All articles submitted to the journal are ongoing the following peer-review procedure.
1.Registration and checking for plagiarism
Articles are registered and tested for compliance with the guidelines for authors, fulfilling of the license agreement and the conflict of interest form. Every article is checked using Anti-plagiarism Internet services. In case of detecting plagiarism the article is no further processed.
2. Review by the editor-in-chief and vice editors-in-chief
Initially all submitted manuscripts are reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief or one of the Associate Editors. Editors evaluate the compliance of the manuscript with the journal aims and scope, its value for the scientific literature and assigns reviewers if the deicision is positive. After this (usually up to 1 week), the corresponding author receives a message that the article is assigned to the peer-review procedure or rejected. If the manuscript is rejected the corresponding author explanations are also provided.
3. Statistical methods review
All original papers are reviewed for statistical methods by a medical statistics expert. Statistical methods review is carried out in addition to the peer review.
4.Peer-review
All articles undergo a single blind peer-review. Reviewing manuscripts is confidential in relation to the reviewers (ie, the author does not know who the reviewer). Disclosure of the confidential details of the manuscript review will be considered as violation of the authors and reviewer rights. Breach of confidentiality is only possible in case of declaration of data inaccuracy or falsification.
Peer reviewers are chosen among the members of the editorial board or editorial council. According to the Editor-in-Chief decision other expert consultants may also be involved in the peer-review. The peer review can not be provided by an author (co-author) of the manuscript. The peer reviewers are responsible to prevent the publication of articles containing violations of scientific ethics and serious deviations from Good Publication Practice.
The duration of the peer review procedure usually does not exceed 3 weeks. The period from the date of registration to the final decision date is usually not more than 4 months.
Peer reviewers will consider following aspects when reviewing the manuscript:
1. Whether the content of the article complies to the title;
2. Clarity of presentation (language, style, order of data presentation, tables, figures, formulas etc.)
3. Suitability methods and originality of obtained results.
4. Describe the scientific value of the manuscript and articles disadvantages
5. Which corrections and additions are necessary
Peer reviewers fill out the form of review which highlights all the most important aspects of the review.
The reviewer takes a decision on the possibility of publication:
• Accept
• Accept after correction
• Revise and resubmit
• Reject
A the end manuscript analysis the peer reviewer gives final recommendations. If some corrections should be done, the article is sent to the authors for revision. The manuscript should be revised and returned within 1 month. If the manuscript is returned later the date of its publication will be changed. Resubmitted articles undergo additional peer review. The peer reviewer takes a decision on the possibility of its publication.
The presence of positive reviews is not sufficient for the publication of the manuscript. The final decision on whether the publication is accepted is taken by the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reduce and update manuscripts.
5. Manuscript acceptance and rejection
If the editorial board accepted the manuscript for publication the technical secretary informs the corresponding author. If the manuscpript is rejected the authors will receive comments on the decision. Rejected manuscripts can not be resubmitted. Negative reviews are sent to the corresponding author by e-mail.
6. Appeals
If authors disagree with the editorial board decision , they have a right to appeal. The appeal can be submitted only once. All appeals are considered by the editorial board. The revision of an appeal usually takes 1-2 months.
Additional Information
1. The editorial board provides manuscripts peer reviews per request to the Higher Attestation Commission.
2. The editors do not provide any information concerning the reviewes manuscript at anyone except the authors and editorial office staff. Reviewers are not allowed to make copies of the manuscript or pass any parts of the manuscript for review to another person without the permission of the editors. Peer reviewers and editorial office staff are not allowed to use the content of the manuscript in their own interests before publication.
3. If the publication of the article has caused violation of someone else’s copyright, or Good Publication Practice, the Editorial Board has the right to withdraw the published article.
