Submission and Peer-Review Process
Submission Process
All manuscripts must be submitted electronically via the mail.
You will send files to e-mail infoaspendos@gmail.com
There are no page charges. Papers are accepted for publication on the understanding that they have not been published and are not going to be considered for publication elsewhere. Authors can publish the manuscript which have already been published in another journal. The copyright release form, which can be found at in word and pdf, must be signed by the corresponding author on behalf of all authors and must accompany all papers submitted. Please see the form for additional copyright details.
Manuscripts submitted to journals are privileged communications that are authors’ private, confidential property, and authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of a manuscript’s details.
Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer-review process. Southern Caucasus Media Group requests that all reviewers adhere to a set of basic principles and standards during the peer-review process in research publication; these are set out below. Please read them carefully before you submit a review, as, by agreeing to be a reviewer for journals from Southern Caucasus Media Group, you are acknowledging that you agree to and accept these conditions. These conditions are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers which also provides further information on how to be objective and constructive in your review.
Peer-Review Process
The procedure for reviewing manuscripts of articles in the journals:
1. Reviewing (expert evaluation) of manuscripts of scientific articles is carried out to maintain a high scientific and theoretical level of the journals and to select the most valuable and relevant scientific papers.
2. The journals use Double-Blind Peer Review:
– the reviewer does not know the personal information of the author / authors;
– the author / authors do not know the personal data of the reviewer.
3. The scientific articles submitted to the editorial office undergo initial control regarding the completeness and correctness of their registration and compliance with the Manuscript Requirements set out on the site.
4. The primary expert review of a scientific article is carried out by the editor-in-chief or the deputy editor-in-chief.
5. The Editor-in-Chief (deputy Editor-in-Chief) determines the reviewer from the membership of the editorial board, who oversees the relevant scientific direction, for the article to be published.
In the absence of a member of the editorial board – the curator of the respective direction, the Editor-in-Chief (deputy Editor-in-Chief) defines the external reviewer for the provided article.
Reviewers (both members of the editorial board and external) should be known experts in the subject matter of the submitted manuscript and have published in the field of research (preferably during the last 5 years).
6. After an expert evaluation of a scientific article, the reviewer may:
– recommend article for posting;
– recommend the article for its publication after author’s revision, taking into account the comments and wishes expressed;
– do not recommend article for posting.
If the reviewer recommends the article for posting it after revision, taking into account the comments, or does not recommend the article for publication, the review must state the reason for the decision
The editor recommends using the developed standard review form, which is available on the site’s website, when reviewing.
7. When reviewing scientific articles reviewers must:
– pay special attention to the urgency of the scientific problem raised in the article;
– characterize the theoretical and applied value of the performed research;
– correctness of the given mathematical calculations, graphs, drawings;
– assess how the author’s conclusions relate to existing scientific concepts;
– adherence by the authors of the rules of scientific ethics, correctness of references to literary sources.
The necessary element of the review should be the reviewer’s assessment of the author’s personal contribution to solving the problem under consideration.
It is advisable to note in the reviews the conformity of style, logic and availability of scientific teaching, as well as make conclusions about the authenticity and validity of conclusions of the author (authors) in this article.
8. Scientific articles may be sent for further consideration:
– insufficient expert qualification, indicated in the issues considered in the scientific article;
– insufficiently high level of primary expert judgment;
– acute controversy of the provisions expressed in the scientific article.
9. The executed review is sent to the editor by e-mail in the form of a scan copy.
10. The editorial office sends copies of reviews to the authors (unnamed, so as not to disclose the data of the reviewer) or the reasoned refusal of the editorial office to publish this particular manuscript.
Conflicts of interest
During the review process we ask you to declare any potentially conflicting or competing interests (which could be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature) so that editors can assess these and factor them into their decisions. Please refer any major concerns over potentially competing interests to the editorial office before beginning your review. In addition, you should not agree to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no intention of submitting a review.
Confidentiality
Manuscripts submitted to journals are authors’ private, confidential property; reviewers should keep manuscripts and the information they contain strictly confidential. If you do choose to discuss the manuscript and/or your review with a professional colleague whose input you request as part of your review process, you are responsible for ensuring that they are made fully aware of the confidential nature of the discussion and that they must not disclose any information about the manuscript until the article is published. The identity of any co-reviewer and any potential conflicting or competing interests they may have must be disclosed when submitting your review. Reviewers should not retain the manuscript for personal use and should destroy copies after submitting their review.
If you feel qualified to judge a particular manuscript, you should agree to review only if you are able to return a review within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame. If you cannot review, it is helpful to make suggestions for alternative reviewers if relevant, based on their expertise and without any influence of personal considerations or any intention of the manuscript receiving a specific outcome
If you have concerns that misconduct occurred during either the research or the writing and submission of the manuscript, or you may notice substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article; please do let the journal Editor know.
Appropriate feedback
As a reviewer you must provide a fair, honest, and unbiased assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. For example, be specific in your critique, and provide supporting evidence with appropriate references to substantiate general statements. Be professional and refrain from being hostile or inflammatory and from making libelous or derogatory personal comments. If the work is not clear because of missing analyses, the reviewer should comment and explain what additional analyses would clarify the work submitted. It is not the job of the reviewer to extend the work beyond its current scope.
Our use of your review
With the exception of Gulustan-Black Sea Scientific Journal of Academic, The Caucasus-Economic and Social Analysis Journal of Southern Caucasus, Ambiance in Life International Scientific Journal in Medicine of Southern Caucasus, Proceeding of The International Research Education & Training Centre, ENECO-Proceedings of Energy Economic Research Center, PAHTEI-Proceedings of Azerbaijan High Technical Educational Institutions, ETM Equipment, Technologies, Materials and Socio World-Social Research & Behavioral Sciences journals from Southern Caucasus Media Group do not publish peer reviews. Depending on a journal’s editorial policy, you may be offered the opportunity to make additional confidential comments to the editor. Unless the reviewer has been offered confidentiality, reviews will usually be passed on in full to authors and other reviewers when an editorial decision is made. Reviews should be civil and constructive and editors reserve the right to edit or remove any comments felt to be inappropriate
Authors are given the option of nominating other journals from Southern Caucasus Media Group to which they would like their manuscript passed if it is rejected for publication by their first choice. This may result in the paper being resubmitted to other journals from Southern Caucasus Media Group in succession. If the author of the manuscript you reviewed has taken up this option, your review will be passed on to the editor(s) of the nominated journal(s) along with the manuscript and you might be invited to review a revised version. If the article is selected for publication in another journal from Southern Caucasus Media Group, your review may also be published (depending on the editorial policy of the journal in question). You will be contacted for your permission before this happens.
For more information on reviewing for Gulustan-Black Sea Scientific Journal of Academic Research, please read their reviewer guidelines.
Restrictions on your use of your review
We do not restrict the use you make of your review once the manuscript has been published. However, an author’s manuscript remains confidential until it is published, and you must not disclose any information about an unpublished manuscript, including your review of it.
Please note that if the article is NOT published you may refer to the journal which requested your review and the fact that you have reviewed an article for it. However, you may not post any details of the article which was reviewed, or any part of the review that would breach the confidentiality under which the article was provided to you for review.
Preparation of Manuscript
Style and format: There are four languages paper templates. http://sc-media.org/for-authors/preparation-of-manuscript/ in English, in Russian, in Ukrainian, in Georgian. All copies of the manuscript should also have line numbers starting with 1 on each consecutive page. Contributors who are not native English speakers are strongly advised to ensure that a colleague fluent in the English language or a professional language editor has reviewed their manuscript.
All languages without jargon should be used. Repetitive use of long sentences and passive voice should be avoided. It is strongly recommended that the text be run through computer spelling and grammar programs. Either British or American spelling is acceptable but must be consistent throughout.
Your registration details
We hold your details on the database for the journal you register to review for. We also ask your permission to hold your details on the reviewer databases for other journals from The Southern Caucasus Media with similar content. If you agree to this, you may opt out at any time by emailing the editorial office of the journal you registered to review for. Please ensure you read The Southern Caucasus Media Group Publication Ethics Statement for information on how we store and use your data.
Manuscripts may be rejected without peer review by the editor-in-chief if they do not comply with the instructions for authors or if they are beyond the scope of the journal. After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, i.e. after referee-recommended revisions are complete, the author will not be permitted to make changes that constitute departures from the manuscript that was accepted by the editor.
Before publication, the galley proofs are always sent to the authors for corrections. Mistakes or omissions that occur due to some negligence on our part during final printing will be rectified in an errata section in a later issue. This does not include those errors left uncorrected by the author in the galley proof. The use of someone else’s ideas or words in their original form or slightly changed without a proper citation is considered plagiarism and will not be tolerated. Even if a citation is given, if quotation marks are not placed around words taken directly from another author’s work, the author is still guilty of plagiarism.