Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

The Program Committee of International Youth Science Forum “Litteris et Artibus” fully adheres to the principles, best practices and guidelines outlined in the next documents:

• The “Core Practices” of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
• “Ukrainian scientist’s ethical code” (in Ukrainian) published by National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

It is important for our Program Committee that our Publication Ethics Statement is observed by all parties involved into the Science Forum communication and publication process: authors, Program Committee members and Chairs, other reviewers, Forum Secretary, Open Review Hub users and the academic community in general.

Ethical obligations of the Program Committee and other reviewers

1. The Program Committee (hereinafter referred to as ProgCom) and all other reviewers should consider all manuscripts of research papers (hereinafter referred to as manuscripts) submitted for publication and presentation at the Forum without prejudice, assessing each of them properly despite race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion of their authors.
2. ProgCom will stop further consideration of a manuscript, if there is a sufficient reason to believe that there is a significant amount of plagiarism or autoplagiarism.
3. All the materials, submitted for publication are carefully selected and reviewed. ProgCom may reject the paper or return it for revision in case of non-compliance to the structure or improper layout. Authors should finalize their manuscripts taking into consideration the comments of ProgCom and other reviewers.
4. Rejected manuscripts will not be re-reviewed.
5. ProgCom’s decision on the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript is based on its characteristics such as the importance of presented results, originality of ideas and innovativeness of described research as well as the quality of the submitted materials and its relevance to the Forum scope.
6. ProgCom reserves the right to reject the manuscript without review if the committee believes that it does not meet the Forum’s profile.
7. ProgCom reserves the right to remove the manuscript even on the final stage of the publication process or after the publication if it turns out that it violates the rights of the third parties or the principles of ethical behavior. All facts of such removal will be explained to authors in written form.
8. After the preliminary check by the ProgCom, all submitted manuscripts appear on the Open Review Hub website as preprints in open access under the Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). All intermediate and final versions of accepted manuscripts also appear in open access under the same license, while rejected manuscripts are deleted from the website after the Forum.
9. All submitted manuscripts become subjects of obligatory open peer review on the Open Review Hub website. In order to be accepted, the manuscript should receive at least two positive reviews or the number of positive reviews should be at least more by two than the number of negative ones, provided that all the revisions recommended by reviewers have been made.
10. Reviewers must start a reviewing process only if they are sure that their qualification meets the research topics proposed in manuscript.
11. All reviewers should objectively assess the quality of the manuscript, specifically its theoretical and experimental parts, results and discussion as well as consider how the material meets scientific and publishing standards.
12. After the positive decision made by ProgCom the manuscript is marked as accepted and the authors are invited to participate in the Forum. After their successful presentation the manuscript officially becomes the part of the Forum Proceedings or Materials and DOI or other identifiers may be assigned to it.
13. The responsibilities and rights of the ProgCom members and other reviewers regarding any manuscript authored, co-authored or supervised by them, should be delegated to other ProgCom members and reviewers.
14. All stakeholders of the open peer review process including ProgCom members and Chairs, authors and reviewers should notify Forum Secretary of any conflict of interests (financial, academic, personal) which occurs or may occur. ProgCom should settle any conflicts of interest issues as soon as possible.
15. ProgCom must be willing to consider a convincing criticism of shortcomings in accepted papers coming from the Open Review Hub users or other sources.
16. ProgCom should consider any valuable comments concerning the improvement of the Forum website, application system, peer review process, paper layout etc. coming from authors, reviewers, OpenReviewHub users and other sources.

Ethical obligations of Authors

1. Authors are expected to follow the general principles of ethical behavior characterized by honesty, fairness and equity in academic relationships as well as in research and scholarly activities. Such ethical behavior respects the dignity, diversity and rights of individuals and groups of people. Some other Forum-specific ethical duties are listed below.
2. Forum will immediately stop cooperation with any authors behaving unethically. All cases of suspected unethical behavior will be considered by the ProgCom, which will make the final decision on each of them.
3. Authors must ensure that the manuscripts submitted by them are their original unpublished work. If the research described in the manuscript builds upon or uses results from other authors, the latter should be properly cited according to the style, chosen by the ProgCom (currently APA style).
4. Submission of identical or similar manuscripts to other journals or conferences as well as submission of already published work will be considered as unethical behavior.
5. The authorship of a manuscript should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the study claimed, but not more than the maximum number set by the ProgCom.
6. All numerical and other data appearing in a manuscript should be submitted without mistakes, including hidden or random errors.
7. Fraud or deliberately inaccurate statements or data will be considered as unethical behavior.
8. Authorized corresponding author, representing all the co-authors, have to ensure that all the co-authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript and its submission.
9. In case of disagreement with the reviewers’ or ProgCom’s decisions, authors may communicate with them via the Open Review Hub website (comments) or via the Forum Secretary.
10. The authors of a manuscript are personally responsible for both its content and the initiative of its publication. Please note that Forum organizers and the ProgCom are not liable for any damages caused by the publication of submitted manuscripts.