OASPA/DOAJ/COPE/WAME丨Equidity principles and best practices for academic publishing

Image from the COPE website

In January 2014, the Publication Ethics Committee (COPE), the Open Access Journals Directory (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and the World Medical Editors Association (WAME) jointly published the first edition of Transparency Principles and Best Practices in Academic Publishing (the "Principles"). The Principles were established to clarify that these principles are criteria for evaluating applications to become MEMBERS of COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and some of the criteria for applying to become a MEMBER of WAME. As of now, the document has been updated to the third edition and was released in January 2018. We have translated the sixteen-point explanation from the third edition of the Principles for your reference. If there are any deficiencies, please criticize and correct them.

The principle of transparency

1. Website: The website of the journal, as well as the text it contains, shall demonstrate that care has been taken to ensure that there are high ethical and professional standards. It must not contain information that could mislead readers or authors, including any information that mimics the websites of other journals/publishers. The journal's website should include a description of the journal's "Aims & Scope" and clearly define the readership. At the same time, the journal website should have a statement stating what the journal will consider when publishing, including author criteria (e.g., multiple submissions are not considered, republishment). The ISSN number should be clearly displayed (printed and electronically separated).

2. Journal Name: The journal name must be unique, not easily confused with another journal, and must not mislead potential authors and readers about the origin of the journal and its association with other journals.

3. Peer Review Process: Journal content must clearly indicate whether it has been peer reviewed. Peer review refers to getting advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers in the field who are not part of the journal's editorial staff. The process, and any policies related to the journal's peer review process, should be clearly stated on the journal's website, including the peer review methodology used. Journal websites should not have this information guaranteeing acceptance of manuscripts or very short peer review times.

4. Ownership and Management: Ownership and/or management information of the journal should be clearly stated on the journal's website. Publishers may not use organization names or journal names that may mislead potential authors and editors in nature.

5. Governing body: The journal shall have an editorial board or other governing body, whose members are recognized experts in the relevant field within the scope of the journal. The full names of the members of the journal's editorial board or other governing body and the affiliation of the organization shall be published on the journal's website.

6. Editorial Team/Contact Information: The journal shall provide the full name of the journal editor and the organization to which the journal belongs, as well as the contact information of the editorial board, including the detailed address, on the website.

7. Copyright and Licensing: The copyright policy should be clearly stated in the Author's Guide and the copyright owner should be identified in published articles. Similarly, licensing information should be clearly described in the site's guidelines, and license terms should be noted in all published articles, including HTML and PDF. If the author is allowed to publish under a Creative Commons license, then any specific licensing requirements must be noted. Any policy for publishing a finally accepted version or publishing an article to a third-party repository must be clearly stated.

8. Author Fees: Any fees for manuscript processing and/or publishing articles should be marked in a prominent place so that potential authors can find them before they submit or explain them clearly before they are ready to submit. If no such fees are charged, this should also be clearly stated.

9. The process of identifying and handling allegations of academic misconduct: Publishers and editors should take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers that have already occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data tampering/falsification. Under no circumstances shall the journal or its editors encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to occur. If a publisher or editor of a journal becomes aware of any allegations of research misconduct in articles already published in its journal, the publisher or editor of that journal should follow COPE's guidelines (or equivalent) in handling the allegations.

10. Publication Ethics: Journals should also establish publication ethics policies. These should be clearly visible on their website and should indicate: (i) the journal's policy on authors and contributors; (ii) how the journal handles complaints and grievances; (iii) the journal's policy on conflicts of interest/competing interests; (iv) journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility; (v) the journal's policy on ethical oversight; (vi) the ip policy of the journal; (vii) Options for discussion and revision of articles after publication in journals.

11. Publication schedule: The cycle of publication of the journal should be indicated.

12. Access: How the journal and individual articles are accessed to the reader, and must indicate whether there is an associated subscription or pay-per-view.

13. Archiving: Journals must be clear: an electronic backup and preservation plan for access to its content (e.g., access to major articles via CLOCKSS or PubMed Central) when the journal is no longer published.

14. Revenue Sources: Business models or sources of income (e.g., author fees, subscription fees, advertising, reprints, institutional support, and organizational support) should be explicitly stated on the journal website or otherwise explicitly stated. Publication fees or fee waivers should not affect editorial decisions.

15. Advertising: Journals shall state their relevant advertising policies, including what type of advertising will be considered, who will decide whether to accept advertising, whether advertising links to other content or reader behavior (online only) or random display. Ads should not be related in any way to editorial decisions and should be separate from published content.

16. Direct Marketing: Any direct marketing activity, including a call for manuscripts on behalf of the Journal, should be appropriate, targeted and unobtrusive. Information about the publisher or journal should be true and must not mislead readers or authors.

The Principles also state that if a member is found to have violated these acts, or other specific requirements of the organization, OASPA/DOAJ/COPE/WAME should first attempt to work with them to resolve any issues raised. If a member organization is unable or unwilling to address these issues, their membership in the organization is suspended or terminated.

source:

https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing

*The content of this article is translated and arranged by the editor of OATE China Office. Some of the Chinese content is for reference only, and all the english version shall prevail.