Publication Ethics

• Responsibility of the Journal’s Editors
• Responsibility of the Journal’s Authors
• Responsibility of the Journal’s Reviewers
• Disclosure policy and conflicts of interest
• Plagiarism detection

Vestnik MGSU is a scholarly journal that has no political, ideological, confessional and other preferences and is guided exclusively by the benefit of science and society. All parties to the process of open scientific communication – authors, members of the Editorial Board, Editorial Council and the Editorial Team, the Editor-in-Chief, the Editors the Journal’s scientific sections and Reviewers – should make every reasonable effort to adhere to the following Publication Ethics policy.

The Journal’s Publication Ethics policy is based on contemporary legal norms protecting intellectual property, the Code of Publication Ethics formulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Declaration on the Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications, adopted by the Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers. The requirements of compliance with publication ethics in the preparation and publication of the Journal concern all the participants of the editorial and publishing process.

Responsibility of the Journal’s Editors

The Editors of the Journal acknowledge their responsibility to authors, reviewers, readers, the Founders and the Publisher, as well as to the wider scientific community, for the content of all published materials.

The Editor-in-Chief bears full responsibility for making the final decision on publication on the basis of the quality of the materials submitted by the author, the reviewer(s)’ recommendations, the opinions of the Editorial Board members and the Editor of the corresponding scientific section.

Preliminary work on preparing a manuscript, which has been submitted to the Journal for publication, is carried out jointly by the Editorial team and the Editor of the corresponding scientific section. The Editors are responsible for the compliance of the manuscript in question with current requirements and standards in the field of scientific communication, as well as for organizing communication with the author(s). The Editor of a scientific section is responsible for the preliminary review of the submitted manuscript and its subsequent recommendation to the Editorial Board and the Editor-in-Chief for consideration.

The Editors are responsible for the compliance of the published materials with the thematic scope of the Journal, management of the peer-review process, plagiarism detection, as well as for establishing communication between authors and reviewers.

The Editors shall not disclose information about the accepted manuscript prior to its publication with the exception of participants in the editorial and publishing process.

The Editors are responsible for formulating clear requirements to the submitted materials and for efficient communication with the author(s), reviewer(s), Editorial Team, Editorial Board members and the Editor-in-Chief at all the stages of the publication process.

The Editors reserve the right to withdraw an article from publication at any stage of its consideration in cases when violation of publication ethics has been detected (plagiarism, multiple publications, false information).

The Editors shall not publish the final version of any article without the consent of its authors.

Responsibility of the Journal’s Authors

A research article (article) is an author’s completed work either describing the results of an original scientific study (an original research article) or analysing previously published scientific articles related to a particular topic (a review scientific article).

The author(s) of a research article is a person (group of people) having made a substantial contribution to either research design and conception, data collection and treatment, the analysis and interpretation of the results, or drafting the manuscript.

Authors are held responsible for the accuracy, validity and completeness of the information presented in their scientific article. The author submitting a manuscript for consideration to Vestnik MGSU (referred to as Corresponding author) guarantees that all the persons who have made a significant contribution to the research presented in the manuscript have been named as co-authors and that all named co-authors have expressed their consent to publication and to being named as a co-author. The Corresponding author must ensure that all co-authors have approved of the final version of the manuscript and expressed their consent to publication.

Authors must immediately inform the Editor-in-Chief about any errors that have been revealed in their work, at any stage of the publication process with a view to correcting these errors or retracting the published article.

Authors must disclose any tangible or intangible conflicts of interest that could have had an impact on the research results and their interpretation, including cooperation with third-party and funding organizations (such as research grants, conference presentations, lecturing, training seminars, consultations).

Authors must notify the Editors of their other publications on a related topic being considered for publication (not published yet) in other journals. By submitting their manuscript to Vestnik MGSU, Authors confirm that it has not previously been published and is not under consideration in any other journal.

Authors must take the necessary steps to ensure the correctness of citations in the submitted article. Correct bibliographic references to the sources of borrowed illustrations, graphs, tables or other materials must be provided. When using information obtained from confidential sources, the authors are required to obtain appropriate consent.

Authors must never borrow another person’s work or part thereof without reference to the primary source. Prior to publication of their manuscript, Authors must provide their full and unconditional consent with the Journal’s editorial policy by signing the author’s agreement (public offer) about granting non-exclusive rights of first publication to Vestnik MGSU.

Responsibility of the Journal’s Reviewers

A Reviewer is a specialist performing evaluation of materials submitted to the Journal in his/her field of scientific expertise.

Reviewers assume responsibility for preparing an objective independent review of the presented scientific study, including reasoned comments and recommendations, as well as general recommendations on the possibility of publishing the submitted manuscript.

Reviewers shall never use the information obtained from the article for any personal and/or commercial purposes. Reviewers must express their opinion clearly and comprehensively, refraining from any personal criticism of the author.

Reviewers must declare any potential conflicts of interest prior to agreeing to review a manuscript, including any relations with the author that might potentially bias their decision.

Reviewers execute their duties on a voluntary and non-commercial basis. They are free to refuse from conducting peer review for any reasons, including ethical ones.

Disclosure policy and conflicts of interest

The Editorial Team of Vestnik MGSU believes it inadmissible to use submitted manuscripts without a written consent of their authors for any purposes other than their evaluation for subsequent publication in the Journal.

When submitting a manuscript for consideration, the author(s) must disclose any relationships that may have had an impact on the results of the study or their interpretation (conflict of interest), including cooperation with third-party organizations or funding bodies (including research grants, conference presentations, lecturing or consulting services), as well as other relationships or actions that may be perceived as having affected or potentially having affected the results of the presented work.

Reviewers must refuse from considering manuscripts, in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive or other relations with any of the authors, companies or institutions involved in the research.

By submitting a manuscript to a reviewer for evaluation, the Editors confirm that the conflicts of interest (if any) declared by the reviewer will not affect the quality of peer review.

A specialist having competitive or other relations with the author or organizations associated with the research presented in the manuscript cannot act as its reviewer.

When submitting a manuscript, the author(s) may ask the Editors to exclude certain specialists from the list of potential reviewers on the basis of tangible or intangible conflicts of interest.

Editors and reviewers should declare a potential conflict of interest that could affect the publication decision of the Editorial Board.

When there is a conflict of interest between the editor or the reviewer and the author(s) of the manuscript, the manuscript is transferred to another editor or reviewer for consideration.

Evaluation of the manuscript must have an unbiased character. The presence of any conflict of interest, as claimed by any of the participants in the publication process, should not in itself lead to the rejection of the manuscript, since its scientific quality and rigour must be the priority evaluation criterion.

Plagiarism detection

The Journal accepts for publication only manuscripts describing the results of original research that have not been previously published. Correct bibliographic references to all materials used in works submitted to Vestnik MGSU, including borrowed illustrations, graphs or tables, are obligatory. When using information obtained from confidential sources, the authors are required to obtain appropriate consent from the copyright holder(s).

Before forwarding to peer review, all the submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using the Anti-Plagiarism.VUZ software (manuscripts in Russian), Google Scholar (manuscripts in English) and other Internet instruments. In cases when the Editorial Team has grounds for suspicions, additional tools can be applied.

In the case of reasonable suspicions of plagiarism or use of technical tricks concealing plagiarism, the submitted manuscripts are not accepted for further consideration. The authors are forwarded a notification about the refusal to consider their manuscript due to the suspicion of plagiarism. When plagiarism is identified in an already published article, such an article is removed from publication without its deletion from the Journal’s website or other bibliographic databases. A retraction note is published alongside the original publication comprising a statement about the presence of plagiarism according to the Retraction policy.

In cases when any form of plagiarism has been detected or suspected, the Editors shall withdraw such papers from any stage of the publication process, even after the publication of the article. In the latter situation, the Editors apply the mechanism of retraction as described in the Retraction Policy.

All instances of plagiarism in a submitted manuscript are considered individually.

Plagiarism may take various forms:

• use of any published materials (word-by-word citation) without indicating the primary source;
• use of images, drawings, photographs, tables, graphs, diagrams and any other forms of graphical presentation of information without indicating the source;
• use of any materials published in scientific and popular editions without approval of the copyright holder;
• lack of the graphic highlighting of a literally quoted text in the presence of links to the source;
• incorrect citation, including incomplete bibliographic description of the source, which prevents its identification;
• lack of the graphic highlighting of a literally quoted text in the presence of links to the source;
• eference not to the primary source of the borrowed text without clear indication of this fact, which may result in mistakes with the determination of the primary source;
• absence of in-text references to the sources listed in the bibliography of the paper;
• excessive citation not justified by the objectives and genre of the paper.

Peer review

Peer review

Peer review is a process of evaluating the quality of scholarly manuscripts submitted to a scientific journal by specialists in the same subject area. The principal aim of peer review is to obtain an expert opinion on the validity and accuracy of the presented data, the level of scientific rigour and novelty, as well as the theoretical and practical significance of the conducted study.

All manuscripts submitted to Vestnik MGSU undergo obligatory single-blind peer review, which implies that the reviewers’ identities remain anonymous to the authors throughout the publication process. Editors are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the Reviewer’s identity.

A submitted manuscript is forwarded for peer review under the condition of its strict compliance with the requirements for manuscripts formulated in the Guide for authors. The details of the peer-review process can be found in For Reviewer.

The Reviewer is selected by the Editor supervising a respective research section of the Journal from specialists having scientific expertise in the subject area of the submitted manuscript. A specialist having competitive or other relations with the author(s) or organizations associated with the research presented in the manuscript cannot act as a Reviewer, which requirement is strictly controlled by the Editors.

When selecting a reviewer, the editorial team relies on modern software that systematizes the scientific activities of the researcher. The selection of an independent reviewer is carried out using advanced information services that range researchers’ academic careers: WoS / Scopus, Publons, ResearcherGate, and such.
The editors, based on the works presented in the profile of Publons, ORCID, or others, prepare proposal invitations for scientists to join the editorial board as reviewers. The editors obtain contact information from open sources (the website of the organization where the reviewer works, the ORCID profile, or the contact information specified in the publications).

In conducting peer review, Reviewers must adhere to Requirements for the Journals’ Reviewers formulated in the Journal’s Publication Ethics and the For Reviewers section. In their work, Reviewers must be guided by the principles of confidentiality, objectivity, impartiality, as well as clarity and reasoned expression of their opinion, recognition of primary sources.

Prior to forwarding the manuscript for review, the Journal’s Editor contacts a potential reviewer and discusses the possibility of peer review evaluation. Reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest when agreeing to evaluate the proposed manuscript.

Reviewers are free to refuse from conducting a review for any reason.

Upon receiving the Reviewer’s consent, the Editor forwards the manuscript in question to the Reviewer along with (if any) accompanying materials submitted by the author (drawings, tables, multimedia data, etc.) for evaluation.

When conducting analysis, Reviewers are requested to focus on the following aspects:

• correspondence of the manuscript content to its title;
• correspondence of the manuscript content to the Journal’s remit;
• originality, novelty, theoretical and practical significance of the findings;
• quality of material presentation (both text and diagrams, tables, formulas, figures);
• appropriateness of the chosen research methodology to the formulated tasks.

On the basis of the conducted analysis of the manuscript, the Reviewer decides:

• to recommend the manuscript for publication without revision
• to recommend the manuscript for publication with revision
• to forward the manuscript for additional review;
• to reject the manuscript.

The Editor sends the results of the examination to the authors of the submitted manuscript via email.

Reviews are normally completed within the period of up to 4 weeks. However, upon the request of the reviewer(s), or if an additional expert evaluation is required, the peer-review period can be extended. The author/s are notified in writing on the extension of the peer-review period.

Reviews are carried out on a non-commercial basis.

In some cases, when the Reviewer has not recommended the manuscript for publication, the Editorial board has the right to send it to one more reviewer for additional evaluation.

In the case where the reviewer/s have recommended revisions, the Journal requests the author/s either to make the necessary corrections or argue them reasonably. The revised version of the manuscript is re-submitted within the period of maximum 2 months for final assessment. The revised manuscript is additionally sent for review.

Manuscripts that have been rejected following the peer-review process cannot be re-submitted to Vestnik MGSU.

When the manuscript receives an overall positive conclusion, although along with a large number of critical comments, it can be published under the rubric of Scientific Discussions.

Positive reviews do not guarantee the acceptance, since the final decision on the publication liesexclusively with the Editorial Board.

Reviews are stored in the Journal’s Editorial Office for five years and sent to the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation on request.

Policy of Retraction

Policy of Retraction

The mechanism of retraction (withdrawal from press) in compliance with the COPE protocol is applied in cases when the Editorial Board:

• reveals the fact of plagiarism in a published article, including incorrect borrowings of drawings, graphs, tables, etc.
• receives claims concerning copyright to the published article or its parts by third parties;
• receives evidence of multiple publications or multiple submissions;
• receives evidence of the presence of erroneous data in a published article casting doubt on its scientific value.

In such circumstances, the Editorial Board initiates an investigation, following which the article can be withdrawn from press. This fact is confirmed by an act signed by the Editor-in-Chief, a copy which is forwarded to the author(s) of the article under retraction.

Retraction does not imply deletion of the publication from the Journal’s website and corresponding bibliographic databases. A retraction note is published alongside the original publication. The original article is retained unchanged, except for a watermark on the .pdf indicating “retraction”. Information about retracted papers is presented on the Journal’s website.

The Editors carefully and responsibly consider all reasoned complaints regarding violations discovered in published materials. All parties to the publication process (authors, reviewers, etc.) must inform the Editors without delay of any erroneous information or violations that have been identified after the publication of the article.

Business model

Founders and Publisher

Founders:

• Federal State Budget Educational Institution of Higher Education «Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (National Research University)» (MGSU)
• ASB Publishing House, LLC.

Publisher: Moscow State (National Research) University of Civil Engineering (NRU MGSU)

Periodicity 12 issues per year

Charge policy

The Publisher bears all the expenses associated with the editorial and publishing preparation of manuscripts accepted for publication, including those involved in typesetting, printing, distribution and archiving.

The Journal provides services concerned with the technical preparation of articles in accordance with the established requirements. The charge for these services is determined by the Publisher’s local regulatory act.

Open access policy and License information

Vestik MGSU publishes its content in open access, which means that all the content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

All articles published in the Journal are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 BY-NC , which permits readers to use its content for non-commercial purposes under the condition of providing a proper attribution to the work in the manner specified by the licensor.

Pre-print and post-print policy

By submitting a manuscript for consideration to Vestnik MGSU, the author(s) thereby confirm(s) that the submitted text has not been previously published or is not under consideration by any other journal.

Prior to submission and publication in Vestnik MGSU, authors are allowed to make their manuscripts available as preprints on personal or public websites not belonging to other publishers.

In cases when the Editors reveal the fact of multiple publications or submissions, such articles can be retracted (withdrawn from press).

Archiving and indexing

The Journal’s content is forwarded for full-text archiving and permanent open access to:

• by RINC, Russian Index of Scientific Citations
• Russian open access scientific library CyberLeninka

The journal is listed in the following academic databases and information systems:

• VINITI
• UlrichsWeb Global Serials Directory
• Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ
• UIndex Copernicus ICV 2012: 3.65
• Google Scholar
• Microsoft Academic Search
• Academic Resource index ResearchBib

The journal is listed on the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) on the Web of Science platform (Список журналов RSCI).

Article identification policy

All articles published in Vestnik MGSU are assigned with individual DOIs (Digital Object Identifier).