Publication Ethics of the Journal “Gynecologic Oncology”

Major principles

In accordance with the international rules and regulations adopted by the leading scientific publishers such as Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and others, the Editorial Board of the Journal “Gynecologic Oncology” established major ethical principles of academic publishing which all participants of scholarly publication process – authors, editorial board members, reviewers, managing editors and the publisher - are required to observe.

1. The responsibilities of Editorial Board members and editors of the Journal

1.1. The Editor-in-Chief assigns Action Editors who are responsible for making decisions about manuscripts submitted for consideration. Editorial decisions on whether to accept or reject the manuscript for publication are based only on its scientific value, general interest and importance of the work, its relevance and significance to the scope of the Journal, the degree to which it advances knowledge, scholarly presentation. The Journal “Gynecologic Oncology” aspires to select the highest quality science.

1.2. The editors must evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy of the authors.

1.3. The Editorial Board of the Journal “Gynecologic Oncology” accepts for consideration the articles which are original and have never been published before. The Journal will publish the clinical and research articles that concern etiology, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of tumors of the reproductive system as well as research articles from any of the disciplines related to this field of interest. If significant text similarity of the submitted manuscript under consideration with previously published work is identified or it contains large sections of text duplicated from previously published articles without proper acknowledgement, the Editorial Board of the Journal “Gynecologic Oncology” reserves the right to reject the manuscript. Special attention will be paid to plagiarism in the submitted manuscript. There is zero tolerance for plagiarism in the journal “Gynecologic Oncology”.

1.4. The Editorial Board members must not disclose any information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the parties involved in the act of publishing: the author(s), the Journal editor, peer reviewers, the publisher.

1.5. The members of the Board of Editors thoroughly examine the manuscript and evaluate the original findings and ideas reported, but they must not use the unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript in their own research or to further their own interests. The use of the knowledge of the work is permitted only after its official publication with proper acknowledgement of the source in accordance with generally accepted citations guidelines.

1.6. The Journal editors must not impose on the authors the use of the citations of articles published in the Journal with the aim to improve the scientometric indicators and other qualitative indicators of the Journal.

1.7. Editors must ensure the control of accuracy and correctness of citations in the article accepted for publication.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

2.1. Authors are responsible for the content of the paper. Only original scientific research data must be reported in articles. In case materials are borrowed or adapted from other researchers, a corresponding full reference on the source must be given in the list of references at the end of the work. All the results discussed in the work must meet the criteria for reproducibility by future researchers. All methods of data processing and their logical interpretation should be absolutely transparent. .

2.2. Authors take responsibility for intended and unintended plagiarism. The unauthorized use, borrowing or reproduction of any elements of copyrighted material (text, graphs, figures, original data etc.) are absolutely unacceptable. To use information borrowed or adapted from another source, authors must obtain permission from copyright holder (usually the publisher). This is necessary even if you are the author(s) of the borrowed material. Give the source of a borrowed table in a footnote to the table, give the source of a borrowed figure in the legend of the figure. The source must also be given in the list of references. The exact wording required by the copyright holder must be used. Send copies of the letter granting permission, identified by table or figure number, to the Editorial Office at K.Zhordania@osors.com (a scanned and uploaded copy; please include the manuscript number in the subject line).

2.3. By submitting an article to the Editorial Office of the Journal “Gynecologic Oncology” authors thereby confirm that this article is not currently under consideration by any other journal and have not been previously published.

2.4. Information, obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, discussions with third parties must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts, must not be used without explicit written permission of the author of the work, involved in these services

2.5. If an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in the article which has been already published, he (she) must immediately notify the editor or the publisher and to cooperate with the editor in retracting, reviewing or making correction to the publication. If the editor or the publisher learn from the third party that the published work contains a serious error and informs the author about the error, the author must take responsibility to promptly send copies of all corrected pages or to provide evidence about the correctness and accuracy of the data presented in the article to the Editorial Board.

2.6. An author can initiate the publication of an article, that has already been published in author’s native language, in translation. Such cases are subject to special consideration by the Editorial Board in compliance with ethical principles observed by all parties involved.

2.7. All authors must declare all sources of funding for research reported in the submitted manuscript in separate footnotes on the manuscript title page. In addition, authors should identify organizations and individuals who provide research, writing or other assistance and disclose the funding source for this assistance.

3. Responsibilities of Peer Reviewers

3.1. Reviewers must strive to ensure that both appropriate expertise and appropriate objectivity are brought into the review process. Reviewers should always work to provide review that meet high standards of ethics as well as high standards of science. Evaluation of manuscript should be based on the following criteria: scientific novelty of the research, significance of the findings, the level of interest to the broad and diverse readership, the appropriateness of literature citations and the clarity and conciseness of the writing. Any decisions and judgements made on the basis of personal preferences are unacceptable. When reviewers have the conflict of interests with authors or sponsors of the research in any form, they must disclose it to the editors and recuse themselves.

3.2. Reviewers must complete their reviews within the time period specified by the Editorial Board of the Journal (one month). If it becomes impossible to complete the review on time, reviewers should inform the Editorial Office and ask for guidance whether to decline to review the manuscript or to take an additional specified period of time.

3.3. Reviewers must maintain confidentiality about the manuscripts they review and associated data. They should not show them to or discuss with others except as authorized by the editor, and must not redistribute them without permission from the Journal.

3.4. To ensure the integrity of peer review and consideration process, the peer review procedure in the Journal “Gynecologic Oncology” has 4 stages.

• 1. All manuscripts submitted to the Editorial Office of the Journal “Gynecologic Oncology” will be evaluated initially by the Editor-in-Chief or associate editors to determine whether the topic is within the scope of the journal and in what section of the Journal it may be published. Papers are also assessed for originality, scientific quality, reproductive health significance, clarity, effectiveness of presentation and conciseness. Before papers are sent for peer review, they are screened for possible plagiarism. Papers selected for review are assigned to an Associate Editor, who identifies reviewers and makes recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief.
• 2. Open Peer Review. Reviewers are experts in the field of reproductive system diseases and are qualified to conduct an impartial review of the research and findings. The reviewers’ names and affiliations are included on the peer review reports. Reviewers are also asked to declare to the editors any competing interests that might relate to articles they have been asked to review, and these are taken into account when considering reviewers’ comments. In case of a negative review or upon the recommendations of the Editorial Board the manuscript will be passed to the third stage of peer review process.
• 3. Single-blind reviewing. The reviewers are kept anonymous to the author(s), but the identity of the author is known to the reviewers. However, if reviewers wish to reveal their identities while manuscript is under consideration, this should be done via the Editor and they must provide their written consent for disclosure.
• 4. After collecting the reviewers’ reports, the Associate Editor makes a recommendation on the acceptability of the manuscript to the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board. Based on the referees’ comments and the Associate Editor’s recommendation, the Editorial Board makes a final decision on the acceptability of the manuscript and informs the authors about the decision. The final decision can be “Accept Submission”, “Revisions Required”, “Resubmit for review”, “Resubmit elsewhere”, or “Decline Submission”. A revised manuscript should be re-submitted within six months of the decision.

3.5. Reviewers have no right to use the data from the manuscript they review, to reproduce it for any purpose, to cite the manuscript or refer to the work it describes before it has been published.

4. Conflict of Interests

All participants of publication process should avoid conflict of interests in any form at all stages of article production process from submission to final publication. In case conflict of interests in any form arises, a participant in the publication process who is the first to recognize such a conflict, must immediately report it to the Editorial Board. What has been just stated must also refer to any violation of generally accepted ethical principles and standards of the scientific research community.

---