Academic Integrity Violations Policy
Academic integrity is essential for the development of science, scholarly publications, and universities. Adherence by authors to the requirements of academic integrity is a guarantee of a journal's successful growth, increasing its citation rate and expanding its readership.
According to subparagraph 31 of paragraph 1 of article 58 of the Law of Ukraine 'On Higher Education', scientific-pedagogical, scientific, and pedagogical workers are obliged to: 'adhere to academic integrity in the educational process and scientific (creative) activities and ensure its observance by higher education applicants.”
In accordance with Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine 'On Education', subparagraph 2 of Article 1 of the Law of Ukraine 'On Academic Integrity', 'academic integrity is the set of ethical principles and legally defined rules that participants in the educational process must adhere to during learning, teaching, and conducting scientific (creative) activities to ensure trust in the results of education and/or scientific (creative) achievements.
Article 8 of the Law of Ukraine 'On Academic Integrity' defines academic integrity during the creation and publication of academic works.
1. When creating an academic work, the author must adhere to the values, principles, and rules of academic integrity. If the academic work uses the results of intellectual creative activity (text, images, ideas, development, statements, information, opinions, etc.) of another person, this must be indicated in the academic work with a reference to the relevant source of information and/or the corresponding author. The reference to the source of information is made in a way that allows the contribution of the author in the academic work to be distinguished from the results of the intellectual creative activity of other persons.
2. The academic work must contain reliable information and must not include fabricated or falsified information by the author. If assumptions or unproven statements are made, this must be indicated in the academic work.
3. All authors of the published academic work must be listed.
4. If an object generated by artificial intelligence is used in the academic work, the author must inform about this in the work, specifying the generation methodology and/or providing a link to the relevant computer program or its description, in accordance with the requirements for the formatting and/or publication of relevant academic works established by the appropriate subject of academic activity.
5. In the published academic work, besides the authors, other persons who participated in its creation (providing recommendations, consulting, editing, formatting, conducting experiments, calculations, translations, etc.) must also be listed, with an indication of the nature of each person's contribution. Information about the reviewer(s) of the academic work may not be published in accordance with the publisher's editorial policy.
6. If the author uses their own previously published scientific results (partially or fully) in a new academic work, this must be explicitly stated in the new academic work.
Violations of academic integrity that may be identified during the editorial and publishing process include:
1) Alienation of authorship - transferring the created academic work (or part of it), whether paid or unpaid, by the author(s) to another person, either on order or without such, and subsequently publishing such academic work (or part of it) with the attribution of authorship to a person who is not its (their) author;
2) Academic plagiarism - publishing (partially or fully) a scientific (creative) result obtained by another person (or persons) as one's own academic activity and/or reproducing in an academic work (partially or fully) a previously published (or printed) work of another author (or authors) without reference to the relevant source of information and/or its (their) author(s) (if known), and/or publishing in an academic work a translation of a foreign-language work (or part of it) without indicating the author(s) of the translated work;
3) Attribution of authorship - publishing a work in which a person is listed among the authors but did not participate in its creation;
4) Self-plagiarism - publishing (partially or fully) one's own previously published scientific results without indicating the source of the prior publication;
5) Fabrication - inventing data or facts about the results of one's own academic activity;
6) Falsification - knowingly altering or modifying existing data, leading to the creation of deliberately false information regarding the results of academic activity;
7) Unethical use of results generated by artificial intelligence - consciously violating the requirements for evaluation established by this Law, legislation, internal regulations, or contest conditions, resulting in an overestimation or underestimation of the results of academic activity.
According to the Ethical Code of the University Community, members of the university community are obliged to
- uphold the values of academic integrity and adhere to its rules in all types of activities within and outside the university space (clause 2.15);
- take care of their personal and the university's scientific reputation when organising and conducting scientific and technical activities (clause 2.18);
- consider it unacceptable to provide false information regarding their own educational, scientific, or creative activities and their results, or to claim authorship of texts, including academic texts, created by others (clause 2.19).
All reports of violations of academic integrity must be submitted to the chief editor. In case of suspicion of a breach of academic integrity, the chief editors will act in accordance with the relevant COPE instructions and the publisher's internal documentsof the publisher —the Ethical Code of the University Community and the Regulations on Ensuring Compliance with Academic Integrity at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
If reviewers or editors raise concerns about a potential breach of academic integrity, the authors will be asked to explain the issue. If the explanation is satisfactory and the issue is due to an error or misunderstanding, the problem can be easily resolved. If not, the manuscript will be rejected or withdrawn, and the editorial board may impose a ban on the publication of such an author (authors) in the journal for a specific period.
In cases of published plagiarism or duplicate publication across multiple journals, an announcement explaining the situation will be made.
If the allegations concern the authors, the review and publication of their submission will be suspended until the matter is resolved. An investigation will be conducted even if the authors withdraw the manuscript.
If the allegations concern reviewers or editors, they will be replaced during the current review process while the investigation is ongoing.
For breaches of academic integrity, authors, reviewers, and/or editors may be subject to the following academic sanctions:
· • refusal of publication with a notification to the institution – the primary affiliation of the author or reviewer regarding the breach of academic integrity identified during the editorial process;
· • deprivation of the editor's or reviewer's right to participate in the journal's editorial work.
The procedure for reviewing violations of academic integrity by authors, editors, and reviewers of a scientific journal—carried out by university staff in accordance with clause 5.2 of the Ethical Code of the University Community — provides for the participation of the head of the relevant university department where the person or group accused of the violation works, as well as the chief editor, responsible editor of the journal, and staff of the Coordination Centre.
Each person against whom there is a question that they have violated academic integrity or failed to adhere to it has the following rights:
• To become acquainted with all materials of the investigation regarding the establishment of the fact of a violation of academic integrity, and to submit comments on them;
• To personally or through a representative provide oral and written explanations or to refuse to give any answers, and to participate in the investigation of evidence of the violation of academic integrity;
• To be informed of the date, time, and place, and to be present during the consideration of the issue of establishing the fact of a violation of academic integrity and the imposition of academic responsibility;
• To appeal the decision to impose academic responsibility to the body authorised 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 mistakes" or differences of opinion.
