For Reviewer

Dear reviewers,

You can help the editors of the Socio-Cultural Management Journal if you express your competent opinion on the reliability, novelty, and significance of the results presented in the manuscripts.

You can also help authors by offering some recommendations for improving their manuscripts.

Your comments will help the editors decide to publish the manuscript.

The journal's editorial board asks reviewers to strictly follow the journal's policy and the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. During the peer review process, the editors expect the following from the reviewers:  

  1. reviewers must be objective during the expert examination of manuscripts; all comments and recommendations must be supported by appropriate arguments;
  2. remain impartial about considerations related to nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender, other characteristics of the authors and the manuscript;
  3. do not discuss the peer-reviewed manuscript with anyone without the written permission of the chief editor;
  4. not to copy, not to distribute, not to share information concerning the manuscript;
  5. immediately notify the editors of any competing interest that may interfere with the review of the submitted manuscript and refuse to review it;
  6. expert review must be prepared promptly (the duration of the review is not more than 2 months); 
  7. if there are difficulties that may prevent the timely preparation of the review, the reviewer must immediately notify the editors.

The Peer Review Process:

The manuscript is sent for external examination (peer review) after successfully passing the internal expert examination in the journal editorial board.

Invited reviewer should reread the journal policy, ensure that there is no conflict of interest, confirm their competence in the content of the manuscript, and decide whether to accept or decline the invitation. In case of refusal, they may recommend alternative reviewers. If accepted, they should prepare a Review Form. 

The object of review is the results of the study. The expert opinion should be unbiased: the discrepancy between the scientific positions of the author and the reviewer is the basis for scientific discussion, but in itself cannot serve as a sufficient basis for refusing to publish the article.

Manuscript Requirements:

  • only previously unpublished manuscripts that correspond to the profile and scientific level of the journal are accepted for publication;
  • manuscripts should be relevant to the topic, significant from a theoretical and practical point of view, clearly structured and properly designed (see: Manuscript Requirements, Manuscript Structure Sample, Examples of Bibliographic Descriptions and References;
  • the results of the research contained in the manuscripts must be new and substantiated;
  • the reliability of the obtained results should be confirmed by methodological and theoretical argumentation of the initial positions of the study, the correct application of a set of selected research methods, the reliability of theoretical and empirical information about the object of study, approbations, consistency with practice;
  • the manuscript should be written in an academic style, the features of which are logic, clarity, and brevity, scientific terminology accuracy, reliability of source information, criticality in the selection of facts, provability of the text content, completeness (the integrity of disclosure of one or more issues), conclusions validity, opinions, and references;
  • the data based on which the study was conducted must be obtained from authoritative official sources, reference to which in the text of the manuscript is mandatory;
  • the manuscript should contain in the citation list only those sources that were actually used in the study; all sources should be referenced in the text of the article;
  • incorrect borrowings and plagiarism in manuscripts are not allowed.

The reviewer pays special attention to identifying and preventing the publication of manuscripts that contain behavioral violations during research, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification.   

Peer review results are indicated in a special review form.

The reviewer, after the materials peer review, may make one of these decisions:

  1. the manuscript is recommended for publication;
  2. the manuscript can be published, but after the author corrects the reviewer's comments (with or without re-review);
  3. the manuscript is not recommended for publication if the material has fundamental shortcomings.

Authors are provided with copies of reviews (anonymously). Subject to comments, the authors eliminate deficiencies in the manuscripts. Authors can also challenge reviewers' comments by providing their own arguments and explanations.

The completed review form should be sent by e-mail to biguss@meta.ua or another address provided by the correspondent editor.

Review Form