- » Aim and Scope
- » Section Policies
- » Publication Frequency
- » Open Access Policy
- » Archiving
- » Peer-Review
- » Indexation
- » Publishing Ethics
- » Founder
- » Author fees
- » Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
- » Plagiarism detection
- » Preprint and postprint Policy
Aim and Scope
The purpose of the journal is to attract more researchers and practitioners to discuss topical issues of theory and practice of dependability and functional (technological) safety of technical systems that are designed, developed and operated in different industrial sectors and transport.
Among the tasks of the journal are the provision of researchers, students and postgraduates with new theoretical and practical materials, the creation of a site to discuss the most important practical results in the field of dependability, risks and system safety, the popularization of materials on standardization and certification in this sphere, as well as the attraction of all specialists to the problems of functional reliability, functional safety and control of complex systems maintenance based on risk assessment which have not been studied well yet. One of the journal’s central tasks is to discuss the problems related to the control of dependability of large systems based on the experience of the Russian railways.
Section Policies
 Open Submissions |
Indexed |
Peer Reviewed |
| Open Submissions |
Indexed |
Peer Reviewed |
| Open Submissions |
Indexed |
Peer Reviewed |
| Open Submissions |
Indexed |
Peer Reviewed |
Publication Frequency
quarterly
Open Access Policy
"Dependability" is an open access journal. All articles are made freely available to readers immediatly upon publication.
Our open access policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition - it means that articles have free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.
For more information please read BOAI statement.
Archiving
- Russian State Library (RSL)
- National Electronic-Information Consortium (NEICON)
Peer-Review
PROVISIONS
on the paper review process
in the Dependability Scientific and Technical Journal
1. General conditions
1.1. These Provisions on the paper review process define the practice and procedure for reviewing original papers (materials) submitted to the Editorial Office of the Dependability Scientific and Technical Journal (hereinafter referred to as the Journal).
1.2. The Journal’s Editorial Office peer reviews (performs expert evaluation) of submitted research papers in order to ensure and maintain a high scientific and theoretical level of the publication and in order to select the most valuable and relevant (promising) scientific papers.
1.3. Peer review is mandatory for all materials submitted to the Journal.
1.4. The following basic definitions are used in these Provisions:
Author, a person or a group of people (a group of Authors) involved in the creation of a paper based on research findings.
Editor-in-Chief, the person in charge of the Editorial Office and the final editorial decision-maker.
Executive Editor, an expert who organizes and supervises the editorial work in terms of planning, timely and proper preparation of materials for publication, prepares materials for publication and communicates with the Authors and readers.
Editorial Board, an advisory body consisting of a group of reputable persons that assists the Editor-in-Chief in the selection, preparation and evaluation of submitted papers.
Reviewer, an expert who acts on behalf of the Journal or Publisher and performs the scientific evaluation of the materials submitted by Authors in order to determine their publishability.
Peer review, the procedure for review and expert evaluation by Reviewers of a research paper submitted for publication in order to determine its publishability, identify its benefits and shortcomings, what the Author is to do to improve the paper.
2. Procedure of initial review of papers
2.1. The Editorial Office accepts papers and materials reflecting scientific views, findings and achievements of fundamental, theoretical and applied studies on dependability, functional safety, standardization, certification and risk assessment. Materials that do not correspond to the above subject areas are not considered.
2.2. Materials shall be submitted by e-mail only at E.Patrikeeva@gismps.ru, dependability@bk.ru in the following form:
- a carefully proofread paper prepared in accordance with the publication guidelines, not previously published and containing a bibliographic reference list comprising at least two entries;
- an abstract (summary of the subject matter of the paper) of 150 to 250 words, a list of keywords comprising 8 to 10 words and phrases. The information about the Author, abstract, keywords and references are translated by the editorial staff of the Journal;
- a cover letter.
2.3. The paper shall not contain classified information. Any classification mark shall be grounds for rejecting open-access publication of the material.
2.4. The Executive Editor shall notify the Authors of the receipt of materials within 3 days.
2.5. A submission is reviewed by the Executive Editor for the completeness of the submitted documents and compliance of the paper with the requirements of the Editorial Office, the Journal’s specialization and the paper submission guidelines. In case of non-compliance with the conditions of publication, the article may be sent to the Author for revision.
2.6. A paper that is in compliance with the Journal’s specialization and publication requirements is registered by the Assistant Editor in the submissions log with indication of the date of receipt, title, the Author(s)' full name, the Author(s)' place of employment and is submitted for review.
3. Practice and procedure of peer review
3.1. Peer review is mandatory for all papers submitted to the Journal’s Editorial Office.
3.2. Reviewing is done by renowned academics working in the field of knowledge covered by the paper. The Reviewer must have the degree of Doctor or Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.).
3.3. The Journal has the following paper review system in place:
1. open peer review (the Author and the Reviewer are aware of each other) is a review submitted by the Author at his/her request or upon additional request of the Editorial Office;
2. single-blind peer review (the Reviewer is aware of the Author, while the Author is not aware of the Reviewer) is mandatory for all papers. The Reviewer evaluates the paper in terms of its relevance and scientific novelty, as well as its structure and presentation. All comments and suggestions for the paper are set forth in the review. If the faults identified by the Reviewer can be eliminated, the article is sent to the Author for revision. The Editorial Office reserves the right to refuse the publication to an Author who chose to disregard the Reviewer’s comments. The Reviewer also may conduct an additional check for matching content in the text of the publication by means of selective copying of fragments and verification using available search engines;
3. double-blind peer review (the Reviewer and the Author are not aware of each other) is used in case the mandatory review produced an ambivalent estimation. The Editorial Office together with the Editorial Board may recommend an additional review of a paper.
3.4. The Reviewer shall examine the submitted paper within the established deadlines and e-mail to the Editorial Office a properly executed review or a reasonable refusal to review.
3.5. The review period in each particular case is defined in order to ensure the quickest possible publication of a paper, but shall not be more than 15 days from the submission. This period may be extended if an additional review is required and/or a subject-matter Reviewer is temporary unavailable.
3.6. The Editorial Office recommends using the standard review form (Annex 1).
Based on the results of the review, the Reviewer shall present one of the following decisions for consideration by the Editorial Office and Editorial Board:
- to recommend the article for publication;
- to recommend the article for publication upon correction/revision;
- not to recommend the article for publication.
3.7. Should the Reviewer recommend an article for publication upon correction/revision or does not recommend an article for publication, the review must set forth specific reasons of such decision with a clearly identified content-specific and/or technical faults in the paper with indication of particular pages, if necessary. The Reviewer’s remarks and suggestions must be objective and principled, aimed at improving the scientific and methodological quality of the paper.
3.8. The original copies of the reviews are stored by the Editorial Office for the period of 5 years. Upon requests of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation the reviews shall be delivered to the Higher Attestation Commission and/or the Ministry of Education and Science.
3.9. In respect to submissions by post-graduate students and applicants for the degree of Candidate of Sciences (PhD), the Editorial Office and Editorial Board may, in addition to the above reviews, request the recommendation by the specialized academic department, which does not rule out the possibility of a regular review procedure.
4. Decision on publication
4.1. Upon receipt of the reviews, the next scheduled meeting of the Editorial Board considers the submitted papers and based on the Reviewers’ reports makes the final decision regarding the publication of the papers or refusal to publish. The decision of the Editorial Board is taken by a simple majority of votes. In case of a parity of votes, the Editor-in-Chief’s vote shall be decisive. The quorum for decision-making is set at 50% of the total number of the Editorial Board members.
4.2. When making the final decision on the acceptance or refusal to publish a paper, the Editorial Board pays attention to the relevance of the scientific problem being solved by the Author. The review must unambiguously characterize the theoretical or applied significance of the study, compare the Author’s conclusions with the established scientific concepts. The assessment by the Reviewer of the Author’s personal contribution to the solution of the examined problem is an obligatory part of a review. A review should note the academic quality of the paper in terms of the style, logic and intelligibility, as well as the certainty and validity of the conclusions (the representativeness of the empirical content of the analysis, the visual representation of the examples, tables, figures, etc. set forth by the Author are to be evaluated). The review concludes with an overall assessment of the paper and recommendation for publication, revision or reasonable refusal to publish.
4.3. Based on the taken decision, an e-mail is sent to the Author(s) on behalf of the Assistant Editor that contains an overall assessment of the paper and presents the taken decision regarding the Author(s)’s submission.
4.4. If the paper can be published upon revision, recommendations as to the required corrections are provided in the letter. The Reviewers and Editorial Office do not engage into discussions with Authors regarding the comments made.
4.5. A paper submitted by the Author(s) upon improvement is reviewed by the same or another Reviewer appointed by the Editorial Office.
4.6. Should a paper have a significant number of critical comments by the Reviewer with an overall favourable opinion, the Editorial Board may categorize such submission as polemical and publish it for the sake of scholarly dispute.
4.7. In case of refusal to publish a paper, the Editorial Office shall send the Author a reasonable refusal within three working days.
A paper not recommended by the Reviewer for publication will not be accepted for reconsideration.
Indexation
Articles in "Dependability" are indexed by several systems:
- Russian Scientific Citation Index (RSCI) – a database, accumulating information on papers by Russian scientists, published in native and foreign titles. The RSCI project is under development since 2005 by “Electronic Scientific Library” foundation (elibrary.ru).
- Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. The Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America's largest scholarly publishers, plus scholarly books and other non-peer reviewed journals.
- SOCIONET
- Dimensions
- VINITI RAS
- WorldCat
Publishing Ethics
The Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement of the journa l"Dependability" are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct guidelines available at www.publicationethics.org, and requirements for peer-reviewed journals, elaborated by the "Elsevier" Publishing House (in accordance with international ethical rules of scientific publications)
1. Introduction
1.1. The publication in a peer reviewed learned journal, serves many purposes outside of simple communication. It is a building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. For all these reasons and more it is important to lay down standards of expected ethical behaviour by all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society for society-owned or sponsored journal: "Dependability"
1.2.Publisher has a supporting, investing and nurturing role in the scholarly communication process but is also ultimately responsible for ensuring that best practice is followed in its publications.
1.3. Publisher takes its duties of guardianship over the scholarly record extremely seriously. Our journal programmes record «the minutes of science» and we recognise our responsibilities as the keeper of those «minutes» in all our policies not least the ethical guidelines that we have here adopted.
2. Duties of Editors
2.1.Publication decision – The Editor of a learned "Dependability" is solely and independently responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published, often working on conjunction with the relevant society (for society-owned or sponsored journals). The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always underwrite such decisions. The Editor may be guided by the policies of the "Dependability" journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers (or society officers) in making this decision.
2.2.Fair play – An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
2.3.Confidentiality – The editor and any editorial staff of "Dependability" must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
2.4.Disclosure and Conflicts of interest
2.4.1. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
2.4.2. Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers.
2.5.Vigilance over published record – An editor presented with convincing evidence that the substance or conclusions of a published paper are erroneous should coordinate with the publisher (and/or society) to promote the prompt publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant.
2.6.Involvement and cooperation in investigations – An editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher (or society). Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies.
3. Duties of Reviewers
3.1.Contribution to Editorial Decisions – Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication, and lies at the heart of the scientific method. Publisher shares the view of many that all scholars who wish to contribute to publications have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.
3.2.Promptness – Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor of "Dependability" and excuse himself from the review process.
3.3.Confidentiality – Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorised by the editor.
3.4.Standard and objectivity – Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
3.5.Acknowledgement of Sources – Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
3.6.Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
3.6.1.Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
3.6.2. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
4. Duties of Authors
4.1.Reporting standards
4.1.1. Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.
4.1.2. Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial 'opinion’ works should be clearly identified as such.
4.2.Data Access and Retention – Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
4.3.Originality and Plagiarism
4.3.1. The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, this has been appropriately cited or quoted.
4.3.2. Plagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
4.4.Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication
4.4.1. An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
4.4.2. In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper.
4.4.3. Publication of some kinds of articles (eg, clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication. Further detail on acceptable forms of secondary publication can be found at www.icmje.org.
4.5.Acknowledgement of Sources – Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.
4.6.Authorship of the Paper
4.6.1. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.
4.6.2. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
4.7.Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects
4.7.1. If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.
4.7.2. If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) have approved them. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.
4.8. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
4.8.1. All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
4.8.2. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest possible stage.
4.9. Fundamental errors in published works – When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in a published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the editor of "Dependability" journal and cooperate with Publisher to retract or correct the paper, If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper.
5. Duties of the Publisher (and if relevant, Society)
5.1. Publisher should adopt policies and procedures that support editors, reviewers and authors of "Dependability"in performing their ethical duties under these ethics guidelines. The publisher should ensure that the potential for advertising or reprint revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.
5.2. The publisher should support "Dependability" journal editors in the review of complaints raised concerning ethical issues and help communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful to editors.
5.3. Publisher should develop codes of practice and inculcate industry standards for best practice on ethical matters, errors and retractions.
5.4. Publisher should provide specialised legal review and counsel if necessary.
The section is prepared according to the files of Elsevier publisher (https://www.elsevier.com/) and files (http://publicationethics.org/resources) from Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE - http://publicationethics.org/).
Founder
- JSC NIIAS
- UIRE
- Shubinsky I.B.
Author fees
Publication in "Dependability" is free of charge for all the authors.
The journal doesn't have any Arcticle processing charges.
The journal doesn't have any Article submission charges.
Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
Plagiarism detection
"Dependability" use native russian-language plagiarism detection software Antiplagiat to screen the submissions. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed.
Preprint and postprint Policy
Prior to acceptance and publication in "Dependability", authors may make their submissions available as preprints on personal or public websites.
As part of submission process, authors are required to confirm that the submission has not been previously published, nor has been submitted. After a manuscript has been published in "Dependability" we suggest that the link to the article on journal's website is used when the article is shared on personal or public websites.
Glossary (by SHERPA)
ISSN 2500-3909 (Online)
