Scientific journals of the Southwest State University

Rules and Regulations of the Peer Review process

Version 2

1 Application area

These rules regulate the Peer Review process applied to the papers that are published in the University scientific journals and define basic requirements to the reviews.

2 Basic rules

2.1 Organization of Peer Review process

2.1.1 All papers submitted for the publication in the University scientific journals shall be reviewed by external reviewers.

2.1.2 The University publishing department directs received manuscripts   to the relevant editorial board that assesses them for relevancy and correspondence to the publisher’s requirements and forwards the manuscript to one or two, if necessary, reviewers.

2.1.3 The reviewers shall be recognized experts who are specializing in the subject area of the relevant journal and have their own papers published within the last 3 years.

2.1.4 The reviewers shall be notified by the editorial board that the sent manuscripts are intellectual property of their authors and shall be regarded as confidential information. The reviewers shall have no right to copy the manuscripts as they want. Peer review shall be a confidential process. A breach in confidentiality is possible only if the reviewer makes a statement that the paper contains unauthentic, misrepresented or fake data. The reviewer shall be an external expert and may not be a co-worker with the author of the reviewed paper.   

2.1.5 Original reviews shall be kept in the publishing department for 5 years from the publication date.  

2.1.6 The copies of the reviews shall be sent to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation provided that the relevant request has been received.

2.1.7 A copy of the review or a motivated refusal shall be sent to the author (-s) of the reviewed paper.

2.1.8 If the reviewer demands any corrections in the reviewed paper, the editorial board shall send the paper back to the author for corrections. In this case the paper filing date shall be the date when the corrected paper is returned to the editorial board.

2.1.9 The finalized version of the paper that has been sent to the author (-s) for corrections   shall be returned to the editorial board within one month. The final version of the paper shall be accompanied by the author’s cover letter that shall contain author’s comments and explanations regarding the reviewer’s comments

2.1.10 If the paper that has been returned to the author for corrections has been notably changed by its author (-s), such paper shall be sent for re-reviewing to the same reviewer.

2.1.11 If the author (-s) fails to make the requested corrections and/or consider the reviewer’s comments, editorial board shall have the right to reject the paper.

2.1.12 If two different reviewers give their negative opinion about the same manuscript, or if one reviewer gives a negative opinion about the revised version of the paper, the finalized version of such paper shall be   rejected without being considered by other members of the editorial board.

2.1.13 After peer reviewing the editorial decision about the appropriateness of the paper shall be taken by the Deputy Editor-in-Chief.  

Maximal peer reviewing   period between the paper filing date and the final decision of the editorial board shall be 2 months.

2.2 Recommended structure and layout of the review

2.2.1 Peer review purpose is to ensure appropriate selection of manuscripts for publication and to work out specific recommendations how the submitted paper can be improved.  

2.2.2 The review shall contain an objective assessment of a scientific paper and offer a comprehensive analysis of its scientific and methodological merits and drawbacks.

2.2.3 The recommended   size of the review is 1.5 А4 pages written in 12 type size.

2.2.4 It is recommended to structure the review as follows (See: Recommended Review template):

-     assess scientific importance of the discussed problem;

-     analyze and assess theoretical value and practical relevance of author’s findings;

-     state scientific novelty of the presented scientific results. This review item should give specific references to the author’s propositions that in the reviewer’s opinion clearly show features of scientific novelty

-     assess authenticity, relevance and validity of the author’s findings;

-     provide critical observations;   

-     make general conclusion about the scientific level of the paper and recommend to publish the paper, return it for corrections and finalization or reject it totally.  

The review shall be signed by the reviewer and certified by the stamp.

Review template