About the Journal
Focus and Scope
Indexing
Digital archiving policy
Open Access policy
Deposit policy
Peer Review Process
Publication fee
Policies on Conflict of Interest, Human and Animal rights, and Informed Consent
Competing interests
Human and animal rights
Informed consent
Advertising Policies for web publications
Compliance with ICMJE Recommendations
Article Identification Policy
Plagiarism check
Journal author rights
Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
Duties of Reviewers
Duties of Authors
Personal data collection and processing policy
Focus and Scope
Problems of Subsoil Use (PSU) iis a peer-reviewed online journal with the objective to publish high-impact original scientific papers and reviews in the field of mining and subsoil use in general, including:
- design theory and geotechnological problems of mining of mineral deposits;
- geotechnics for open-pit, underground and combined mining of mineral deposits;
- construction geotechnology of underground and surface structures;
- environmental problems of the mining complex and nature management;
- geomechanical and geodynamic processes during field development;
- destruction of rocks and their massifs during the integrated development of deposits;
- geophysics;
- geoinformation support during field development;
economic problems in subsoil use.
We are particularly interested in papers that answer longstanding questions, open new avenues of research, report unexpected findings, or change the way we think about processes of mining and subsoil use.
Indexing
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America's largest scholarly publishers. It covers up to 90% of all the scientific information published in English.
Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) —Russian Science Citation Index is a bibliographic database of scientific publications in Russian. It accumulates more than 2 million publications of Russian authors, as well as information about citing these publications from more than 2000 Russian journals.
BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) – is a multi-disciplinary search engine to scholarly internet resources, created by Bielefeld University Library in Bielefeld, Germany. It is based on free and open-source software such as Apache Solr and VuFind.[1] It harvests OAI metadata from institutional repositories and other academic digital libraries that implement the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), and then normalizes and indexes the data for searching.
Russian Agency for Digital Standardization - an international multidisciplinary catalog of journals and research centers that assign DOIs (digital object identifiers).
DataCite is an international not-for-profit organization which aims to improve data citation in order to: establish easier access to research data on the Internet; increase acceptance of research data as legitimate, citable contributions to the scholarly record; support data archiving that will permit results to be verified and re-purposed for future study.
Digital archiving policy
Digital copies of the publications are deposited in the Russian Scientific Library (http://elibrary.ru/title_about.asp?id=52020)
A copy is also sent to the Russian State Library (https://oek.rsl.ru/about)
Open Access policy
The journal is an open-access journal which means that everybody can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles in accordance with CC Licence.
You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Licence type: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
Deposit policy
Author can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing) or publisher's version/PDF
Blue Sherpa/RoMEO journal
Peer Review Process
1. All manuscripts submitted to the Problems of Subsoil Use are subject to peer-review process.
2. The Executive Secretary checks the article for compliance with the rules of styling and the scope of the journal. Then the article is sent for review to the external reviewer whose research interests are the closest to the issues covered in the article.
3. The reviewing period can vary depending on the specific situation, but shall not exceed 4 weeks.
4. The review addresses the following questions:
A) whether the content of the article corresponds to the title;
B) whether the article meets modern achievements of science;
C) whether the article could be understood by the reader from the point of view of style, language, form, clarity, graphics, tables, charts, formulas;
D) whether the article regards the previously published literature on this issue;
D) evaluation of the articles on the subject of borrowings and plagiarism;
E) outlining specific positive and negative sides of work, as well as suggestions for improvement of the article.
G) verdict about the possibility of publishing the article in the Problems of Subsoil Use.
5. If the review contains recommendations on correction and revision of the article, the Executive Secretary of the journal sends the author the text of the review with a proposal to take them into account when preparing a new version of the article. The author can provide arguments to defend his/her point of view. The modified (revised) article is sent for review.
6. The negative review with the reasons for refusal is sent to the author by e-mail.
7. In the case of a positive decision on the admission of the article for publication Executive Secretary informs the author and indicates the date of publication. Review is sent to the author by e-mail, Fax, or regular mail.
8. The originals of reviews are kept in the editorial office of the Probems of Subsoil Use for five years and can be provided to the competent authorities on request.
Publication fee
The publication of articles in the journal is free of charge.
Policies on Conflict of Interest, Human and Animal rights, and Informed Consent
Competing interests
Problems of Subsoil Use requires authors to declare all competing interests in relation to their work. All submitted manuscripts must include a competing interests section at the end of the manuscript listing all competing interests (financial and non-financial). Where authors have no competing interests, the statement should read “The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.” Editors may ask for further information relating to competing interests. Editors and reviewers are also required to declare any competing interests and will be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.
Competing interests may be financial or non-financial. A competing interest exists when the authors’ interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by their personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations. Authors should disclose any financial competing interests but also any non-financial competing interests that may cause them embarrassment if they were to become public after the publication of the article.
Financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):
– Receiving reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of the article, either now or in the future.
– Holding stocks or shares in an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of the article, either now or in the future.
– Holding, or currently applying for, patents relating to the content of the manuscript.
– Receiving reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript.
– Non-financial competing interests
– Non-financial competing interests include (but are not limited to) political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual competing interests. If, after reading these guidelines, you are unsure whether you have a competing interest, please contact the Editor.
Authors from pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial organizations that sponsor clinical trials, should declare these as competing interests on submission. They should also adhere to the Good Publication Practice guidelines for pharmaceutical companies, which are designed to ensure that publications are produced in a responsible and ethical manner. The guidelines also apply to any companies or individuals that work on industry-sponsored publications, such as freelance writers, contract research organizations, and communications companies. Problems of subsoul Use will not publish advertorial content.
Human and animal rights
All research must have been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. If there is suspicion that work has not taken place within an appropriate ethical framework, Editors will follow the Misconduct policy and may reject the manuscript, and/or contact the author(s)’ institution or ethics committee. On rare occasions, if the Editor has serious concerns about the ethics of a study, the manuscript may be rejected on ethical grounds, even if approval from an ethics committee has been obtained.
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing this, including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate, must appear in all manuscripts reporting such research. If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption). Further information and documentation to support this should be made available to Editors on request. Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor considers that the research has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. In rare cases, Editors may contact the ethics committee for further information.
If a study has not been submitted to an ethics committee prior to commencing, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review. How to proceed in such cases is at the Editor(s)’ discretion.
Authors reporting the use of a new procedure or tool in a clinical setting, for example as a technical advance or case report, must give a clear justification in the manuscript for why the new procedure or tool was deemed more appropriate than usual clinical practice to meet the patient’s clinical need. Such justification is not required if the new procedure is already approved for clinical use at the authors’ institution. Authors will be expected to have obtained ethics committee approval and informed patient consent for any experimental use of a novel procedure or tool where a clear clinical advantage based on clinical need was not apparent before treatment.
Informed consent
For all research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants (or their parent or guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript.
For all manuscripts that include details, images, or videos relating to individual participants, written informed consent for the publication of these must be obtained from the participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript. If the participant has died, then consent for publication must be sought from the next of kin of the participant. This documentation must be made available to Editors on request and will be treated confidentially. In cases where images are entirely unidentifiable and there are no details on individuals reported within the manuscript, consent for publication of images may not be required. The final decision on whether consent to publish is required lies with the Editor.
Experimental research on vertebrates or any regulated invertebrates must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. The Basel Declaration outlines fundamental principles to adhere to when conducting research in animals and the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) has also published ethical guidelines.
A statement detailing compliance with relevant guidelines (e.g. the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe) and/or ethical approval (including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate) must be included in the manuscript. If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption and the reasons for the exemption). The Editor will take account of animal welfare issues and reserves the right to reject a manuscript, especially if the research involves protocols that are inconsistent with commonly accepted norms of animal research. In rare cases, Editors may contact the ethics committee for further information.
For experimental studies involving client-owned animals, authors must also document informed consent from the client or owner and adherence to a high standard (best practice) of veterinary care.
Field studies and other non-experimental research on animals must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing compliance with relevant guidelines and/or appropriate permissions or licenses must be included in the manuscript. We recommend that authors comply with the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and the IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction.
Authors are strongly encouraged to conform to the Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines, developed by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), for reporting animal studies.
For studies reporting livestock trials with production, health, and food-safety outcomes, authors are encouraged to adhere to the Reporting Guidelines for Randomized Controlled Trials in Livestock and Food Safety (REFLECT).
Advertising Policies for web publications
Currently, the Problems of Subsoil Use stands for having its materials free of any kind of advertisement. This policy may change in the future.
Compliance with ICMJE Recommendations
The journal fully complies with the ICMJE Recommendations
Article Identification Policy
All the articles are assigned with DOI (Digital object identifier). DOIs are assigned through RADS.
Plagiarism check
All the articles received are checked for plagiarism via Text.ru system. The article should have 80% of unique text to be accepted.
Journal author rights
Problems of Subsoil Use (PSU) is an open access (OA) journal. In order for PSU to publish and disseminate research articles, we need publishing rights. This is determined by a publishing agreement between the author and PSU. This agreement deals with the transfer or license of the copyright to PSU and authors retain significant rights to use and share their own published articles. PSU supports the need for authors to share, disseminate and maximize the impact of their research, and these rights, in PSU are defined below:
Authors sign an exclusive license agreement, where authors have copyright but license exclusive rights in their article to the publisher. In this case, authors have the right to:
- Share their article in the same ways permitted to third parties under the relevant user license (together with Personal Use rights), the end-user license, and a DOI link.
- Retain patent, trademark, and other intellectual property rights (including raw research data).
- Proper attribution and credit for the published work.
Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is an essential model for our journal.
It is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, and the publisher.
Our ethic statements are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
The editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published.
The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
Fair play
An editor at any time evaluates manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
Confidentiality
The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.
Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.
Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgment of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
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.
Duties of Authors
Reporting standards
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
Data Access and Retention
Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
Originality and Plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.
Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication
An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Acknowledgment of Sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.
The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects
If the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
