Editorial Policies

Aims and Scope

Vestnik of Samara State Technical University. Series: Psychological and Pedagogical Sciences is a peer-reviewed open access scholarly journal published quarterly. The journal serves as a forum for the presentation and discussion of original research articles, short communications, and reviews related to education and psychology fields. The target journal readership includes students, scientists and experts specializing in:

• Theory of pedagogy
• Theory and methodology of education
• Modern trends in education
• Higher school education
• Educational psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Online learning
• Social psychology
• Internationalization of education
• General psychology

Sections

Theory of pedagogy

Theory and methodology of education

Modern trends in education

Higher school education

Educational psychology

Developmental psychology

Online Learning

Social psychology

Internationalization of education

General psychology

Short communication

Peer Review Process

The Journal publishes only those articles that have successfully passed through the evaluation process. All research and review manuscripts submitted for publication in the Journal are subject to an obligatory evaluation procedure based on double-blind peer review. The evaluation procedure comprises the following steps.

1. General evaluation of the manuscripts

1.1. Within 10 working days of the manuscript submission, an Executive Editor performs an initial assessment of its compliance with the journal’s Aims & Scope and other technical requirements. Along with the initial assessment, each submitted manuscript is subject to plagiarism control (anti-plagiarism software “AntiPlagiat”, Russia).

1.2.  If any significant discrepancies are found, the author(s) will be notified and given the reasons for the rejection. The manuscripts rejected at this stage will not be peer reviewed again.

2. Peer review

2.1. If the manuscript is considered relevant to the Journal, it is sent to several external experts for peer review.

2.2. Reviewer assignments are usually made by the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, or Executive Editor.

2.3. The review process is conducted by the Editorial Board Members, as well as external reviewers, who are leading experts in the field and whose research activities align with the primary subject matter of the manuscript.

2.4. Peer review is provided free of charge and performed on a voluntary and gratuitous basis. The reviewer should withdraw an invitation if there is a clear conflict of interest that could affect the perception and interpretation of the manuscript material (reviewers should disclose scientific, financial, or other relationships with potential authors and editors of the Journal).

2.5. Peer review is conducted in accordance with a double-blind model, wherein the identity of the author(s) is concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa.

2.6. A single-blind peer review model is applied for manuscripts submitted by Editorial Board Members (reviewers do not know the authors' identity, including their affiliations).

2.7. Reviewers are reminded that manuscripts sent to them are the property of the authors and are classified as confidential information. Reviewers must refrain from any unauthorized use (including copying) of materials sent to them for peer review.

2.8. Within 14 days from the receipt of the manuscript, the reviewers should give a reasoned opinion on the possibility of its publication in the present form and present any remarks on the manuscript for its further improvement.

2.9. The purpose of peer review is to determine whether manuscripts are consistent with scientific standards. Manuscripts are peer-reviewed for scientific novelty and relevance, clarity and comprehensibility, and compliance with all ethical standards in the relevant field of research. Other objectives include promoting transparency, reproducibility, and data sharing (including proper registration of trials).

2.10. Peer reviewer's possible conclusion:

• the article can be published as it is and does not require serious revision (this decision is reached out after one or several peer review round(s));
• the article should be revised by the authors and re-evaluated in the next peer review round before a final decision is made;
• the article cannot be published due to poor quality, inconsistency with the requirements of the article design or the topic of the journal, ethical violations, evidence of falsification of results, or other reasons.

2.11. We provide all authors with access to peer-review reports. The Editor-in-Chief sends an editorial decision to the authors by e-mail, supplying with the peer review reports and further recommendations.

2.12. In the case of a negative decision, the Editor-in-Chief sends a message to the author with the peer review reports and the reasons for rejecting the manuscript. In certain cases, the rejected article may be accepted for reconsideration if all remarks and comments are adequately addressed and a rebuttal is provided. 

2.13. If the reviewer indicates that revisions are needed, the manuscript will be returned to the author(s) with the detailed  comments of the reviewer(s) attached to prepare a revised manuscript version. In the revision, the author(s) should respond to all questions, comments, and suggestions of the reviewers. If the author(s) disagree(s) with suggestions, the author(s) should clearly justify their position. The revised manuscript should be submitted to the Journal within 2 months of receiving the editorial decision. In the case of absence after this time, the manuscript will be withdrawn from the Editorial Board side. The revised manuscript and the author's response will be sent to the reviewers again for the next step of evaluation.

2.14. If the authors refuse to revise the manuscript, they should notify the Editorial Board to withdraw the article from the journal.

2.15. If the author's and reviewer's sides have irresolvable contradictions regarding the manuscript, the Editorial Board Member has the right to send the article to another reviewer. In case of conflict, the authors have the right to appeal the decision of the Editorial Board. The appeal will be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief, who will make the final decision. An appeal can only be made once.

3. Editorial board evaluation and final decision

3.1. The presence of a positive review is not a sufficient basis for publication of an article. The final editorial decision is made by the Editorial Board Members and the Editor-in-Chief, and in controversial situations only by the Editor-in-Chief. The Executive Editor will forward all manuscripts with positive reviews to the Editorial Board and Editor-in-Chief for review.

3.2. Once the Editorial Board has approved an article for publication, the Executive Editor informs the author of the decision and indicates the potential issue of the journal in which it will be published. The text of reviews is the obligatory part of these massages.

3.3. All approved manuscripts are subject to scientific editing, copyediting, layout preparation, and proofreading prior to publication. The Editorial Board reserves the right to edit the submitted articles (including their titles). Before publication, the layout of the article will be e-mailed to the corresponding author in *.pdf format for proofreading to correct possible typographical errors in the text, tables, and figures.

3.4. Accepted articles will be published in the nearest issues of the Journal in the order of their receipt. The Editorial Board has the right to change the order of publication of articles.

4. Peer-review history and distribution

4.1 Peer review reports are stored in the editorial office for five years.

4.2. Information about reviews, including the texts of reviews and contact data of reviewers, can be transferred to the Scientific Electronic Library (Russia) and other systems of accounting and evaluation of reviews (such as Publons and ORCID) by agreement with reviewers.

4.3. All rejected and withdrawn manuscripts are placed in the Editorial Board archive, to which reviewers do not have access.

Publication Frequency

Open Access Policy

By «Open access» to the Journal content we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these papers, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. (BOAI statement). The journal content is licensed according to Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

The journal content is licensed according to Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Archiving

The Journal uses the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) to digitally preserve all the published articles. The PKP PN is a part of LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) program offers decentralized and distributed preservation, seamless perpetual access, and preservation of the authentic original version of the content.

Also, the journal makes full-text archives on the Russian Science Electronic Library (http://elibrary.ru/) and Cyberleninka platforms.

Author Self-Archiving

The Journal is compliant with Platinum Open Access mode for articles distribution. The Journal recommends that data (research data, raw data, processed data, algorithms, etc.) used in the preparation of a manuscript should be deposited in an available repository that allows their maximum reuse.

Indexation

• Articles in Vestnik of Samara State Technical University. Series: Psychological and Pedagogical Sciences are indexed by The Russian Index for Science Citation (RISC) – a database which accumulates information on papers by Russian scientists, published in native and foreign titles. The RISC project has been under development by the Electronic Scientific Library foundation since 2005. elibrary.ru
• Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scientific publications of all formats and disciplines. The Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America's largest scholarly publishers.
• Cyberleninka is a scientific electronic library based on the Open Science paradigm. Its main objectives are to popularise science and research, to provide public quality control of scientific publications, to develop interdisciplinary research and the modern institute of scientific review, to increase the citation of Russian science and design the knowledge infrastructure.

• DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community, and is committed to ensuring quality content is freely available online for everyone.

Publication Ethic Policy

The Editorial Board Members of Vestnik of Samara State Technical University. Series: Psychological and Pedagogical Sciences follow the principles of transparency and best practice for scholarly publications proposed by the Committee on Publication Ethics, (COPE).

1. Ethical principles for authors

The integrity of scientific research is ensured by the authors’ following the international standards for the scientific publication preparation. The editors reserve the right to refuse to publish the paper in case of violation of the rules below.

1.1. The author submitting the manuscript for publication in the Journal ensures that it has neither been published earlier nor is currently being reviewed by the editors of any other scientific journal and possible conflicts of interest related to the copyright and publication of the manuscript in question have been resolved.

1.2. The author ensures that the manuscript is completely original, and in case of using the works of other authors, the corresponding bibliographic references are provided.

1.3. The authors of the publication can be those who have made a significant contribution to the work concept, development, execution or interpretation of the presented research. All those who have made significant contributions should be designated as co-authors. In cases where research participants have made significant contributions to a research project, they should be listed as individuals who have made significant contributions to this research.

1.4. All authors are required to reveal in their manuscripts financial or other existing conflicts of interest that may be recognized as having influenced the results or conclusions presented in the work. Potential conflicts of interest to be revealed include employment, advising, stock ownership, receiving fees, providing expert opinions, a patent application or patent registration, grants, and other financial support.

1.5. When the author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in a published work, it is the author’s obligation to notify the Editorial Board and take a joint decision about admitting the error or correcting it.  If the Editor or the Publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper.

2. Ethical principles for reviewers

Peer review of scientific papers by other researchers is an integral part of scientific communication, which allows to improve the quality and to ensure the objectivity of the research, helps make a decision on publishing the paper. All reviewers must adhere to generally accepted principles and standards in the review process.

2.1. The reviewer should agree to review only those manuscripts for the evaluation of which he has sufficient knowledge and competencies, and who can review within the proposed timeline.

2.2. The reviewer guarantees presenting an objective and fair review, the absence of unethical statements and personal criticism.

2.3. The reviewer must ensure the confidentiality of the review – non-disclosure of the manuscript details or review during or after reviewing to anyone except those authorized by the editor.

2.4 Unpublished data obtained from submitted manuscripts cannot be used in personal research without the written consent of the author. Information or ideas obtained during the review process and related to possible benefits should be kept confidential and not used for the personal gain.

2.5. The reviewer should declare all possible conflicts of interest and seek for the advice from the editors of the Journal in case of doubt whether the situation is a conflict of interest or not. Reviewers should not participate in the review of manuscripts if there is a conflict of interest due to the competitive, collaborative and other interactions and relationships with any of the authors, companies or other organizations related to the submitted work.

3. Ethical principles for editorial stuff

Editorial staff of the Journal follows the rules of editorial policy that contributes to the objective and high-quality research.

3.1. The Editorial Board implements an independent policy for the selection and publication of scientific research materials and guarantees the compliance of published materials with the accepted international standards and ethical principles.

3.2. The Editorial Board makes a decision on publishing or rejecting the work based on its intellectual content, relevance, reliability of the information contained and its compliance with the subject of the Journal, regardless of race, religion, ethnic origin, citizenship or political views of the author.

3.3. The editors of the Journal can make changes to the materials and give refutations (up to the withdrawal of papers), when necessary, and also do not disregard cases of illegal behavior in conducting research and publishing their results.

3.4. The editorial board makes honest and objective decisions regardless of commercial considerations, provides a qualified and objective review of the manuscript and ensures the confidentiality of the review process.

3.5. The editors protect the authors’ reputation and consider all cases of plagiarism and other facts of unacceptable behavior during publication. The editors of the Journal have the right to refuse to publish the manuscript provided and to withdraw the publication in cases mentioned above.

The editors reserve the right not to respond to accusations of plagiarism, if the prosecutor provides false personal information (for example, seems to be a fictitious name) or acts in an unethical form. The editors are not obliged to discuss cases of alleged plagiarism with persons who are not directly related to it.        

When reviewing papers, the native Russian-language plagiarism detection software “AntiPlagiat” is used to screen the submissions.

4. The order of papers retraction from the Journal

In the case of situations involving violations of publication ethics, the editors of the Journal act in accordance with the Guidelines for Papers Retraction of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE Retraction Guidelines) and the Rules of Papers Retraction from publication ASEP.

The paper retraction is carried out according to the official appeal of the editors or the author. Anonymous appeals, as well as appeals of persons who are not directly related to the issue, are not considered. The reasons for the paper retraction are:

         1) the presence of plagiarism in the paper (including borrowing drawings, graphs, tables, etc.), if the fact of plagiarism was discovered after the publication of the paper;

      2) the emergence of claims concerning the copyright to the paper or its individual parts by third parties;

         3) publication of the paper in other edition before the date of its publication in the Journal;

         4) the presence of serious errors in the published paper that puts its scientific value in doubt.

Under such circumstances, the Editorial Board of the Journal arrange the control procedure, on the results of which the paper can be withdrawn. The author of the paper is sent a letter with the information about the reasons for the paper retraction.

The paper is not physically removed from the published edition or from the site of the Journal. The editors publish a statement on the paper retraction and place it on the appropriate content page of the issue on the official journal website.

Information about retracted papers is sent to the National Electronic Library (elibrary.ru), to the Council on the Ethics of Scientific Publications (to put information into the unified database of retracted papers).

The Editorial Board will pay close attention to all reasonable appeals about the violations found in the published materials. The editors consider the author and the reviewer to be responsible for informing the editorial staff as soon as possible about the missed errors and violations that they discovered after the paper publication.

5. Privacy Statement

5.1. The following information about the authors, including their names, affiliation, contact information, information about the position and academic degree, links to author profiles, is placed in the in the section “Information about the author”.

5.2. The passport data and place of residence of the authors, submitted to the Editorial Board of the Journal, are used exclusively for licensing agreements and forwarding correspondence and are not transferred to third parties.

5.3. Names of reviewers are not reported to authors and third parties.

 

Authorship and contributorship

The Journal follows the concept of authorship provided by the Council of Science Editors (CSE) “Authors are individuals identified by the research group to have made substantial contributions to the reported work and agree to be accountable for these contributions. In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which of their co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, an author should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors. All authors should review and approve the final manuscript.” (https://bit.ly/2Z8btRH) (COPE Discussion document: authorship

       In accordance with this statement the author(s) should provide acknowledgement to those who made contributions to the research, even if not listed as an author. This information should be presented in an acknowledgement section of the manuscript. Therefore, the authorship should meet the following criteria:

(1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

(2) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

(3) Final approval of the version to be published; AND

(4) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. 

AI or AI-assisted tools cannot be included in the manuscript authorship. The authorship of the manuscript must be attributed solely to humans. AI and AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as author(s) or co-author(s) due to their inability to meet the criteria for authorship: they cannot take responsibility for the work, provide consent for publication, manage copyright, or be involved in issues related to conflicts of interest. 

 

Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest is a discrepancy between the private interest (competing interest) of an individual and his/her ability to act as an unbiased author, editor, or reviewer. The most common cases of conflicts of interests are:

• Financial ties - when authors receive funding from an organization with an interest in the particular outcome of the work;
• Affiliation - when an author is an employee or a member of an organization with an interest in the particular outcome of the work.

A сonflict of interest is considered problematic when it prevents the research conducted from being impartial. Therefore, it is advisable to proactively disclose a potential сonflict of interests. The established guidelines for disclosing such conflicts, as outlined in the Journal, are presented below.

Authors 
Authors are required to disclose interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. The disclosure of such interests ensures a complete and transparent process, thereby enabling readers to make their own judgements about potential bias.

Reviewers
A reviewers should not be involved in the peer review process if:

• A reviewer is a co-author of the current submission;
• A reviewer has collaborated with any author within the last 5 years;
• A reviewer has a financial (or other competing) interest;
• A reviewer feels unable to be completely objective in judgements.

Editorial Board Members

Editorial Board Members are responsible for declaring any conflict of interests. In case a conflict of interests exists, the Editorial Board Member will be suspended from the peer review process. In addition, he/she shall be excluded from handling manuscripts if:

• the Editorial Board Member is a co-author of the current submission;
• the Editorial Board Member has a financial (or other related) interest.

If the Editorial Board Member is an author of a submitted manuscript, the Editor-in-Chief will be assigned to manage the peer review process. If the Editor-in-Chief is an author of a submitted manuscript, the manuscript will be handled by one of the Editorial Board Members.

Editorial Board Members’ submissions will not be given any priority over other manuscripts, and EBM status will not affect editorial consideration.

Correction and retraction policy

Changes in the manuscript accepted for publication which went through the stages of peer review fall into one of three categories:

1.  Addendum, 
2.  Publisher Correction (Erratum), 
3.  Author Correction (Corrigendum).

Decisions about types of correction are made by the Journal's editors, sometimes with the advice of reviewers or Editorial Board Members. This process involves consultation with the authors of the paper, but the editors/ Editorial Board Members make the final decision about the necessity of the amendment and the category in which the amendment is published.

1.  Addendum.
   Adding new material to the accepted paper that supplements its original content (addendum) requires mandatory reviewing. Additional material is uploaded on the Journal's website as a new manuscript with a link to the original paper.
   If the new material should replace the original content of the accepted paper, the editor may consider the publication of an erratum or a corrigendum.
2. Publisher Corrections (Erratum) is published in case of an error (typo, missed change) introduced by the Journal in production, which is significant and affects the reader’s understanding. Corrections are not published for simple, obvious typographical errors.
3. Author Corrections (Corrigendum). If the author(s) consider(s) it necessary to make corrections after the publication of the paper (corrigendum), it is necessary to send a  request (by email) with justification to the editorial office of the Journal. The final decision on the publication of the correction (corrigendum) is made by the editors of the Journal and the Editorial Board Members after assessing the impact of the change on the scientific accuracy and significance of the published paper. In some cases, the identification of serious errors and inconsistencies in the published paper may require its retraction.

Retraction policy

According to the recommendations of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE Council. COPE Retraction guidelines — English. https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4 ), the withdrawal of the text from the publication (retraction) is possible to correct the published information and notify readers that the publication contains serious flaws or erroneous data that cannot be trusted. Data inaccuracy may result from misconception or deliberate breach.

Retraction is also used to warn readers about cases of redundant publication, plagiarism, peer review manipulation, reuse of material or data without authorization, copyright infringement, unethical research, and/or a failure to disclose a major competing interest that would have unduly influenced interpretations or recommendations.

According to COPE Retraction Guidelines, the Journal considers retracting a publication in the following cases: 

• there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable or a result of a major error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error), or of fabrication (e.g., of data), or falsification (e.g., image manipulation);
• there is a detection of incorrect borrowings (plagiarism) in the publication;
• the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication);
• it contains material or data without authorization for use;
• the copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (e.g., libel, privacy);
• it reports unethical research;
• it has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process;
• the author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.

If the authors finds it necessary to retract the article, they should contact the editorial office, explaining the reason for their decision. If the Editorial Board agrees to retraction, then it independently retracts the text.

If the Editorial Board Member decides to retract the article based on its expertise or information received by the Editorial Board, the author(s) is(are) informed of this decision, with a justification for retraction of the article. If the author(s)  ignore(s) the editorial request, it is appropriate to seek assistance from the Council on the Ethics of Scientific Publications.

Having decided to retract the article, the Editorial Board Members indicate the reason for the retraction (if plagiarism is found, indicating the sources of borrowing), as well as the date of retraction. The article and the description of the article remain on the Journal's website as part of the corresponding issue of the Journal, but the inscription RETRACTED and the retraction date are applied to the electronic version of the text, the same mark is placed with the article in the table of contents of the issue.

The Council for the Ethics of Scientific Publications and the Scientific Information Base (NEB, CyberLeninka) is provided with a protocol, which indicates the date of the meeting, the results of the examination, the decision and reasons for it, and a completed form.

 

Appeals and Corrections

Editors reserve the right to reject submission if they do not meet the scope of the Journal and all manuscripts which do not follow the formatting and submission requirements will be returned to the author(s) for appropriate revision. Ethical oversight is the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief and any questions or comments should be directed to this position. 

Author(s) should promptly inform the Editor of any uncovered error(s) in a published manuscript and cooperate with the editorial team in retraction or correction of the manuscript. All appeals and complaints to the Journal will be handed by the Editor-in-Chief.

Post-publication discussions and corrections. If a correction is needed, the Journal will follow these minimum standards. The Journal will publish a correction notice as soon as possible detailing changes from and citing the original publication. The revised article with details of the changes from the original version and the date(s) on which the changes were made will be posted.  The DOI will be redirected to the most recent version.

Publication Fees

Publication in Vestnik of Samara State Technical University. Series: Psychological and Pedagogical Sciences is free for authors. The Journal charges no publication fees from authors, including those of peer-review management, manuscript processing, journal production, Open-Access, online hosting and archiving.

Generative AI Applications

Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies may be used in academic writing to improve the readability and language of the manuscript, including English grammar, syntax, and spelling. In this case, no declaration is required to be stated from the author(s)' side.  

In other cases, authors must declare the use of generative AI technologies (including ChatGPT tools) and inform the Editor-in-Cheif in any appropriate form when submitting the manuscript. A possible statement is as follows: 'During the preparation of this paper, we used [name of tool/service] for [reason]. After using this tool/service, we reviewed and edited the content as necessary and take full responsibility for the content of the published article.' This means that the use of AI technologies must be accompanied by human oversight and control. Authors should thoroughly review and edit the output, as AI-generated text can often be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Authors are solely responsible and accountable for the content of their work. 

If the manuscript includes images generated or modified by Generative AI or AI-assisted tools, authors must inform the Editor-in-Cheif in any appropriate form, providing a detailed description of when and how the tools were used. Furthermore, the authors must confirm that they have obtained all necessary rights for the use of such materials.