Ethics of reviewers

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

The policy of the interdepartmental thematic scientific collection “Foothill and mountain agriculture and stockbreeding” concerning main ethical norms, which subjects of the review process should be guided by, includes the following:

• in case the reviewer is unsure that his qualification corresponds to the level and theme of the research presented in the article, he should immediately refuse to review;
• the reviewer’s goal is an objective assessment of the quality of the submitted article and determination of the degree of its compliance with scientific, literary and ethical standards;
• during the review process, narrowly selfish interests of individuals should be leveled and the intellectual independence of authors should be respected;
• to ensure the right of authors’ intellectual property, the reviewer is prohibited from any use of author’s arguments and conclusions without his permission;
• if there is a conflict of interest or in the presence of professional or personal relations of the reviewer with the author that may affect the reviewer’s judgment, he should return the article, indicating a conflict of interest;
• the priority is the confidentiality of the reviewed article, given which the reviewer is forbidden to disclose information from the article or discuss the unpublished findings and recommendations with other colleagues (except in special cases when the reviewer needs specific scientific advice, in that event permission of the editorial board is required);
• the seriousness of plagiarism accusations requires reviewer to provide an adequate and reasoned justification for his comments. Any allegation of plagiarism or biased citation should be accompanied by an appropriate reference (the reviewer’s conclusions should not be defamatory or discrediting the author without serious grounds);
• if reviewer has doubts about plagiarism, authorship or falsification of data, he must contact the editorial board with a request for a collective review of the author’s article;
• since the reviewer should note any cases of insufficient citation of the works of other scholars, working in the field of the peer-reviewed article, remarks on insufficient citation of the reviewer’s own research are identified as biased;
• maintaining the constant frequency of publication of interdepartmental thematic scientific collection “Foothill and mountain agriculture and stockbreeding” requires a reviewer to have high self-discipline, it is revealed through the timeliness of the review and with respect for the authors of the article (in case of rudeness towards the authors, systematic provision of reviews of low quality or violation of the terms for the provision of reviews, relationship with this reviewer is terminated)
• although reviewer is prohibited from using or disclosing unpublished information or the author’s argumentation, it is not considered contradictory to ethical standards to terminate some of the reviewer’s own studies if, in his opinion, they become inconclusive.