Aim and Scope

The term “Education” in the title of the journal refers to all forms of teaching and learning (face-to-face, distance, and blended) in schools, colleges, universities, and professional establishments, addressing all age groups of learners in both developed and developing countries.

The term “Self-development” in the title refers to a comprehensive attention to the needs, aptitudes, and interests of students in order to foster positive attitudes and high aspirations, and to develop the knowledge and skills necessary for lifelong learning.

The Education and Self-Development journal publishes scientific papers in two languages (English and Russian), a feature that makes it unique. The journal thus promotes dialogue between the West and the East in the field of education and self-development, encouraging the following materials:

- multi-perspective research conducted in different locations;

- longitudinal studies that reveal the results of educational initiatives and innovations; 

- intervention results (both positive and negative);

- dialogues between scholars from different fields, institutions, cultures, and contexts, intended to promote mutual understanding and interaction at different levels.

We accept research papers for publication within the following fields:

- pedagogy, psychology, educational psychology, andragogy, and heutagogy;

The scope of the journal covers the following areas:

- individual and group learning;

- employment-related education (access, equal opportunities, social inclusion);

- creation, development, and application of learning systems and tools;

- leadership and management in continuous education;

- development of learning materials and creation of training courses;

- open, distance, blended learning, as well as a flipped classroom type of learning; 

- professional development to improve the work of institutions; 

- monitoring and control of the quality of education and training; 

- interim and final assessment of learning results, as well as their study methods.

Papers submitted to the editorial board should not contain highly specialized terminology; should be analytical (not descriptive) and critical in nature; and should present the original insights and conclusions of the authors.

Section Policies

Publication Frequency

The Education and Self-Development journal is issued quarterly.

Open Access Policy

This is an open access journal. All articles are made freely available to readers immediatly upon publication.

Our open access policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition - it means that articles have free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.

For more information please read BOAI statement.

Archiving

• Russian State Library (RSL)
• National Electronic-Information Consortium (NEICON)

Peer-Review

General Rules

The Education and Self-Development Editorial Board selects papers for publication out of the papers submitted for review. Upon acceptance of a manuscript (prior to the review process), the Editorial Board assesses the compliance of the paper with the journal’s thematic focus, formatting requirements, and authorship. Should the paper fail to meet even one of the above requirements, it will be rejected and will not be reviewed. If the initial review is successful, the manuscript will be forwarded for peer review.

Reviewing Process

- The Education and Self-Development Editorial Board carries out a double-blind review procedure for all incoming manuscripts that correspond to the journal’s scientific scope and have passed the check for plagiarism.

- Leading, acknowledged specialists in their fields who are experts in the subject matter of the manuscript being reviewed are involved in the review.

- The Editorial Board appoints several Reviewers to evaluate the manuscript, usually at least two. The decision on the selection of Reviewers is made by the Editorial Board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief.

- Papers are reviewed both by the members of the Editorial Board and by invited Reviewers, i.e., leading Russian and foreign specialists. The selection of two experts is carried out by members of the Editorial Board, taking into account the subject matter of the submitted materials.

- The double-blind reviewing presupposes that the names of the Reviewers are not disclosed to the Authors, and the Reviewers do not know the names of the Authors. The manuscript undergoes examination only in an anonymous (depersonalized) presentation.

- The minimum review period for a manuscript is up to three months from the date of its registration with the Editorial Board. Reviewers are supposed to express their consent to review the manuscript and agree on the deadline for submitting the manuscript. The review period may be extended if the Reviewer sends the Editors a justification for the delay in reviewing.

- In case of a conflict of interest, Reviewers are required to notify the Editorial Board and/or the Editor-in-Chief and refuse to review the manuscript. The Editors of the journal will inform Reviewers of other requirements on responsibility and the need to comply with ethical standards (see the Editorial Ethics and Policy section at https://eandsdjournal.kpfu.ru/en/ethical-policy/ ).

- Interaction with Reviewers and Authors is carried out via the electronic editorial office.

- The Editors inform Reviewers that the copyright to the manuscript belongs to the Authors and the information in it is not subject to disclosure.

- Reviews are stored in the electronic editorial office of the journal and are provided upon request by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, the Authors, the scientific electronic library (elibrary.ru platform), and the Higher Attestation Commission under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

- The review must be objective and contain an assessment of both the advantages and disadvantages of the scientific work. The text of the review must be constructive and polite, not containing criticism of the Authors’ personalities, etc.

- The review form is stored in the electronic editorial office. It structurally and substantively reflects the following points, namely, the relevance of the paper, scientific novelty, strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript, the correctness of the results and conclusions obtained, compliance of the manuscript design with the editorial requirements (the correspondence of the abstract to the content of the paper, the quality of the cited sources, the list of references are taken into account), as well as the adequacy of the application of statistical processing methods. At the end of the review, Reviewers make grounded conclusions on the content of the manuscript, providing recommendations to the Authors. Reviewers can make comments on the writing style, its correctness, and the accuracy of the wording.

- At the end of the reviewing process, the Reviewers make one of four decisions: to recommend the manuscript for publication without revision, to recommend the paper for publication after minor revision, to recommend the paper for publication after major revision, or to reject the manuscript without publication.

- The results of the review for each manuscript are discussed by the Editorial Board in order to make a final decision on the manuscript. The Editors inform the Authors of the Editorial Board’s decision based on the reviewing results.

- If the manuscript contains inaccuracies or does not meet the criteria specified in the review form, the Authors receive an anonymous review and/or a paper with Reviewers’ comments and recommendations for revision of the paper.

- As a result of the review, papers must be accepted or rejected.

- Manuscripts that were rejected based on the review results are not reviewed again. If another manuscript is submitted by the Author/Authors of the rejected paper, it is reviewed as a new one according to the usual procedure.

- After revision by the Authors, papers are sent for re-review to the same Reviewer who made the comments the Authors responded to. If the Reviewer, for some reason, refuses or is unable to re-review the paper within the established deadline, the Editors appoint another Reviewer.

- If the review results are debatable, e.g., one Reviewer gives a positive review and another one draws a negative one, the Editors reserve the right to send the paper to a third Reviewer or appoint a meta-Reviewer who will analyze all the reviews and make a final decision based on the results of two (or more) reviews.

- If the Authors refuse to revise the manuscript according to the Reviewers’ constructive comments without explaining their decision, the Editors reserve the right to reject the manuscript by sending the Authors a reasoned refusal to publish their paper.

- Authors are asked to revise the manuscript within 2 months. During this time, the Authors must send a completely revised manuscript, based on the Reviewers’ comments. The manuscript is accompanied by a response to the Reviewers for each comment received, formatted as a table in a separate MS Word file. If there are comments with which the Author/Authors do not agree, it is necessary to give a reasoned response to the Reviewer in the same file.

- If the Authors fundamentally disagree with the review results, they can ask the Editors for additional review. In extreme cases, the Authors have the right to withdraw the manuscript from the journal.

- After the manuscript has passed through all the stages of review and revision, the Editorial Board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief, makes the final decision on the publication of the paper.

- When the Editorial Board makes a decision to publish the manuscript and after the Editor-in-Chief approves the final content of the issue, the Authors are informed of the specific issue in which the paper will be published. Upon request from the Authors, the Editors provide a certificate of acceptance of the paper for publication in the established form.

- The editorial office carries out literary, scientific, and technical editing of the manuscript if necessary. The Editors also agree with the Authors on the draft (in Word format) and final (layout in pdf format) versions.

- After the decision to accept the paper for publication, the manuscript is included in the calendar plan for publication.

Ethical aspects of the interaction between the editorial office, the Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Board, Reviewers, and Authors can be found in the Editorial Ethics and Policy section at https://eandsdjournal.kpfu.ru/en/ethical-policy/. 

Publishing Ethics

The editorial policy of the Education and Self-Development Journal is based on ethical behavior standards and applies to all participants in the editorial and publishing process: the Editorial Board, Authors, Reviewers, and the Publisher.

1. The Education and Self-Development Journal follows the best practices on ethical issues in accordance with international publishing standards. It is guided by the principles set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for Editors, Authors, Reviewers, members of the Editorial Boards, and Publishers.
2. Publications in the journal are free of charge based on the results of: check for borrowings, double-blind peer review, signed license agreement with all Authors of each published paper. Free publication of all materials is held with a Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (http://creativecommons.ru/licenses/) CC-BY (Attribution. 0 International), CC-BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial. 4.0 International), CC-BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs. 4.0 International).
3. The terms of the license agreement of the Author stipulate the conditions for the use of the manuscript by the Author and the Publisher before and after publication.

Editorial Board’s responsibilities

• The Editorial Board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief, evaluates incoming manuscripts and makes decisions about the possibility of publication, taking into account the opinions of Reviewers. Publication decisions are made based on the credibility of the work.
• When evaluating submitted manuscripts, the Editorial Board takes into account their scientific value and intellectual content, as well as relevance and significance, and does not take into account the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious preferences, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political views of the Authors.
• The Editorial Board of the journal should not disclose information about the submitted manuscript to anyone else, except for the Editor-in-Chief, the Responsible Author, the Reviewer, and the Publisher.
• The Education and Self-Development Journal, represented by the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board, undertakes not to use unpublished information in any of its own work without the written permission of the Author.
• Confidential information or ideas obtained in the process of working with the manuscript must be kept secret by Editors, Editorial Board, Reviewers, and not used for personal gain.
• The Editor-in-Chief, who has received convincing evidence that the statements or conclusions presented in the publication are erroneous, must inform the members of the Editorial Board in order to make changes, withdraw the publication, issue a statement, express concern, or perform other actions appropriate to the situation.
• The decisions taken by the Editorial Board can be reconsidered in accordance with the changes in the legislation of the Russian Federation.

Reviewers’ responsibilities

• Peer review assists the Editor-in-Chief and members of the Editorial Board in making editorial decisions and may also assist the Author in improving the paper as a result of active interaction between the Author and Editors.
• The Reviewer evaluates the possibility of meeting deadlines and qualification requirements before agreeing to the examination of the manuscript. In case the level of expertise in the subject proposed is insufficient or if they do not have the opportunity to complete the work within the specified time, review candidates have to notify the Editorial Board.
• The Reviewer treats the manuscript as a confidential document and does not transfer information on the paper and the data it contains to third parties.
• Reviews of papers must be objective.
• Unpublished materials described in the submitted manuscript should not be used in the Reviewer’s own research without the written consent of the Author. Priority information or ideas obtained from peer review must be kept confidential and should not be used for personal purposes. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in case they have a conflict of interest as a result of competitive, collaborative, or other associations with any of the Authors, companies, or organizations associated with the paper.
• The Reviewer should also draw the attention of the Editorial Board to the discovery of significant similarities or coincidences between the manuscript under consideration and any other published work that is in the field of scientific competence.
• The Reviewer should point out significant published works that are relevant to the topic in case they are not included in the bibliography of the manuscript. Any reference to previously published observations, conclusions, or arguments should be accompanied by an appropriate bibliographic reference.

The author’s responsibilities

• By submitting a manuscript to the journal, the Authors are responsible for the objectivity and correctness of the information provided. Research data must be presented as accurately as possible in accordance with the requirements for the design of scientific papers. The paper should be sufficiently detailed and have bibliographic references. False or obviously erroneous statements are unacceptable and are perceived as unethical behavior.
• The Authors are required to have made a significant contribution to the conduct of the study, to the formation of the concept, development, execution, and interpretation of the presented study. All those who have made significant contributions to the work should be identified as co-authors. It is also important to make sure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the work and agreed to submit it for publication. Other individuals who have contributed in some way to the research project may be listed as contributors and may receive special gratitude.
• Authors should make sure that they represent original work and that all references to works or citations to other Authors are formatted appropriately. Both the presentation of someone else’s work as one’s own, as well as the paraphrase of parts of someone else’s work (without attribution), are considered to be incorrect borrowing, which is absolutely unacceptable and is regarded as unethical behavior.
• By submitting a manuscript to the journal, the Author confirms by a written statement the consent to check the text originality with the plagiarism system (“Antiplagiat”). If the Author finds significant errors or inaccuracies in the publication, they must inform the Editorial Board of the journal about this in order to withdraw the publication or correct errors as soon as possible.
• The Author correctly references the previous works and avoids self-reference in the manuscript as well as artificial increase in the volume of publications. The Author takes the necessary precautions to make sure that the citations presented in the paper are correct.
• The Author does not submit one paper to different journals for consideration. It is considered unacceptable to publish research in more than one journal, even if it is presented in different languages.
• Papers are published in Open Access with the consent of the Authors, confirmed by the signature of the Author’s License Agreement. Copyright belongs to the Authors. The Editorial Board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief, reserves the right to ask the Authors for initial data for review and reconsideration. Authors should be prepared to retain this data for a sufficient period of time after publication.
• If the work involves the participation of animals or people as subjects of research, Authors must ensure that all stages of the study comply with the laws and regulations of research organizations and are approved by the relevant research ethics committee/commission.
• The Author communicates with the Reviewer through the Editor and responds to comments and remarks, if any. All Authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial or other conflict of interest that may affect the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the implementation of the project must be indicated.
• The journal publishes materials of Authors from different countries and regions. Authors are responsible for compliance with the laws of the countries and regions they represent. The Editors of the journal act in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation.

Publisher’s responsibilities

• The Publisher promotes the development of publishing rules and regulations and implements the best standards of publishing and scientific ethics.
• The Publisher not only supports scientific communication and invests in this process, but is also responsible for meeting all modern recommendations in the published work.
• The Publisher does not influence the editorial policy of the journal.
• The Publisher provides legal support to the Editors of the journal if necessary.
• The Publisher ensures the timeliness of the release of the journal issues.
• The Publisher issues revisions, clarifications, and performs retractions of papers that have been identified as scientific ethics violations or as containing critical errors.

Founder

• Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University

Author fees

Publication in “Education and Self-Development" is free of charge for all the authors.

The journal doesn't have any Article processing charges.

The journal doesn't have any Article submission charges.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Plagiarism detection

"Education and Self-Development" use native russian-language plagiarism detection software Antiplagiat to screen the submissions. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed.

Preprint and postprint Policy

The editorial board of the Education and Self-Development allows authors to post the manuscript as a preprint before submission for review and to archive independently their articles in disciplinary and institutional repositories.

Preprints

The editorial board of the Education and Self-Development encourages uploading preprints on preprint servers. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) defines a preprint as 'a scholarly manuscript posted by the author(s) in an openly accessible platform, usually before or in parallel with the peer review process.' 

A preprint publication shall not be considered duplicate publication nor shall it influence the editor's decision to publish it in the Education and Self-Development.

The author must notify the editorial board of the Education and Self-Development about the posted preprint at submission of the manuscript for review, furnishing a link to the preprint with its DOI identifier and the dissemination terms and conditions.

It is the author’s responsibility to add a link to the published manuscript in the preprint record. The link must contain the DOI and the URL of the article published on the journal's website. The original preprint should not be modified based on the reviewer’s and editor’s comments. The preprint should not be replaced with the text of the published article.

Do not delete the preprint text.

Manuscripts Accepted for Publication

The editorial board of the Education and Self-Development allows manuscripts that have been reviewed and are accepted for publication to be archived independently.

 This version of the manuscript may be disseminated through:

-   personal website or blog;

-   institutional repository;

-   disciplinary repository;

-   direct interactions with faculty or students by providing this version of the manuscript for personal use.

The text of the manuscript should contain the author’s clarifications about its status and information about the planned publication.

Example: The ARTICLE TITLE has been reviewed, accepted for publication, and will be published in 2021 (3) of the Education and Self-Development.

Once the final version of the manuscript is published, it is the author’s responsibility to add a link to the published article to the publication record. The posted text should not be modified based on the reviewer’s and editor’s comments. Do not replace the text of the posted manuscript. Do not delete the text of the posted manuscript.

Final Versions of Manuscripts

The editorial board of the Education and Self-Development allows manuscripts that have been peer-reviewed, accepted for publication, edited and ready for publication (proofread and typeset) to be archived independently.

 This version of the manuscript may be disseminated through:

-   personal website or blog;

-   institutional repository;

-   disciplinary repository;

-   direct interactions with faculty or students by providing this version of the manuscript for personal use.

 Once the final version of the manuscript is published, it is the author’s responsibility to add a link to the published article to the publication record. The posted text should not be modified based on the reviewer’s and editor’s comments. Do not replace the text of the posted manuscript. Do not delete the text of the posted manuscript.

Revenue Sources

The publication of the journal is financed by the funds of the parent organization.