Principles
of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing:
1.
Website
A
journal's website, including the text that it contains, shall demonstrate that
care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards. It must
not contain information that might mislead readers or authors, including any
attempt to mimic another journal/publisher’s site. An ‘Aims & Scope’
statement should be included on the website and the readership clearly defined.
There should be a statement on what a journal will consider for publication
including authorship criteria (e.g., not considering multiple submissions,
redundant publications) to be included. ISSNs should be clearly displayed
(separate for print and electronic).
2.
Name of journal
The
Journal name shall be unique and not be one that is easily confused with
another journal or that might mislead potential authors and readers about the
Journal’s origin or association with other journals.
3.
Peer review process
Journal
content must be clearly marked as whether peer reviewed or not. Peer review is
defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers expert in
the field who are not part of the journal’s editorial staff. This process, as
well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, shall be
clearly described on the journal website, including the method of peer review
used. Journal websites should not guarantee manuscript acceptance or very short
peer review times.
4.
Ownership and management
Information
about the ownership and/or management of a journal shall be clearly indicated
on the journal’s website. Publishers shall not use organisational or journal
names that would mislead potential authors and editors about the nature of the
journal’s owner.
5.
Governing body
Journals
shall have editorial boards or other governing bodies whose members are
recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope.
The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editorial board or other
governing body shall be provided on the journal’s website.
6.
Editorial team/contact information
Journals
shall provide the full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors on the
journal website as well as contact information for the editorial office,
including a full address.
7.
Copyright and Licensing
The
policy for copyright shall be clearly stated in the author guidelines and the
copyright holder named on all published articles. Likewise, licensing
information shall be clearly described in guidelines on the website, and
licensing terms shall be indicated on all published articles, both HTML and
PDFs. If authors are allowed to publish under a Creative Commons license then
any specific license requirements shall be noted. Any policies on posting of
final accepted versions or published articles on third party repositories shall
be clearly stated.
8.
Author fees
Any
fees or charges that are required for manuscript processing and/or publishing
materials in the journal shall be clearly stated in a place that is easy for
potential authors to find prior to submitting their manuscripts for review or
explained to authors before they begin preparing their manuscript for
submission. If no such fees are charged that should also be clearly stated.
9.
Process for identification of and dealing
with allegations of research misconduct
Publishers
and editors shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication
of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism,
citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. In no
case shall a journal or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly
allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that a journal’s publisher or
editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a
published article in their journal, the publisher or editor shall follow COPE’s
guidelines (or equivalent) in dealing with allegations.
10. Publication Ethics
A
journal shall also have policies on publishing ethics. These should be clearly
visible on its website, and should refer to: i) Journal policies on authorship
and contributorship; ii) How the journal will handle complaints and appeals;
iii) Journal policies on conflicts of interest / competing interests; iv)
Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility; v) Journal’s policy on
ethical oversight; vi) Journal’s policy on intellectual property; and vii)
Journal’s options for post-publication discussions and corrections.
11. Publishing
schedule
The
periodicity at which a journal publishes shall be clearly indicated.
12. Access
The
way(s) in which the journal and individual articles are available to readers
and whether there are associated subscription or pay per view fees shall be
stated.
13. Archiving
A
journal’s plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal
content (for example, access to main articles via CLOCKSS or PubMed Central) in
the event a journal is no longer published shall be clearly indicated.
14. Revenue
sources
Business
models or revenue sources (e.g., author fees, subscriptions, advertising,
reprints, institutional support, and organisational support) shall be clearly
stated or otherwise evident on the journal’s website. Publishing fees or waiver
status should not influence editorial decision making.
15. Advertising
Journals
shall state their advertising policy if relevant, including what types of
adverts will be considered, who makes decisions regarding accepting adverts and
whether they are linked to content or reader behaviour (online only) or are
displayed at random. Advertisements should not be related in any way to
editorial decision making and shall be kept separate from the published
content.
16. Direct
marketing
Any
direct marketing activities, including solicitation of manuscripts that are
conducted on behalf of the journal, shall be appropriate, well targeted, and
unobtrusive. Information provided about the publisher or journal is expected to
be truthful and not misleading for readers or authors.
