Bulletin of the Karaganda university
Biology. Medicine. Geography series. Peer review guidelines and publihing articles

The editorial board of the journal accepts articles in English, Russian and Kazakh languages, containing the results of original research, in the form of full articles, as well as author's reviews on topical issues of botany (flora, plant resources, anatomy, morphology and physiology of plants, introduction, seed production, issues of plant conservation in natural conditions), zoology (vertebrate and invertebrate fauna, habitats, etiology, biochemistry, methods of population counting and conservation), human and animal physiology, biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology, microbiology, virology, biotechnology, cell biology, applied ecology, geography (physical, economic, landscape), soil science, geoecology, methods of teaching biology, medicine and geography. Materials that do not correspond to these topics will not be accepted. Materials of the article should be of open character. The presence of a restrictive stamp serves as a reason for rejection of the material from publication in the open press.

Articles are accepted by the editorial board through the online system of article submission and review, for foreign authors in case of difficulties in registration and online submission, it is possible to send articles by e-mail bulletin_karsu_biology@mail.ru (executive secretary of journal Tleukenova S.U.).

Authors should send to the editorial office an electronic file of the article, formatted in accordance with requirements (https://biollogy-medcine-geography-vestnik.ksu.kz/regulations), as well as a scanned copy of the Author's Agreement signed by all authors. Notification of authors on receipt of materials is carried out by the editorial office within 7 days (includes working days).

The manuscript of a scientific article submitted to the journal's editorial office undergoes the procedure of initial review for compliance with the journal's profile, editorial requirements and design rules. At this stage, the article (the entire article file, with all output data, abstracts and keywords in three languages, reference lists, information about the authors) is also checked for the presence of borrowed text through plagiarism checking systems.

An article that meets the journal profile and publication requirements is accepted for review and sent for peer review.

Reviewing of manuscripts of scientific articles in the editorial office of the Journal is carried out to ensure the quality of the published article, correctness and reliability of the presentation of results, maintaining a high scientific and theoretical level of the publication, as well as the selection of the most relevant and practically significant scientific papers. All materials submitted for publication in the journal are subject to reviewing.

The reviewers are appointed by the Editor-in-Chief, who are specialists in the relevant field of research, from among the leading specialists in the profile of the article. Reviewing is carried out by double-blind peer review method. All reviewers must adhere to the requirements for the ethics of scientific publications, be objective and unbiased.

If a potential conflict of interest is identified (competition, collaboration, joint publications within the last 3 years), the reviewer must declare it and withdraw from the review process.

Reviewers evaluate the article on the relevance of the topic and scientific novelty, the appropriateness of the methods used by the authors, the reliability of the results obtained, as well as its structure and style of presentation (quality of translation into English), adequacy of the methods outlined and the research conducted, sufficiency and informativeness of the research material, correctness and completeness of the discussion, compliance with the goals, objectives and conclusions, correctness of terminology, etc. All comments and wishes to the article are formalized in the review form.

The reviewer may make the following recommendations for publication of the article:

1. « The article may be recommended for publication» - if the manuscript does not contain errors, meets the requirements of relevance and originality of scientific research. In this case, the manuscript is included in the list of proposed publications in the journal;

2. « The article may be recommended for publication provided that it is finalized in accordance with the reviewer's comments». In this case, the article is sent to the authors for revision. After receiving the finalized text, the editorial board sends the article to the reviewer again for consideration. If the reviewer still has significant comments to the article, the article can be sent for revision again. In case of refusal of revision by the authors, the manuscript is rejected by the Editorial Board without the right for further revision.

3. The article needs additional review by another specialist.

4. « The article cannot be recommended for publication».

In this case, the article is either rejected by the decision of the editorial board or sent for a second review, which is possible only once for a given article.

If the comments made by the reviewer are correctable, the article is sent to the author for revision. The editorial board of the journal reserves the right to refuse publication to an author who wishes to leave the reviewer's remarks unattended. The reviewer also has the right to conduct an additional check for the use of borrowings in the text of the publication through available Internet search engines.

The terms of reviewing in each individual case are determined taking into account the order of preparation of journal issues, as well as creating conditions for the most rapid publication of the article. The maximum term for reviewing is 30 days.

Procedure for informing attorneys about review results

Based on the results of reviewing, the article can be either rejected, sent to the authors for revision, or accepted for publication.

If the review contains recommendations for correction and revision of the article, the Editorial Board of the journal sends the text of the review to the author with a proposal to take them into account when preparing a new version of the article or to refute them (partially or completely) with arguments. The revision of the article should not take more than 30 working days from the moment of sending an e-mail message to the authors about the need to make changes. The article finalized by the author is sent again for reviewing.

If the authors refuse to revise the materials, they must notify the editorial office about their refusal to publish the article. If the authors do not return the revised version after 2 months from the date of sending the review, even in the absence of information from the authors with the refusal to revise the article, the editorial office deregisters it. In such situations, the authors are sent a corresponding notification about deregistration of the manuscript due to the expiration of the period for revision.

After receiving the reviews, at the next meeting of the Editorial Board the issue of the received articles is considered and on the basis of the reviewers' conclusions the final decision on the publication of the article or refusal to publish is made.  Based on the decision, a letter is sent to the authors on behalf of the editorial board to the e-mail address of the author responsible for correspondence.

The final decision on publication is made by the editorial board. in conflict situations, the decision on publication is made by the editor-in-chief..

Pre-publication preparation of an article for publication is mandatory and consists of literary and technical editing, control over compliance with the accepted standards of design and the Rules of publication of articles in the journal. The Editorial Board may not agree with the authors on literary or technical correction of articles. The Editorial Board does not enter into discussions with the authors of the articles.