Editorial policy

PUBLICATION ETHICS
ETHICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS APPLICOTION
OPEN ACCESS POLICY
ANTI-PLAGIARISM POLICY
ARCHIVING POLICY
REGULATIONS ON THE RETRACTION OF PUBLICATIONS
POLICY OF CORRECTION AND RETRACTION OF PUBLISHED ARTICLES
SECONDARY PUBLICATION
POLICY ON COMPLAINTS
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
DATA PRIVACY POLICY

PUBLICATION ETHICS

ETHICS OF PUBLICATIONS AND PREVENTION OF UNFAIR PRACTICE OF PUBLICATIONS

(Composed using publishing principles of Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK) add COPE and in accordance with Elsevier recommendations)

SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL "FOREIGN TRADE: ECONOMICS, FINANCE, LAW",

which is included in the list of scientific professional editions of Ukraine on economic and legal sciences, it is issued 4 times a year.

Editorial policy and ethics

Basic provisions
In its activity the editorial board of the scientific journal "Foreign trade: economics, finance, law" is governed by the laws of Ukraine (Laws of Ukraine “On Information”, “On Education”, Ethical code of the scientist of Ukraine, and adheres to the recommendations of Elsevier, the publishing principles of the COPE , the principles of academic virtue (pryncypiv akademichnoi' dobrochesnosti), and the requirements of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine for scientific publications.

By accepting scientific articles for publication, the editorial board of the scientific journal evaluates the intellectual content of the manuscripts, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious preferences, origin, nationality, social status, or political preferences of the author / authors.
 
The editorial policy of the journal is based on the principles of objectivity and impartiality in the selection of articles for publication; high demand for the quality of scientific research; mandatory review of manuscripts; adherence to collegiality in decision-making on publication; accessibility and efficiency in communication with authors; strict observance of copyright and related rights.
 
General requirements
The journal accepts manuscripts of scientific works in Ukrainian and English, which have never been published before and are not intended for simultaneous publication in other editions.
The volume of the manuscript is 8-16 pages.
The number of authors is not more than three.
Postgraduate students and applicants must agree on the manuscript with the supervisor. 
 
All manuscripts submitted to the editorship are necessarily reviewed by determined procedure.
Each article accepted by the editorial staff is sure to check for plagiarism using StrikePlagiarism software or other certified platforms.
With the approval of the manuscript, it undergoes internal editing procedures: scientific editing, literary editing, artistic and technical editing and layout according to editorial standards. Rejected manuscripts are not reviewed again.
Each article receives an International Digital Identifier DOI (Digital Object Identifier).
 
Copyright and academic virtue
By submitting materials for publication in the scientific journal "Foreign trade: economics, finance, law", the authors agree that, upon receipt of an approving review and acceptance of the manuscript for publication, the article, after appropriate editorial revision, may be placed in electronic databases with mandatory authorship attribution and copyright retention in full by authors. In this case, the author / authors give the right of first publication to the journal, which makes it possible to distribute this material with the indication of authorship and initial publication in the scientific journal "Foreign trade: economics, finance, law". 

The author/authors are responsible for the novelty and credibility of the results of scientific research, as well as for adherence to the principles of academic virtue, which provides for:

  • the author / authors of the article are required to provide credible research findings. False statements are inadmissible;
  • the author/authors should ensure that the results of the study presented in the manuscript are completely original. Borrowed snippets or assertions must be clearly identified by the author and source. Excessive borrowings, as well as plagiarism in any form, including non-identified citations, paraphrases, or assignment of rights to the results of other people's research, are unacceptable;
  • the author / authors acknowledge the contribution of all persons who in one way or another influenced the course of the study. In the article the links should be provided to all the papers used in the research process;
  • the author / authors are not allowed to submit a manuscript or any part of it to the journal that has been submitted to other editions (scientific or non-scientific) and is under review, and may not submit materials already published in other sources (without excluding their own developments);
  • all researchers who have made significant contributions to the structure of the manuscript should be listed as co-authors;
  • if the author reveals material errors or inaccuracies in the article at the stage of its review or after its publication, he should notify the editorial board about it as soon as possible.

Open access policy
The editorial board of the scientific journal practices a policy of open access to the published content, adhering to the principles of free dissemination of scientific information and global knowledge sharing for the sake of general public progress. Content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
 
Access to data and its retention
Authors may be asked to provide output data for editorial review. They should be ready to make such data freely available, if it's possible, and in any case should be able to retain these data for some time after its publication. 

The editorial policy of the journal is based on the principles of objectivity and impartiality in the selection of articles for publication; high demands on the quality of scientific research; mandatory review of manuscripts; adherence to collegiality in making decisions on publication; accessibility and efficiency in communication with authors; strict observance of copyright and related rights.

ETHICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS APPLICOTION

Editorial policy in the part of ethical warnings does not deny the use of AI technologies, which are rapidly developing and increasingly used both in research and practice, providing new opportunities for obtaining and processing information. At the same time, it is important to adhere to the principles of responsible and ethical use of AI technologies in academic activities.

When using AI tools, it is important to consider that:

  • generative AI cannot be the only source of information;
  • the content of the manuscript should be the result of your own original scientific work;
  • If the author uses any AI technologies in the course of the study or during the preparation of the article, in the "Methodology" section it is necessary to indicate this, indicating which AI tool has been used, with a description of how exactly it was used;
  • it is necessary to critically evaluate the results obtained from AI, always verify the information using alternative reliable sources.

It is strictly forbidden to pass off AI-generated content as your own. At the same time, the responsible use of AI tools to streamline and develop one's own ideas (and not to replace the author's intellectual activity) can improve the quality of work.  

The editorial staff checks all manuscripts for the use of generative AI using appropriate technical services. At the same time, the authors, for their part, should remember that AI generation is accompanied by a number of problems, including:

  • AI-generated text, answers to questions, formulas or calculations may look plausible, but contain critical errors, not be factually accurate, can create fake quotes and links;
  • the data on which AI models are trained may be irrelevant, therefore, further generation will multiply errors;
  • AI-generated text with high probability will infringe copyright because AI uses published thoughts and ideas of human authors in the form of texts without referring to them, which can be considered as plagiarism; therefore, there are risks of copyright infringement of ideas, texts, images and other copyrighted materials;
  • also always relevant issues of morality, information security, etc.: AI models at your request can process large amounts of sensitive data, including personal information, commercial and important corporate data, and use this information for the subsequent model training, distributing information to the outside.

The following ways of using AI models that violate the principles of academic integrity and research ethics are recognized as unacceptable, for example:

  • presenting AI-generated text or AI-paraphrased content from other sources as one's own work – using AI to automatically generation of texts or paraphrasing of existing content without proper indication of sources violates the principles of authorship and is considered as plagiarism;
  • reworking the author's own article with the help of AI tools in order to create the appearance of a new publication violates the ethics of publications and is recognized as self-plagiarism;
  • creating false data and presenting it as confirmation of one's own research (data fabrication). The generation of false data by AI and its use as the basis for scientific conclusions is a serious violation of academic integrity and can cause negative consequences on the quality of research and the reputation of the researcher.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

The "Foreign trade: economics, finance, law" journal is an open access edition - its content is free, accessible, free of charge for users. Users are allowed to read, download, distribute, copy, print, search for or refer to the full texts of documents, use them for any other lawful purpose without asking for the prior permission from the publisher or author.   

All articles are placed on the scientific journal website without limit in time and free of charge immediately after publication of the regular issue, as well as distributed through the system of national libraries and stored there on paper. Full -text access to scientific articles of the journal in real time mode is provided on the official website of the journal in the section Archives.

The scientific journal "Foreign trade: economics, finance, law" works under license Creative Commons Attribution  International CC-BY.

ANTI-PLAGIARISM POLICY

The editors of the scientific journal «Foreign trade: economics, finance, law» inform the authors that they bear full personal responsibility for incorrect borrowing or use of other persons' research results and non-compliance with the ethics of scientific citation.

Authors must provide:

  • originality of submitted articles, i.e. to provide materials that have not been published in other publications in any language;
  • absence of plagiarism;
  • references to relevant sources, if works or texts of third parties are used.

The scientific journal «Foreign trade: economik, finance, law» uses the software StrikePlagiarism to detect cases of plagiarism.

In order to prevent plagiarism, the editors:

  • checks articles for the presence of borrowings from the works of third parties without appropriate references to the source;
  • after reviewing the article, provides a conclusion on the absence or presence of plagiarism.

Plagiarism in all forms is unacceptable and is considered a manifestation of unethical actions. Manuscripts submitted to the editorial office are checked for originality according to the following indicators: if the originality of the text is more than 85%, the material is accepted for review; from 75 to 85% originality of the text – the author needs to check the correctness of the citations and links to the sources used; less than 75% originality of the text – the material is not accepted for consideration.

ARCHIVING POLICY

The magazine develops various procedures aimed at ensuring constant access to the content hosted on its servers:

  • backup;
  • monitoring technological aspects to prevent possible format conversions or outdated software;
  • digital preservation metadata;
  • use of digital identifiers of objects (DOI).

In addition, the journal stores its metadata in a repository to ensure long-term digital preservation of articles (for example, the National Library of Ukraine named after V.I. Vernadskyi).

REGULATIONS ON THE RETRACTION OF PUBLICATIONS

An article retraction notice will be published when a material error invalidates the article's conclusions, or in cases of research and/or publication misconduct. The article may be withdrawn if:

  • there is clear evidence that the results are unreliable, whether due to malpractice (such as fabricated data and image manipulation) or errors (such as experimental errors or miscalculations);
  • research results have been previously published elsewhere without proper references, license or justification (for example, in cases of redundant or duplicate publication);
  • research is plagiarized;
  • there is evidence of fraudulent authorship;
  • it is proven that the review process is compromised;
  • there is evidence of unethical research and violation of professional ethical codes.

After the decision to retract the article:

  • the «Retracted Article» watermark will be added to the published version of the article record;
  • the title of the article will be headed by «Retracted article: [The article title]»;
  • a separate retraction statement will be published under the title «Retraction: [The article title]». The journal editors sign this notice;

the retraction statement will be numbered and will have a DOI identifier.

POLICY OF CORRECTION AND RETRACTION OF PUBLISHED ARTICLES

The journal recognizes that despite the thoroughness of editorial and review control, in some exceptional cases, errors or inaccuracies may be found in publications. In order to maintain the authenticity of academic discourse, the journal adheres to a clear, transparent and fair procedure for amending already published materials, which is in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Ethics of Publications (COPE). In this case, changes to publications are made as quickly as possible and with the preservation of the historical transparency of the document.

Correction of the publication

There are three categories of corrections that can be made to already published articles:

Technical correction is a small change that does not require a separate public message - such as updating stylistics, clarifying the names of authors, adjusting formatting. Such changes are made directly to the electronic version of the article with the corresponding note at the end of the publication.

Public correction takes place in case of errors that do not change the essence of conclusions, but can mislead readers (for example, incorrectly signed tables, irrelevant data in graphs, errors in numbering or formulations). In such cases, a separate "corrective note" is published, which explains the changes made to the original text of the article, and a "Corrected" mark appears in the title of the article with a link to the note.

The editorial update takes place when there is a need for broader explanations or clarifications that arise after publication, for example, due to new data that specify the primary results. The editorial board initiates an editorial update of the article, accompanied by an extended comment. As in the previous case, it involves the publication of a separate "notice on editorial update", which explains the changes made to the original text of the article, and a mark "Corrected" appears in the title of the article with a link to such a message.

Retraction of the publication  

In the case when the published article reveals: (1) signs of violation of scientific or research ethics that are not obvious at the stage of publication of the article, (2) critical errors that neutralize the reliability of the main conclusions, (3) duplication of already published work (without appropriate reference or permission), (4) hidden conflict of interests that has affected the objectivity of conclusions, etc., the article is subject to retraction.

The procedure for retracting an article involves sending a request for retraction of the publication from the author, reviewer, reader or member of the editorial board. Based on the request received, the editorial board investigates the facts given in the request and establishes their compliance / non-compliance with the reality and requirements of the editorial policy of the journal. The decision to retract the article is made collegially by the editorial board of the journal at its meeting. The decision clearly states the reason for the retraction of the article. The notice on retraction indicates why the article was withdrawn and who initiated this process. Such a message is attached to the article itself, which remains available in the journal archive, but is clearly marked as "retracted" – a "Retracted" mark appears in the title of the article with a link to the corresponding message. It is possible to delete the entire text of the retracted article only in exceptional cases – for example, if there are legal grounds (defamation, copyright infringement, court decision). In such situations, bibliographic information remains on the site, along with an explanation of the reasons for the deletion.

SECONDARY PUBLICATION

The authors retain the copyright by giving the journal the right to the first publication of work under the license Creative Commons Attribution  International CC-BY. This allows others to freely distribute the material with the obligatory indication of the authorship and source of publication.

The authors can also conclude additional non -exclusive agreements on the distribution of their article (for example, placement in a repository or publication in a book), provided that its initial publication in this journal is indicated.

Posting materials on the Internet (in institutional repositories or on personal websites) before or during the consideration of the submission is not prohibited and even encouraged, because it contributes to a more active exchange of knowledge and increases the citation of published works.

POLICY ON COMPLAINTS

Recognizing and solving any problems related to the publication of research results is an important aspect of the editorial policy of the journal. Complaints help the editorial board improve the quality of the editorial process and the journal as a whole.

The Editorial Board is considering complaints on the following issues:
• Authorship disputes;
• Plagiarism in published materials;
• Re-publication or submission of the same articles to several journals at the same time;
• Appropriation of research results and falsification of data;
• Errors or fraud in the research process;  
• Violation of research standards;
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest;
• Bias or improper behaviour of reviewers;
• Issues of publication administration policy or proposals to improve it.
Complaints submitted in an abusive or threatening form are not accepted for consideration.

The complaint should be sent to the editorial office by e-mail zt@knute.edu.ua. The letter should clearly indicate the subject, type of complaint, name of the applicant, the name (names) of the author (authors) and the title of the article to which the complaint relates, the journal number in which it has been published (for already published articles), to disclose the essence of the complaint and provide supporting materials.  

The editorial office considers complaints in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on Public Ethics (COPE). In the process of considering a complaint, communicates with all the parties involved, studies the history of correspondence and submitted materials.  

The standard term for consideration of a complaint is 15 working days. This period may be extended if it is necessary to obtain answers on the merits of the complaint from all parties involved and to conduct a detailed study, which is notified to the applicant. At the same time, the editorial board will make every effort to consider the complaint in the shortest possible time

The editorial board implements all the necessary procedures to ensure, guarantee and comply with ethical standards and principles of academic integrity.

If the applicant is not satisfied with the results of the complaint consideration, he has the right to appeal to the editor-in-chief. The application for appeal shall be added with the decision of the editorial board on the results of consideration of the complaint and materials that substantiate the essence of the complaint. The application for appeal is considered by the editorial board of the journal. Its decision is final.  

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The most easily identifiable conflicts of interest are economic relationships such as direct employment, consulting fees, participation in companies, royalties, patent authorship, or conference fees. However, there may also be conflicts of interest arising from friendships, intellectual rivalries, academic competitions or beliefs. When submitting articles for publication, all authors are responsible for declaring any financial or personal relationships with any public or private organizations that could (intentionally) influence the results of their work. Similarly, authors must declare any non-financial relationships that may cause a conflict of interest in their manuscript (personal, academic, ideological, intellectual, political, or religious).

Conflicts of interest, both financial and non-financial, must be disclosed at the time of article submission. This is to prevent authors with a potential conflict of interest from publishing. Conflicts should be clearly identified so that readers can judge whether the authors were prone to a particular bias and how this may have affected the work.

DATA PRIVACY POLICY

Names and e-mail addresses entered on the journal's website will be used solely for the purposes of this journal and will not be available for any other purposes or to any other person.

Data collected from registered and unregistered users of this journal is subject to the standard operating procedure of peer-reviewed journals. They contain information that provides a link to the editorial process and are used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content.

The authors of the articles published in the journal are responsible for the data on the subjects involved in the studies reported here. Individuals involved in the editing of this magazine are committed to complying with industry data privacy standards, including the provisions of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on «data subject rights», which include: breach notification; right of access; the right to be forgotten; data transfer; privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for recognition of the «public interest in data availability», which is of particular importance to those concerned with maintaining the highest possible integrity of the public records of scientific publications.