Despite the number of internationally recognized recommendations for the efficient conducting of scoping reviews, the writing of their introductions remains conceptually and methodologically undeveloped, which leads to fragmentation of argumentation, decreases the persuasiveness of the text, and limits interdisciplinarity. This study aims to develop recommendations for the effective design of introductions to scoping reviews, highlighting the genre-specific features that distinguish them from introductions to original empirical studies. The analysis is based on a corpus of 40 introductions published in first-quartile Scopus-indexed journals in the field of education. The procedure of genre-rhetorical analysis was used with recording the moves and steps of the introduction, their functions, possible focuses, and typical errors. The reliability of the annotation was ensured by independent marking by two experts with subsequent checking of inter-rater agreement (Cohen’s Kappa). The conceptual support was provided by international guidelines for conducting reviews (Joanna Briggs Institute Manual for Evidence Synthesis; PRISMA-ScR), as well as studies on genre analysis of academic discourse and knowledge mapping. The three-move structure of the introduction to scoping reviews was reconstructed by the authors and further developed by specifying the functions of each step and possible variants of their implementation. The resulting model is considered in a multi-aspect perspective: as a tool for academic writing instructors, as a guide for editorial and peer review practice, and as methodological support for authors. The proposed structure of the introduction to the scoping review can serve as a teaching tool for students and novice researchers and support editors and reviewers in assessing manuscripts.

This article addresses the task of automatically assigning peer reviewers based on historical data from previously submitted and reviewed manuscripts. In conventional editorial practice, reviewer selection relies heavily on the subjective judgment of editors, which can lead to delays and inconsistencies in the quality of expert evaluation. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that simple natural language processing (NLP) models can be used to automate this process in an efficient and transparent manner. The dataset used in this research consists of both published and rejected articles submitted to the Almaz-Antey Air and Space Defense Corporation Journal, enriched with information about the reviewers assigned to each manuscript. Methodologically, the approach relies on basic text preprocessing, including lemmatization, removal of stop words and punctuation, followed by vectorization using bag-of-words (BoW) and Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) models. Text similarity is calculated via cosine distance between vectorized representations. The core assumption is that a newly submitted manuscript is most similar to an already reviewed one and, therefore, can be assigned to the same reviewers. The results indicate that simple frequency-based models (BoW, TF-IDF) achieve higher accuracy in reviewer assignment (up to 99%) compared to neural network approaches such as Doc2Vec, especially when enhanced with a reviewer co-review graph. The proposed method remains interpretable, requires minimal computational resources, and is fully compatible with office-level computing environments. The model has been shown to perform reliably under class imbalance and is applicable even to relatively small datasets, starting from around 30 manuscripts. However, its generalization to multi-journal editorial systems would require local adaptation, and the task of predicting publication outcomes calls for significantly larger corpora and the use of deep learning architectures. This approach can be seamlessly integrated into digital editorial platforms, contributing to faster decision-making, increased transparency in peer review, and reduced workload for journal staff.

The potential influence of editorial board diversity to affect academic journal impact and therefore the degree to which journals are taken seriously, respected, and relevant is what drives this study. This study adopted a mixed-methods research process using a literature review, content analysis of 60 journal editorial boards, and an online survey of editors in order to offer insight into gender as well as geographic and institutional diversity. Reviewing data in journals from fields such as the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, the present study determined that greater diversity correlates positively with indicators of performance at a given journal. They found out that the probability of manuscripts by authors from underrepresented groups being submitted to a journal increases with the gender diversity of the journal, and that international editorial boards, as well as international citation network location, contribute positively to geographical diversity. This indicates that a certain level of institutional diversity is necessary for advancing interdisciplinarity and the generation of new methodologies. The impact of greater diversity on the board also includes, among other things, “making professional contacts”, “reducing the likelihood of publication bias” and “raising awareness of new areas of research”. Although this is a correlational finding, the latter presents a clear confirmation that organizations focusing on diversity not as social responsibility are usually more successful. So, this research may be informative for reflecting on the broader implications of current shifts in the ways in which knowledge is being produced and disseminated around the world.

Manuscript management systems (MMSs) are used to facilitate the submission of articles to journals. They guide authors by making specific requests, which may be optional or mandatory. In the latter case, authors would hope that such requests are not trivial, nor– in the author’s opinion– should they be required for any aspects that are not related to the article’s academic content. In this case study, a brief account is noted for a mandatory clause in some MMSs of indexed journals in which the submitting author, and presumably the corresponding author (CA), must make note of the regional or geographic source of that work, research or intellect. In the case of a single CA with one affiliation, the choice is simple, and there are no issues, but when there is a single CA or co-CAs with multiple and geographically diverse affiliations, which regional source should be selected? This article emphasizes that in the latter case, metadata that is provided by the submitting author is both inaccurate and potentially biased. This is important if the journal and publisher use such metadata to showcase the regional or global diversity of their submitting authors. An assessment of the MMSs of 16 of the top 50 ranked neuroscience journals– in terms of their Clarivate impact factors– revealed only one journal (Elsevier’s Brain Behavior and Immunity) that required this mandatory “Region of Origin” clause in its MMS.

A specialized science as a unique segment of scientific cognition is characterized by localization and narrow-targeted orientation. Consequences of these particular features are as follows: limited citing ability of trade periodical titles in the global academic context, formation of closed citation ecosystems, conservation of inter-disciplinary communications within the narrow-targeted directions. These matters are to be taken into account when working out strategic development plans for trade journals as well as for their delivery to the international level. The author made analysis of the national scientific segment based on water science of Russia and its presentation in Russian water journals. A set of strategic measures aimed at advancing of trade journals to the world scientific field. With “Water Sector of Russia: Problems, Technologies, Management” scientific/practical journal as a study case the author has revealed key thematic clusters and has assessed the level of demand for thematic directions and has forecasted further development of the theme, with proposal to take the above aspects in strategic planning of the given title editorial policy. A model of strategic adaptation of the editorial policy has been developed. It involves: introduction of the English language content and placement of material on international platforms; mapping of thematic trends with the help of scientometric instruments; composing of special issues devoted to topical international themes with participation of foreign authors and experts; increase of the Editorial Board staff at the expense of international experts and adoption of open peer-reviewing; upgrading of the digital infrastructure and editorial processes. The proposed approaches can be applied by the trade journal editorial boards for increasing of their visibility, citation level and integration into the world scientific field. The obtained data demonstrate certain potential of the scientometric analysis use in the content strategic planning and development of the applied science in the conditions of the scientific communication globalization.

The article is devoted to the activities of the national AGRIS Center of the Russian Federation, which has been operating at the Central Scientific Agricultural Library (CSAL) since 2007. The Center has been providing a significant part of Russian scientific publications on agricultural subjects into the international AGRIS system coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). CSAL experience in selecting, peer review, and preparing metadata for publication in AGRIS is summarized. 
It is based on the analysis of more than 17 thousand bibliographic records prepared for the period 2007–2024, as well as the practice of interacting with the editorial offices of more than 150 Russian agricultural scientific journals. Special attention is paid to composing high-quality abstracts and correct translating metadata into English, which is critically important for the international visibility of Russian agricultural science. The current system of interaction between the editorial offices of the journal and the AGRIS Center is described. Typical mistakes made during the preparation of abstracts and the term translations are discussed, and recommendations for their elimination are suggested. The challenges associated with the automation of metadata collection, including the risks of losing information about the national origin of publications and worsening the quality of records, are considered as a special issue. In conclusion, it is emphasized that it is necessary to maintain manual expert refinement of key metadata elements and further develop methodological support for editorial offices. It is noted that the quality of Russian agricultural journals is significantly approached to the international standards that is achieved due to cooperation with the AGRIS Center among other reasons.

n today’s global scientific landscape, where competition for the attention of the international research community continues to grow, high-quality scientific translation plays a vital role in effective scholarly communication. This article highlights the importance of English as the primary language of international academic exchange and explores how accurate, well-structured, and stylistically appropriate translation influences the perception, discoverability, and citation of research articles. The discussion focuses on key differences between scientific translation and other types – such as literary or technical – and outlines common mistakes often caused by reliance on automated translation tools. Drawing on real-world examples, the article illustrates how inaccuracies in translating titles, abstracts, keywords, and figure captions can diminish the academic value of a publication and hinder its indexing in major databases. Particular attention is given to working with terminology across different fields of study, emphasizing the need for contextually appropriate English equivalents that clearly and naturally convey the author’s intended meaning to an international readership. The final section discusses stylistic conventions of English-language academic writing– such as the preference for active voice, concise phrasing, and terminological precision – and their impact on how a text is evaluated by editors and reviewers.

Introduction. Bibliometric practices have become central to contemporary research evaluation, influencing academic careers, institutional rankings, and national science policy. However, their non-selective application has provoked serious concerns regarding fairness, epistemic bias, and the erosion of academic values. While reform initiatives such as the Leiden Manifesto and DORA have gained international visibility, the integration of their principles into institutional and national frameworks remains inconsistent. This article addresses the unresolved tension between the global discourse on responsible metrics and its uneven operationalization across contexts.
Purpose. This study offers a conceptual examination of bibliometric governance, advancing the argument that research metrics must be reconfigured as embedded instruments of multi-level science governance. To support this theoretical perspective, the article integrates illustrative bibliometric mapping and interpretive policy synthesis.
Method. Using a curated dataset of the 500 most cited publications on research evaluation (2015–2024) retrieved from Scopus, a co-occurrence analysis of keywords and abstract terms was conducted using VOSviewer. The resulting thematic clusters were used not as empirical evidence, but as heuristic anchors for the conceptual discussion. These were interpreted alongside key policy documents and reform agendas through a conceptually driven analytical framework.
Results. The bibliometric visualization revealed a fragmented discourse, where normative frameworks for responsible metrics are conceptually visible but poorly integrated into performance-driven evaluation literature. Illustrative national cases (e.g., China, Italy, Indonesia) further demonstrate the divergence between policy rhetoric and implementation. The article proposes a multi-level conceptual model of metric responsibility that captures individual, institutional, and national dimensions of reform.
Conclusion. The findings support the need for a governance-centered approach to metrics, one that balances quantitative indicators with contextual judgment, ethical reflexivity, and policy alignment. By combining conceptual reasoning with empirical illustration, the article contributes to the theoretical grounding of responsible metrics and provides a reflexive framework for science policy and institutional reform in the digital age.

In the Russian Federation, there are two independent lists of scientific journals used in evaluating the research activities of organizations and/or authors: the “White List” of scientific journals and the “List of peer-reviewed scientific journals in which the main scientific results of dissertations for the degree of Candidate of science, for the degree of Doctor of science” should be published, approved by the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as the HAC List). The HAC List is considered as one of the possible sources of replenishment of the “White List” of Russian journals, the purpose of which is to become the main source of information on the achievements of Russian scientists. Therefore, the qualitative level of the journals of the HAC List comes to the fore. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the system for selecting journals of the HAC List by analyzing the quality of their editorial policy and visibility to the scientific and educational community. The analysis was carried out using the data from the HAC List (as of July 2024), taking into account the distribution of journals into three categories obtained in accordance with the methodology for ranking and categorizing scientific journals of the HAC List, as well as in accordance with the RISC data. According to the results of the study, not all journals on the HAC List meet the basic requirements for journals: 46.6% of the 2,146 reviewed journals meet the visibility criteria for the scientific and educational community, and 72.1% meet the editorial policy quality criteria. At the same time, a clear correlation is observed between the categories assigned to the journals and the degree of compliance with the selected groups of criteria: the highest compliance was noted in the group of journals of the first category. Based on the results of the study, proposals were formulated for the formation of a transparent system for evaluating journals as the main element of a unified national system for evaluating scientific activity (the Unified State List of Scientific Journals– “White List”).

The author analyzes the key principles of developing search thesauri and indexing methods used in the library and publishing industry. The basic concepts of building information retrieval thesauri, specialized dictionaries used for indexing resources in dictionary information retrieval systems, are based on the use of metadata, search indexes, to determine the thematic relevance between indexed information resources and search queries. The author shows that in the field of information search in recent years, keyword search languages based on specialized dictionaries with controlled vocabulary, information retrieval thesauri, have become widespread. The author examines the main stages of the development of thesauri – from the construction of the structure of search terms and the concepts expressed by them, to the formation of a systematic structure of knowledge expressed by terms. The author discusses the reflection of the development of concepts for building information retrieval thesauri and search indexing in the regulatory knowledge organization framework adopted on the Internet and developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), as well as at the level of international (ISO) and Russian national (GOST) standardization organizations. The author concludes that it is necessary to update the Russian national regulatory framework for search indexing by harmonizing Russian and international standards in this area.

The article presents an analysis of scholarly activities in musical higher educational institutions, spanning various different stages of development of the discipline of musicology. The research is focused on both the position of musicology in the structure of the artistic higher educational institution and on the peculiarities of its gradual incorporation into the general scholarly space, which in the various decades of the 20th century took place through various forms of integration. One such form is the musicologists’ dissertational activities, which took its beginnings in the 1930s. Particularly because of the practice of dissertation writing, musicology has made a breakthrough in its methodology, having become one of the most authoritative spheres of humanitarian knowledge. Another form of an outlet into a broader space of the humanitarian sphere turned out to be the musicologists’ participation in the grant programs: the Russian Humanitarian Scholarly Fund and the Russian Fund for Fundamental Research. Several dozens of supported projects present a representative perspective of the state of the conservatory-based discipline during the course of almost three decades: from 1994 until 2022. Along with this, the development of the international publishing activities through the publication of top-rated journals, indexed in Web of Science and Scopus are examined in this article. On the example of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music– the sole musical higher educational institution that entered the “Priority 2030” program,– the opportunities of musicology as a part of a fundamentally new conception of its further development are analyzed.