Currently, the Russian academic and publishing communities are witnesses and participants of significant changes in access to scientific information, the system of bibliometric assessment, and scientific communication. Despite some successful initiatives of the Russian academic journals, government structures for scientific and technical information, as well as commercial companies in changing one resources with others, development of new system of bibliometric evaluation and development of novel information services, it seems unreasonable to give up significant achievements of the last decades. Particularly, it is important to maintain the level of visibility and increase the quality of Russian academic journals in Web of Science Core Collection, although submission of new titles is now suspended. Due to the highest authority and wide use of this system worldwide, maintaining the proper level of visibility of the Russian journals in Web of Science database is believed to be a priority task. The paper discusses current problems concerning evaluation of representation of Russian academic serials in Journal Citation Reports and certain articles in Web of Science Core Collection in the light of lack of access to full-function versions of these databases. Updated list of Russian journals indexed in Journal Citation Reports / Web of Science as of 2023 is prepared.

Introduction. Publishers of scientific journals use the terms “Issue” and “Number” to denote individual issues of their publications. There are discussions within the professional community of scientific editors about the legitimacy of using one term over the other.

Purpose. To analyse the practice of foreign journals regarding the marking of their issues with the terms Issue (Iss.) and Number (No.) to justify a strategy for the correct use of these terms in Russian scientific journals that have English-language or parallel bilingual titles.

Materials and Methods. Policies of 130 foreign scientific journals indexed in the international scientometric database Scopus were analysed. All journals are distributed as open-access, are published in different countries, and cover various subject fields. An examination was carried out on the Archive section found on the official websites of the chosen journals, along with their covers and layouts available on these sites, to monitor the practices used in marking the issues.

Results and Discussion. It has been found that there is no unification of issue numbering in the global scientific periodical press. The term Issue is frequently used on the websites of scientific journals, while the term Number, or no letter designation at all, is more often used on covers and other layout elements. This trend is characteristic both for the entire sample and for groups of journals grouped by individual features of belonging: to one country, to one language group of countries, to one scientific specialty. The exception is publications of major publishing houses, which use one publishing platform and / or uniform requirements for the journal format (House Style Guide) for all their journals, and thus regulate the numbering of issues.

Conclusion. The accumulated international experience can contribute to the development of a unified approach to the presentation of issue numbering in Russian scientific journals and, as a result, to changes in normative documents and methodological recommendations.

Despite its prominent position as one of the leading for-profit scholarly publishers of subscription and open access (OA) journals, and its membership of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), Springer Nature can be criticized for taking a vague approach in its editorial policies pertaining to “predatory” publishing. While cautioning authors and/or editors about the citation of papers that are published in “predatory” journals, the advice presented in the policies itself is flawed due its limitation to OA journals – thus apparently excluding the possibility that subscription journals might also be “predatory” and failing to specify precisely which journals authors and editors should be careful of, i.e., no source for the “predatory” definition of OA journals is indicated. Moreover, this vague set of policies does not have a publication date, nor is any authorship specified. The opacity of these aspects of these editorial policies limits their usefulness and weakens their objectives, namely in ostensibly offering scholarly advice to protect editors and authors. I argue that the Springer Nature policies pertaining to “predatory” publishing as they currently stand are not useful, and if left unchanged, can be a source of confusion or error for authors and editors of Springer Nature journals. In this connection, the identified risk is that if the poor advice indicated in those policies is heeded, it may encourage abuse, insults and/or indiscriminate profiling of academics, including those associated with Springer Nature journals. While assuming Springer Nature’s genuine intention to alert editors and authors against citing papers published in suspect scholarly venues, I argue that this editorial set of policies should either be rewritten to rely on clearer parameters, including a definitive list of journals for which “predatory” criteria have been defined, or abandoned as they are overly broad. The criticism is aimed at stimulating a discussion among other editors and publishers, especially COPE members.

The past decade has witnessed a substantial increase in the number of affiliations listed by individual authors of scientific papers. Some authors now list an astonishing number of institutions, sometimes exceeding 20, 30, or more. This trend raises concerns regarding the genuine scientific contributions these authors make at each institution they claim to be affiliated with. To address this issue, our study conducted a comprehensive regional analysis of the growth of both domestic and international multi-affiliations over the past decade. Our findings reveal certain countries that have experienced an abnormal surge in international multi-affiliation authorships. Coupled with the high numbers of affiliations involved, this emphasizes the need for careful scrutiny of the actual scientific contributions made by these authors and the importance of safeguarding the integrity of scientific output and networks.

The specialized literature abounds in recommendations about the most desirable technical ways of answering reviewers’ comments on a submitted manuscript. However, not all publications mention authors’ and / or reviewers’ feelings or reactions about what they may read or write in their respective reports, and even fewer publications tackle openly what may or may not be said in a set of answers to a reviewer’s comments. In answering reviewers’ comments, authors are often attentive to the technical or rational aspects of the task but might forget some of its relational aspects. In their answers, authors are expected to make every effort to abide by reviewers’ suggestions, including discussing major criticisms, editing the illustrations, or implementing minor corrections; abstain from questioning a reviewer’s competence or willingness to write a good review, including full and attentive reading and drafting useful comments; clearly separate their answers to each reviewer; avoid skipping, merging, or reordering reviewers’ comments; and, finally, specify the changes made. Authors are advised to call on facts, logic, and some diplomacy, but never on artifice, concealment, or flattery. Failing to do so erodes the trust between authors and reviewers, whereas integrity is expected and highly valued. The guiding principle should always be honesty.