Рolicy on violations of academic integrity

Academic integrity is an important component of scientific activity. Compliance by authors with the requirements of academic integrity is the key to the successful development of a scientific publication, increasing its citation rate and expanding the circle of readers.

In its policy on violations of academic integrity, the editorial board of the journal “Ukrainian language” relies on the Law of Ukraine “On Education”, the Law of Ukraine “On Higher Education”, the Law of Ukraine “On Academic Integrity”

According to Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine “On Education”, academic integrity is a set of ethical principles and rules defined by law that must be followed by participants in the educational process during learning, teaching, and conducting scientific (creative) activities in order to ensure trust in the results of learning and/or scientific (creative) achievements.

According to the provisions of subparagraph 31 of paragraph 1 of Article 58 of the Law of Ukraine On Higher Education, scientific and pedagogical, scientific and pedagogical workers are obliged to: observe academic integrity in the educational process and scientific (creative) activity and ensure its observance by higher education applicants.

Violation of academic integrity during the editorial and publishing process is:
– alienation of authorship – transfer by the author (authors) of an academic work (part thereof) created by him (her) on order or without such an order, for a fee or free of charge, to another person and subsequent publication of such an academic work (part thereof) with the indication of a person who is not its (her) author as the author (Article 23 of the Law of Ukraine “On Academic Integrity”);
– academic plagiarism – publication (partially or fully) of scientific (creative) results obtained by other persons as the results of one’s own research (creativity) and/or reproduction of published texts (published works of art) by other authors without indicating authorship;
– self-plagiarism – publication (partially or fully) of one’s own previously published scientific results as new scientific results;
– fabrication – fabrication of data or facts that are used in the educational process or in scientific research;
– falsification – deliberate change or modification of already existing data related to the educational process or scientific research;
– providing knowingly false information about one’s own educational (scientific, creative) activities or organization of the educational process; forms of deception include, in particular, academic plagiarism, self-plagiarism, fabrication, falsification and copying by the author (clause 4 of Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine “On Education”);
– providing or receiving by a participant in the editorial process or an offer to provide (receive) funds, property, services, benefits or any other benefits of a material or intangible nature to distort the publication process and make a positive decision on the publication of the article;
– biased assessment of the article submitted for publication;
– deliberate overestimation or underestimation of the results, content of the study by reviewers or editors;
– making changes to the text of the submitted manuscript without agreement with the authors.

To ensure compliance with academic integrity, manuscripts of articles submitted to the journal’s editorial office are necessarily checked for academic plagiarism.

If reviewers or the editor discover a violation of academic integrity, the editor-in-chief must obtain appropriate statements from them, and the author must provide an explanation of the fact of the violation. If the problem is the result of a mistake or misunderstanding and the author corrects the mistake, the article remains with the editorial office for further processing. If not, the author may withdraw the manuscript or the editorial board will reject it and prohibit the publication of articles by such an author in the journal.

If the accusations concern authors, the review process of their manuscript will be stopped, an investigation will be conducted, even if the authors withdraw this manuscript.

If the accusations concern reviewers, they will be replaced by others during the investigation of the case.

In the case of published plagiarism or articles in several journals, the editorial board will notify the author.

If the investigation confirms the fact of violation of academic integrity, authors and reviewers may be held academically liable – their articles will be refused publication in the journal “Ukrainian Language” and the violation of academic integrity will be reported to the author’s or reviewer’s main place of work.

The procedure for investigating violations of academic integrity by authors or reviewers involves the participation of the head of the institution where the offending author works, as well as the editor-in-chief of the journal “Ukrainian language”, the issue editor, and members of the editorial board.

Every person who is accused of violating academic integrity has the right:
– to familiarize himself with all materials of the examination of violation of academic integrity and to express his/her comments;
– to provide oral, written explanations in person or through a representative or to refuse to provide explanations;
– to participate in the investigation of the allegations of violation of academic integrity;
– to receive information about the date, time, and place of consideration of the issue of establishing the fact of violation of academic integrity, to be present at this consideration;
– to appeal the decision to hold the person to academic responsibility to the body authorized to consider appeals or to the court (clause 8 of Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine “On Education”).

Violations of academic integrity do not include “honest error” or differences of opinion.