The Black Sea Journal of Sciences is a peer-reviewed academic journal that is published four times a year in March, June, September and December.

Prospective papers are expected to fill a gap in their respective field through innovative research.

Our journal employs a double blind peer review system in which the personal identities of the reviewers and authors are kept confidentialed from one another, and whereby the parties involved are expected not to reveal themselves. With this objective in mind, parties submitting the file in question to the system such as the author, editor, and/or reviewer must handle the uploading of those files to the system with utmost care and attention.

The publishing team first examines (the) prospective papers in accordance with the criteria of the journal’s scope, as well as for scientific content and format. After the pre-review step, the papers are forwarded to at least two reviewers for evaluation. In order for a paper to be accepted, it must receive positive evaluations from both reviewers. Papers can be requested to be reviewed again if needed and evaluation of a third reviewer should necessity warrant it. The final decision is made by the editor.

Papers that are to be submitted for publishing are first controlled using special detection software in order to verify that they have not been previously published elsewhere, as well as to ensure that they do not include any plagiarized content.

Publishing takes between 2 to 6 months from the acceptance date.

The publishing or evaluation of manuscripts are free of charge.

KFBD sign on to the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), which promotes free access to research literature, and has adopted the Open Access Principles that clarified in this initiative.

The Black Sea Journal of Sciences is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

Academic research submitted to our journal is run through plagiarism detection software in order to check for any possible plagiarized content. Authors are expected as they declare that their work do not include any plagiarism. A report regarding this issue is sent to the authors.

The publishing or evaluation of manuscripts are free of charge.

This journal makes use of the LOCKSS system, which allows participating libraries to create a distributed digital archiving system, as well as allowing libraries to develop permanent archives for the purposes of protection and restoration.

An author’s paper is entitled to copyright protection, and is to give her/his copyright to the journal upon its first initial publishing. One’s paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which enables it to be shared by others via permission from the author as well according to the terms and conditions laid out by this journal upon (the paper’s) first initial publishing.

The author is entitled to have a separate contract drawn up in which allows for her/his paper as it is published in our journal to be distributed without providing full authorisation (e.g., a paper’s being sent to the databank of an institution, or for its being published in a book, etc.)


Authors are encouraged to share their share their papers via the internet either before they submit their work to our journal or as they wait through the submission process (e.g., to an institutional database or via their own personal websites, etc.). In doing so, this allows both for a fruitful exchange of ideas and feedback, as well as allows for the paper to be earlier as well as more widely referenced (see: The Effects of Open Access).

RESPONSIBILITIES OF REVIEWERS

Peer-reviewing of a submitted manuscript is the control of its scientific content, scientific layout and suitability according to the principles of the journal, and delivery of the reviewer opinion for unsuitable manuscript content to ensure suitability. The reviewing process not only enables reviewers to forward their evaluations about the manuscripts to the editors but also give them the opportunity to improve the contents of the manuscripts.

If a reviewer assigned for evaluation of a manuscript is of expert of a field of science other than the manuscript content, is far to the subject of the manuscript, is short of time for evaluation or possess a conflict of interest, then he/she should inform the assigning editor and ask his/her withdrawal. If the content of the manuscript fits the expertise field of the reviewer, then he/she should complete the evaluation and send the report to the editor as soon as possible.

Reviewers assigned for evaluation of manuscripts approve in advance that the manuscripts are secret documents and do not share any information about these documents with third parties except the editors involved in the evaluation. Reviewers continue to not to share information even after the manuscripts are accepted or rejected for publication. If it is suspected of using an idea in the manuscript that is sent for evaluation to the reviewer without permission, the flowchart of COPE “What to do if you suspect a reviewer has appropriated anauthor's ideas or data?” is fallowed.
Reviewers should construct their criticisms on a scientific background and include scientific evidences in their statements. All comments raised by the reviewers to improve the manuscripts should be clear and direct and written in a manner far away from disturbing author feelings. Insulting and derogatory statements should be avoided.

Reviewers should determine quotations in the manuscripts used without citing a reference. Statements, observations, conclusions or evidences in published articles should be quoted with the citation of the related reference. Reviewers should also be sure about the reality of presence of quotations in the cited reference(s).

If a reviewer is in a situation by being involved in one or more interests with the author(s), he/she should inform the editor the assigning editor and ask his/her withdrawal.