Building a Robust Ethics Framework for New Journals

A sound ethics policy for a small new academic journal should be comprehensive, transparent, and aligned with established guidelines in scholarly publishing, particularly those from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). As the editor, you are responsible for everything published and should take reasonable steps to ensure quality.

Here are the key ethical standards and policy areas a new journal should cover:

Adherence to Core Practices and Transparency Principles: The policy should explicitly state adherence to COPE's Core Practices and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. These principles should be followed in all aspects of the publishing operation. The journal website, as the public face of ethical practices, should clearly and completely represent these standards.

Clear, Publicly Available Guidelines: Journal policies on publication ethics must be visible on its website. This includes clear instructions for authors on what is expected and the journal's procedures for suspected misconduct like plagiarism or data fabrication. Clear guidelines for reviewers are also needed on acceptable tone, language, and content, as well as what to do if they suspect misconduct.

Allegations of Misconduct: The policy must include a clearly described process for handling allegations, regardless of how they are received, including from whistleblowers. Journals must take allegations seriously, both pre- and post-publication. Procedures should outline how to handle ethics issues, review allegations, initiate impartial and confidential investigations, and how to contact institutions and other journals. Editors or publishers made aware of allegations should follow COPE's guidance.

Authorship and Contributorship: Clear policies should be in place regarding requirements for authorship and contributorship, and processes for managing potential disputes. These policies should encourage appropriate attribution and discourage guest and ghost authorships. They might require statements of individual contributions. The policy should define authorship, responsibilities of authors, how contributions are declared, how to acknowledge non-authors, and how disputes are managed. While authorship disputes alone don't warrant retraction if the findings are valid, the policy should explain how the journal handles them (e.g., publishing a correction).

Complaints and Appeals: A clearly described process for handling complaints against the journal, staff, editorial board, or publisher is necessary. This includes complaints over editor/reviewer conduct (e.g., confidentiality breaches, conflicts of interest, misuse of information), substantive decisions like retractions, or administrative issues. There should also be a process for author appeals against editorial decisions.

Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests: The policy must include clear definitions of conflicts of interest and processes for handling conflicts for authors, reviewers, editors, and the journal/publisher itself, whether identified before or after publication. Reviewers should be asked to declare relevant competing interests. Editors involved in commercial decisions must declare competing interests. Editorial board members should provide a list of potential competing interests.

Data and Reproducibility: Policies on data availability should be included, encouraging the use of reporting guidelines and registration of studies like clinical trials. Cooperative practices with institutional oversight bodies are needed for issues like alleged data fabrication and falsification. The journal must ensure adherence to ethics for research involving humans, animals, plants, andAtrials, checking data availability and image quality.

Ethical Oversight of Research: Clear guidelines regarding the ethical conduct of research should be adopted and published. This includes policies on consent to publication (especially for medical case reports where individuals are highly identifiable), vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals and human subjects, and handling confidential data. The journal must diligently review submitted work to ensure it conforms with research ethics guidelines. The policy should outline practices for informed consent, institutional oversight, prior ethics approval, and compliance with international guidelines. Editors do not always have to follow the judgment of an ethics committee but have an independent obligation to judge whether a study is ethical.

Intellectual Property: Policies on intellectual property, including copyright and publishing licenses, must be clearly described. The policy should clarify what constitutes plagiarism and redundant/overlapping publication. Journals must ensure copyright compliance. Authors should declare if they have published previous papers and cite them, as there may be copyright issues. The journal instructions should be clear on this.

Journal Management: A well-described and implemented infrastructure for ethical and efficient journal management is essential. Transparency is key. The website should identify the publisher/owner, governing body, contact details, publication frequency, peer review model, aims and scope, and editorial board members and their affiliations. Policies on how editors/reviewers are selected and trained should be documented. The business model and revenue sources should be transparent and not influence editorial decisions. Advertising policy should be stated and kept separate from editorial decisions.

Peer Review Processes: The specific peer review model should be clearly stated on the website. Policies should cover handling conflicts of interest, appeals, and disputes that may arise in peer review. Reviewers should be asked to address ethical aspects like prior publication, plagiarism, research ethics approval, data integrity concerns (fabrication/manipulation), and competing interests. Reviewers should respect confidentiality and not use information for personal advantage.

Post-publication Discussions and Corrections: Mechanisms for correcting, revising, or retracting articles after publication are necessary. The policy should explain the circumstances for retraction. Retraction is appropriate for seriously flawed or erroneous content where findings are unreliable, such as due to major error, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or redundant publication (for the subsequent journal). A retraction notice should clearly identify the article, who is retracting it, and the objective reasons. Retracted articles should remain online and be clearly marked as retracted. Corrections may be used for smaller errors that don't invalidate the main findings.

A new journal just establishing should use resources like the COPE Journal Audit and Ethics Toolkit to develop these policies. Establishing contact points for handling allegations and complaints and knowing how to liaise with institutions are also best practices.