Journal Publication Ethics

The editorial policy of the scientific journal «Continuing Professional Education: Theory and Practice» aimed at ethical norms accepted by the international scientific community.

Editorial Board activity in this direction is based on the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics, valuable experience in reputable international journals and publishing houses as well as current legislation of Ukraine.

The Editorial Board is guided by the REGULATIONS on the academic integrity of academic, pedagogical and research staff and higher education learners of Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University.

All authors must not submit materials which contain offensive statements, national, religious, racial and other types of discrimination or can cause ethnic and racial enmity, violate international law and legislation.

Equity and inclusion policy

The editorial board upholds the principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Decisions regarding manuscript acceptance are made solely on the basis of academic quality, regardless of the authors’ gender, age, nationality, language, ethnicity, religion, political views, social background, or institutional affiliation. The journal is committed to providing equal opportunities for all researchers and fostering an inclusive scholarly environment.

Plagiarism, duplication, fabrication, and falsification

The journal does not accept manuscripts containing plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publications, or materials based on fabricated or falsified data. All submissions are checked using similarity-detection software. In cases of misconduct, procedures recommended by COPE are applied, ranging from rejection of the manuscript to the retraction of already published articles.

 Ethical aspects of research involving humans and animals

For studies involving human participants or animals, authors must confirm compliance with relevant ethical standards. Human studies require informed consent from participants and approval from a local or national ethics committee (where required by law or international norms). Research involving animals must adhere to principles of humane treatment and applicable international protocols. Authors must state in their manuscripts whether ethical approval was obtained.

Use of prior publications and preprints

The journal accepts submissions that have preprint versions deposited in recognized repositories or platforms. Authors must declare the existence of a preprint at the time of submission and provide a reference to it. The use of material from prior publications is allowed only with proper citation and in compliance with copyright regulations.

Policy on advertising materials and external influence

The journal does not consider advertising materials and does not allow the inclusion of hidden advertising or sponsored content that lacks scholarly value. Editorial decisions are made exclusively based on academic merit. The journal operates independently of commercial, political, or other external influences that could compromise the integrity of the publication process.

The Journal allows the authors to retain publishing rights and to hold the copyright without restriction.

All relationships with publishing ethics issues that arise between authors and the editorial board and are not regulated by this document generally can be regulated by international standards of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).

Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence

The journal promotes transparency and accountability in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in research and publication.

AI use declaration

Authors are required to clearly declare any use of AI tools in the preparation of the manuscript. The declaration should appear in an appropriate section of the paper (e.g., Acknowledgements or a designated statement) and must specify the tools used and their roles. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the content.

Automatic text generation

Manuscripts created wholly or partly through automatic text generation without human oversight and substantial authorial revision are not considered. AI systems cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.

Editing and language assistance

The use of AI tools for language editing, stylistic improvement, or translation is permitted only if authors retain full control over the content, critically review all outputs, and accept responsibility for every claim made in the manuscript.

 Peer-review
The use of AI in the peer-review process is strictly prohibited. Reviews must reflect an independent expert assessment undertaken by a human reviewer, who assumes responsibility for the conclusions and recommendations provided.

The Journal allows the authors to retain publishing rights and to hold the copyright without restriction.

All relationships with publishing ethics issues that arise between authors and the editorial board and are not regulated by this document generally can be regulated by international standards of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).

GENERAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PARTIES

Members of Editorial Board:

  • adhere to the ethical aspects of the work of editors and members of the Editorial Board in accordance with the Code of editorial ethics and best practices of editorial work COPE;
  • encourages and supports scientific integrity, adheres to editorial independence, accords priority to discussion and dispute;
  • ensures timely careful selection and independent reviewof materials proposed for publication;
  • are responsible for organizing the acceptance of the article for publishing, appointing a reviewer, notifying the author of approval for publishing, rejection or return for revision;
  • have to send the results of reviewing, comments and recommendations to the author(s) in a period no more than 3 weeks; documentation associated with reviewing process should be retained;
  • must ensure that submitted articles are processed in a confidential manner; editors should not disclose the names and other details of the authors and/or reviewers to a third party without their permission;
  • gives no information related to maintenance of manuscript on consideration to other persons except persons which participate in reviewing process. After positive decision of the Editorial Board the article is published in the journal and placed on its webpage; after which the paper is submitted to the corresponding electronic resources of Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine and placed on the websites of international scientifically-metrical bases;
  • should investigate all authors and/or reviewers’ complaints;
  • may reject submitted articles if they consider the articles to be inappropriate for the journal and outside its sections;
  • have the right to make the final decision on whether to accept or reject article depending on its originality, novelty, clarity and conformity to journal’s requirements

Authors:

  • provide an accurate description of the research, objectively highlight its scientific novelty and practical significance;
  • are responsible for the views, opinions, results and conclusions of the articles published in the journal;
  • have responsibility for the accuracy of the information in the articles, accuracy of names and quotes;
  • confirm that submitted article was not published (in whole or in part). If the material has been previously published, the author must provide the wording of bibliographic references about previous publications and relevance of publications to justify a new version, explaining the nature of additions and changes made to the latest version of the article;
  • must report any potential conflict of interests and guarantee absence of contract relations or ownership rights which the publication of results contained in a manuscript could influence (https://publicationethics.org/files/Recognise_Potential_Authorship_Problems.pdf)

  • Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, do not meet our authorship requirements. The attribution of authorship carries a responsibility for the paper that cannot be adequately applied to LLMs. The use of an LLM in research should be appropriately documented in the Methods section of the manuscript, or in a suitable alternative part if a Methods section is not available.

Reviewers:

  • adhere to the ethical aspects of the work of reviewers in accordance with the norms established by the Committee on Publication Ethics; 
  • have to evaluate all manuscripts according to set criteria. All articles have to be reviewed in a period no more than 2 weeks. In other way reviewers should inform the editor if this is not possible; 
  • evaluate the manuscript regardless of ethnic, gender, religious or political affiliation of the authors;
  • ensure the confidentiality of all materials related to the publication;
  • it is forbidden to disclose information from the article or use any part of unpublished materials in own research;
  • have to inform the Editorial Board about the manuscripts with plagiarism, fabricated data and biased citation. But any allegation of plagiarism should be accompanied by adequate and reasonable proofs.
  • have to take into account a possibility of conflict of interests in the case when a manuscript is closely related to their current or published work or in case of professional or personal relations of the reviewer with the author, which may influence the reviewer’s judgment. If there is a conflict, a reviewers have to return the manuscript without a review, reporting the Editorial Board about the conflict of interests.

Mechanism for eliminating violations of publication ethics and unfair:

If publication ethics is breached by the members of Editorial Board, authors or reviewers, a mandatory investigation is required. Editorial Board must act in accordance with the norms established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and in accordance with the specifics of the detected violations. The decision of the Editorial Board must be impartial, objective and independent of third parties. In order for us to take an unbiased approach, Editorial Board investigate each case thoroughly, seeking clarification from all affected parties.

Types of publication ethics violations:

  • violation of the norms of universal morality, hate speech, humiliation of the dignity of other persons, institutions, organizations, discrimination based on age, race, social, national, gender, religious, territorial, professional, political criteria in the text of the publication;
  • undisclosed conflict of interest;
  • re-publication (duplicate publication);
  • plagiarism;
  • lack of reference to the source, or other copyright violations;
  • falsified data, indicating fictitious co-authors, publishing under a false name;
  • assignment of an author's scientific idea or data by a reviewer, editor, etc.

If reviewers or members of the editorial board find such violations, they must act in accordance with the algorithm proposed Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): 

  • request an explanation from author, reviewer or member of Editorial Board about publication ethics violation;
  • in case of satisfactory explanation to continue publication process;
  • in case of unsatisfactory explanations, the article or review with publication ethics violations is rejected;
  • all decisions on violation of publishing ethics are made at the meeting of the Editorial Board with mandatory open voting and recording of the decision in the protocol of the meeting of the Editorial Board.

Retraction and Corrections

Retraction of articles

The editorial board reserves the right to retract already published articles in cases of serious breaches of academic integrity, including plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, duplicate publication, false results, or other major ethical violations. Retraction decisions are made by the Editor-in-Chief in consultation with the editorial board, in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Corrections and clarifications

In cases of minor errors that do not affect the overall results of the study, the journal publishes corrections or clarifications (corrigendum/erratum). Such notices are linked to the original article via the DOI system, ensuring transparency of the editorial record.

Serious violations

If significant issues are discovered after publication that call into question the scholarly validity or ethical soundness of the work, the article will be retracted. Retracted articles remain accessible but are clearly marked as “Retracted,” accompanied by a statement explaining the reasons. This practice is consistent with international standards and safeguards the integrity of the scholarly record.