Based mainly on COPE’s (COPE is the abbreviation for the Committee on Publication Ethics.) Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and experience of recognized journals.

The journal “Matematychni studii” publishes only peer-reviewed papers.

All parties involved in the act of publishing, namely the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher, are assumed to follow the standards of ethical behavior.

Author

Authors should follow the commonly understood standards rigor in mathematics. The knowingly inaccurate statements are unacceptable. Any presented manuscript should be a result of the original work; if the author uses the work of others, this should be appropriately quoted. The essential contribution of others in the results or text of publication should be acknowledged. All forms and levels of plagiarism are considered as the violation of norms of mathematical community. Authors must present an objective discussion of the significance of their research work, sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Authorship should be limited to those scientists who have made a significant contribution to the reported study. All authors named on the work should have contributed to it. Conversely, all researchers who have significantly contributed should be named as authors.  If there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research, they can be named in an acknowledgement. An author who submits the paper for publication should ensure that all coauthors are included in the paper, have seen the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication. Authors should acknowledge all sources of data used in the research and cite publications that have been influential in the research work. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently is unethical and unacceptable. It is also expected that an author will not publish redundant manuscripts or manuscripts describing the same research in more than one journal. Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works. Plagiarism constitutes unethical scientific behavior and is never acceptable. Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with manuscripts for editorial review, and should prepare to provide public access to such data if possible. If an author or a third party discover a significant error or inaccuracy in the published work, it is their obligation to notify the editors and cooperate with them to either retract the paper or to publish an appropriate correction statement or erratum. Multiple submissions/publications, or redundant publications (re-packaging in different words of data already published by the same authors) will be rejected. If they are detected only after publication, the journal reserves the right to publish a Retraction Note. In each particular case Editors will follow COPE’s Core Practices and implement the advices.

If a submitted work needs revision, the authors should address all issues raised by the referees, and explain if some issues are not acted on. Changes to the manuscript should be clearly marked out. 

Conflict of interest for authors

When authors submit a manuscript, they are responsible for recognizing and disclosing financial and/or other conflicts of interest that might bias their work and/or could inappropriately influence his/her judgment. The authors must declare any conflict of interests of contributed authors very briefly in a separate paragraph at the end of the paper. Authors must identify any potential financial conflicts of interest before the review process begins. Declared conflict of interest will not automatically result in rejection of paper but the editors reserve the right to publish any declared conflict of interest alongside accepted. The following would generally be regarded as potential conflicts of interest:

1) Direct financial payment to an author for the research or manuscript production by the sponsor of a product or service evaluated in an article.
2) Ownership of shares by an author in the company sponsoring a product service evaluated in an article (or in a company sponsoring a competing product).
3) Personal consultant for companies or other organizations with a financial interest in the promotion of particular products and services.

Guidelines on Artificial Intelligence, AI tools and Authorship

These guildelines are published by COPE. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT or Large Language Models in research publications is expanding rapidly. COPE joins organisations, such as WAME and the JAMA Network among others, to state that AI tools cannot be listed as an author of a paper.

AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements.

Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.

Editor

The editor should evaluate the manuscript exclusively on the base of its content, whether or not it meets the standards of the journal. No discrimination of authors (e.g., on the base of their race, gender, citizenship) is possible. The information about a submitted manuscript is confidential and can be disclosed only to those involved in the process of publishing. The name of reviewer cannot be disclosed to others than the members of the editorial board. No unpublished material can be used by the editor in his/her own research. The editor should declare any possible conflict of interest. If there is a potential for a serious conflict of interest or loyalty, the editor should inform the editorial team. The editorial team will make the decision about further editorial activity on the paper. The editor should be aware of the problem of plagiarism and self-plagiarism. The editor should inform editorial team if he/she suspects a paper has been plagiarized or self-plagiarized.

Peer reviewer

The reviewer should have appropriate qualification in order to be able to evaluate the manuscript. The evaluation should be based exclusively on the content of the manuscript. No discrimination of the authors and no personal criticism are accepted. The reviewer should not use the material of the manuscript for his/her own research. If the conflict of interests between the author and reviewer is presented, then the reviewer is expected to inform the editor about that. The review should be prompt and objective. The journal operates a single-blind refereeing policy. So the identity of the referee is confidential to an author. But the identity of the author is known to the referee. So referee should not contact to the author and identify themselves as the referee. Any invited referee must notify the editorial staff if he feels unqualified to review a manuscript or knows that he can't do it in due time. In that case he can recommend an alternative reviewer. Any manuscripts received for review must be treated by a referee as confidential documents. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations of the referee should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments, so that the author can use them for improving the paper. A referee should be aware of the problem of plagiarism and self-plagiarism. Also a referee should identify relevant published works that have not been cited by the author(s) in an article. A referee should not consider work with manuscripts in which he may have conflict of interest. If there is a potential for a serious conflict of interest or loyalty, a referee should inform the editorial team.