Journal Review Policies

The journal considers only manuscripts that correspond to its scientific subject matter. The editorial board has the right to reject an article without sending it for review if it does not correspond to the profile of the publication or its policy.

All manuscripts submitted to the journal undergo a mandatory review procedure, regardless of who the author is (including materials submitted by members of the editorial board or the editor-in-chief).

To ensure the objectivity and impartiality of the editorial decision, our editors recuse themselves from the decision-making process regarding those articles where a conflict of interest arises. This applies to materials written by themselves, their relatives, colleagues, or those related to their personal commercial interest.

The main goal of the review is to prevent unfair academic practice. Furthermore, reviewing ensures the objective evaluation of the content of the scientific article, its compliance with the journal's standards, and confirms the high scientific level of the publication.

The task of reviewing is to provide constructive suggestions for improving the quality and scientific significance of the submitted work. The review procedure involves a maximally objective assessment of the article's content, verification of its compliance with the journal's requirements, and a thorough analysis of its strengths and weaknesses. Only materials that have significant scientific value and effectively contribute to solving current issues in the field of pedagogical science and practice are admitted for publication.

When considering a manuscript for publication, the editorial board is guided by a number of key criteria. Primarily, the work is evaluated on how capable it is of interesting a broad audience and stimulating discussion. The article must offer original ideas and interpretations, rather than simply repeating known provisions. The manuscript must make a substantial contribution to the development of the relevant scientific direction. A necessary condition is the thoroughness of the research, which is manifested in careful work and correct, reliable interpretation of sources. Finally, the text must be accessible and understandable to the broad educational community, not just to narrow specialists.

The review procedure does not extend to materials that by their nature are not original scientific research, in particular editorial articles and announcements. The decision on their acceptance for publication is made by the editorial board based on their relevance and compliance with the journal's policy.

The editorial board supports global standards of transparency in the expert evaluation process; therefore it practises double-blind peer review of manuscripts. The author and reviewer are not informed of each other's names. All personal data of the authors are previously removed from the text of the articles and file metadata. Interaction between the author and reviewers takes place through the journal editor.

Reviewing is carried out by independent experts – highly qualified scientists who possess deep knowledge and experience in a specific scientific direction. Their work is critically important for conducting an objective assessment of manuscripts, confirming their scientific reliability, and improving the quality of presentation. Reviewers are involved in the process on a voluntary basis, exclusively with their consent and subject to the policy regarding the absence of a conflict of interest.

Ethical duties of reviewers:

• Confidentiality: Ensuring the non-disclosure of all information during the review and publication process. Violation of this requirement is possible only in the event of signs or a statement regarding the unreliability or falsification of the article's materials.
• Assessment of compliance and quality: Checking compliance with the journal's profile, relevance of the topic, applied methods, originality, and style of presentation.
• Ethical control: Immediate notification of the editor regarding suspicions of plagiarism, copying, violation of ethical standards, or the use of the manuscript's ideas for personal interests.
• Constructive criticism: Clear and reasoned expression of opinions with suggestions for corrections to improve the quality of the article, avoiding personal criticism of the authors.
• Notification of conflict of interest/inability to evaluate: Immediate notification of the editor if there is a conflict of interest, insufficient knowledge for evaluation, or if the review cannot be completed on time.
• Timely provision of feedback: Provision of competent, unbiased, and written assessments of the manuscript's scientific value.
• Adherence to standards: Following the relevant standards and ethical principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) during the evaluation of manuscripts.

Ethical duties of authors:

• Originality of work: Authors guarantee that the submitted manuscript is their original work, which has not been published previously and is not being considered simultaneously for publication in another publishing house.
• Prohibition of parallel submission: Parallel submission of the same manuscript to another journal is considered a violation of publication ethics and leads to the exclusion of the manuscript from consideration.
• Transparency of previous submissions and research: If the manuscript was previously submitted to another journal, authors are obliged to provide information about the previous review process and its results. This information should explain how revisions took into account previous reviews and justify why certain comments were left unaddressed. Information about previous reviewing helps editors in selecting reviewers.
• Preprints: Placing preprints on servers or in repositories is not considered prior publication. Authors are obliged to notify about the placement of a preprint during submission, providing a link to it. After publication in the journal, authors must update the information about the preprint by adding the DOI that links to the final version of the article in the journal.
• Project/Conference results: If the manuscript is the result of a research project or its preliminary version was presented at a conference (oral report under a similar title), authors must provide detailed information about the project/conference in a corresponding note.
• Ethical responsibility: Each author bears personal responsibility for adhering to ethical standards when writing manuscripts. The journal adheres to the ethical principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Review Procedure

1. The author sends the manuscript to the journal's editorial board email. Together with the manuscript, the author provides a report on the plagiarism check (or text uniqueness), carried out using appropriate software. This report must confirm the level of uniqueness of the text, as well as contain an analysis of the usage of sources and partial overlap with other scientific works.
2. The editorial board notifies the author about the acceptance of their article for consideration within a two-day period. The editor personally sends articles to reviewers and receives the texts of reviews from them.
3. The review term is up to 2 months. After filling out the review form, reviewers choose one of the proposed recommendations:

• publish without changes;
• publish subject to further revision of the article by the author;
• publish after significant revision of the article by the author;
• reject the article in whole.

4. After the completion of the review process, the editor compiles a single list of reviewers' comments and sends it to the author.
5. The editor-in-chief has the right to add their own comments to the reviewers' comments.
6. The author revises the manuscript if necessary and submits a new version. Together with the manuscript, the author adds a letter containing responses to all comments and explaining all changes made to the article (format "reviewer's comment – author's response"). If the manuscript has not been returned within 1 month or the reasons for the delay have not been reported to the editorial board, it is removed from the queue and deleted.
7. The revised version of the article is sent for consideration to the same reviewers. Reviewers re-examine the revised manuscript and provide a recommendation regarding the possibility of its further publication. Reviews are considered the intellectual property of the reviewers. With the consent (desire) of the authors and reviewers, the reviewers' comments may be printed together with the article.
8. Manuscripts that have received positive reviews and are considered to meet the journal's publication standards may be accepted for publication. The editorial board has the right in individual cases to disagree with the reviewers' decision if valid grounds for this are discovered.
9. Manuscripts that do not meet the journal's standards, receive negative reviews, or do not properly take into account comments expressed during editing will be rejected. If an article is rejected, the editorial board informs the author by email about the motives for the refusal. The author may file an appeal against the reviewers' decision.
10. Reviewing is carried out within no more than 3 months from the moment the article is received by the journal's editorial board.
11. The process of preparing the article for print includes technical editing. During this stage, the technical editor independently eliminates minor stylistic or formal shortcomings. The final layout (proofs of final galleys) of the article is sent to the authors for final approval before publication.

Communication with Authors. Corrections and Rejections

Communication between authors and the journal's editorial board is confidential and based on mutual respect. Authors receive review results and recommendations regarding necessary corrections via email. In case of any questions, disagreement with the provided recommendations, or the emergence of other disputed situations, authors have the right to contact the journal editor directly for discussion and joint resolution of the problem.

If the editorial board decides to refuse publication due to the detection of significant violations or inconsistencies, the author receives a substantiated written notification (via email) with a clear explanation of the reasons. After the author completely eliminates all indicated shortcomings, they have the opportunity to resubmit their manuscript for review.

In case of detection of a significant error or inaccuracy in an already published article, the author is responsible for immediately informing the editorial board. The author is obliged to cooperate closely with the editorial board to make necessary corrections or, if the situation requires, for the procedure of retracting the published material.

Policy for Appealing Reviewers' Decisions

If the author does not agree with the reviewer's comments or conclusions, they may submit an official appeal to the editorial board. This appeal must be formatted as a detailed response, where the author convincingly argues their disagreement with critical comments.

Based on this appeal and previous reviews, the editorial board, together with the reviewer, makes a final decision regarding the further fate of the submitted manuscript.

In situations where reviewers provide mutually exclusive recommendations (for example, one recommends "accept" and the other "reject"), the journal's editorial board initiates additional communication with both experts. The goal is to align their positions and jointly consider all expressed comments. If a consensus cannot be reached, the editorial board appoints a third, independent expert (arbiter). This arbiter provides an additional assessment, on the basis of which the final decision regarding publication is made.

Retraction Notification Procedure

In the event of the retraction of any article, the journal necessarily publishes an official notification about this. This notification will clearly state the reason for the retraction and the person who initiated this process. In the electronic version, the notification will contain a direct link to the original article and the retraction notification with clear marking that the article has been retracted.

Reflection of Retraction in the Original Publication

The original text of the article itself remains accessible to readers and is kept unchanged. However, for the proper information of the readership, a watermark will be placed on every page of the PDF document of this article. This marker will unambiguously indicate that the article has the official status "Retracted".