Scientific Press Code

Scientific periodicals have its own "Code of Honor". In Russia, on the basis of Vinity of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a committee on ethics of scientific publications was created. Svetlana Zerevn , editor, member of the expert council of the ethics of scientific publications, talks about his tasks and the first results of the work of the TRV-hunger.

The published article is one of the main tools of scientific communication. Without the publication of scientific results, one might say, there are no results themselves. The Russian market of scientific publications can no longer be called spontaneous, but also completely established to consider it early. The constantly growing volumes of information passing through it need streamlining, regulation, and creating unified mechanisms for working with it - based on professionalism, experience and recognized ethical norms.

Representatives of domestic media have a code of professional ethics of a journalist ( ruj.ru/about/codex.htm ). They talk a lot and write about ethical principles in the scientific field. On the initiative of the Russian Union of Rectors, a draft of the Ethics Code for educational communities was created. It seems that the time has come to introduce some moral-organizing component in the scientific and public process.

The first attempt to call the domestic scientific media “to order” can be considered the emergence of the obligatory criteria of the Higher Attestation Commission: here is the presence of an institution of reviewing, and compliance with the rules for providing manuscripts (and for Biomedical magazines these rules are generally based on uniform requirements - the so -called Vancouver style). Now, when our publications have actively rushed to the international citation databases - WOS, Scopus - the editorial offices already required to formulate and sign on their official sites “Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement”.

Our ethics committee has been formed as a non -profit partnership based on Vinity of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The observational and expert councils have been formed, which included representatives of publishers and distributors, lawyers, translators.

The Committee developed a draft Code of Ethics of Scientific Publications [1] . We are talking about the basics and norms of professional behavior in the relations of authors, reviewers, editors, publishers and readers in the process of creating, distributing and using scientific publications. Since all of the listed parties participate in publication, the presence of clearly agreed basic rules should help their communication and cooperation, simplifying the solution of controversial issues, reducing the number of conflict situations. And ideally, contribute to a faster integration into the world scientific community [2] .

The Code in question did not arise from scratch: these are the principles with which all participants in the honest and open scientific and publishing process, which begins with the preparation of the article by the author, continuing its interaction with the editors and ending with the response of the audience, are ready to agree.

For the publication of copyright works, the editor is responsible . He must objectively evaluate the intellectual content of manuscripts , not use their content for personal purposes, not to allow information to publish, if there is reason to believe that it is plagiarism.

In turn, the reviewer carries out a scientific examination of copyright materials, and his actions are required to be unbiased. An objective and reasoned assessment of the settled results without personal criticism of their author - this is what we want to see from the reviewer.

The author or team of authors must realize that he bears initial responsibility for the novelty and reliability of the results. Borrowings are made out precisely as borrowings, everything else is plagiarism, which, by the way, is criminally punished. If the article found errors at the stage of its consideration or after publication, the author must notify the editorial office as soon as possible ...

The ethics field of scientific publications is huge and constantly replenished with new issues. It is almost impossible to avoid conflicts related to the use of copyright, competing publications, incorrect polemic, refusals to publish and subsequent complaints and threats by the authors, unlawful paying requirements by the editorial staff [2] . Not to mention trifles such as non -compliance with the requirements established by magazines for manuscripts or “forgetfulness” in relation to their own co -authors. It’s just that everyone, no matter what side of the barricades he was in, must understand: it is very important to mutually respect each other and not forget about elementary decency and culture.

The current text of the Ethics Code of Scientific Publications will be available on the website www.publicet.org . The Committee invites to discuss his initiative and this difficult subject, as well as waiting for everyone who is ready to formulate, discuss, and most importantly, to observe the principles of scientific and publishing ethics in their daily work.

1. As an example of such activities abroad, one can cite COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics)-an organization with international membership and headquarters in the UK ( www.publicationethics.org ).

2. Abramov E. G., Kirillova O. V. Publishing ethics in the research process // Scientific periodicals: problems and solutions. - No. 5 (11). - 2012. - p. 4-8.