a timely manner.

Upholding the highest standards of the reliability and research relevance, the editorial board carries on blind peer-reviewed of the manuscripts. Expert referees maintain confidentiality (the manuscript is a private and confidential document; while peer-reviewing the data remain confidential), clarity and reasoning of expressing their opinion (peer-review is conducted objectively and the assessment of the work is reasoned and justified), impartiality (personal criticism of the expert referees is not acceptable), the principle of recognition of primary sources (the references to previously published works are mandatory).
The reviewer shall:

  • remember that the materials received for review must be treated as a confidential document, which cannot be shown to third parties. The reviewer shall not use information obtained in the course of the review for personal benefit or to benefit other persons or institutions;
  • be guided by the fact that the materials to be peer-reviewed are intellectual property of the authors;
  • confirm the positive aspects of the material, structurally identify its shortcomings and clearly identify ways to eliminate them;
  • agree to review only the materials for examination of which they have sufficient knowledge and which they can review timely;
  • write a review in a constructive manner, without bias, preconceived negative opinions, refraining from hostile or cynical statements and slanderous fabrications or derogatory comments;
  • not delay the peer review process.