Basic principles of peer review in "Branta" Transactions
- The first step of peer review is to assess whether the paper fits in the range of scientific issues elucidated in the Transactions and complies with requirements to the manuscript layout.
- Basing on the subject of the manuscript, at least two reviewers are assigned.
- The reviewers assess the relevance, originality and methodological level of papers, as well as their compliance with the ethic rules for scientific publications.
- In case of controversial reviews, the independent external reviewers (narrow experts in this field) are mandatory involved.
- The review procedure is anonymous for both the reviewers and author(s).
- Reviews are submitted in writing and ended with the conclusion that accepts for publication (taking into account possible editing and revision) or definitely refuses the paper.
- In case if the paper is returned to the author for improvement (accepted but needs some revision), the author resubmits the paper with all the improvement having made, and gets the second review. After that only minor changes are possible, and the third review is given. Only two resubmission of the revised publication are allowed. If the final (third) review concludes that there is a need to refine the paper, then the paper is rejected.
- After a series of editorial revisions the final version of the paper is sent to the author for his final proofreading and consent to publish the paper as presented.
Ethical standards
The Transactions of the Azov-Black Sea Ornithological Station “Branta” strictly follows ethical standards based on the standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Submitting the article to the journal, the author confirms that he adhered to scientific ethics and all the rules and requirements adopted in the journal (see below). The editorial advisory board of "Branta" in turn guarantees to take measures to ensure high ethical and professional standards while working on the each article.
Authors and Authors responsibilities
Authorship
- All authors should make a sufficient intellectual contribution to the writing of the article, namely the development of the concept, data collection, material processing, analysis and writing of the article. If it is impossible to determine the specific tasks that were performed by a person while writing an article, then this person should not be attributed authorship.
- The inclusion of a person who does not meet the requirements of authorship established by the editorial policy, or the exclusion of a person who meets these requirements, is a violation of the ethical requirements of the journal.
- If there are two or more authors of the article, one of the authors should be defined as the corresponding author (the author with whom the publisher will conduct all correspondence relating to the submitted article).
- Any changes in the composition of the team of authors (adding and/or excluding authors, changing the order of authors) is possible only upon written request of the corresponding author explaining the reason for the change(s) and the role (s) of the added and/or excluded author (s).
- All authors whose names appear in the manuscript share collective responsibility for the presented results.
Manuscript and data
- The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
- The manuscript should not be published previously (partially or in fully) and submitted to another journal before its publishing in "Branta" or receiving a negative review. If the article concerns an extension of previous work, please, provide the transparence of re-use of materials to avoid a hint at "self-plagiarism".
- No data (including figures) should be fabricated or adjusted to support your conclusions.
- At the request of the Editorial Board authors should be ready to send supporting documentation or data to verify the accuracy of results. These can be primary raw data, pictures, descriptions, confirming the accuracy of the species definitions etc.
- Manipulation or falsification of data is a violation of publication ethics. The journal uses the COPE guidelines in suspected cases of falsification of data.
Plagiarism
- Authors should guarantee that the data used in the article are the results of the authors' own research or provided by other persons with their agreement without violation of intellectual rights, as evidenced by the relevant references in the text of the article.
- The journal considers plagiarism as a serious violation. Plagiarism may be presented in different forms: from the "transfer" the another person's article as own, copyright or paraphrase substantial parts of someone else's article (without mention the author) to assignment of the results of research carried out by others. Plagiarism in all its forms is unethical and not acceptable behaviour. In suspected cases of plagiarism the editorial advisory board "Branta" will act in accordance with the COPE guidelines.
Conflicts of interest
- Any interest or relationship, finance or otherwise, which may affect the author's objectivity, is considered as potential source of conflict of interests
- The Editorial Board will not reject articles only because of a conflict of interest, but believes that any competing interests must be established and disclose before publication.
- All authors must disclose in their work information about any financial or official impact on the authors, which could affect the results of the research or their interpretation. All sources of financial support of the project, under which the publication was prepared, must be indicated
- Members of the Editorial Board must refuse to consider manuscripts with which they have a conflict of interest as a result of competitive, financial or other relations with any of the authors, companies or institutions associated with these articles.
The responsibility of editors and reviewers
The Editorial Board guarantee that in questions of acceptance or rejection of the articles is guided only by professional and ethical standards, all decisions of the Editorial Board are based only on the desire to publish high-quality and authentic scientific materials. The main approaches which our Editorial Board guide while making decision on publication of the article are outlined here.
The Editorial Board will make efforts to follow all ethical standards by the Editorial Board itself, the authors, the data accepted for publication in the journal, and external reviewers, whom the Editorial board involves to evaluate the scientific importance of the articles.
Abuse of authority
Abuse of authority is the deliberate use of own authorities contrary to the interests of official duty, based on selfish personal interest, is not acceptable in the activities of the editorial advisory board "Branta". Protectionism, favoritism, nepotism in the selection of publications, as well as other abuse of authority by the Editorial Board, are incompatible with the principles and standards of professional ethics, and will never be used in the work of the Editorial Board "Brant»
Privacy
- Manuscripts will be reviewed with proper respect to the privacy of the author and reviewer. The members of the Editorial Board oblige do not disclose to anyone the information about manuscripts (including their content, status in the process of review, criticism of the reviewers or ultimate fate) besides authors and reviewers. The members of the Editorial Board guarantee that they will never use the materials of manuscripts before their publishing, and will never use the data obtained to confirm the authenticity of the manuscript, without the agreement of the author
- Information in the form of confidential personal data of the author(s) will not be requested by any member of the editorial Board.
- Reviewers undertake not to disclose the information about manuscripts (including their receipt, content, as well as the actual review prepared by the reviewer) to anyone besides the contact person of the Editorial Board, from whom he received the manuscript (editor-in-chief or secretary of the Editorial Board). Reviewers respect the authors' rights and do not publicly discuss the work of the authors. Any ideas and data of the manuscript cannot be used by reviewers before its publication. Reviewers cannot hand over the manuscript to others without the permission of the editor-in-chief.
Self-citation
Members of the Editorial Board will never, under any circumstances, consider citation of articles of the journal or citation of articles of members of the Editorial Board as a requirement for publication of the article in the journal. Any recommendation concerning cited articles can be made only for the purpose of improving the quality of the published article.
Complaints
Illegal or unethical behavior can be identified and brought to the attention of the Editorial Board at any time by anyone, regardless of the terms of publication of the article. Those who informs the editors about such behaviour must provide sufficient information. All received complaints of unethical behaviour will be reviewed and scrupulously verify by the Editorial Board. Prior to any decision, all information is confidential and subject to disclosure only to a strictly defined circle of persons who are involved in such an investigation.
Actions in case of detection of violation of ethical standards
If the Editorial Board finds that the author or members of the Editorial Board, as well as reviewers have violated ethical standards (mentioned above or any other), this person will be given the opportunity to respond to any allegations.
Minor violation
Minor violation may be considered within the editorial Board, without the need for wider consultation. In this case, the Editorial Board will limit itself to addressing a member of the Editorial Board or reviewer with the requirement to explain such behavior.
Serious violation
In case of detection of serious violations of ethical standards, the organization that employs the accused will be informed of this fact. If the fact of violation of ethical standards will be confirmed in relation to the member of the Editorial Board or reviewer, he will be excluded from the Editorial Board and will not be involved in further review of articles. In case of confirmed violation of ethical standards by the author, it may be decided to veto the publication of the author in the journal for a certain period of time (the decision on the terms is made by the editor-in-chief in consultation with the members of the Editorial Board, and other persons involved in the process, and depends on the degree of violation of ethical standards).
Guidelines for contributors to the transactions of the Azov-black sea ornithological station “Branta”
General requirements
“Branta” publishes original contributions covering field of ornithology in whole (general problems: biological diversity, avian ecology and evolution in general; faunistics, systematics; ecology; migrations; behaviour; wintering; conservation research into rare birds, description and designation of IBA; morphology; methodology; short communications; ornithological notes; personalities and reviews).
Papers (short communications, notes) are accepted as Word for Windows files optimally not exceeding 20,000 signs. The papers which exceed this length are published by special approval of the Editorial Board. A print-out (1 copy) identical to the digital version should be enclosed to the file and signed by all the authors of the paper. The papers should be laconic and avoid long historical excursi. Any information is presented with at least brief description of methods and spatial/temporal coverage of the data.
Only texts with the following separation are taken: introduction (problem-setting, analysis of late research and literature according to the theme, goals and objectives), material and methods, results and discussion, conclusions, references.
The paper must be accompanied with the UDC (Universal Decimal Classification), key words, summary, and indication of the name of the organization/institution of each of the authors. Contact address (preferably e-mail) of the first author is given at the bottom of the text.
When mentioned for the first time the full Latin name of the bird is indicated in brackets, while the name in original paper language is used further in the text. Only Latin names are listed in the tables. Latin and Russian bird names are given according to L.S.Stepanyan (1990)*, Ukrainian names according to G.V.Fesenko, A.A.Bokotey (2000)** or the Order N 7 of 10.06.2009 of Institute of Zoology of NAS of Ukraine ‘On Using Ukrainian Names of Animals’, English names according to ‘The Birds of Western Palearctic’ (1977-1994)***. In case of using other systematics the author must refer to it in ‘Material and methods’.
Geographical points are indicated according to administrative division and physical-geographical nomenclature. This may be supplemented by landscape references (rivers, mountain chains, sands etc.). All dates in the text are given in German format: dd.mm.yy (for example, 25.03.2000).
Any calculations and assumptions based on figures should be followed by units of measure (number of individuals or measurements, etc.), necessary statistical information and tests (sample size, mean standard deviation, significance of difference etc.). Qualitative evaluations should be justified in ‘Material and methods’.
In faunistic papers, especially those dealing with distribution of rare birds, exact dates and numbers of recorded individuals have to be presented. Due to commercial interest that some of the rare birds arise, the exact co-ordinates of their nests or location of their concentration are not necessarily presented.
All text should be carefully checked for spelling and grammar. The Editorial Board serves the right to shorten and correct the submitted contributions. The papers obligatory undergo an external peer-review.
Papers and short communications which do not correspond to the above requirements are refused.
Translation of summaries and other accompanying information
Papers are published in Ukrainian, Russian and English. All papers must be accompanied with summary (annotation) in three languages (Ukrainian, English and Russian). The summary must contain basic results of the studies including quantitative data; references to tables and figures in the main text are allowed. The summary should not exceed 10-15% of the paper volume. The Editorial Board recommends giving extensive summary or annotation separately to each section of the paper, paying particular attention to methodology. For English-speaking authors, the accompanying Ukrainian/Russian translation is made by the Editorial Board free of charge. However, translation by own efforts of authors who have a good knowledge of Ukrainian/Russian is encouraged.
The author submits a separate file translate.doc (already translated or for further translation by the Editorial Board) that includes as follows: title of the paper, authors’ names, full names of institutions, subtitles of each section, key words, summary (annotations), tables and all text related to illustrations. References in Cyrillic must be translated in English in square brackets and original language of the paper is indicated. References written in Roman alphabet is not translated in English and do not require English translation. See an example below (detailed rules for references are further in the text):
Назаренко Л.Ф., Амонский Л.А. // Влияние синоптических процессов и погоды на миграции птиц в Причерноморье. - Киев, Одесса. Вища школа, 1986. - с.19 — 32. [Nazarenko L.F., Amonsky L.A. // Impact of synoptical processes and weather on bird migrations in the Black Sea Region. – Kyiv, Odesa. ‘Vyscha Shkola’ Press, 1986. – P.19-32] [in Russian]
Górska E. 1975. Badania wspólnych noclegowisk wróbla, Passer domesticus (L.); Szpaka Sturnus vulgaris L. w Poznaniu, w zimowych sezonach 1970/71 i 1971/72 // Prz. zool. – Vol. 19, № 2. – Р.230-238.
Translations made solely by Google or other computer-assisted translation programs are not accepted.
Transliteration of names of geographic territories located within borders of Ukraine is made in accordance with «Постановою Кабінета Міністрів України № 55 від 27.01.2010 р. про впорядкування транслітерації українського алфавіту латиницею» (Order of Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No 55 of 27.01.2010 on denoting Ukrainian alphabet with Roman letters). http://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws
After the first editing, digital versions of the papers will be sent to authors by e-mail for making notes and corrections in the text and translation if necessary.
The literature is referred as follows
The literature is referred as follows:
A.I.Ivanov (1965); A.I.Ivanov, B.Peat (Ivanov, 1965; Peat, 1960); Peat (1960).
‘was registered also by other researchers’ (Blakiston, 1857; Kostin, 1983).
Only mentioned literature should be included into the reference list in alphabetical order. Quotation should reflect current state of the knowledge in the world literature. Publications of the same author are listed in chronological order.
References to the foreign literature have to follow the original language rules or citation examples. Missing letters and symbols may be inked by pen.
Completeness and correctness of the reference list is considered to be fully authors’ responsibility.
In the reference list the following bibliographic standards should be kept to:
a) For periodicals
The last name of the author/s followed by initials. Title of the article // Name of the periodical. - Year. - Volume, Number or Issue. - P.[ages]00-00
Laursen K., Holm E., Sorensen I. Pollen as a marker in migratory warblers, Sylviidae // Ardea. - 1997. - 85, N2. - P.223-231.
b) For books
The last name of the author/s followed by initials. Complete book title. - Edition (if necessary). - City of publication (completely): Publisher, Year. - Number of pages. (Additional information, for example a series or language).
Rossner G., Heissig R. Land Mamals of Europe. - Munchen: Friedrich Pfeil, 1999. - 444 p.
c) For collective monographs
Complete book title. / The last name of the author’s followed by initials. The last name/s of the editor/s followed by initials. - City of publication (completely): Publisher, Year. - Number of pages.
The Birds of the Western Palearctic. Vol. VIII. Crows to Finches / Cramp S., Perrins C.M. (eds). - Oxford - New-York: Oxford University Press, 1994. - 899 p.
d) a chapter (section) of a collective monograph
The last name of the author/s followed by initials. Complete chapter (section) title // The last name/s of the editor/s followed by initials. Complete book title. - City of publication (completely): Publisher, Year. - Number of pages.
Stikvoort E.C. Stomach and faeces contents of waterbirds in Egypt / Meininger P.L., Atta G.A.M. (eds.) Ornithological studies in Egyptian wetlands 1989/90. FORE-report 94-01, WIWO-report 40. - Zeist: WIWO, 1994. - P.193-212.
e) For conference proceedings, collections of articles, transactions.
The last name of the author/s followed by initials. Complete title of article // Title of the collection (Place and time the conference was held - City of publication (completely): Publisher, Year. - P[ages]. 00‑00.
Handrinos G.I. Midwinter numbers and distribution of Cormorants and Pygmy Cormorants in Greece // Status and conservation of seabirds: Proceedings of the 2nd Mediterranean Seabird Symposium (Calvia, 21-26 March 1989). - Madrid: SEO/BirdLife, 1993. - P.147-159.
The digital version of the text
The digital version of the text is accepted as Word for Windows files. The following typewriting rules have to be kept to:
- Never put a blank before a punctuation mark (only after)
- Do not put blanks:
- between brackets and text therein;
- between figure and %;
- before or after a hyphen in compound words;
- in the shortenings such as r[iver].Molochnaya, t[own].Melitopol;
- between initials (which are always written first) and last name;
- Do not divide words artificially, only “soft” hyphenation is acceptable.
- Decimals are separated by a dot (5.6).
- No paragraphs are indented by blanks or tabulation, only automatic computer identification of paragraphs is accepted.
- Avoid any lay-out of the text or using different fonts.
- Don’t type any text with capital letters (e.g. TITLE).
- Use Times New Roman (Cyr) 12 as the main font, single-spaced.
Tables
Tables are accepted only in the Word format. Table width should not exceed 16.5 cm, in case of album orientated tables - 25 cm. Rows are placed in different cells (not taken over to the next line by “Enter” key). Only references to the tables are given in the text, while tables themselves (according to their numeration), table titles and notes are submitted in a separate file (translate.doc). Authors are encouraged to avoid large tables exceeding one page.
It is advised to split massive data sets into several tables. Number of tables in an average article should not run over 8, in short communications there are generally 4 or less.
Illustrations
Illustrations are submitted according to the following rules:
1. For digital illustrations:
- Graphs and diagrams: xls-files (version of Excel-2003), basic data are presented.
- Photographs: TIFF-files (IBM PC, None compression), resolution - 300 dpi.
- Maps, skeleton maps, pictures, other illustrative material: TIFF-files (IBM PC, None compression), resolution - 300 dpi; or cdr-files (CorelDraw -12 or older version).
- Illustrations inserted into Word are not accepted.
2. If the author cannot submit qualitative digital illustrations they can be submitted as hard copies. In this case, two hard copies of illustrations are accepted: an original one with text and another copy scaled 1:1 (without any text) made in black ink on white paper for scanning. Only high quality photos are accepted, 13x18 cm size. Number of the illustration and authors’ name are written on its reverse, as well as an arrow indicating the top. Illustrations are not returned to the authors.
Maximum size of all illustrations is 13x18 cm.
Illustrations should be numbered in order they are mentioned in the paper. Authors can mark the most appropriate place to insert a particular illustration in the text by indicating the number and name of the illustration and separating it from the main text by an empty line from both sides. All text in the illustrations, legends and illustration titles should be repeated in a separated file (translate.doc).Data from tables, graphs or diagrams should not be repeated in the main text. They are referred to in brackets: (Table 1) or (fig. 1).
Copyright
The right to the published article belongs to the editorial advisory board "Brantа"
The author agrees that in the process of editorial preparation the article can be slightly changed, but only with the author's agreement.
The author gives his consent to the publication of the electronic version of the published materials on the website of the journal and/or other relevant Internet sources.
The author(s) retains the right to the used materials (data), original illustrations and author's techniques.
Open access
The Editorial Board post all published articles on the website of the journal.
The articles are posted on an open access basis in accordance with the principle that the publication of research results is freely available to the public and promotes a wider global exchange of knowledge.
Electronic versions of the journal articles are published under the creative Commons license "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives" 4.0 worldwide.
