PUBLICATION ETHICS

Publication of an article in a journal is a substantial contribution into development of world system of knowledge. Ethic norms for publications provide the high quality scientific publications, as well as the reliance to academic pursuits on the part of the society and the acknowledgement of author’s idea, explained in the article.

Editorial board of the journal «Proceedings of Petersburg Transport University» guarantees an independent and honest examination of all manuscripts, presented for publishing. The journal has no political, ideological, religious or any other preferences, thus, abides in any actions by the benefit of the Science only. Editorial board reviews the articles, not taking into account race, sex, sexual orientation, religious convictions, ethnic origin, citizenship or political preferences of authors.

Publishing ethics of the journal «Proceedings of Petersburg Transport University» is based on Singapore directive on research integrity, carried at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity (http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/8102), on the recommendations of The Committee on Publication Ethics – COPE), (http://publicationethics.org) and on the regulations of Article 70 «On copyright» of Civil law of the Russian Federation (http://www.gk-rf.ru/glava70).

Main principles

All parties, involved into the publication process (authors, reviewers, editors, members of editorial boards and publishers), should conduct themselves ethic. Articles, that do not conform to the ethic standards, are not allowed to be published.

Following is considered to be not ethical:

• Fabrication and falsification of data, presented in the article;

• Plagiarism;

• Submitting of the article to several journals;

• Duplicate publications;

• Incorrect determination of authorship.

In case of detecting any violation the Editorial board has a right to refuse the publication of the manuscript at any time, including the stage of preliminary examination of materials, without participation of reviewers, and no to take for a review any papers from unfair author during 3 years. If by chance the ethic norms violation was found after the publication of the article, the latter should be promptly withdrawn from the issue of the journal. Editorial board has a right to make a decision on applying sanctions in each case, to inform the chief editors of the journals of adjacent subject about the violation of ethic norms and regulations, as well as to disclose the names of unfair authors. Editorial board is always ready to explain its decision, as well as to offer an apology, if it is impossible to reach a compromise between intellectual and ethic norms, regarding the article, that contradicts the interests of public, human principles and morals. All correspondence, regarding the cases of ethic norms violation, should be kept in Editorial board during 3 years.

Authorship ethics

Authors confirm their authorship by the fact of submitting the materials for publication into the journal «Proceedings of Petersburg Transport University». In case of co-authors the corresponding author guarantees, that the list of authors is complete, and that all the authors approved the final edition of the article and signed their agreement for the publication, as well as the full accurate information about them is known. The list of authors is limited by those, who made a substantial scientific contribution into publication, development and implementation or interpretation of presented research. If there are any other participants of research project, they should be mentioned in Acknowledgement section or listed as assistants or sponsors. The authors guarantee, that they have written absolutely original article, and they presented the substantiation of research justification, precise input data, accurate report and objective discussion of its importance. The paper should be sufficiently detailed and has links, so that other researches might reproduce its results. The authors can be asked to provide the raw data, regarding the materials of the article, for editorial examination. These data should be prepared for a public access. Personal attacks should be avoided, as well as derogatory remarks and accusation, directed against other researchers. Any forms of aspersion, demonstrative and emotional statements, obscene words, insults, proclivities for violence and illegal acts, extremism, political and religious movements are unacceptable. In the text the sources of external information, used for its writing, are indicated in full in the form of the list of references (published, including papers of the authors, published earlier and manuscripts) and consultants (when the field researches are publishing). All borrowings should be formed as quotations and/or links. Any forms of plagiarism are unacceptable. The author should not copy the links from other publications to the papers, that the author did not familiarize himself with. Autoplagiarism, so called the attempt to repeatedly, without any significant changes, publish author’s own paper, already published earlier, including editions abroad in the foreign languages, is also unacceptable, as well as simultaneous submitting of the same paper to the journal «Proceedings of Petersburg Transport University» and to any other edition. The authors should indicate that their paper is published for the first time. If the parties of the manuscript has been published earlier in the other article, the authors should refer to this material and indicate the big difference of a new paper from the previous one, as well as provide its association with previous results of researches and conclusions. A word-to-word copying of its own papers and its rephrasing are unacceptable and can be used only as a basis for the new conclusions. In case of funding sources and other forms of support, that might be interpreted as influencing on results and its interpretation, it is necessary to indicate these sources adequately. Any sort of direct advertising of companies, its departments, results of its activity, trademarks, etc. is unacceptable. Author should accord with Editorial board any changes in the text, peer-reviewed and approved for printing. If the author finds out an essential error or inaccuracy in his published paper, he should immediately inform the Editorial board of the journal, or the publisher, and cooperate with them to eliminate the errors or inaccuracies and to correct the article. The author can refuse the publication only before his materials are not sent for editing. In case of flat refusal for publication on this stage the Editorial board has a right not to take for examination any papers from this author for up to 3 years. Materials, that are taken for printing and sent for editing, but not published yet, are not allowed to be provided for public access. In case of violation of this rule, materials are withdrawn from publication, and Editorial board reserves the right not to take for examination any papers from this author for up to 3 years.

Peer-reviewing ethics

Peer-reviewing helps to make a decision about article publication, as well as to improve the article with consent of the author. Peer-reviewing in the journal «Proceedings of Petersburg Transport University» is anonymous, so the name of the reviewer are not disclosed to the author. Reviewer can inform the author himself after final decision about material publication. Independent experts are informed about the requirements to the annotation content, due dates for a conclusion pronouncement, as well as all information about any amendments of editorial policy. Reviewer, who considers himself not qualified enough for research examination, presented in the article, or who can not be objective, for example in a case of conflict of interests with the author or the company because of competition, cooperation or any other contacts, or knows that he can not provide the conclusion in time, should inform the Editorial board, and refuse to peer-review this manuscript. The article, obtained for peer-reviewing, is a confidential document. Reviewer should not use it for personal purposes, as well as to provide it to third parties, that are not entitled by the Editorial board. The referee report should be objective and impartial. Personal critics and attacks against the author are unacceptable. Reviewers should provide their opinion accurately in a well-argued manner. Reviewer should be capable to define published papers by the subject of research, that was not quoted by authors. As accusations for plagiarism can influence a scientific career of the author, any statements that observations, research itself or its argumentation were already presented earlier, should be provided with correspondent link to the quoting source of information. If reviewer has doubts considering the data integrity or the reasonability of the publication of this scientific paper, Editorial board provides to the author the possibility to answer the questions raised Editorial board has a right to decline the services of unfair reviewer and to provide the manuscript to another independent expert.

Ethic philosophy of Editorial board

Editorial board of the journal provides the high quality published materials, meets the needs of readers and authors, and brings the substantial contribution into development of national and foreign science. By the way of guiding lines of Editorial board activity the timeliness, importance, originality, clarity, integrity, completeness, feasibility and impartiality of scientific and research materials publishing are established. Editorial board of the journal invites highly qualified experts, who play an active part in journal development, to join the Editorial team of . International editorial team of the journal «Proceedings of Petersburg Transport University» is the highest management and control body of the journal. The members of the Editorial team, by its combined group decision, have a right to freeze or to decline the material publication. Articles of the members of the Editorial team, submitted for publication, are reviewing according to the standard procedure. Editors guarantee, that all information in the articles are kept off-the-record, prior the publication in limits of existent laws of the Russian Federation. Unpublished materials, provided in articles, should not be used in personal researches of the editors without written agreement of the author. Conflict of interests between editors and authors is ruled out with certainty. In case of its originating, author’s materials are provided to the other editor. Editors check the manuscripts concerning the manipulations, plagiarism, doubled or excessive publication. Editorial board reserves the right to decline the material prior the peer-reviewing, if it would be considered as low quality or not meeting the journal requirements material, as well as in case of symptoms of aspersion, insult, plagiarism or copyrights violation. This decision is taken honestly and impartially, considering editorial policy of the journal. Editorial board guarantees independent peer-reviewing of material, providing the fairness and objectiveness of the statement, regarding the scientific importance of the article, presented for publication. Editorial board chooses reviewers, independent in respect of materials, considered for publication, that have a sufficient experience and have no conflict of interests. Based on the results of peer-reviewing the Editorial team takes a decision about approving the manuscript for publication, about its return for improvement or about its declining. Authors are informed about the final editorial decision and the reasons of its rendering. All conflicts, that might appear between the participants of editorial and publishing process, are solving with direct involvement of the Editorial team. Editorial board takes on an obligation to promptly process every complaint for improper conduct of manuscript authors and authors of already published articles in the shortest possible time, and irrespectively of the time of its obtaining to take reasonable measures in respect of these complaints. Editorial board longs to obtain an exact maximum information from the authors of disputable publication or from the copyrights owners, and examines it, considering the facts from all interested parties to provide the objectiveness. Decision of the Editorial board is impartial, objective and not influenced by third parties. While confirming the complaint evidences the Editorial board of the journal has a right to refuse the article publication, to stop further cooperation with this author, to publish a retraction, and to take other necessary measures for the further interception of improper conduct of this author. Editorial board guarantees high scientific quality of materials, published in the journal, and, if necessary, takes on an obligation to publish amendments, explanations and excuses. Editorial board places information materials for authors (list of necessary requirements for article preparation, order of examination and peer-reviewing of articles) in the journal and on the web-site http://www.izvestiapgups.org.

Editorial board provides all stages of editorial and publishing process:

• Preliminary examination of manuscripts;

• Selection reviewers considering scientific interests of the latter;

• Keeping names of reviewers in secret;

• Information of the author about the decision regarding article approval, declining or appointing the additional peer-reviewing;

• Information of members of the Editorial team with the content of the current issue;

• Direction of materials, approved for publication to editor, translator and proofreader;

• Direction of proof read materials for layout;

• Provision to the authors the final version of the article for proofreading;

• Final proofreading (revision) of the issue prior its publication on the web-site and sending its to publishing house.

To provide the integrity of published data the Editorial board takes on an obligation to integrate any related adjustments or to correct the misprints in the shortest possible time. Web-site version of the material is corrected with indication of the date of adjustment and link to the printed errata.