Academic Integrity Violations Policy

Academic integrity is extremely important for the development of science, scientific publications, and universities. Authors' compliance with the requirements of academic integrity is a guarantee of the successful development of the journal, increasing its citation rate, and expanding its readership.

 

According to subparagraph 31 of paragraph 1 of Article 58 of the Law of Ukraine "On Higher Education", scientific-pedagogical, scientific, and pedagogical workers are obliged to: “observe academic integrity in the educational process and scientific (creative) activities and ensure its observance by higher education seekers.”

In accordance with Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine "On Education" and subparagraph 2 of Article 1 of the Law of Ukraine "On Academic Integrity," “academic integrity is a set of ethical principles and rules defined by law that participants in the educational process must follow during learning, teaching, and conducting scientific (creative) activities in order to ensure trust in the results of learning and/or scientific (creative) achievements.”

Article 8 of the Law of Ukraine "On Academic Integrity" defines academic integrity in the creation and dissemination of academic works:

  1. When creating an academic work, the author must adhere to the values, principles, and rules of academic integrity. If the academic work uses the results of intellectual creative activity (text, image, idea, development, statement, information, opinion, etc.) of another person, this must be indicated in the academic work with a reference to the relevant source of information and/or the relevant author. The reference to the source of information must be made in a way that allows distinguishing the author's contribution in the academic work from the results of the intellectual creative activity of other persons.
  2. The academic work must contain reliable information and must not contain fabricated or falsified information by the author. In the case of presenting assumptions or unproven statements, this must be indicated in the academic work.
  3. All authors of the academic work must be indicated in the disseminated academic work.
  4. In the case of using an object generated by artificial intelligence in the academic work, the author must report this in the work, indicating the generation methodology and/or a reference to the relevant computer program or its description in accordance with the requirements for the formatting and/or dissemination of the relevant academic works established by the relevant academic entity.
  5. In the disseminated academic work, in addition to the authors, other persons who participated in the work on it (providing recommendations, consulting, editing, formatting, conducting experiments, calculations, translation, etc.) must also be indicated, with a specification of the nature of each such person's contribution. Information about the reviewer(s) of the academic work may not be disclosed in accordance with the publisher's editorial policy.
  6. In the case of an author using their own previously published scientific results (partially or fully) in a new academic work, this must be necessarily indicated in the new academic work.

Violations of academic integrity that may be detected during the editorial and publishing process include:

  1. alienation of authorship — transfer by the author(s) of an academic work (or its part) created by them (on commission or without such commission, for a fee or free of charge) to another person and subsequent dissemination of such academic work (or its part) indicating as the author a person who is not its author;
  2. academic plagiarism — dissemination (partially or fully) of a scientific (creative) result obtained by another person (other persons) as a result of one's own academic activity and/or reproduction in an academic work (partially or fully) of a previously disseminated (published) work of another author (other authors) without reference to the relevant source of information and/or its author(s) (if information about the author(s) is available), and/or dissemination in an academic work of a translation of a foreign-language work (or its part) without indicating the author(s) of the translated work;
  3. attribution of authorship — dissemination of a work in which a person who did not participate in its creation is listed among the authors;
  4. self-plagiarism — dissemination (partially or fully) of one's own previously published scientific results without indicating information about the source of previous dissemination;
  5. fabrication — invention by an academic entity of data or facts about the results of their own academic activity;
  6. falsification — deliberate alteration or modification of existing data that leads to the creation of knowingly false information regarding the results of academic activity;
  7. dishonest use of results generated by artificial intelligence — deliberate violation of evaluation requirements defined by this Law, legislation, internal acts, competition conditions, which led to overestimation or underestimation of the evaluation of academic activity results.

According to the Ethical Code of the University Community, members of the university community are obliged to:

  • uphold the values of academic integrity and comply with its rules in all types of activities within the university space and beyond (para. 2.15);
  • care for personal and university scientific reputation in the organization and conduct of scientific and technical activities (para. 2.18);
  • consider it unacceptable to provide false information regarding one's own educational, scientific, creative activities and their results, appropriation of authorship of texts, including academic ones, performed by other persons (para. 2.19).

All reports of violations of academic integrity must be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief. In case of suspicion of a violation of academic integrity, the Editors-in-Chief will act in accordance with the relevant COPE guidelines and the internal documents of the publication's founder — the Ethical Code of the University Community and the Regulations on Ensuring Compliance with Academic Integrity at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

If reviewers or editors provide comments regarding a potential violation of academic integrity, the authors will be asked to provide explanations. If the explanations are satisfactory and the issue results from an error or misunderstanding, the problem can be easily resolved. If not, the manuscript will be rejected or retracted, and the editorial board may impose a ban on the publication of such author(s) in the journal for a certain period of time.

In the case of published plagiarism or duplicate publication in multiple journals, an announcement will be made explaining the situation.

If the allegations concern the authors, the review and publication process of their submission will be suspended until the completion of the specified process. An investigation will be conducted even if the authors withdraw the manuscript.

If the allegations concern reviewers or editors, they will be replaced in the review process during the ongoing investigation of the case.

For violations of academic integrity, authors, reviewers, and/or editors may be subject to the following academic liability:

  • refusal to publish with notification to the institution — the primary affiliation of the author or reviewer — regarding the violation of academic integrity detected during the editorial process;
  • deprivation of the editor or reviewer of the right to participate in the work of the publication's editorial board.

The procedure for considering violations of academic integrity by authors, editors, reviewers of the scientific journal — employees of the University — in accordance with paragraph 5.2 of the Ethical Code of the University Community provides for the participation of the head of the relevant University unit where the accused person or group of persons works, as well as the Editor-in-Chief, responsible editor of the journal, and employees of the Coordination Center.

Every person regarding whom a question has been raised about violating academic integrity / failing to comply with academic integrity has the following rights:

  • to familiarize themselves with all materials of the inspection regarding the establishment of the fact of violation of academic integrity and to submit comments on them;
  • personally or through a representative to provide oral and written explanations or refuse to provide any explanations, to participate in the examination of evidence of violation of academic integrity;
  • to know the date, time, and place and to be present during the consideration of the issue of establishing the fact of violation of academic integrity and bringing them to academic liability;
  • to appeal the decision on bringing to academic liability to the body authorized to consider appeals or to a court (para. 8 of Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine "On Education").

"Honest mistake" or differences of opinion do not constitute violations of academic integrity.