Review process revisited

Reviewing is a mandatory stage of publishing a scientific journal, aimed at ensuring certain scientific level of the published articles and the journal as a whole. Reviewer is a specialist with a scientific degree who will:

• draw the author’s attention to inaccura­cies, and sometimes even to mistakes;
• advise the area of further study using com­ments and suggesting literary sources unknown to the author.

In 2019, we continued the successful trend and enrolled even more scientists of the Corpora­tion enterprises as the Editorial Board members.

Not without reason, the Editorial Board of this version of the scientific and technical jour­nal of “Almaz - Antey” Air and Space Defence Corporation includes 107 scientists. The need to establish such a large Editorial Board dates back to 2017, when the journal topics became significantly more numerous. This is an ongoing process: in 2019, reviewers were enrolled as the Editorial Board members for analysing materials in such new areas as gas and hydrodynamics; ther­mal physics; continuum mechanics; production management, etc.

Distribution of candidates of the current Ed­itorial Board by their age and scientific degree is shown in Fig. 1, 2.

The majority of the Editorial Board is com­prised of scientists younger than 40 (see Fig. 1, 2), and the overall trend is towards increasing of the number of young members. Thus, in 2018, the Editorial Board included 39 young scientists, while at the end of 2019 there were 68 of them. This approach promotes the following:

• reduction of time for article review, due to a larger number of involved reviewers;
• involvement of the Corporation’s young scientists in the articles review.

It should be noted that some of young re­viewers are quite ambitious in their scientific activities and are not overwhelmed with routine. However, it also stands to mention the following experienced scientists particularly active in their writings:

Akopyan Iosif Grigorevich, Doctor of En­gineering Sciences, Professor;

Balov Anatoliy Vasilevich, Doctor of Engi­neering Sciences, Professor;

Belyakova Elena Germanovna, Doctor of Engineering Sciences;

Ponomarev Oleg Pavlovich, Doctor of En­gineering Sciences, Associate Professor;

Ratynsky Mikhail Vladimirovich, Doctor of Engineering Sciences;

Sinani Anatoly Isakovich, Candidate of En­gineering Sciences, Senior Researcher;

Strakhov Aleksey Fedorovich, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, Professor;

Filimonov Vyacheslav Ivanovich, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, Professor;

Shentyabin Aleksandr Nikolaevich, Candi­date of Military Sciences.

Such diverse composition of the Edito­rial Board provides for high quality of the re­view. An increase in the number of the Editorial Board members allowed to reduce the articles re­view time by more than three times within three months already in 2019 (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3 shows that the majority (79 %) of articles published in 2019 were reviewed in less than a month.

Article review time is also defined by the fact that starting from 2015 each article under­goes a double ‘blind’ review by several review­ers, with the author and the reviewer unknown to one other. The duration of a review is defined by the time it takes all the specialists to review a certain piece of work. Besides, if the reviewers have opposing opinions on an article or if they accept it without any comments, such article will be sent for additional review, which will in­crease the total review time. The information on the number of reviewers per one article in 2019 is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4 shows that the majority of articles is reviewed by more than one reviewer. One re­viewer is appointed for an article on a field-spe­cific topic.

Starting from 2017, we practice extrater­ritorial review. For example, an article submit­ted by an author from Bryansk will be sent for review to Moscow, Ulyanovsk, and Yekaterin­burg in order to exclude any influence imposed on a reviewer by the existing regional scientific school, which he or she can be a member of. Fig. 5 shows extraterritorial data by articles pub­lished in 2019.

Extraterritoriality is achieved in 72 % of considered articles, which results in a reduction of influence imposed on a reviewer by the re­gional scientific school.

Based on the data of Russian Science Cita­tion Index (RSCI), on average, the journal pub­lishes 43 articles per year. Consequently, each published journal version includes 11 articles on average. An analysis of the RSCI data shows that, on average, 2.3 reviewers are appointed per article. Data on the number of conclusions pre­pared by the reviewers in 2017-2019 is shown in Fig. 6.

All in all, it can be confidently stated that the journal follows the current trends of scientific ar­ticles review, and the editorial team continuously improves the methods of expert assessment of the published manuscripts.

We are open for dialogue with our readers. Please send your proposals on expanding journal distribution, its promotion on the Internet, social media and international databases, improving its quality and content to Editorial Office e-mail press@almaz-antey.ru