Submission

Authors submit manuscripts through the journal's designated online submission system or, where applicable, through the official editorial contact indicated on the UVSJ website. Manuscripts must follow the requirements set out in the Guidelines for Authors and include all required components and declarations. Submission does not guarantee acceptance or publication.

Initial Editorial Assessment

Each manuscript is initially assessed by the Managing Editor and the Section Editor-in-Chief to verify its conformity with the journal's scope, basic scientific and technical requirements, manuscript structure, references, and publication ethics requirements. As part of this assessment, all submitted manuscripts are screened for plagiarism and inappropriate text similarity using iThenticate, a Turnitin service. The similarity report is evaluated by the editorial team in context. Manuscripts may be returned to authors for correction of formal or technical deficiencies. Manuscripts that fall outside the journal's scope, fail to meet essential requirements, or raise significant concerns regarding originality or publication ethics may be rejected at this stage without external peer review. Manuscripts that pass the initial assessment proceed to external peer review.

Peer Review

Research articles that pass the initial editorial assessment are sent for external peer review in accordance with the journal's Peer Review Policy. UVSJ normally obtains evaluations from at least two independent external reviewers with appropriate expertise in the subject area of the manuscript. The journal uses a double-blind peer-review process.

Revision

When revisions are required, the authors receive the reviewers' and/or editor's comments and are invited to submit a revised manuscript. Authors should address the comments point by point and indicate the changes made in the revised manuscript. Depending on the extent of the revisions, the revised manuscript may be evaluated by the editor alone or returned to the original reviewers for further assessment.

Editorial Decision

The final decision is made by the Section Editor-in-Chief, taking into account the peer-review reports, the quality and relevance of the manuscript, and the journal's editorial and ethical standards.

Possible decisions are:

• Accept
• Minor revisions
• Major revisions
• Reject

Additional expert review may be requested when necessary.

Copyediting and Proofreading

After acceptance, the manuscript enters the editorial production stage. The article is checked for language, formatting, references and citations, tables and figures, consistency with the journal's style, and compliance with the final publication requirements. The authors receive the final proofs and are given an opportunity to identify and correct factual or typographical errors before publication.

Publication

Following completion of the editorial and proofreading process, the article is published in the appropriate issue of the UniVlora Scientific Journal (UVSJ). Each published article receives a DOI and displays the relevant publication information, including the Received, Accepted, and Published dates. All articles are made freely available online in accordance with the journal's Open Access Policy and applicable copyright and licensing terms.

Post-Publication

After publication, UVSJ maintains the integrity of the scholarly record. Authors and readers may notify the journal of errors, concerns, or possible ethical issues relating to published articles. Corrections and retractions are clearly linked to the original article to maintain a transparent and reliable scholarly record. In cases where errors are identified by the authors themselves or by readers in articles already published in their final version, the journal accepts either corrections or retractions of the article.

Corrections may take different forms and levels, including:

• Minor errors within the text of a scientific paper. These errors do not affect the results or conclusions of the study. They may include typographical errors, mistakes in various sections of the article, errors in names, etc. Such errors are corrected by the respective section editor of the journal within a short period of time, after informing the Section Editor-in-Chief, who confirms the approval of the corrections.
• Major errors, which may lead to incorrect conclusions, flawed methodology or data analysis, errors in references, the removal or addition of an author, etc. Such corrections must be made as soon as possible after the discovery of the error(s). The correction is requested by the editorial board or the section editor, who forwards their proposals to the Section Editor-in-Chief. The latter makes the final decision regarding the acceptance of these corrections.

In both cases (minor or major errors), the article is updated, and all databases in which the journal is indexed are notified of the corresponding changes. In rare cases, an article may be retracted for major reasons such as plagiarism, data fabrication, or serious errors during the research process. In such cases, the journal informs readers about the retraction of the article, as well as the various databases in which it is indexed.

Depending on the reason for the article’s retraction, this may result in consequences for the authors, such as non-acceptance of their future submissions, etc.

Errors may be identified either by the authors of the article or by readers. If an error is found by the authors, they must immediately inform the Section Editor-in-Chief of the journal, who, following the above-mentioned procedures, decides on the correction or retraction of the article.

In cases where the notification of a possible error is made by readers, the Section Editor-in-Chief informs the authors of the article about the raised claim. Within 15 days, the authors must submit their response regarding the raised concerns. If they acknowledge the possible errors, the above- mentioned procedure is followed. If they do not accept the claims, the Section Editor-in-Chief appoints an ad hoc committee to review the matter. This commission is composed of three members (the section editor and two other members of the editorial board). The commission’s proposal is submitted to the Editor-in-Chief, who makes the final decision.