Journal policies

Open Access

The Journal editors adhere to the latest recommendations on transparency and best practice open-access publishing. The following document is consulted on a regular basis for updating the journal website and editorial policies:

Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Version 4.0; September 15, 2022)

The Journal employs the platinum open access model; there are no processing or publication charges for the authors. Our readers can access published articles freely. All contents are available fully and immediately upon publication.

The following landmark declarations are enforced by the Journal editors:

Aims & Scope

The aim of Ukrainian Dental Journal is to provide a platform for the sharing of evidence-based investigations and analyzing general medical issues in the multidisciplinary fields of clinical dentistry, preventive dentistry, maxillofacial surgery and oncology, ENT, anesthesiology, of interest to scholars and clinicians in Ukraine and world-wide. The Journal regularly solicits reviews and expert opinion pieces of scholars from all over the world to expand the prospects of scientific collaboration of Ukrainian fellows.

In its publishing practice, the Ukrainian Dental Journal is guided by international standards, recommendations, and resources on all aspects of publishing ethics following the requirements of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), as well as the current regulatory documents on standardization in the field of publishing in Ukraine, which provide recommendations on best practices for conducting medical research and reporting on them.

The policy of the Journal is to form a modern scientific opinion of domestic and foreign scientists on the latest achievements and current problems of dentistry on the pages of the publication. In this regard, the editor-in-chief and editorial board, when considering articles, are guided solely by their scientific novelty, theoretical value, and practical contribution to the development of dentistry, regardless of the author's position, academic title, age, nationality, gender, religious or political views.

The Journal publishes scientific articles devoted to current topical problems of theoretical, clinical, and preventive dentistry, analysis of general medical aspects of the dental field, original cases from clinical practice, comments and reviews of monographs, publications describing designs of prospective studies, and anniversary articles, as well as the results of experimental studies.

In their publishing activities, the editorial board of the Journal adheres to high standards and strives to ensure that any research published in the Ukrainian Dental Journal meets the principles that include:

  • high quality of completed research;
  • transparency and openness in the discussion format;
  • honesty in all aspects of the research;
  • respect for all participants, subjects, and objects of research and publishing process.

The editorial board of the Ukrainian Dental Journal supports editorial independence and strives to prevent violations of these principles due to corporate, financial, or political influence, as well as due to conflict of interest or any other factor. Therefore, the Journal practices contain no potential aspects of discrimination or prejudice against authors, editors, or reviewers based on personal characteristics, nationality, religion, scientific title, position, social status, etc.

Any decisions of the editorial board regarding the prospect of publishing an article or rejecting it are based solely on the following aspects:

  • urgency, relevance, and compliance of the submitted article with modern achievements in dentistry;
  • originality of the submitted article;
  • clarity of presentation in the text of the article;
  • compliance of the content of the article with the topic stated in the title, adequacy of the goal, choice of the appropriate methodology, the correctness of the formulation of results and conclusions;
  • relevance of the article to the Journal profile;
  • the author takes into account all comments if the article is sent for finalizing;
  • design of the article according to the rules for authors.

The Ukrainian Dental Journal is guided by the criteria of compliance with PRISMA regulation when publishing systematic reviews and meta-analyses, CONSORT regulation when publishing clinical trial results, STROBE regulation when publishing epidemiological studies/observational studies, CARE regulation when publishing clinical case studies, STARD regulation when publishing studies on the accuracy of diagnostic tests/prognostic studies, RECORD regulation when publishing studies conducted using regularly collected health observations, SQUIRE regulation when publishing quality improvement studies, AGREE regulation when publishing clinical practice recommendations, and SPIRIT regulation when publishing research protocols. The Journal provides verification of articles for compliance with the relevant quality standards established in the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (available at www.icmje.org). Authors should familiarize themselves with the mandatory requirements for presenting the results of biomedical research, taking into account their design, and with all additional information necessary to ensure the proper quality of publications on the EQUATOR Network website (https://www.equator-network.org/)

Taking into account the Journal's focus on meeting the high-quality criteria put forward for publications that present the results of medical research by international scientometric databases, the principles of publishing activity of the Ukrainian Dental Journal include the following:

  • long-term prospect of ensuring regular publishing activities with a multiplicity of publications of the Journal issue every six months in compliance with the appropriate schedule and availability of materials on the Journal's website;

  • uniqueness and originality of the name of a scientific publication with the absence of identical ones registered in the scientometric databases Scopus and Web of Science;

  • ensuring strict compliance with the blind review process for all materials that are planned for publication in the Journal;

  • mandatory representation of the components "Abstract", "Article Title", "Authors and their Affiliations", and "Keywords" in English/Latin script in addition to Ukrainian;

  • mandatory representation of the list of sources used with transliteration of such sources in English/Latin script;

  • compliance with all COPE principles regarding the rules for forming the editorial board, its functioning, and changes, the process of blind review, identifying and eliminating cases of violation of publishing ethics requirements or presenting research results;

  • availability of the corresponding p-ISSN number and/or its electronic analog e-ISSN;

  • ensuring the functioning of the English version of the Journal's website;

  • availability of clearly structured recommendations for authors, as well as conditions for cooperation between the author and the publication, taking into account practical and financial aspects, with their appropriate translation of this information into English;

  • availability of clearly defined goals and objectives of a scientific publication with their corresponding translation into English;

  • ensuring the principle of geographical diversification of the editorial board and authors;

  • representation of high-quality scientific research with the prospect of citation by publications indexed in the scientometric databases Scopus and Web of Science;

  • high expert level of the editorial board responsible for the Journal's functioning policy;

  • assigning a unique DOI identifier to all articles published on the Journal's website;

The Ukrainian Dental Journal practices a policy of open access to published material, supporting the principles of free dissemination of scientific information and knowledge exchange for global social progress.

The Journal places electronic copies of printed publications on its own website free of charge. Users have an opportunity to read, download, copy, and distribute the content for educational and scientific purposes freely and free of charge, with a mandatory indication of authorship. The Journal also supports the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC), and the Journal's editorial board uses Crossref's Cited-by service to provide open access to its links and other metadata that is passed to Crossref.

Review

Articles submitted by authors for publication are first reviewed by the editorial board of the Journal, who also consult with relevant academic editors from the editorial team, which includes leading domestic and international scientists. The article should be devoted to the urgent problem, have a high level of scientific significance and novelty, be characterized by high methodological and methodological quality of work, be based on new reliable scientific data, and correspond to the profile of the Journal. The presentation of the article should be consistent, logical, clear, and understandable for readers of the Journal from different countries.

If the manuscript meets the profile and principles of the Journal, it is sent to at least two external independent reviewers. 

The review process is critically important for maintaining the principles of the Ukrainian Dental Journal. Editors and reviewers ensure that the review and evaluation process of submitted articles is carried out in compliance with COPE's Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers.

The editorial board of the Journal monitors the quality of articles, observing the transparency of peer review standards. The editorial board reserves the right to shorten and edit accepted works.

To control the quality of articles, the editorial board practices double anonymous (blind) peer review, involving independent reviewers-specialists and/or external reviewers. At the same time, the reviewer receives the article in an anonymous form, that is, without specifying the name and affiliation of the authors, and the authors, in their turn, are not informed about the identity of the reviewer.

If the reviewer is not a specialist in the scientific field to which the article corresponds, or is unable to meet the deadline for reviewing, or for other reasons, he/she is obliged to promptly (3 days) inform the editor about this and return the publication materials to the editorial office.

Reviewers in the process of working with the article observe confidentiality and do not have the right to copy materials, exchange the article with other reviewers, or use the information received for personal purposes. The results of peer review are taken into account by academic editors and the editor-in-chief when making decisions on articles submitted for consideration to the Ukrainian Dental Journal. In some cases, if the results of the review are critically inconsistent between the two reviewers, the academic editor forms a request for additional review and for the authors of the article to provide additional information (if necessary).

Reviewers should return the original article to the editorial office. Reviewers send a full and reasonable review to the editorial office within 14 days, written in a polite and friendly form with a mandatory conclusion in one of the following forms:

  • "Recommend for publication in the original form";
  • "Reject for finalizing and making minimal editing";
  • "Reject for finalizing and making significant editing";
  • "Send for additional review";
  • "Do not recommend for publication".

If the article needs to be finalized, the reviewer should constructively justify the shortcomings identified in it. The editorial board introduces the author to the reviewers' conclusions in writing. If the author does not agree with the reviewers' comments, he/she has the right to express his/her point of view in writing through the editorial office. Communication between the author and reviewers takes place only through the editorial office and only in writing on condition of strict anonymity.

The original article is returned to the author for finalizing and elimination of comments. The author is obliged to return the finalized article to the editorial office within 14 days, otherwise, the article is considered withdrawn.

The editor-in-chief and the editorial board make a final decision on accepting the article for publication subject to a positive review result or on refusing to publish solely based on:

  • urgency, relevance, and compliance of the submitted article with modern achievements in dentistry;
  • originality of the submitted article;
  • clarity of presentation in the text of the article;
  • compliance of the content of the article with the topic stated in the title, adequacy of the goal, choice of the appropriate methodology, the correctness of the formulation of results and conclusions (conclusion);
  • relevance of the article to the Journal profile;
  • correction of the shortcomings of the article indicated by the reviewer and additions that should be made by the author and agreed with the reviewer;
  • design of the article according to the rules for authors.

The conclusion of the editorial board after reviewing/finalizing the article on the possibility of publishing the article in the Journal can be presented in the following form:

  • "Recommended for publication";
  • "Recommended for publication, taking into account the correction of identified shortcomings";
  • "Not recommended for publication".

The original copies of the author's articles and reviews are kept in the editorial office of the Ukrainian Dental Journal for 5 years.

The author of an article sent to the editorial office has the right to withdraw the article with a written application at any stage of its processing, but before approval by the editorial board for inclusion in the next issue of the Journal.

Authors who do not agree with the rejection of the article can appeal at their request. The appeal should contain strong arguments and convincing evidence that refute the criticisms formulated by the academic editor based on the reviews received. Acceptance of the article for reconsideration does not guarantee its publication in the Ukrainian Dental Journal. Repeated revision of the manuscript can be performed by previous or new reviewers, the academic editor, and the editor-in-chief of the Journal. Appeals and complaints can be sent to the editorial office by e-mail.

The editor-in-chief and relevant editors will review them in compliance with copyright and ethical standards related to scientific publications. Respecting the rights of authors, reviewers, readers, and research subjects, the editorial board adheres to confidentiality when working with manuscripts of articles submitted for consideration.

Relationships with authors

The relationship between the editorial board and the author is legally fixed in the author's contract for the use of the results and materials of the article. In turn, the author(s) is(are) fully responsible for the accuracy of the submitted materials, for all aspects of the work related to the accuracy or integrity of the research, and guarantees(guarantee) the absence of publication in other journals, or the fact that it is submitted for consideration in other journals with possible changes in the form, content, or individual components of the article. Before publishing the current issue of the Journal, the author is sent the compiled article for approval of its final version.

According to the principles of conducting scientific research, the authors of an article submitted for consideration in the Ukrainian Dental Journal may be identified as persons who:

  • made a significant contribution to the concept and design of scientific work;

  • provided collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data covered in the article;

  • participated in the writing of the article and provided a critical assessment of the work for urgency, relevance, and compliance with the latest achievements, trends, and current problems of dentistry;

  • approved the final version of the article to be published;

  • were not previously associated with evidence of inappropriate scientific behavior, plagiarism, or fraud in other studies.

The role of authors in the presented study in terms of their personal contribution is determined using CrediT taxonomy: conceptualization, research design, data collection, data analysis, methodology, etc. The interpretation of the authors' contribution can be found in more detail below.

Authors' contribution according to the CrediT taxonomy

Conceptualization

Ideas; formulation or evolution of general goals and research objectives

Methodology

Development or design of methodology; creation of models

Software

Programming, software development; design of computer programs; implementation of program code and auxiliary algorithms; testing of existing code components

Verification

Verification, both as part of the activity and separately, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research results

Formal analysis

Use of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal methods for analyzing or synthesizing research data

Research

Implementation of the study and research process, in particular conducting experiments or collecting data/evidence

Resources

Provision of research materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instruments, computing resources, or other means of analysis

Data curation

Management activities on annotation (presentation of metadata), selection data, and validation research data (including program code, where necessary to interpret the data itself) for initial use and subsequent reuse

Writing — initial project

Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, in particular, writing the initial project (including the main translation)

Writing — reviewing and editing

Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work by members of the research team, in particular a critical review, commentary, or revision, including the steps before or after publication

Visualization

Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, in particular, visualization/presentation of data

Conducting

Responsibility for conducting and directing, planning, and executing research activities, including mentoring outside of the core group

Project administration

Responsibility for managing and coordinating the planning and execution of research activities

Finding financial support

Finding financial support for the project that became the basis of the publication

If all authors have made equal contributions, this should be noted. After submitting an edited manuscript, the order of authorship and the number of authors cannot be changed under any circumstances.

Editors recommend that authors list all those who do not meet the authorship criteria in the "Acknowledgements" section of their publication to highlight the contributions of all those who contributed to the research and/or the writing of the scientific paper.

The corresponding author acts as the main contact person for any editorial requests during the article review period, as well as after the article is published. The editors ask the relevant author to confirm in writing the relevant right to act on behalf of all co-authors on all issues related to the publication of the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for informing co-authors about the stages of processing the manuscript during its submission, review, and publication. Authorship disputes are resolved following the requirements of COPE, WAME, and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Given the focus of the editorial board of the Ukrainian Dental Journal on full integration with established and novel industry standards to increase the transparency of authorship, in addition to the actual clearly defined affiliation of authors, it is recommended to submit their scientometric identifiers (ORCID, Scopus ID, and analogs).

To ensure wide access, the editorial board of the Journal recommends that authors also post their already published articles on personal or institutional websites, catalogs, and repositories (arXiv.org, ssrn.com, ResearchGate, academia.edu, Zenodo, mysciencework, Figshare, etc.). At the same time, it is necessary to indicate the correct citation of the article, indicating a link to the article on the website of the Ukrainian Dental Journal.

In case of incorrect behavior or violation of the ethics of correspondence on the part of the author/authors of the article concerning the editorial staff and other persons involved in the process of publication, reviewing, and publishing activities in general, the editorial board of the Journal reserves the right to take measures for publication up to the possible retraction of the manuscript from consideration, while not pursuing any biased attitude towards the author/authors of the article, who may later submit other articles to the Journal, which will not be affected by the result of the previous conflict.

Copyright

The Ukrainian Dental Journal strictly adheres to the principles of transparency and best practices of scientific publications following COPE recommendations. The editorial board of the Ukrainian Dental Journal practices a policy of open access to published material, supporting the principles of free dissemination of scientific information and knowledge exchange for global social progress. Therefore, by sending the article for consideration to the editorial board of the Ukrainian Dental Journal, the authors retain copyright and authorize the publisher to publish their manuscript as the primary article.

The content of the Ukrainian Dental Journal website is distributed under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). This license allows others to distribute, edit, make changes, and use a published scientific article as a basis for their work, even for commercial use, provided that the authorship is indicated and a link to the Ukrainian Dental Journal (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/). Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions.

Cost of publication

All articles published by the Ukrainian Dental Journal are characterized by a free access license for free use immediately after their publication. To ensure the policy of open access and effective functioning of the scientific publication Ukrainian Dental Journal, the publication of articles provides for the authors to pay all publishing costs in the amount of 300 EUR (equivalent to UAH).

Plagiarism

To meet the quality requirements of a scientific publication, the editorial board implements a number of measures to prevent plagiarism, duplication of submitted materials, or self-plagiarism among published materials. According to generally accepted norms, plagiarism is defined as the use of other people's ideas, words, data, or other materials that are issued as their own, without specifying the source of borrowing.

The Editorial Board uses Plagiarism Checker by Grammarly software to detect and check plagiarism in the text of the submitted article.

The editorial board classifies the following as the main types of plagiarism:

  • reproduction of other people's words, sentences, ideas, etc. as their own without specifying authorship;
  • self-plagiarism (duplicate publication): publication of a work or its essential parts more than once by the author of the work without appropriate citation or justification for duplication, regardless of the language of publication;
  • paraphrasing, copying full paragraphs with changing a few words without changing the structure of sentences, or with changing the structure of sentences, but no words;
  • verbatim copying of text without quotation marks and specifying authorship;
  • unintentional plagiarism: an incorrectly quoted primary source or a correctly quoted primary source, but incorrectly paraphrased original text.

Posting a preprint on the author's personal website, in an institutional repository, or a preprint archive is not considered a duplicate publication. Proving the facts of duplication of the article, plagiarism, or falsification of results is the basis for rejecting the article, according to mandatory compliance with COPE recommendations (https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4). Any suspicions of plagiarism identified by readers, reviewers, and editors should be notified via the Journal's e-mail address.

To detect duplication of submitted materials in other publications and possible plagiarism, all submitted manuscripts are checked by specialized software that verifies the contents of manuscripts based on an extensive database of periodicals, articles, and internet resources. Any case of borrowed text in the article is further studied for suspicion of plagiarism and self-plagiarism in accordance with the editorial policy of the Journal. The editorial board of the Ukrainian Dental Journal allows the text to be at least 90 % unique for the manuscript to be published.

The percentage of similarity of the manuscript under consideration with the previously published material is additionally checked, taking into account that the acceptable limit of similarity of the text from one source is no more than 5 %. If the similarity level is higher than 5 %, the manuscript is returned to the author for finalizing and adding a link to the original source of the copied material. Authors are advised to refer correctly to the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright infringement.

Published articles that are found to be plagiarized are removed from the Journal's website after careful study and appropriate decision by the editorial board.

Ethical standards

Studies involving humans or animals should be approved by the relevant ethics committees and should comply with international ethical and legal research standards. When presenting clinical experiments on patients, their right to maintain confidentiality and privacy should not be violated without their consent. If the article contains any information that allows identifying the patient's identity (photo, name, initials, numbers of medical records in photos or the text, etc.), the patient should give his/her informed written consent to publication before sending the article to the editorial office.

The article should clearly indicate the compliance of materials with the principles of bioethics set out in the Declaration of Helsinki the Ethical Principles of Medical Research with People, developed by the World Medical Association, Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (UNESCO), Order of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine On Approval of the Procedure for Conducting Clinical Trials of Medicinal Products and Examination of Materials for Clinical Trials and the Model Regulations on the Ethics Commission No. 690 dated September 23, 2009.

When presenting experiments on animals, it should be indicated whether the conditions of keeping and using laboratory animals corresponded to the rules set out in the law of Ukraine On the Protection of animals from ill-treatment No. 3447-IV dated February 21, 2006, the law of Ukraine On approval of the Procedure for conducting scientific experiments, experiments on animals No. 249 dated March 01, 2012, European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes (ETS 123) (1986), Directive 2010/63/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2010 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, or other similar documents of other states.

If you find violations of publishing ethics in the published material, please send appropriate notice to the e-mail address of the editorial office of the Ukrainian Dental Journal. Issues of this nature will be resolved following COPE instructions, taking into account all possibilities, and/or by considering the issue at a meeting of the editorial board of the Journal headed by the editor-in-chief.

Conflict of interest

When submitting an article, authors are required to report to the editorial office any potential conflicts of interest that may affect the objectivity or integrity of the publication, or clearly state their absence (for more information, see the relevant sections Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals, ICMJE, COPE). Conflicts of interest are situations that can be perceived as having an inappropriate impact on the presentation, review, or publication of a scientific paper. They can be financial, non-financial, professional, contractual, or personal.

Any suspicions about an undisclosed conflict of interest associated with a particular publication that is under consideration in the editorial office of the Ukrainian Dental Journal, or has already been published, should be reported to the Journal's e-mail address.

Corrections and retractions of the article

The editors of the Ukrainian Dental Journal consider cases of refutation of comments, correction to a scientific article, and retraction of the article following COPE recommendations. The editorial board of the Journal may make minor corrections to the text of the article in which errors were made during typing or correcting, but more significant corrections will only be made following COPE recommendations. If the author or editors identify an error in the text of the article that has already been published in the Ukrainian Dental Journal, corrections are published in the next issue of the Journal.

The possibility of retraction of the published article is considered if:

  • a scientific article contains serious shortcomings and there is clear evidence that the results obtained cannot be verified as reliable and/or valid due to a serious error (miscalculation or experimental error), or falsification (data, image manipulation);
  • signs of plagiarism detected;
  • the presented results have previously been published in another publication without proper citation, permission to reprint, or justification (cases of re-publication);
  • a scientific article contains materials or data without permission for their use;
  • copyright has been infringed or there is another serious legal problem (defamation, confidentiality);
  • it is proved that ethical principles are ignored in the course of research implementation;
  • a scientific article was published based on a falsified review process;
  • the author(s) did not disclose an existing conflict of interest that could affect the interpretation of the scientific work or the recommendations of editors and reviewers.

Retraction of the published scientific article takes place after a thorough study of the problem and approval by the editor-in-chief, with the publication of a corresponding notice on retraction in the issue of the Ukrainian Dental Journal, as well as in all online versions of the Journal. A retraction notice is published as soon as possible to minimize its harmful impact, indicating the cause and all metadata of the article.

The editorial board of the Ukrainian Dental Journal considers the retraction of the article inappropriate if:

  • the author reported a conflict of interest to the editorial office after publication, but, according to the review of the notice, it was found that the conflict of interest did not affect the interpretation, recommendations, or conclusions of the article, and did not affect the reputational or other components of the profile of the authors or other persons;
  • correcting a mistake in the article can sufficiently eliminate the problem and the main results of the work remain reliable, and the conclusions are effective, so it is advisable to publish a notice with appropriate corrections;
  • there is no conclusive evidence to support the refutation/retraction.

In general, all cases of correction, retraction, and presenting of the editorial board's comments on materials submitted for publication are resolved according to the algorithms developed by COPE and available at the following link: http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts. If it is necessary to make official corrections to the text of the published article, this process is carried out in compliance with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on correction, retraction, re-publication, and version control of the article (ICMJE Recommendation for Corrections, Retractions, Republications, and Version Control).

Availability and reliability of the data provided in the publication

When submitting materials for consideration to the Ukrainian Dental Journal, the author undertakes to provide access to data confirming the results of the study when a corresponding request from the editorial board is formed.

At the same time, the editorial board of the Ukrainian Dental Journal is not responsible for the accuracy of the data provided in the publication, but when identifying the facts of plagiarism or falsification of data, the article is automatically retracted or withdrawn from consideration, depending on the stage at which it is located. The authors of the publication are responsible for providing reliable data, their clinical significance, adequacy of statistical processing, and correct interpretation.

Indexing

Self-archiving

Self-archiving by authors of their articles on the Internet is possible only after the publication of the printed version of the Ukrainian Dental Journal with the mandatory indication of the original source.

Archiving

In case of temporary unavailability of the site or termination of publication of the Journal, electronic copies of the Journal issues are available on the websites of the relevant libraries and in additional repositories.

This Journal's digital archive is permanently preserved by PKP Preservation Network and LOCKSS / CLOCKSS.