Rus Eng

Order of reception and procedure of reviewing papers

1. Procedure of preliminary consideration of a paper

The editorial board of the journal accepts for consideration papers and materials reflecting scientific views, results and findings of fundamental and theoretical and applied researches in dependability, functional safety, standardization, certification and in the area of risk assessment. Materials not corresponding to the above areas are not accepted for consideration.

The publication for authors of papers is free-of-charge. Get to know Editor's requirements on paper execution.

The paper publication should be sent to the editorial office to de facto address: E.Patrikeeva@gismps.ru, dependability@bk.ru as follows:

1. A paper should be thoroughly proofread, formatted according to the publication requirements , not published anywhere before and should contain a reference list with not less than two references;
2. A paper should have an abstract (short summary of a paper’s content) of 150-250 words long, keywords of about 8-10 words and phrases. Information about an author, abstracts, keywords and references are translated by the editorial board of the journal;
3. A cover letter should be attached.

Materials of a paper should be open for publication. A security label serves as a ground to reject materials for open publication.

Receipt of materials is acknowledged by the issuing editor within 3 days.

The copy of a scientific paper sent to the editorial board is examined by the issuing editor as to whether there is a full package of documents submitted and the paper complies with the editorial requirements, the journal specialty and submission guidelines. In case of incompliance with publication provisions, the paper may be sent to the author for improvement.

The paper complying with the journal specialty and submission requirements are registered by the executive editor in the record book for papers submitted by the journal who records a submission date, title, author(s)’ name(s), author(s)’ working place and sends it for reviewing.

2. Order and procedure of reviewing papers

All papers sent to the journal are subject to obligatory peer review (expert assessment).

Reviewing is made by researches who are well-known authorities in the areas of knowledge where the contents of a paper belong to. A peer reviewer shall have a scientific degree of doctor or PhD.

The journal has the following reviewing system:

1. Open peer review (when an author and a reviewer know about each other) – a review submitted by an author or upon additional request of the journal;
2. Single-blind review (a reviewer knows about an author, while an author doesn’t know about a reviewer) – compulsory for all papers. A reviewer assesses a paper in terms of its topicality and novelty as well as its structure and exposition style. All comments and proposals about a paper are shaped as a review. If shortcomings detected by a reviewer can be eliminated, a paper is sent to the author for improvement. The editorial board of the journal reserves the right to reject a paper if an author takes no notice of the remarks made by a reviewer. A reviewer also has the right to make an additional check for use of borrowings in the text of a paper by selectively copying text parts and checking via available internet resources;
3. Double-blind review (an author and a reviewer don’t know about each other) is used in case of a reviewer’s ambiguous assessment of a paper during obligatory reviewing. The editorial board can recommend that a paper should undergo additional reviewing.

A reviewer should timely consider a paper sent to him for review and send a duly shaped review or motivated refusal to review by email.

Time frames for reviewing are defined in each case taking into account provisions required to publish a paper as quickly as possible, however not more than 15 days upon receipt of application for publication. The term may be extended if additional reviewing is required and/or an expert peer reviewer is not available at the moment.

Upon results of reviewing, a reviewer submits one of the following decisions for consideration of the editors and the editorial board:

• recommendation to publish a paper;
• recommendation to publish a paper after improvement/elimination of shortcomings;
• recommendation not to publish a paper.

If a reviewer recommends publishing a paper after improvement/elimination of shortcomings or doesn’t recommend publishing a paper, the review should provide particular reasons for such a decision specifying content and/or technical shortcomings detected in a text indicating particular pages if necessary. A reviewer’s remarks and proposals should be objective and principal aiming at increasing the scientific and methodological level of a paper.

Original reviews are kept in the editorial office for 5 years. Upon requests from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, reviews are to be submitted to the Higher Attestation Committee and/or to the Ministry.

For publishing papers of postgraduate students and candidates for PhD degree, the journal has the right to additionally request a reference from the faculty chair, though this doesn’t exclude a standard reviewing procedure.

3. Decision on publication

Upon receipt of reviews, the regular meeting of the editorial board considers submitted papers and based on the conclusions of reviewers makes a final decision on publication of papers or rejection of publication. A decision of the editorial board is made by a simple majority of votes. Should the votes be equal, a vote of the editor-in-chief is decisive. The quorum for decision making is set as 50 per cent of the total number of members of the editorial board.

When making a final decision whether to accept a paper or reject publication, the editorial board pays attention to the topicality of the scientific issue investigated by an author. A review should unambiguously characterize the theoretical or practical value of a research correlating an author’s conclusions with existing scientific concepts. A prerequisite element of a review should be a reviewer’s assessment of a paper author’s personal contribution to solution of a problem under consideration. When reviewing, it is worth to note the compliance of exposition style, logics and comprehensibility with the scientific character of the material as well as reliability and reasoning of conclusions (a reviewer should assess representativeness of practical materials used for analysis, illustrating degree of examples, tables, quantative data etc. applied by an author). A review is concluded with a general assessment of a paper and recommendation regarding its publication, improvement or a well-grounded rejection of an article.

Based on the decision made, a letter on behalf of the executive editor is sent to an author(s) by email. The letter provides a general assessment of a paper and informs of a decision made as to the materials submitted by an author.

If a paper may be published after improvement and elimination of shortcomings, the letter provides recommendations as to improvement/elimination of shortcomings. Reviewers and editors do not get into argument with authors of articles about comments made in reviews.

A paper submitted by an author(s) to the journal after improvement/elimination of shortcomings undergoes a second reviewing from the same or other reviewer appointed at discretion of the editors.

If a paper has a considerable share of a reviewer’s critical comments while being positively recommended, the editorial board may refer to the paper as a polemical one and publish it for the purpose of scientific discussion.

If a paper is rejected, the journal sends a motivated refusal to the author within three office days. A paper not recommended by a reviewer for publication is not accepted for further consideration.