Peer Review Process

GENERAL PROVISIONS

The editorial board of the journal adheres to the key principles of international peer review:
1. Constructive feedback: the reviewer should not only point out errors, but also suggest ways to correct them.
2. Objectivity: the assessment should be based on scientific criteria, not personal preferences.
3. Confidentiality: the content of the article and the review is confidential before its publication.
4. Timeliness: reviews should be submitted within the agreed deadlines.
5. Ethics: compliance with ethical standards in the review process (no conflict of interest, plagiarism).
All articles undergo 3 phases of review (peer review):
Phase I. Internal review (preliminary assessment (review) in the editorial office) / Initial Scan.
Objective: to quickly review the article to get a general idea of its content, structure, and to understand whether it corresponds to the journal's subject matter and whether there are any obvious problems (e.g., plagiarism, missing key sections).
Result: a decision on further review or rejection at this stage (with justification).
Stage I - checking for plagiarism using freely available software (the percentage of originality should be at least 85%).
Stage II - checking for compliance with the requirements of the journal "Information systems and technologies security".
Phase II. Detailed analysis (In-depth Review). External review (assessed by independent experts) / Peer-review (external reviewers)
Stage III - double-blind peer review (on the Open Journal System (OJS) platform).
Tasks: To conduct a thorough analysis of each section of the article in accordance with the extended list of questions. At this stage, the reviewer should:
1. Assess the originality and scientific significance of the work.
2. Check the validity of the methodology and its compliance with the objectives.
3. Analyse the scientific reliability and significance of the results.
4. To assess the quality of the discussion and conclusions, their relation to the literature.
5. Check the structure, logic of presentation and language of the article.
6. Assess the quality of visual materials (tables, figures).
7. Identify errors, inaccuracies, gaps in the research or presentation.
Result: filling in the reviewer's form with answers to the questions ("yes", "no, requires minor revision", "no, requires significant revision") and providing detailed comments for the author.
Phase III. Formulation of the overall conclusion and recommendations (Overall Assessment & Recommendation).
Task: based on a detailed analysis, formulate a general decision about the article and provide recommendations for the editor.
Result: a general conclusion that can be made:
Accept without changes: the article is ready for publication.
Accept after minor corrections: the article requires minor corrections that the author can make independently.
Accept with major corrections: the article requires significant changes and possibly a second review.
Reject: the article does not meet the journal's criteria or has significant deficiencies that cannot be corrected.
At this stage, it is also important to provide constructive, objective, and respectful comments for the author to help them improve the article, regardless of the final decision.

REVIEW PROCEDURE

Internal review (preliminary assessment in the editorial office)
The journal "Information systems and technologies security" accepts manuscripts of scientific papers that have never been published before and are not intended for simultaneous publication in other editions. Manuscript length according to the Guidelines for Authors (Main text length: original research article - from 3 thousand to 8 thousand words (up to 50 thousand characters)). The number of authors is no more than five. To be published in a scientific journal, materials should be submitted in Ukrainian or English. Citation and self-citation rates are up to 15%.
All manuscripts received by the editorial office are checked by the editor regarding the purpose, subject, and policy of the journal. Manuscripts that do not meet the journal's subject matter and editorial policy or journal editorial standards are rejected for review.
Manuscripts of articles that do not meet the journal's requirements for structure and design are returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. If the author has not sent a response to the editor's request within 30 calendar days, it is considered that the manuscript is not under review by the journal editorial office.
Manuscripts of articles in which, after checking for plagiarism, a significant percentage of textual borrowings were found, should be returned to the authors for revision. If plagiarism is detected (the percentage of originality must be at least 85%), the article will be returned to the author without the right to resubmit this article. After desk review, the author's manuscript is submitted for peer review (expert evaluation, external).
Peer-review (external reviewers)
All articles submitted for publication are subject to a double-blind review on the Open Journal System (OJS) platform by at least two external reviewers who are experts in the scientific field. Members of the editorial board recommend as reviewers those persons who are experts in the scientific field of an article and have publications on the topic of the article. Members of the editorial board can also act as reviewers.
Reviewers must adhere to international best peer review practices, including the Guidelines for Reviewers from the European Association of Science Editors, the requirements of Bulletin.
Reviewers should alert the editor and/or editors to any potential personal or financial conflict of interest he/she may have and decline to review when a possibility of a conflict exists. They must also adhere to the principle of confidentiality when working with the manuscript of the article, in particular not to use and/or reproduce it in whole or in part anywhere, and not to disclose information about the editorial request to review.
Under the review process, the reviewer provides answers "yes", or "no, requires minor revision" or "no, requires considerable revision" to the following questions (the question is specified in the reviewer’s form on the OJS platform):
General information about the article.
Evaluation of the content and structure of the article
1. Does the title of the article correspond to its content and purpose?
2. Does the abstract reflect the main content of the article and comply with the IMRAD structure?
3. Are the key ideas of the article original, scientifically significant and interesting to the readership?
4. Does the article and its key parts meet the IMRAD structure and technical requirements of the journal?
Evaluation of methodology and results
5. Is the research methodology appropriate and properly justified?
6. Are the main results of the article scientifically sound and significant?
7. Are the tables and figures justified, appropriate and meet the requirements of the journal? Evaluation of the discussion and conclusions
8. Does the "Discussion" section demonstrate knowledge of the literature relevant to the article's topic?
9. Are the conclusions clear and reasoned?
10. Are the limitations of the study clearly identified and discussed?
11. Is the practical or theoretical significance of the results and their potential application discussed?
Assessment of language quality and ethics
12. Is the language of the article scientific, grammatically correct and understandable to the readership?
13. Did the study comply with ethical standards (e.g., participant consent, data confidentiality, no plagiarism)?
14. Are the references up-to-date, relevant and reflect the current state of research in the field? Overall assessment and recommendations
15. Have the goals and objectives stated in the article been achieved?
16. Does the article have the potential to influence further research or practice in the field?
Recommendation for publication:
Accept (the article is ready for publication);
Accept after minor revisions (the article requires minor adjustments that the author can make independently. The authors have 5 days to make minor changes in accordance with the comments of the reviewers);
Accept after significant revisions (the article requires significant changes and, possibly, a second review. Authors have two weeks to substantially revise the manuscript);
Reject with a proposal for resubmission (the manuscript will be rejected and the authors will be invited to resubmit the article after substantial revision of the content if, in the opinion of the reviewers, the article requires additional experiments or other empirical studies to confirm the conclusions);
Reject (the article is rejected without the right to resubmit the same article if it has serious deficiencies and/or does not contain original scientific results).
If the reviewers chose the answers “no, requires minor revision” or “no, requires considerable revision” for any point, they should write reasons and explain to the authors how to improve the article.
The editors have the right not to notify the author of those comments that contain a subjective assessment of the manuscript, insults, or do not meet the established requirements and criteria specified above.
Editors mediate all discussions between authors and reviewers during the review of an article prior to publication. If an agreement cannot be reached, the editors may invite additional reviewers.
The executive editor has the right to return the review for revision if the reviewer did not comply with the requirements established by the Recommendations for reviewers, and the review contains ambiguous remarks. In case of significant remarks to the reviewer, the editor has the right to exclude the reviewer from the list of persons to whom the publication addresses, and/or to inform his/her affiliation about his/her actions.
Reviewers are not supposed to provide structural or stylistic editing of the manuscript. If necessary, they should report the editors about it in the appropriate block of the review form.
If the article can be accepted but requires revision, it is returned to the author(s) along with the reviewers' comments and suggestions for improving the article and the editors' recommendations, if any.
The author(s) resubmits a revised version of the article along with clear responses to the reviewers' comments. The author(s) must highlight all changes in the text of the article.
The executive editor directly evaluates the quality of changes or submits the article to the reviewer(s) for re-evaluation. In the case of a second round of review, the reviewer may be asked to evaluate a revised version of the manuscript in light of the reviewer's recommendations made during the first round of review.
Reviewers should clearly and reasonedly express their point of view, and be polite and constructive in their recommendations.
The author must respond to all comments of the reviewer following the points of the review. The total period of review cannot exceed 3 months from the date of receipt of the article by the reviewer.
The journal allows a maximum of two rounds of manuscript review.
The editors take into account the comments of the reviewers, but the final decision on the publication of the article is made by the editor-in-chief of the journal.
Authors appeal
Authors can appeal the rejection of publication. The procedure for such an appeal is described in the Complaints and Appeals section of the Editorial Policy.