Ethical norms
The Editorial Board of “Via Stomatologiae” follows specific requirements for selecting and approving articles submitted to the editorial office. These norms are determined by the journal’s scientific focus and the quality standards for scientific works and their presentation set in the academic community.
The editors call for adherence to the principles of the Code of Ethics for Scientific Publications developed by the Committee for the Ethics of Scientific Publications (COPE), as well as the principles of DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment).
Responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief:
The Editor-in-Chief decides on the article’s publication being guided by the relevant decision of the editorial board, reviewers and a person responsible for checking materials, which are based on the COPE policy, for plagiarism.
The Editor-in-Chief guarantees confidentiality by operating with information about the content of the provided materials only within the editorial board, reviewers, author, and publisher.
The Editor-in-Chief resolves (if any) conflicts of an ethical nature.
The Editor-in-Chief keeps original reviews for 3 years.
The Editor-in-Chief decides on retraction and rejection of a manuscript that violates copyright or generally accepted standards of scientific ethics.
Responsibility of editorial board members:
All information obtained during the peer-review process shall be kept secret. The discussion may only be carried out by persons authorized by the editor-in-chief.
EBMs are accountable for publishing the accepted manuscripts by relying on their scientific value.
EBMs determine the compliance of the submitted materials with the journal’s expertise area and the requirements for presentation and send them for review (to doctor or candidate of sciences). They are authorized to return the article for revision if the requirements for content and design are met partially. Significant flaws in the design may be the reason for rejecting the manuscript.
The editorial staff reserves the right to reject a manuscript if self-plagiarism exceeds 15%.
EBMs reserve the right to involve independent reviewers.
Responsibility of reviewers:
Reviewers carry out an objective assessment of a manuscript and provide relevant arguments.
Reviewers conduct a double-blind review of the submitted manuscripts and decide on their publication.
They review manuscripts within the time frame defined by the editorial team (2 weeks). However, the editorial board is authorized to adjust the review terms, taking into account the subjective circumstances of each specific case (subject to mandatory preservation of the review quality).
Reviewers do not use ideas or information obtained during the peer-review process in their publications without the written consent of the author or a corresponding reference after the publication of the latter.
Subject to a positive review, a reviewer should inform the editorial board, which makes the final decision on publication. If the reviewer has a remark under the overall positive assessment, the article is considered conditionally admitted to printing, but it needs to be improved (the improved article is resent for peer review). With the consent of the author and the editorial board, the findings may not be corrected. Therefore, the editorial board reserves the right to publish such findings as comments to the article (the author reserves the right to officially respond to them).
Reviewers have the right to refuse a recommendation for printing. In this case, the manuscript is not considered for a second time.
Responsibility of the authors:
Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works which do not contain plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) and are not considered by the editorial staff of another journal and have not been published previously (including in other languages).
Authors are responsible for the reliability of facts, references, quotations, and translations.
The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors are included on the paper.
Authors shall comply with copyright laws.
The author retains the copyright of the manuscript and grants the journal right to first publication under the Creative Commons 4.0 International License.
If the paper is published within the framework of the project, the grand, etc., it should contain the relevant information.
In accordance with the principles of DORA, the Journal:
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evaluates manuscripts solely on the basis of their scientific quality, originality, methodological soundness, and contribution to the advancement of knowledge;
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does not use journal-based metrics (including the Impact Factor) as a criterion for assessing individual articles or the scientific quality of an author;
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does not encourage artificial inflation of citation metrics;
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supports the responsible use of scientometric indicators.
Conflict of Interest Policy
A conflict of interest refers to any financial, professional, institutional, or personal relationships that may influence or appear to influence editorial decisions or manuscript content.
Disclosure is mandatory for:
authors (financial and non-financial relationships);
reviewers (potential competing interests);
editors (when handling manuscripts involving their institution or colleagues).
If a potential conflict is identified:
the editor or reviewer must recuse themselves;
an independent handling editor is appointed;
independent reviewers are assigned;
decisions and justifications are documented.
Submissions by Editors or Editorial Board Members
Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief or editorial board members:
are handled by an independent editor;
undergo standard double-blind peer review;
exclude author involvement in editorial decisions;
include a published COI disclosure statement.
Policy on the Use of AI
The Journal’s policy on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools is based on international and national recommendations and regulatory documents, in particular the statements of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the provisions of the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act), the Concept for the Development of Artificial Intelligence in Ukraine, and the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On Academic Integrity”.
The Journal recognizes the possibility of using AI tools as auxiliary instruments during the preparation of scientific materials. At the same time, the use of such tools must comply with the principles of academic integrity, transparency, and the author’s responsibility for the content of the scientific work and the reliability of the results presented.
AI tools may be used, in particular, for auxiliary tasks such as language editing, structuring of materials, technical data processing, and similar activities. Authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, and scientific validity of the submitted materials, proper citation of sources, and for the absence of plagiarism, fabrication, or falsification of research results.
The Journal requires authors to openly disclose any use of AI tools during manuscript preparation. AI systems cannot be considered authors or co-authors of scientific articles, as they cannot take responsibility for the content of a publication.
Editors and reviewers must also adhere to principles of confidentiality and must not use AI tools in a way that would disclose unpublished manuscript materials or any other confidential information obtained during the editorial review process.
Violations of the principles for using AI tools may be considered breaches of academic integrity and publication ethics and may result in appropriate editorial actions, including rejection of the manuscript or retraction of a published article.
Procedure for Retraction and Corrections of Published Articles
The editorial office of the scholarly journal “Via Stomatologiae” follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and ensures transparent, timely, and well-founded procedures for the retraction of publications, correction of errors, and informing readers in cases where problems are identified in published materials.
Retraction of Articles
Retraction is applied in cases where:
serious violations of academic integrity are identified (plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification);
significant errors are found that render the results unreliable;
violations of research ethics are established;
duplicate publication or other serious breaches of publication ethics are detected.
The retraction procedure includes:
conducting an editorial review involving the authors and, if necessary, institutions or ethics committees;
adopting a reasoned decision by the editorial board;
publishing an official retraction notice.
After retraction, the article remains in the journal archive with a clear indication of its retracted status. The text of the article is not removed but is marked as retracted with an appropriate explanation of the reasons.
Corrections and Clarifications
In cases where errors are identified that do not substantially affect the scientific conclusions but require clarification or correction (typographical errors, inaccuracies in data, names, tables, references, etc.), the editorial office:
publishes an official correction notice (erratum or corrigendum);
retains the original version of the article in the archive;
adds a note to the electronic version of the article indicating the changes and the date of correction.
All decisions regarding retractions and corrections are made in accordance with the principles of transparency, objectivity, fairness, and the protection of research integrity.
Policy on Ethical Approval of Research
The journal “Via Stomatologiae” adheres to international standards of publication ethics and the requirements of the legislation of Ukraine regarding scientific research involving humans, animals, their biological materials, as well as personal or confidential data.
All studies involving human participants (patients, volunteers), the use of human biological materials, personal or confidential data must be conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and the applicable legislation of Ukraine. Authors are required to obtain prior approval from the relevant ethics committee (local bioethics committee) of the institution where the research was conducted. The manuscript must indicate the name of the ethics committee as well as the number and date of the approval decision.
If the study involves patients or volunteers, the authors must confirm that informed consent for participation in the study and for the use of the obtained data for scientific and publication purposes has been obtained in written form. In cases where clinical images or other information that may allow identification of a person are used, authors must ensure full anonymization of the data or obtain written consent from the patient for publication.
Research involving animals must comply with international principles of humane treatment of laboratory animals and the requirements of the applicable legislation of Ukraine. In such cases, authors must provide information confirming that the study was approved by the appropriate ethics committee.
The editorial board reserves the right to request copies of documents confirming ethical approval from the authors. Manuscripts that do not confirm compliance with ethical requirements or lack the necessary approvals will not be considered for review or may be rejected at any stage of the editorial process.
Privacy Statement and Personal Data Processing Policy
Collection and Use of Personal Data
Names, email addresses, and other personal data provided by authors, reviewers, and website users are used exclusively for the purposes of:
supporting the editorial and publishing process;
communication regarding manuscript submission, peer review, and publication;
maintaining the operation of the journal’s website.
Such data are not disclosed to third parties or used for commercial purposes without the user’s explicit consent, except as required by law.
Personal Data Protection
The journal applies appropriate technical and organizational security measures to prevent unauthorized access, loss, alteration, or disclosure of personal data.
Users have the right:
to access their personal data;
to rectify inaccurate or outdated data;
to restrict or object to the processing of their personal data;
to request deletion of their personal data (“the right to be forgotten”) in cases covered by law;
to withdraw their consent to the processing of personal data at any time.
Personal data are retained only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes of processing or as required by law.
For questions regarding personal data processing, the exercise of user rights, or privacy-related requests, please contact the journal’s editorial office using the official contact details provided on the website.
