Reviews have been published for years in medical journals as integrators of new data in evidence-based medicine. This type of publication is finding its way into social sciences, humanities and other areas, getting popularity in the global context of the unprecedented rise in scholarly information. Reviews arrange and streamline the inflow of information, critically reflect on the new research contributions to science, outline the focus trends in subject areas and define gaps in the knowledge. Comparatively limited expertise of Russian researchers in authoring reviews is analysed against the advanced international traditions coupled with some practical guidelines relating to internationally published high-quality reviews. The article considers functions, characteristics, taxonomy and methodologies of reviews as a highly potential type of scientific publication for science in Russia. The authors also touch upon criteria for taxonomy resulting in multiple types of reviews and specific features of methods of the most popular and widely spread reviews (systematic reviews, scoping reviews, bibliometric reviews, etc.) in various fields and disciplines.

Introduction. Scientific journal editors must thoroughly evaluate the content intended for publication in scientific journals. To date, there has been insufficient research on the analysis of the legal status of Russian scientific journal editors, who receive heavy criticism for violating publication ethics. This fact makes the evaluation procedure an acute problem that is becoming increasingly relevant. Additionally, the opinion of the Russian publishing community has not been studied to identify problems related to the evaluation of scientific j ournals and, in particular, the activities of Dissernet. In this regard, this study aims to fill this research gap.

Materials and Methods. The study is based on an analysis of the Disserpedia data available on the public site https://biblio.dissernet.org. The materials were provided by the project coordinators and a survey eliciting the opinions of the members of the Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers (ASEP) was conducted.

Results. The analysis of the Disserpedia data revealed that 88 % of the journals included in this resource committed massive violations. Notably, only 10 % of the journals made some efforts to rectify the situation. At the same time, the results of the survey showed that almost 90 % of the respondents were ready to address the issues raised by Dissernet. According to the author, this result indicates that the Russian scientific publishing community is ready to begin the dialogue with public institutions that have undertaken the task of evaluating journals. Virtually, one-third of the journals in the Disserpedia cannot be accused of incorrect borrowings. Approximately 70 % of the journals in the Dissedopedia are published by educational and scientific organizations. Commercial organizations that publish scientific journals constitute one-fifth of the total amount of journals in the Disserpedia.

Conclusion. The Russian scientific publishing community is ready to implement international ethical rules in their editorial activities and improve the status of already published content.

The paper analyzes Russian journals, especially the journals of the universities participating in Project 5-100, in comparison with journals in China, Germany and the USA, as well as with world average scientometric indicators. The journals of the universities-participants of Project 5-100 are considered as a reference group, since the universities of this group deliberately implement measures to promote their journals in the international databases Web of Science and Scopus. The results of the study showed that in most cases, Russian journals included in the Scopus database in the same year with analogous journals in the countries under consideration are inferior to them in citation dynamics, which, in particular, may indicate insufficient visibility of Russian science in the international arena. At the same time, the scientometric indicators of the journals of Project 5-100 universities in a significant number of cases exceed the national average. The analysis also showed that journals published in English or predominantly in English show the highest indicators. It is concluded that the translation of Russian journals into English, as well as a targeted policy to include Russian journals in international scientific citation databases, will significantly increase the visibility of Russian science in the international arena.

To submit a journal for indexing in Scopus editors or publishers of journals must fill in a form, specially designed by the Scopus team and experts for this purpose. The submission form is available at specially prepared for this purpose website. The form is rather voluminous, and during the journal’s preparation for evaluation and when submitting it is important to envisage some details to avoid rejection at the first step of checking towards minimum criteria. It is important to fill in correctly the certain information about the journal in the submission form so that when preparing by the Scopus team the journal for evaluation all information about the journal for further review is presented correctly. Also during preparation for submitting the journal the typical mistakes, which will hamper passing the journal in the expert system in the future, should be avoided. The article focuses on the mistakes that are often made by specialists who are responsible for submission and gives advice on how to avoid them.

Scientific and medical publications are the pulse of the clinical world and play a key role in disseminating data to healthcare providers, scientists, and researchers. However, the process of publishing is hampered by the lack of harmonisation in structure, format, and style of manuscripts across journals. The authors/writers are challenged by this variability, which dilutes their ability to focus on science and medicine. The key challenges of structure, format, and style, including word count, referencing, and citation, are discussed here. We also provide a framework for a possible solution. We urge key stakeholders to come together and harmonise the formatting and technical requirements of scientific and medical publications with consensus from pharmaceutical industry, academics, publishers, and relevant organisations with expertise in medical writing and publication planning. It would take considerable effort from all stakeholders, but the end result of harmonised specifications represents a “blue sky” that is worth striving toward.

Some practices of scientific text creation were known since 13th century, however it is generally recognized that scientific book publishing started with invention of typography. That’s when scientists got the opportunity to make reference to printed media in order to back-up and build their research. Through centuries the authority belonged to academicians and members of scientific organizations consolidating professionals in information distribution, such as librarians and information search system operators. In the late 1900s economic dictate of large commercial publishing houses began to do more and more harm to science. Digital technologies development led many scientists to the Web where they headed network scientific publication projects intended to free the researchers from commercial editors’ yoke. Electronic devices use started the process of revision of scientific authority mechanisms, giving the authority back to those who make science. There is one step from open access to open science and prospects of renewed authority: collective and cooperation based.

Tips to help you ace the different stages of reviewing a manuscript

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The Round Table “Scientific conferences as the essential means of communication: development challenges” took place as a part of the 22 International Conference “SCIENCE ONLINE: electronic information resources for science and education” (Spain, 26 of May - 2 of June 2019). The summary of the speeches has been prepared on the basis of the audio recording of the event. The participants of the Round Table concentrated on the main issue related to the increased amount of predatory and fake conferences within international information resources. P. Aref’yev, A. Birukou, P. Kas’yanov, O. Kirillova, A. Loktev, I. Osipov have reported on the topic of the discussion. The reports have not been subjected to the peer-review as they reflect personal opinions of the participants. The conversational style is also preserved to a certain extent.