- » 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
- » CrossMark Policy
Aim and Scope
The key objectives of the journal «Theory and Practice of Forensic Science» are:
- to produce content that sums up the latest scientific advancements and best practices in the forensic sciences
- to analyze current issues in the theory and practice of forensic science and research
- to provide methodological and informational support for employees of forensic science organizations, courts, investigators, prosecutors and other stakeholders
- to facilitate continuing education of forensic scientists employed by public and non-governmental forensic science organizations
The underlying rationale of the journal is to publish the results of cutting-edge research in the forensic sciences, as well as practice-led scientific findings and methodological resources. The journal provides a space for authors to exchange their perspectives on the organization of forensic operations and discipline-specific issues in forensic practice.
Readers and authors of the journal include employees of public and non-governmental forensic science organizations, judiciary and prosecutorial staff, lawyers, educators and students majoring in forensic disciplines. The journal explores the issues of improving and transforming the regulatory framework of forensic practice, its legal and organizational aspects. Particular emphasis is placed on the training of forensic scientists. The bulk of the journal's output is dedicated to the sharing of practical experience, including summaries of best practices in various fields of forensic science and case study reports on specific types of investigations conducted by forensic practitioners.
Section Policies
Open Submissions
Open SubmissionsPublication Frequency
4 issues per year
Open Access Policy
"Theory and Practice of Forensic Science" 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
All scientific papers submitted to the journal «Theory and Practice of Forensic Science» are subject to double-blind peer review.
- Peer review is conducted by members of the editorial board, as well as invited reviewers – leading specialists in forensic disciplines from Russia and abroad. Each individual reviewer is selected by the editor-in-chief, deputy editor-in-chief, or production editor. Peer review is completed within 2–4 weeks.
- A reviewer may decline to review a paper in case of an obvious conflict of interest affecting their perception and interpretation of the manuscript materials. Upon studying the manuscript the reviewer provides their reasoned recommendations about the future of the work.
- If the reviewers recommend the manuscript for correction and revision, the editor forwards their feedback to the author and requests that they either address the reviewers' concerns when revising the manuscript, or provide counter-arguments to the points they disagree with. Manuscript revision should be completed within two months. The revised version is submitted for a second round of peer review.
- If the authors decide not to revise the manuscript, they must notify the editorial office in written or spoken form about their choice to withdraw the submission. Failure to submit a revised version of the manuscript within 3 months from the receipt of reviewers' input will be treated as withdrawal from publication, and authors will receive a notification that the submission is removed from the system due to a missed revision deadline.
- In case of irreconcilable differences between the author and the reviewers, the editorial board reserves the right to send the manuscript to another reviewer. In conflict situations the final decision is made by the editor-in-chief.
- Decision to reject a submission is made by the editorial board and is based on reviewers' recommendations. A manuscript not recommended for publication cannot be resubmitted. A rejection letter is sent to the author by email.
- Once the editorial board has decided to accept a manuscript, this decision is communicated to the author, along with the expected time to publication.
- The final publication decision rests with the editorial board. When there is a difference of opinion among editorial board members, the decision is made by the editor-in-chief.
- Original review reports are stored at the editorial office for 3 years.
Indexation
Articles in "Theory and Practice of Forensic Science" 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.
- Base
- Dimensions
- DOAJ
- Library of Congress
- SOCIONET
- VINITI RAS
- WorldCat
Publishing Ethics
The editorial board of the science and practice journal «Theory and Practice of Forensic Science» published by the RFCFS of the Russian Ministry of Justice is guided in its work by international principles of scholarly publishing ethics, including those of integrity, confidentiality, publication oversight, prevention of conflicts of interest, etc. The editorial board acts in compliance with the Copyright Law of the Russian Federation (Chapter 70), and aims to promote international standards of scholarly publishing ethics developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the principles and responsibilities set out by the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity (Singapore, July 22–24, 2010), and follow best practices from leading scientific journals and publishers.
The editorial board and the advisory editorial board of the journal are committed to adhere to established ethical norms in their own work and in their interactions with all stakeholders of the publishing process: its authors, reviewers, editors, publisher, distributors, and readers. The authors, reviewers, and editors of the journal «Theory and Practice of Forensic Science» are expected to observe the following codes of conduct.
- Duties of authors
- The author is responsible for the content of the manuscript and the fact of its publication.
- The author should present an accurate report on the work they conducted, and an objective discussion of its significance. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements are inadmissible. The author is responsible for providing any additional data relevant to the manuscript if requested by the editor.
- The author guarantees that the scientific work submitted for publication is original. Any written work submitted to the editorial office should not have been previously published, either partially or in full. The manuscript should not be submitted to other journals while it is being considered for publication by this journal.
- The author should not offer a paper to another periodical after it was published in this journal.
- Plagiarism in any of its forms is unacceptable. Direct citations or rewording of others' texts, scientific concepts, illustrations, etc. should be referenced appropriately. Data obtained from personal conversations, correspondence or discussion with third parties cannot be published without the written permission from the source.
- The author is responsible for informing the editor of any potential conflict of interest (employment, consultancy, honoraria, and other circumstances that may be seen as affecting the scientific results or conclusions presented in the paper) and disclosing the funding source (if any).
- Authorship of a published work should be limited to those who made significant contributions to the conception and implementation of the work, and interpretation of the results. Their names are included in the list of authors. The final version of the paper and its submission for publication should be approved by all authors. Other participants may be mentioned in the Acknowledgments section of the paper.
- The author should inform the editorial office of any errors discovered in the manuscript after it was submitted for consideration, in order to make the necessary corrections or to withdraw the manuscript.
- If the author discovers a fundamental error in their own published work, it is their duty to notify the editor and publisher and to assist them in eliminating or correcting the error.
- The author should cooperate with the editorial office at every stage of the review and production process. Upon receipt of a review report the author should promptly respond to the comments and make recommended revisions. If the author disagrees with the reviewer's evaluation, they should provide a well-reasoned response to the editor. Manuscript revision should be completed within two months from the date of the email containing the review report. The author should notify the editorial office of their refusal to revise the text.
- Duties of reviewers
- The reviewer maintains objectivity when evaluating the scientific work submitted for publication.
- Personal criticism of the author is considered inappropriate. The reviewer should state their opinion clearly and with supporting arguments.
- The peer review is conducted anonymously.
- If the reviewer becomes aware of a possible source of bias preventing objective evaluation of the manuscript, e.g. due to conflict of interests with the author or their sponsors, they should decline to participate in the peer review process.
- Unpublished materials disclosed in the manuscript under review cannot be used by the reviewer without written consent from the author.
- The reviewer points out missing references to major published works relevant to the subject of the paper under review, and draws the editor's attention to similarities and overlaps with any other publications or manuscripts submitted to another journal.
- Duties of editors
- The editor is responsible for publishing the written work submitted by the author, and makes the decision to accept or reject a manuscript based on validation and evaluation of scientific value of the work, its relevance to the scope of the journal, and compliance with current copyright and plagiarism regulations.
- The editor facilitates the objective analysis of scientific work submitted for review. The editor and editorial board decide whether additional opinions are required to evaluate the manuscript.
- The content of submitted manuscripts is evaluated without regard to the race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or political views of the author.
- The editorial office treats each submission as a confidential document; access is restricted to persons authorized by the production editor.
- Unpublished materials disclosed in the work under consideration cannot be used by editorial staff, reviewers or members of the editorial board in their own research or shared with third parties without written consent from the author.
- The editor prevents publication of plagiarized materials.
- The editor ensures that manuscript proofs are approved by the author.
- The editor responds to complaints and claims related to manuscript review and publication, and ensures that violated rights are restored in case of dispute.
- The editor ensures the publication of corrections and apologies for errors discovered by the author or third parties.
Founder
- The Russian Federal Centre of Forensic Science of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation
Author fees
Publication in "Theory and Practice of Forensic Science" 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
"Theory and Practice of Forensic Science" 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 "Theory and Practice of Forensic Science", 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 "Theory and Practice of Forensic Science" 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)
CrossMark Policy
CrossMark is a multi-publisher initiative from Crossref, provides a standard way for readers to locate the authoritative version of an article or other published content. By applying the CrossMark logo, journal "Theory and Practice of Forensic Science" is committing to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur.
Clicking the CrossMark logo on a document will tell you its current status and may also give you additional publication-record information about the document.
