Peer Review

The review process in Cybernetics and Information Technologies is divided into three consecutive phases:

1. Technical pre-check phase:

At this stage, the Secretary of the Editorial Board performs:

• Technical compliance check: whether the submission has been prepared in strict accordance with the formatting instructions, described in detail in the CIT template. If any discrepancies are found, the submission is returned to the authors for corrections.
• Plagiarism and AI-generated text check: (self)plagiarism is checked by using the iThenticate platform, with a permissible percentage of matching tests of up to 30%. The volume of AI-generated text is checked using Grammarly AI checker, with a permissible volume of such text of up to 20%. Submissions that do not meet the above criteria are rejected from further review without the possibility of being revised.

After successfully passing this phase, the submitted manuscript receives a unique identification number and is entered into the journal's editorial system.

2. Editorial pre-check phase:

During this phase, the Editor-in-Chief assesses the submission's suitability with respect to the journal's scope and the manuscript's overall scientific soundness, including the relevance of the references and the correctness of the applied methodology. The editor can decide to reject the manuscript or continue with the peer review process and select suitable reviewers.

3. Peer Review phase:

Once a submission passes the editorial pre-check phase, it is assigned to at least two independent experts for peer review. A single-blind review is applied, where authors' identities are known to reviewers. Peer review comments are confidential.

For regular submissions, the reviewers are invited by the CIT Editor-in-Chief. The reviewers are selected from the CIT Editorial Board Members and from a pool of additional CIT reviewers proposed by the Editor-in-Chief and acknowledged by the CIT Advisory Board.

For special thematic issues, the guest editors are responsible for reviewing and selecting high-quality papers to be published in the thematic issue. All reviews (at least two per paper) should be sent to the CIT Editor-in-Chief for approval.

Reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past three years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co- authors of the submitted manuscript.

Editorial Decision and Revision

Reviewers evaluate submission via the CIT Evaluation Form. The period for the first review of submissions sent to the journal in the regular mode is between 3 and 6 months, and for submissions sent in the fast-track mode - between 1 and 3 months.

The reviewer’s decision may be one of the following:

• Accepted for publication: The submission is accepted for publication in its current form.
• Minor Revision: In principle, the submission could be accepted after the authors revise it based on the reviewers’ and the Editor-in-Chief’s comments. Authors are given 5 days for minor revisions; however, extensions are granted on request.
• Major Revision: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revision. The authors need to provide a point-by-point response or rebuttal if some revisions in response to the reviewers’ or the Editor-in-Chief's comments cannot be made. A maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript is normally provided. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within 14 days; however, extensions are granted on request. The revised version of the manuscript will be returned to the reviewers for further comments. All revised versions of the manuscript are checked for plagiarism and the amount of AI- generated text.
• Reject: The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.

In cases of contradictory reviewer recommendations, including whether submissions should be rejected or accepted (revised), the final decision is made by the Editor-in- Chief after discussions with the reviewers.

All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.

In the event that the journal’s editorial office is unable to maintain communication with the author during the manuscript review or production process, the journal reserves the right to withdraw the manuscript following a designated period of inactivity.