Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement requirements: 

    1.   Web site

-   A journal’s Web site, including the text that it contains, shall demonstrate that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards.

-   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

-   All of a journal’s content should be subjected to peer-review.

-   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.

-   The peer review process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, shall be clearly described on the journal’s Web site.

-   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 Web site.

-   Publishers shall not use organizational names that would mislead potential authors and editors about the nature of the journal’s owner.

    5.   Governing body

-   Journals should have editorial boards or other governing bodies whose members are recognized experts in the field. The full names and affiliations of the members should be provided on the journal’s Web site.

    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.

-   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 but not limited to 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;

vii)   Journal’s options for post-publication discussions and corrections.

11.    Publishing schedule

-   For serial publications, the periodicity at which a journal publishes should 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 PubMedCentral) in the event a journal is no longer published shall be clearly indicated.