Editorial Ethics

The Journal's editorial ethics is a set of principles that regulate the actions of all participants involved in the publishing process, namely: the editorial board, authors, reviewers.

The editorial board of the Journal guides by the criteria of publication ethics developed based on international standards.

The norms of relations between authors, reviewers and the editorial board of the Journal are based on the legislation of the Russian Federation, as well as on the recommendations of the Russian Committee on the Scientific Publications Ethics (publicet.org) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Journal Ethical Standards may not be changed in favor of business or commercial interests. All materials received in the Journal undergo double-blind review and are automatically checked for plagiarism.

St. Petersburg University is the owner and publisher of the Journal. Relations between the editorial board and the St. Petersburg University Publishing House are building on the principles of editorial independence. The Editorial Board decides on the publication of articles based strictly on the quality of copyright material and its compliance with editorial policy.

Professional Ethics for Editor

In their activities, members of the Editorial Board of the Journal work by following ethical principles:

  • the decision to publish copyright material is taken solely based on criteria of scientific novelty and significance of the submitted manuscript;
  • unpublished author's data received by the editorial board, are not used for personal purposes and are not transferred to third parties;
  • manuscripts not accepted for publication in the case when checking for plagiarism found exceeding the permissible level of borrowing material other publications, including copyright (self-plagiarism);
  • if necessary, the editorial board publishes corrections, clarifications, refutations, and apologies.

Editorial Board responsibility

The decision to publish materials is adopted by the editorial board taking into account the opinions of independent reviewers and following the established procedure for anonymous peer review. Editorial Board is responsible for ensuring the anonymity of reviewers.

Principles of professional reviewer ethics

In their work, the reviewers of the Journal have used the following ethical principles:

  • copyrighted materials are confidential; they are not allowed to be discussed and transferred to third parties who do not have the authority of the editorial board;
  • the research outcomes contained in the manuscript receive an objective and reasoned professional assessment, the personal criticism of the author is unacceptable;
  • unpublished data, contained in the manuscript, are not used for personal benefit;
  • there should be no conflict manuscript reviewer and author of interests.

Reviewer's Responsibility

Reviewers should evaluate materials impartially and objectively. Reviewers should inform the editorial board of all instances of their interest conflict concerning the study or funding organizations. Reviewers should follow the rules of confidentiality and not transfer the manuscript or information about it to third parties.

Ethical Principles of authors

In their work, the authors of the Journal bound by the following ethical principles:

  • authors should submit a novel and reliable results of their research; borrowed fragments are made out with the obligatory indication of the author and the source; plagiarism in any variants, including unformed quotes, paraphrasing or appropriation of rights to the results of other people's research, as well as self-plagiarism, are unacceptable;
  • authors should submit materials that have not been previously published or sent to another journal where they are currently being reviewed;
  • authors should indicate the contribution of all persons who were directly involved in the study and influenced its results;
  • authors should immediately inform the editorial board of errors made in the process of editing the manuscript or after its publication in the Journal.

Author's Responsibility

Authors undertake not to publish the submitted text before publication in the Journal. Authors agree to refer to the Journal upon future release in other editions.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the facts and data presented in the article, proper names, geographical names, and other information. Authors are obliged to refer to publications and other materials that they use in the text or that have influenced the content of the submitted article.

Checking materials for borrowing

Materials entering the journal for publication are tested for borrowings through the Rukontext system using existing search engines.

Articles containing less than 80% of the original text, as well as articles in which the result already published previously is resubmitted, are not published. The editors do not welcome the excessive amount of citations and self-citations, even  issued properly. Reviews and other kind of articles requiring more citations are reviewed individually by the editors.

Plagiarism is considered both literal and non-literal, paraphrased reproduction without indicating the source: fragments of text, formulas, tables, illustrations, etc. material; if necessary, the author independently agrees on the use of the material, providing the publisher with the written permission of the copyright holder.

Retraction of articles

Retraction (recall of an article) is applied in the case of plagiarism, the detection of a hidden conflict of interest, duplicate publications, information about the inaccuracy of the data presented in the text. Article retraction is initiated by:

  • the editorial board of the journal when it detects facts of inaccuracy of the submitted materials, information about authorship or other violations of ethical principles by the author
  • by the author of the article in case of detection of significant errors in the presented research data, the occurrence of a conflict of interest or claims of potential co-authors of the study, preference for publication in another publication, etc.
  • by third parties - participants in a potential conflict of interest, employees of other magazines, etc.

To make a decision on the retraction of the article after receiving information about one of the above cases and presenting the relevant reasoned evidence, a joint (in-person or in absentia) discussion of the situation by the editorial board and editorial board is held. The decision is made in the protocol, which provides complete information about the author and the article submitted by him, the grounds for initiating retraction, the results of the examination, the rationale for the decision, as well as information about the meeting procedure and composition of its participants. Information on recalled texts may be sent to the appropriate scientific information databases. The editorial board retains the right to decide on further cooperation with authors of retracted articles.

Open Access Policy and Copyright Protection

Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Sociology provides open access to the full texts of scientific articles on the Internet immediately after their publication (as well as to all archival materials - issues of previous years) through the site https://sociologyjournal.spbu.ru/: the contents of the journal are open on the Internet for reading, downloading, copying, distributing, printing, any users can search or link to the full texts of articles. No usage fee will be charged.

Before publication, authors of articles are required to sign a License Agreement, which reflects the mutual obligations of the magazine’s editorial staff and authors and protects copyright and intellectual property rights. The terms of the license agreement provide the authors with unlimited distribution and independent archiving of materials. This journal website and its contents are the property of St. Petersburg State University and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws.