Policy of the journal

Terms of publication of the manuscript

International Journal of Biology and Chemistry is published two times a year in the online (electronic) format in the following terms of publication of the journal's issues: the first issue is published until June 20, the second issue – until December 20 of the current year.

Articles, that have not been previously published by the author(s), which correspond to the thematic areas of the journal and are formatted strictly according to the requirements of the manuscript, are accepted for publication in the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry.

The manuscript of a scientific article is submitted to the editorial board by the corresponding author (determined from the number of the author's collective of the manuscript if there are 2 or more co-authors) at least two months before the next issue of the journal is published. Manuscripts of at least 1,500 words and no more than 7,000 words (excluding title, information about authors, abstract, keywords, references, acknowledgment) are accepted for publication in the journal.

The manuscript must be uploaded via the electronic platform by the corresponding author, indicating all the metadata of the article and its authors. Articles by the same author (prepared individually or in co-authorship) may be published in the journal no more than once during a calendar year.

Authors must submit to the editorial office an original work that has not been previously published in other publications (in print, electronic, and other open sources). The authors are responsible for the reliability, novelty, and evidence of the research results. At the stage of consideration of the manuscript by the editorial board and reviewers of the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry, as well as after its publication, the authors must not submit this manuscript for consideration for publication in another edition.

At the stages of working with a manuscript, communication between the editorial office, the corresponding author, and reviewers is carried out via the electronic (online) platform OJS, and in exceptional cases – via e-mail.

The editorial board of the journal considers the manuscripts submitted by the author(s), organizes their peer review, and decides on publication or refusal to publish within two months from the date of receipt of the manuscript through the electronic platform.

The author(s) of the manuscript approved for publication in the journal are obliged to pay for publication by the approved price list for publication in scientific journals of al-Farabi KazNU, posted on the journal's website. A receipt for payment for publication in pdf format is should be sent by the author to the e-mail address of the editorial office of the journal.

 Borrowing and plagiarism

The editorial board of the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry, when reviewing the manuscript for compliance with the formal requirements (manuscript requirement), also checks for the presence of borrowed text in the manuscript through a plagiarism checker system, access to which is provided by a university subscription or based on a national subscription.

Only original manuscripts and/or those manuscripts in which, according to the results of verification by the plagiarism system, originality is more than 75% are sent for further review. If the manuscript does not meet the requirements of the journal and is not an original work based on the results of a plagiarism check, the manuscript is returned to the corresponding author for making the appropriate changes and resubmitting the manuscript for review by the editorial board through the electronic platform of the journal.

If the authors, while writing the manuscript, used works, articles, provisions, or quotes and statements of other researchers, they must necessarily refer to the works of these scientists and correctly format the quoted text. Plagiarism seems to be an unethical act that violates the Code of Ethics principles of the scientist of al-Farabi KazNU and is unacceptable in the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry.

Persons involved in the publishing process, especially members of the editorial board of the journal, to ensure the high quality of scientific publications, to avoid unfair practices in publishing activities, such as the use of false information, falsification of data, etc., to ensure recognition society of scientific achievements, undertake to comply with the principles, standards, and norms of scientific ethics adopted by the international community and at al-Farabi KazNU, as well as take measures to prevent such violations.

The members of the editorial board of the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry obliged not to violate the principles, standards, and norms of scientific ethics adopted by the international community and at al-Farabi KazNU.

In case of violations of the principles, standards, and norms of scientific ethics adopted by the international community and at al-Farabi KazNU, the editorial board of the journal obliged to act by the "Ethics of publication for scientific journals of al-Farabi KazNU", the Code of Ethics of the scientist of al-Farabi KazNU and the standards of the Publication Ethics Committee (COPE).

In case if a provable fact(s) of violation of the principles, standards, and norms of scientific ethics was found in an article published in the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry, the editorial board have the rights to retract this article from the issue, in which it was published and from the official website of the journal with the obligatory indication of specific violations of the principles by the author(s), and place the corresponding announcement in the next issue of the journal.

The author(s) of the article, in which a provable fact of violation of the principles, standards, and norms of scientific ethics was discovered, are not allowed to submit articles to the journal International Journal of Biology and Chemistry and in other scientific journals of al-Farabi KazNU, within the next three calendar years from the date of revealing the fact(s) of violation of the principles of ethics.

 Peer-review process

The manuscripts received by the editorial office of the journal and meeting the formal requirements, design requirements, and the indicator of originality based on verification through the plagiarism system, are sent for further review.

If the author(s) of the manuscript has a conflict of interest with other scientists, they must indicate the existence of such a conflict of interest in the cover letter, to avoid sending this manuscript to the specified scientist (reviewer) and biased assessments of the manuscript.

The International Journal of Biology and Chemistry employs “double-blind peer review” by at least two scientists with the academic degree of Candidate of Science, Doctor of Science, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and scientific specialization on the subject of the peer-reviewed manuscript.

Reviewing is carried out confidentially: the manuscript of the article is sent to reviewers through the electronic platform of the journal without specifying information about the authors. Reviewers are required to have a clear, objective, and reasoned assessment of the compliance of the manuscript with the main scientific criteria, as well as its quality of significance.

After receiving the conclusions from the reviewers, the executive editor sends them to the corresponding author without specifying information about the reviewers, for responding to comments, making appropriate changes, and resubmitting the manuscript via the electronic platform. The author(s) may make changes to the manuscript and resubmit it to the journal's editorial office or, without explanation, refuse to reply to comments.

After responding to all the comments, making changes to the manuscript to eliminate the comments of the reviewers, and re-submitting it to the editorial office of the journal by the author(s), the scientific editor sends all materials to the reviewer(s) for re-review.

The manuscript, on which there are positive opinions from two reviewers and the executive editor, is recommended for publication in the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry according to the order of their acceptance for publication. The manuscripts approved by the editorial board are transferred to the executive secretary to form the issue of the journal.

If one of the reviewers provides a positive conclusion on the manuscript, and the second – a negative one, then the manuscript is sent by the scientific editor to the third reviewer, who is an expert in the subject of the manuscript. If a third reviewer provides a positive conclusion, the final decision on the acceptance/rejection of the publication of the manuscript is made by the scientific editor of the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry.

In the case of two negative reviews, the manuscript deviates from publication in the journal.

The materials of articles rejected by the editorial board based on the results of peer-review are not used by the editorial board for their own purposes. The editor or executive secretary notifies the corresponding author about the rejection and sends the conclusions of the reviewers.

The manuscript reviews are stored for three years in electronic format on the journal's electronic platform.

The period for reviewing is assigned by the editor responsible for the article, and the period for reviewing the manuscript by the reviewers is no more than two months from the date of sending the material to the reviewers.

 Free access policy and archiving

The International Journal of Biology and Chemistry provides open access to its content on the official website of the journal. This provides wider informational access to the journal in the global scientific community.

“Open access” means its 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."  (by Budapest Open Access Initiative). 

Besides, the website of the journal provides the necessary information for authors and readers about the activities of the journal: conditions of publication, rules for registration and submission of manuscripts to the journal, the procedure for forming the journal and reviewing manuscripts, publication ethics, information about the editorial board, contact details of the scientific editor and executive secretary.

Readers and authors can view the electronic versions of the current issue of the journal and archives for previous periods on the journal's website. Also, electronic and printed versions of journal issues are archived in the long term in the university library http://elibrary.kaznu.kz/en/, and all issues of the journal are transferred to the archives of the National Book Chamber of the Republic of Kazakhstan and to the archives of Scientific Center of State Scientific and Technical Expertise of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

All publications of the journal in electronic form are distributed free of charge and without restrictions under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Copyright and licensing 

Authors of the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry transfer publishing rights to the publisher, licensing it under Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The copyright holder of the published work is the publisher - Al-Farabi Kazakh National University.

The authorship of the manuscript (the moral rights of authors) belongs to those researchers who participated directly in the creation of the manuscript, in the formation of the concept, in the writing of the article, in the interpretation of the results and made a significant contribution to obtaining scientific results.

Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, the authors retain the moral rights to their manuscripts, while allowing everyone to freely download, reuse, reprint, change, distribute or copy them, with the obligatory acknowledgment of the authorship of this work and a link to the unique publication in this journal. For all these actions, when specifying a link to the journal, permission from the authors or publisher is not required.

The authors can distribute their article in other sources (for example, in the institutional archive, social networks, etc.) with the obligatory reference to its original publication in this journal.

Terms of confidentiality

Information about the authors (their names, affiliation, contact information, information about their position and academic degree, as well as links to identifiers of authors' profiles in international databases) are placed in the article in the section "Information about the authors".

Members of the editorial board of the International Journal of Biology and Chemistry do not disclose information about an accepted manuscript, before publication, to third parties other than designated reviewers. Also, the editors do not disclose information about reviewers to authors and others.

These and other rules of behavior of participants in the publication process, namely the principles, norms, and standards of conduct for authors, editorial board members, publisher, and reviewers, are based on the Publication Ethics for scientific journals of al-Farabi KazNU.