Publication Ethics

I. General statements

• The authors must get acquainted with and comply with the ethics of publishing on authorship, conflicts of interest, and materials dissemination; to avoid simultaneous submission of the same material to several publications, plagiarism, data manipulation, etc.
• Reviewers and editors are obliged to conduct impartial expert reviews of manuscripts, observing confidentiality and pre-declaring the presence of a conflict of interest.

II. General duties and responsibilities of the Editorial Board

• The main standards relied on by the journal are those developed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
• Editorial Board is responsible for the quality of content published in a journal.
• During the publishing process, provides technical and information support to users of the journal.
• Ensures the safety and integrity of the submissions received.
• Ensures confidentiality of materials submitted to the journal for the entire editorial and publishing process, taking into account the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation.
• Takes into account the comments and suggestions of readers, authors, and reviewers on how to improve the work of the publication.
• Editorial Board quickly responds to any complaints on the work of the journal and guarantees a solution to the problem situation.

Cooperation with authors

• Editorial Board provides authors with detailed instructions regarding the editorial and publishing process, and informs the time of receiving materials and publication dates of issues.
• The authors are provided with the description of the review process, in case of any deviations from the described process, editors are obliged to provide an explanation to the author.
• Editorial Board defines the criteria for the evaluation of materials and determines the reviewers for each manuscript.
• Sends authors detailed comments of reviewers.
• The editor's decision of acceptance/rejection of the manuscript is based on its relevance, originality, relevance to the scientific direction, and the requirements of the journal.
• At the request of the author, the manuscript can be removed from consideration and archived in the journal (with the consequent possibility of recovery in the queue). To do this, the author should contact the editor with your request.

Cooperation with reviewers

• Editorial Board provides reviewers with detailed instructions on the work in the journal system.
• Editorial Board asks the reviewer to note the presence of a possible conflict of interest before he would agree to review the material submitted to him.
• Editorial Board asks reviewers to report all cases of plagiarism.
• Editorial Board Ensures that the review process is fair, objective, unbiased, and timely.
• Adapts the review process to the needs of reviewers and provides an opportunity for each of them to carry out reviewing the most convenient way (through the journal or via e-mail).
• Confidentiality. Reviewers do not have the right to disclose the information specified in the manuscripts prior to publication.

Cooperation with the editors

Editorial Board is obliged:

• Provide new editors with detailed instructions on how to operate the journal system and features of the publishing process.
• Regularly review the body of the editorial staff.
• Continuously inform the members of the editorial staff about novelties.
• Provide clear instructions to the editors about their functions, powers, and duties (supporting and promoting the journal).
• Periodically consult the members of the editorial staff, informs them about changes in the journal policy, and technical innovations, and exchange proposals for the future functioning of the journal.
• Confidentiality. Editors do not have the right to disclose the information specified in the manuscripts prior to publication.

III. Status of the author

The list of authors should indicate the persons who have made a significant contribution to the scientific research presented in the article. Academic status, position, or another seniority should not determine the order in the list; the order of authors should indicate the relative leadership and value of the researchers’ contribution to this scientific work.

The author of the manuscript is a researcher who has made a contribution in all subsequent stages of the preparation of the article:

• the idea of conducting research, the statement of the problem, and research objectives;
• the development of the concept and design of the manuscript, data collection, analysis, and interpretation;
• drafting the article or its critical scientific review and correction;
• approval of the final version for publication.

Each author is responsible for the content of the article. If the work is produced by a team of scientists, authors must include a list of persons who meet the above criteria and add the name of the group.

Funding for the study or the general supervision of the work is not authorship.

IV. Conflict of interest

Conflicts of interest (CI) – these are the factors that negatively affect the objectivity, or can be perceived as interference in the process of peer review, editorial decision-making, publishing, and presentation of the manuscript.

A conflict of interest may arise in relation to individuals or organizations, and is divided into the following categories (but not be limited to these):

Personal CI:

• Personal relationships (eg, friends, family members, current or previous managers, opponents) with persons involved in the supply or reviewing manuscripts (authors, reviewers, editors, or members of the editorial board);
• Personal beliefs (political, religious, ideological, etc.) related to the topic of the manuscript, may interfere with the objective process of the publication (in the stage of submission, review, editorial decision-making, or publication).

Professional CI:

• The reviewer or editor is the author's colleague, who participated in or observed the conduct of the study.
• Membership in organizations that lobby the interests of the author.

Financial CI:

• Research grants from various funding organizations: governmental, non-governmental, research or charitable institutions.
• Patent applications (actual or expected), including the application of institutions to which the author refers, and from which he can make a profit;
• Fees, gifts, and favors of any kind.
• All persons involved in the manuscript, including authors, editors, reviewers, and readers who comment on or evaluate the material, should report any conflict of interest.
• If, in the opinion of the editors, there are circumstances that may affect the impartial review of the material, the editors do not appeal to this reviewer.
• Editorial Board reserves the right not to publish a manuscript if the conflict of interests declared by the author puts the objectivity and authenticity of research estimation under a threat.
• If the editorial board will reveal a conflict of interest that has not been declared upon submission - a manuscript may be rejected. If an undeclared conflict of interest is discovered after publication, if necessary, the article can be corrected or removed.

V. Access to and use of materials and data

The authors confirm that all the material presented in the publication will be distributed in the public domain and may be used by other researchers with a scientific non-profit purpose under the terms of the Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) with the obligatory indication of authorship.

Supportive data (data sets, software applications, photos, audio, and video), covering and complementing the content of the study, can be further placed in institutional repositories or on other online resources, you need to provide a link in the article. If the author is not able to take advantage of this resource, materials can be loaded into the journal as an "Other" when submitting the article.

If the article describes a new software open source, authors should place it on a suitable resource and provide a comprehensive description of the used algorithms.

If there is a doubt in the authenticity of the data provided in the published article, and the material cannot be accessed, making it impossible to check them, readers can contact the editors to further contact with the author, test, and make corrections.

On request, the authors must provide immediate access to all data and materials presented in the article, if it does not break a rule of confidentiality, related to the anonymous questioning of people during research.

VI. Correction and texts addition

• If necessary, Editorial Board makes necessary changes and clarifications to the content, and publishes a retraction and apology.
• Editors can make minor changes (fixing small errors) and clarify the content of articles that improve its content but do not significantly alter its structure as a whole. To do this, send a request to the editor.

VII. Manuscript submitted to several journals

When submitting, authors should confirm that the manuscript (or its modified version) at the moment is not sent for review and publication in another journal. If such work has already been filed or published in another journal, the editors will not consider such manuscripts.

VIII. Intellectual property

• Editorial Board responds to signals related to intellectual property issues, and is working on the prevention of potential violations of Ukrainian legislation on intellectual property and copyright.
• Editorial Board oversees research findings, which are published in the journal, have been implemented according to international documents and recommendations (eg, AERA and BERA for Educational Research).

IX. Plagiarism

• The authors are responsible for the accuracy of the information presented in the articles, the accuracy of the names, last names and citations.
• The authors have responsibility for their presented materials in the case of finding out plagiarism in them.

X. Informed consent and protection of participant data

• The authors must obtain written informed consent from human participants before including them in their research. The consent form should clearly outline the purpose of the study, the participant's role, any risks involved, and how their data will be used. Participants should be informed that their participation is voluntary and that they may withdraw at any time without penalty.
• The authors must ensure that all personal information and data collected from participants is kept confidential and secure. Authors should take appropriate measures to protect participants' privacy and prevent unauthorized access to their data.
• The authors should store data collected from participants in a secure and confidential manner, with access restricted to authorized personnel only. Authors should ensure that data is retained for a reasonable period of time and disposed of securely when no longer required.
• The authors should report their research findings in a manner that protects the identity of participants and ensures their privacy.

XI. Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval

• The authors must provide evidence of obtaining appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for studies involving human subjects. IRB approval is necessary to ensure that the research design and procedures adhere to ethical guidelines and safeguard the rights and welfare of participants.
• The authors should clearly state in their manuscript that the study received IRB approval and provide the name of the reviewing institution or ethics committee that granted the approval.
• If applicable, the authors should also mention any modifications made to the study protocol or informed consent process as suggested by the IRB, ensuring that these modifications were implemented before data collection.
• Authors should adhere to the specific requirements set forth by the IRB, including obtaining additional consent for sensitive topics or vulnerable populations, such as children, prisoners, or individuals with cognitive impairments.
• The authors should provide any necessary documentation, such as copies of the IRB approval letter or the IRB-approved informed consent form, upon request by the journal's editorial board or reviewers..

XII. AI assisting tools

At our journal, we recognize the growing use of AI-assisting tools in the field of natural language processing and its potential implications on research ethics and authorship. Therefore, we require authors to disclose the use of any AI-assisting tools in their research, including but not limited to language models, predictive keyboards, and code assistants. This disclosure should include the scope and nature of their use, as well as any potential sources of plagiarism.

Regarding the use of AI-assisting tools, we distinguish between the following cases:

• Assistance purely with the language of the paper: The use of tools that only assist with language, like Grammarly or spell checkers, does not need to be disclosed.
• Short-form input assistance: The use of predictive keyboards or tools like smart compose in Google Docs does not need to be disclosed.
• Literature search: While AI-assisting tools may be used as search assistants, authors should read and discuss the identified literature, and the usual requirements for citation accuracy and thoroughness of literature reviews apply.
• Low-novelty text: If AI-generated text describes widely known concepts, the authors should specify where such text was used and ensure that it is accurate and accompanied by relevant and appropriate citations.
• New ideas + new text: Using AI assistants for generating new ideas as well as new text is unacceptable. Most of the generated content may derive from existing work. Potential issues with such practice are related to originality, plagiarism, ownership, and authorship, whose consequences and impact are not yet clear.

Regardless of the cases above, the journal publishes original work from named human authors, and thus contributions from AI assistants can only be stated in the acknowledgments and/or by suitable references in the original research papers. We require that all authors and editors adhere to these guidelines. Their violation will lead to the removal of the published paper similar to our procedures dealing with plagiarism.