Geologicheskii Vestnik

The Editorial Board of the Geologicheskii Vestnik journal is guided in its activities by principles adopted by:

- the international Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE) in 2017 (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices);

- the All-Russian Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers (ASEP) in 2024 (https://rassep.ru/sovet-po-etike/manifesty/deklaratsiya/).

The section “Publishing Ethics” of the journal is intended to exclude cases of unfair practices in publishing activities (plagiarism, submission of knowingly false information, etc.) and to ensure a high level of scientific publications.

At all stages of the editorial process, each participant in this process: the editorial board (as a collective and each individual editor), the author, the reviewer, the publisher, as well as the institutions participating in the publishing process, are obliged to comply with ethical standards, norms and rules and take all possible measures to prevent their violation.

Publishing Ethics of Editorial Board and Editors

In its activities, the Editorial Board undertakes to:

- take all possible actions and measures to develop the journal;

- develop the journal, focusing on the readership;

- take into account the needs of the journal’s authors;

- ensure transparency of the editorial process at all its stages;

- when accepting an article for publication, be guided by the principles of impartiality and freedom of option in the interests of scientific knowledge;

- when making a decision on accepting materials for publication, rely on the main criteria (the manuscript must correspond to the subject matter and mission of the journal, the research must be relevant and significant for the current state of the specified scientific field, and also have a clear structure);

- suppress any attempts to influence the decision on the publication of materials and be guided only by the principles of fairness in relation to their scientific content;

- maintain confidentiality with respect to the provided materials at all stages of the editorial process;

- take all possible measures to protect the personal data of all participants in the editorial process;

- create conditions for ensuring the high quality of published research for which: take into account the recommendations of experts (reviewers), provide authors with the opportunity to substantiate their author's position, edit in order to correct grammatical, stylistic and substantive errors;

- make the final decision on accepting materials for publication taking into account the reviewers’ opinion;

- provide a comprehensive explanation in case of rejection of the article;

- provide an opportunity to publish the opinions of opponents and comprehensively support the practice of scientific discussions.

Publication Ethics of Authors

When submitting manuscripts to Geologicheskii Vestnik, the authors undertake to:

- guarantee the originality of the research; in case of using publications, statements, conclusions of other authors, these borrowings must be accompanied by appropriate bibliographic references;

- not use excessive borrowings and plagiarism in any form (providing someone else's work, retelling significant parts of someone else's work without indicating the author, claiming rights to the results of someone else's research);

- bear personal responsibility for obtaining all necessary permissions for the publication of materials that will be used in the manuscript, and confirm the above-mentioned right in the Author’s Agreement;

- notify the Editorial Board in the Author’s Agreement, if the submitted manuscript or its revised version is under consideration or has already been published in another journal (guarantee of publication originality);

- notify the Editorial Board in the Author’s Agreement about the funding sources for the research, in order to prevent possible conflicts;

- adhere to the basic principles of authorship – the authors of the manuscript can only be persons who have made a significant contribution to the formation of the concept of the work, the formulation of the problem, the development, implementation or interpretation of the presented research and must be designated as co-authors;

- coordinate the final version of the research material with all co-authors;

- if the author discovers significant errors or inaccuracies during the editing process or after its publication, notify the editors as soon as possible and take joint measures to eliminate them;

- if the editors receive information about inaccuracies or errors from third parties, correct the identified errors as soon as possible;

- the editors reserve the right to both reject the material and make changes to its style in case of violation of this requirement.

Publication Ethics of Peer Review

A reviewer is an expert with the necessary competencies to evaluate research materials submitted for publication in the Geologicheskii Vestnik, journal and undertakes to:

- adhere to principles of impartiality, when making a decision on the significance of materials submitted for publication;

- guarantee confidentiality by not allowing discussion of the manuscript with other persons with the exception of editorial board authorized by the Editor-in-Chief to work with the author’s manuscript;

- not use information obtained during the review for personal purposes;

- if the expert has doubts about his / her own qualifications on the topic of the study under consideration, inform the Editor-in-Chief about this and refuse to review the manuscript;

- make a conclusion about the validity and scientific significance of the research based on specific facts and provide reasoned evidence for your decision;

- indicate in the expert opinion any substantial or partial similarity of the manuscript submitted for review with any other publication, as well as any facts of absence of references to provisions, conclusions or arguments previously published in other papers by this / other authors;

- provide support to the author in improving the quality of the submitted research;

- not to use under any circumstances the materials of the unpublished manuscript in the reviewer's own research.

When carrying out the review process, the Editorial Board undertakes to:

- maintain complete confidentiality of the review process, using the practice of double-blind review (the reviewer receives an article devoid of any signs of authorship, the author receives an anonymous review);

- ensure strict adherence to the ethical principles of reviewing manuscripts, not allowing offensive wording or personal criticism of the author, requiring the reviewer to clearly and reasonably express his / her opinion

Conflict of Interests

In order to comply with all principles of the publication ethics, it is necessary to exclude conflicts of interests for all parties envolved in the manuscript publication process. A conflict of interest may arise if an author, reviewer, or editorial board member have financial, scientific or personal relationships that may influence their actions. Such relationships are called dual commitments, competing interests or competing loyalties.

In order to prevent conflict of interest and in accordance with the accepted ethical standards of the journal, each party has the following responsibilities.

The Editor is obliged to:

- upon detection of a conflict of interest between the initially appointed reviewer and the author of the submitted manuscript, promptly refer the manuscript for consideration by another member of the editorial board;

- request information about the possibility of a conflict of interest from all participants in the manuscript publication process;

- decide on the publication of information about conflicts of scientific and/or financial interests specified in the author's letter, if it is not confidential and may affect the assessment of the publication by the reader or the scientific community;

- ensure prompt publication of corrections if information about a conflict of interest is received after the publication of the article.

The Author is obliged to:

- to list all possible and known sources of conflict of interest in the cover letter;

- be sure to indicate his affiliation and the source of funding for the study;

- if there is no conflict of interest, write it down in the cover letter as a separate item.

The Reviewer is obliged to:

- always immediately inform the editorial board of the conflict of interest (dual obligations or competing interests) and refuse to consider the manuscript.

Publication Ethics on Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools

For authors, the use of generative artificial intelligence (hereinafter referred to as AI) tools to generate new knowledge is considered unethical; the author must be aware of all the risks of violating the principles of confidentiality when working with AI tools. It is possible to use AI tools:

- when collecting and analyzing data (information about it should be placed in the Methods section)

- when working with the language of the manuscript (information about it should be placed in the Acknowledgments section)

AI tools cannot be used to generate new knowledge.

Under no circumstances AI cannot be identified as the author, co-author or contributor to the article.

For editors and reviewers the use of generative AI tools is considered unethical, since the very algorithm for using these tools excludes compliance with the principle of confidentiality, which is mandatory for participants in the editorial process.

Publication Ethics Violations

The emergence of situations demonstrating violations of ethical requirements by any participant in the editorial process (author, reviewer or editorial board) requires immediate investigation. The investigation can be conducted with respect to published and unpublished research. Such violations are:

- incorrect borrowing of someone else’s text;

- plagiarism (use of someone else’ author material without verbatim repeatition);

- re-publishing one’s own author’s research;

- use of unreliable and especially falsified data in presenting material;

- inaccurate indication of the author's contribution to the research.

Actions in Case of Ethics Violation Discovery

If you suspect that an author, editor or reviewer has violated the ethics norms, please notify the editorial board about your suspicions in writing. Reports and complaints could be sent by e-mail to the journal’s official address: igjournal@ufaras.ru or by post to the journal’s legal address: 450077, Russian Federation, Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa, Karl Marx st., 16/2 – to the Editor-in-Chief of the Geologicheskii Vestnik. The complaint shall clearly describe the alleged violation and provide information to support the fact.

When a complaint is recived, the responsible secretary is obliged to document the reciept of the claim. After careful consideration, the editorial board of the journal prepares a report indicating all the arguments in the case. Throughout the investigation process, the editorial board strictly adheres to the principles of confidentiality, impartiality and fairness. All investigation aspects will remain confidential.

Case of claims against the Author (plagiarism and / or incorrect borrowing, use of false or falsified data, incorrect indication of the author’s contribution (in case of co-authorship)

If the editorial board receives a complaint about the author, the editorial board contacts the author with written request to comment on the request. Based on the response the editorial board will held, where a decision is made:

- to reject the author of the claim (in the case of convincing arguments of the author(s) of the study);

- to accept the claim (in the case of the author(s) refusing to provide arguments or in case of unconvincing arguments).

If the violations indicated in the claim are serious violations of the Publication Ethics, the editorial board decides to impose sanctions agains the author(s) and the study.

Duplicate Publication

If the editorial board receives a complaint about a duplicate publication, the claim is considered by the editorial board of the journal, and it is determined how significant the differences and additions in the “duplicate” article are. If the differences are not significant, the article is assigned the status of “duplicate” and corrective actions are applied to it.

If the authors use their own previously published research or propose, a research previously submitted to other publishers, the editorial board will request a written response from the authors to explain differences in the submitted research and the previously published research or the research submitted to another publication.

An article may be published in a different language only if the following points are met:

- obtaining consent from the editorial board of the journal and / or the publisher who published the article in the original form;

- mandatory notification of re-publication of the article;

- a decision of the editorial board on the significance of the research, which, when published in a different language, will receive new readers or will be intended for a different readership.

Measures to eliminate violations of publication ethics of the publication

If, based on the investigation conducted by the editorial board of the Geologicheskii Vestnik, facts of violation of the declared publication ethics of the journal were confirmed, the editorial board applies the following measures:

- refuses to publish a specific manuscript by the author;

- publishes the material in the next issue of the journal as a notice of correction of the identified violation on behalf of the editor-in-chief;

- makes corrections to the published material in a form that allows correcting the specified discrepancy in the journal indexing systems, as well as in form accessible to readers;

- introduces a ban on the publication of the author’s materials in the journal for a period determined for a special cases;

- refuses further cooperation within the editorial board or within the framework of the examination (review);

- removes the materials from the journal (removal of the text of the article from the journal’s website).

All of the above measures are taken by the editorial board after a thorough consideration of the claim, making an objective and fair resolution. In cases of particularly gross violations of the publication ethics, the editorial board reserves the right to apply additional sanctions, beside the sanctions listed above.

The party against whom the complaint/claim is filed has the right to appeal to the decision on the violation. The appeal is submitted in writing either by email or by regular mail at the journal’s correspondence address within 30 days since the notification of the resolution. The text of the appeal must contain a rebuttal of the decision with detailed argumentation.