Editorial board of the online journal “Software Journal: Theory and Applications” (JSTA) relies upon traditional ethical principles of scientific periodicals and upon the set of principles of the Code of Ethics for scientific publications, developed and approved by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), enforcing compliance with these rules from all participants of the publishing process.
Principles of Professional Ethics in the Conduct of Publishers and Editors
The publisher (Research Institute “Centerprogramsystem”) and the editorial board of the online journal are responsible for copyrighted materials publishing, stipulating the need to follow fundamental ethical principles.
The editor makes an impartial decision to publish any material on the basis of submitted data reliability and scientific significance of the paper in question.
The editor may consult other editors and experts regarding decision to publish a paper.
The editor shall evaluate intellectual contents of manuscripts regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious commitment, origin, citizenship, social status or political preferences of authors.
Business and political interests shall not influence decisions to publish materials.
Unpublished data obtained from submitted manuscripts should not be used to conduct personal business or communicated to third parties without the written consent of the author. All information obtained during editing shall stay confidential.
The editor should not allow publication of any work, if there are sufficient reasons to consider it to be plagiarized.
The editor and the publisher shall not leave claims and complaints regarding reviewed manuscripts and published materials unanswered. In case a conflict situation arises they shall assume all necessary measures to restore violated rights.
Ethical Principles in the Conduct of a Reviewer
The reviewer conducts expert examination of copyrighted materials. His actions should be unbiased, implementing the following principles.
A manuscript received for review should be treated as a confidential document that cannot be passed for review or discussion to any third party, not authorized by the editor.
The reviewer is obliged to give an objective and reasoned assessment of presented research results. Personal criticism of the author shall be considered as unacceptable.
Unpublished data, obtained from submitted manuscripts, should not be used by the reviewer to conduct personal business.
A reviewer who in his own opinion does not have sufficient competence to evaluate the manuscript or cannot be objective, for example, in the event of a conflict of interests with the author or organization, should inform the editor about it and ask to exclude him from the process of reviewing that manuscript.
Principles for Authors of Scientific Publications
The author (or a group of authors) shall be aware that he is initially responsible for novelty and reliability of scientific research results, which implies that authors shall observe the following principles.
Authors of papers shall provide consistent results of researches conducted. Misinterpretations and falsified statements are unacceptable.
Authors must guarantee that results of the study, set out in the submitted manuscript, are completely original. If borrowed fragments or statements are used, respective author and the original source are required to be indicated. Excessive borrowings, as well as plagiarism in any form are unethical and unacceptable.
It is necessary to recognize the contribution of all persons who in some way influenced the course of the study. That is why the paper in particular shall contain references to the works that were of importance during the study.
The author shall not allow duplication of papers (in the covering letter it is necessary to specify that the paper is published for the first time). If some parts of the manuscript have already been published, the author shall refer to the earlier paper and indicate the difference between the new paper and the previous one.
Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time is considered as unethical behavior.
All persons, who made significant contributions to the research, shall be included as co-authors of the paper. Persons, who did not take part in the research, are not allowed to be included as co-authors.
The editors shall not be liable to third parties for breach of guarantees given by the author.
If the author finds significant errors or inaccuracies in the paper at the stage of its consideration or after its publication, he should immediately inform the editors of the online journal about it.
Conflict of Interests
In order to follow the rules of publication ethics, it is necessary to exclude the conflict of interests of all parties that take part in the process of manuscript publication. A conflict of interests may arise if the author, the reviewer or the editorial board member has financial, scientific or personal interrelations that may affect actions and decisions. The author undertakes to settle all claims independently and at his own expense.
In the event of publication ethics violation by any of the parties, involved in the editorial and publishing process, a mandatory investigation and public explanation of the conflict of interests is required.
If a material containing significant inaccuracies has been published, it should be corrected in the form that is acceptable by readers and indexing systems.