On Peer Review of Materials Submitted to "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts"

1. All materials submitted to "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts" shall be registered with the secretary of the journal. After submission, the received date should be stated on the paper. The Editor-in-Chief of the journal will make one of the following decisions: accept outright (specifying the publication date) / request a revision / reject outright and inform authors to revise the manuscript no later than 60 days from the received date.

2. Once submitted, all materials (articles, bibliographical and dissertation reviews, etc.) will be assigned to Editor-in-Chief of the journal, who will read the paper and decide whether it is appropriate for the journal and meets the following requirements: article’s title should reflect its content clearly; article should not extend beyond the imposed limits on length; appropriate structure; format, keywords and abstracts for review in Russian and English; references; digital data, formulas, calculations, etc.; contact information; authors must provide a consent form expressing their agreement for publication in the journal, etc. Also, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal will check for plagiarism, i.e. passing off another’s works, illustrations, tables etc. as article’s authors.
The initial assessment should not take more than 30 days from the received date.
Should the article be rejected after initial assessment, a notice will be sent to authors in writing.

3. After submission, all materials must be forwarded to be evaluated and commented upon by a number of independent experts (at least, two experts) within the same field of research, who hold scientific degrees (kandidat nauk or doctor nauk), awarded by the leading Russian universities, or the foreign equivalents of the scientific degrees, awarded by the leading foreign universities. During revision, the articles may be re-revised or undergo an additional revision by either original or new experts, including the cases where authors were invited to submit a revised manuscript, at the Editor-in-Chief of the journal discretion.

4. Should there be no conflict of interest between authors and referees (such as shared affiliations, supervisory or co-author relationship, etc.), referees may be any academic or professional researchers working in the field, including members of the Editorial Boards of the journal.

5. Under review the name and identity of the authors are not disclosed to the reviewers. The reviewer's name and identity are not disclosed to the author, unless otherwise stated with a reviewer in writing.

6. After review, normally mediated by the Editorial Board of the journal, the referees may request changes and suggest improvements to the manuscript, and authors will be sent an author’s section of the review with a consolidated list of specific concerns to prepare a revision and if suitable it will then be accepted for publication.

7. Peer review promotes the decision-making process by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal to accept, reject or request a revision of submitted materials.

8. Peer review aims at improving the quality of the published papers in particular and publishing portfolio in whole by requesting a minor or major revision, where authors revise their manuscript to address specific and significant concerns of the reviewers.

9. After review, the reviewer will make one of the following decisions:
1) Accept outright;
2) Accept, but request a minor revision at authors’ discretion;
3) Request a minor or major revision, where authors revise their manuscript to address specific and significant concerns;
4) Reject outright with a right for submission of a revised manuscript;
5) Reject outright without being entitled to resubmit.
The Editorial Board of the journal specifies the manuscript publication criteria.

10. During peer review, reviewers will accurately and properly access the manuscript as follows:
1) To disclose and evaluate relation between the content and the title of the article;
2) To evaluate the content for scientific value and originality;
3) To evaluate the content for information value and originality;
4) To disclose relation between the submitted article and literature, publications and up-to-date research in the field;
5) To reveal if the article meets all applicable standards of ethics and does not constitute scientific misconduct and breach of publishing ethics;
6) To evaluate the content for practical use;
7) To evaluate the content for clear and unambiguous style of writing: the results and conclusions should reflect the findings clearly; the article should meet the general and particular format, language and style requirements; the article uses clear and illegible terminology, tables, diagrams, figures and formulas, footnotes, references, etc.;
8) To evaluate the content for how the article uses digital data, formula, calculations, etc.
9) To evaluate the content for how it entices the audience to read. Designed by the Editorial Board of the journal, the standard peer report aims to answer ‘yes/no’ questions and provide a detailed and in-depth account to assess the paper’s suitability for publication in the journal, peer review deadline and terms and conditions, rules of confidentiality, etc.

11. The Editorial Board of the journal must protect the confidentiality of the review process with respect to all information involved with a manuscript. The referee must confirm in writing the acceptance of responsibility for keeping undisclosed the reviewed work and its content, as well as whatever facts be disclosed to him related to the author, etc. Discussion of a reviewed article with third parties is not allowed. Before publication, the referee is not permitted to use or refer to the material under consideration.

12. A positive review report is in itself not sufficient for the article to be accepted for publication. The final decision on publication rests with the Editorial Board of the journal and is recorded in the minutes of the Editorial Board sessions.

13. The publication provides a review of all submitted materials, appropriate to her subjects, for their expert evaluation. All reviewers are acknowledged experts on the subject of the reviewed materials and have in the past 3 years publications on the subject of the reviewed article. Reviews are kept at the publishing house and the editorial office for 5 years.

14. The editorial office will send the authors copies of the reviews or a reasoned refusal, and shall also send copies of reviews to the Ministry of education and science of the Russian Federation upon receipt at the editors request.