The scientific periodical "Ukrainian Educational Journal" is a professional periodical of the Institute of Pedagogy of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine.

All manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal undergo a double-blind review process, including those authored by members of the editorial board and the chief editor. The responsible editor is not permitted to publish in the journal but ensures compliance with all requirements for an objective double-blind review of the submitted materials.

The purpose of the peer review is to ensure the quality of the printed materials of the scientific collection of works by means of an independent professional evaluation of the content of the article and determination of its compliance with scientific works according to domestic and international quality parameters, which contributes to the positive image and popularity of the periodical in scientific circles.

The peer review procedure involves a comprehensive analysis of the materials of the article, providing an objective assessment of its content, structure and writing style, determining whether the article meets the requirements for articles in the scientific periodical "Ukrainian Educational Journal". Only those articles that have scientific value and contribute to the solution of current problems of pedagogical science and practice are accepted for publication.

Two independent experts are involved in the article peer review process, who provide their conclusions in written form. The peer review procedure is anonymous, both for the reviewer and for the authors. Reviewers are informed that the manuscripts sent to them are the intellectual property of the authors and belong to that information that is not subject to disclosure. Reviewers are not allowed to make copies of the article submitted for peer review or use the materials of the article before its publication. Peer review takes place on the basis of confidentiality, when information about the article (receipt terms, content, stages and specifics of peer review, comments and suggestions of reviewers and the final decision on publication) is not communicated to anyone except the authors and reviewers. Violation of this requirement is possible only if there are signs or a statement regarding the unreliability or falsification of the article materials. With the consent (desire) of the authors and reviewers, reviewers' comments may be printed together with the article.

The author of the manuscript of the article is given the opportunity to read the text of the review, in particular if he/she does not agree with the conclusions of the reviewer.

Editorial Responsibilities

The Chief Editor/Responsible Editor/Editorial Board is responsible for making decisions regarding the publication of articles submitted to the journal. They act in accordance with the editorial policy and in compliance with applicable legal requirements concerning copyright infringement and plagiarism.

The Chief Editor/Responsible Editor/Editorial Board reserves the right not to publish submitted manuscripts that do not meet the content and formal requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines. The editorial staff is obligated to inform authors within one month of submission whether their manuscript has been accepted for publication.

The Chief Editor/Responsible Editor/Editorial Board must avoid any conflicts of interest concerning the articles under consideration for publication. If an editor has doubts about a potential conflict of interest, the selection of reviewers and all decisions regarding the manuscript must be transferred to another reviewer.

Editors and the editorial board are required to evaluate manuscripts from a scientific perspective, ensuring that no racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political biases influence their judgments. They are not permitted to use unpublished data from submitted manuscripts without explicit written consent from the authors. All information and ideas contained in submitted materials must remain confidential and not be used for personal gain.

Since submitted manuscripts undergo a double-blind peer review process, editors and the editorial team are committed to taking all necessary measures to maintain the anonymity of reviewers concerning authors before, during, and after the evaluation, as well as ensuring the anonymity of authors for reviewers until the review process is complete.

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

Reviewers are experts in their field who are appointed with their consent and in the absence of any conflict of interest to evaluate the quality of materials submitted to the journal. They provide recommendations that can enhance the readability and clarity of specific articles. Reviewers are obligated to ensure the confidentiality of all information throughout the entire review and publication process and to avoid using ideas and materials they are reviewing for personal gain. In evaluating manuscripts, reviewers should adhere to the relevant standards of the EQUATOR network (http://www.equator-network.org).

Reviewers are required to:

• Provide timely, written, competent, and unbiased feedback on the scientific value of the manuscript.
• Assess the manuscript's alignment with the journal's profile, the relevance of the topic and methods used, originality, and scientific significance of the information, as well as the writing style.
• Inform the editor of any reasonable suspicions or knowledge of possible ethical violations by the authors.
• Notify the editor of any concerns regarding copying, plagiarism, or other breaches of research and publication ethics in the materials being reviewed.
• Point out significant publications that the authors have not cited in their manuscript.
• Clearly express their opinions, supported by arguments; personal criticism of the authors is unacceptable.
• Analyze manuscripts comprehensively, offering corrections to improve the quality of the articles.

Reviewers must not have a conflict of interest regarding the research itself, the authors, or the sources of funding. If such conflicts exist, they should promptly inform the editor. If a reviewer believes they do not have sufficient knowledge to assess the manuscript or knows they will be unable to complete the review on time, they must immediately notify the editor.

Authors’ Responsibilities

Authors guarantee that their manuscript is their original work, has not been previously published, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Submitting the same manuscript to another journal simultaneously is considered an ethical violation and will result in the manuscript being excluded from review by the journal. It is important to note that placing preprints on servers or repositories does not count as prior publication. Authors must disclose details about the preprint placement during manuscript submission, including a link to its location. If the manuscript is published, authors must update the preprint information on the server/repository to indicate that the final version has been published in the journal, including the DOI that directly links to the publication.

If the manuscript has been previously submitted to another journal, authors are required to provide information about the prior review process and its outcomes. This allows authors to explain how subsequent revisions addressed previous reviews and justify why certain reviewer comments were not considered. Information about the authors' prior review experiences can assist editors in selecting appropriate reviewers.

If the submitted manuscript is the result of a research project or if a previous version was presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or a similar title), authors must provide detailed information about the project, conference, etc., in a note.

Each author bears personal responsibility for adhering to ethical standards in writing manuscripts submitted to the journal. The journal follows the ethical principles set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org). Authors confirm that the manuscript does not contain unfounded or illegal claims and does not infringe on the rights of third parties. The publisher is not liable for any claims for compensation that may arise.

Conflict of Interest

Authors are required to disclose in their manuscript any financial or other significant conflicts of interest that may affect the results or their interpretation. All reviewers and editors working with them are also obligated to disclose their potential conflicts of interest during the review process. Publications in the journal must not contain materials that promote commercial products.

PEER REVIEW PROCEDURE

1. The author submits an article to the editorial board that must meet the requirements for articles in the scientific periodical "Ukrainian Educational Journal" and the general rules for preparing scientific papers for publication. Manuscripts that do not meet the accepted requirements are not registered and are not allowed for further consideration, and their authors are informed about it.
2. Author manuscripts submitted to the editorial board are initially evaluated by the responsible secretary for the presence of all structural components (abstracts, information about the author, the volume of the manuscript) and are sent according to the research profile to two reviewers. Reviewers are appointed by the Editor-in-Chief of the publication or by his/her decision (under certain circumstances) the appointment of reviewers may be delegated to a member of the editorial board. In some cases, the issue of selecting reviewers is decided at a meeting of the editorial board. According to the decision of the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, individual articles by outstanding scientists, as well as specially invited articles, may be exempted from the standard peer review procedure.
3. Highly qualified specialists with in-depth professional knowledge and work experience in a specific scientific field, usually doctors of science, professors, are involved in the peer review process.
4. Having studied the title and abstract of the article, the reviewer declares that there is no conflict of interest and consents to the review.
5. After receiving the article for consideration (within 14 days), the reviewer evaluates the manuscript of the article. Peer review terms may change in each individual case, taking into account the creation of conditions for the most objective assessment of the quality of the submitted materials. If there are any competing interests, the reviewer must withdraw from the peer review and inform the editorial board about it. The latter should decide on the appointment of another reviewer.
6. The reviewer provides a conclusion on the possibility / impossibility of placing the article in a scientific collection of works or on the need for revision and placement in the next issue of the publication.
7. The peer review is conducted confidentially according to the principles of double-blind peer review (two-way "blind" review, when neither the author nor the reviewer knows about each other). Interaction between the author and the reviewers is carried out through the responsible secretary of the publication through e-mail correspondence. At the request of the reviewer and upon agreement with the working group of the editorial board, the interaction between the author and the reviewer can take place in an open mode (such a decision is taken only if the openness of the interaction will improve the style and logic of the presentation of the research material).
8. For all articles submitted for peer review, the degree of uniqueness of the author's text is determined using appropriate software (a check for plagiarism is carried out).
9. After the final analysis of the article, the reviewer fills out a standardized form, which provides recommendations for improving the materials of the article. During the preparation of the form, generally recognized recommendations regarding the sequence and organization of the peer review process (ReviewQualityInstrument) were used and summarized. The editorial office informs the author about the results of the peer review by e-mail.
10. If the reviewer indicates the need to make certain corrections to the article, the article is sent to the author with a proposal to take the comments into account when preparing an updated version of the article or to refute them with arguments. After finalizing the article, the author sends it along with a letter in which he/she justifies his/her decision to accept or reject the reviewers' recommendations and explains all the changes that were made to the text. The corrected version of the article is resubmitted to the reviewer for decision-making and preparation of a conclusion on the possibility of publication. The date of acceptance of the article for publication is considered the date of receipt by the editorial office of a positive opinion of the reviewer (or decision of the editorial board) regarding the expediency and possibility of publication of the article.
11. In case of disagreement with the opinion of the reviewer, the author of the article has the right to submit a reasoned answer to the editorial office of the journal. In this case, the article is considered at a meeting of the working group of the editorial board. The editorial board may send the article to another specialist for additional review. The editorial board reserves the right to reject articles in the event of the author's inability or unwillingness to take into account the wishes and comments of the reviewers. At the reviewer's request, the editorial board can provide the article to another reviewer with mandatory observance of the principles of double-blind review.
12. The decision regarding the possibility and expediency of publication is made by the Editor-in-Chief (or, on his/her behalf, by a member of the editorial board), and, if necessary, by a meeting of the editorial board. After the decision to accept the article for publication, the responsible secretary informs the author about it and indicates the expected date of publication. In order to ensure additional objectivity in making publication decisions regarding manuscripts, the final content of the journal is approved by the Academic Council of the Institute of Pedagogy.
13. In the case of receiving a positive decision on the possibility of publishing the article, the responsible secretary adds it to the content of the next issue of the scientific periodical "Ukrainian Educational Journal", which is approved at the meeting of the scientific council of the Institute of Pedagogy of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine (an appropriate note is made about this on the second page of the publication).
14. The article approved for publication is submitted to the literary editor. Minor stylistic or formal corrections that do not affect the content of the article are made by the literary editor without agreement with the author. If necessary or at the request of the author, the manuscripts in the form of an article layout are returned to the author for approval.
15. Review Process Timeline: Up to 1 month.

The author and the reviewer are responsible for the reliability of the given facts and data, the validity of the research conclusions and recommendations, and the scientific and practical level of the article.

Communication with Authors: Corrections and Rejections

All communication between the author and the journal's editorial team is conducted in strict confidentiality and with mutual respect. The results of the peer review, including recommendations for manuscript revisions, are sent to the author via email. If the author has questions or disagrees with the provided recommendations, they may contact the journal editor to discuss these and other issues.

In the event of a rejection due to serious violations, the author receives an email outlining the reasons for the rejection. Once the specified deficiencies are addressed, the author may resubmit the manuscript for review.

If a significant error or inaccuracy is discovered in an published article, the author is obliged to promptly notify the journal's editorial team and cooperate with them to retract or correct the article.

Article Retraction Procedure
Noncompliance with professional ethical standards and research misconduct, such as multiple submissions, duplicate or overlapping publications, false claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data and data fabrication, as well as improper use of tools based on large language models and generative AI, alongside honest errors reported by authors (e.g., errors due to sample mix-ups or the use of faulty scientific instruments), and unethical research or any other serious violations, necessitate the retraction of an article. In some cases, retraction may also be applied to correct errors in publication.

In all cases of retracted articles, the retraction notice will clearly state the reason for retraction and who initiated the process. The electronic version of the retraction notice will include a link to the original article. Conversely, the electronic version of the original article will contain a link to the retraction notice, clearly indicating that the article has been retracted. The original text of the article will remain unchanged, except for a watermark on the PDF document indicating on each page that the article is "retracted."