Submissions

Author Guidelines

Summary

•    All published material must be scrutinised under strict quality guidelines by the author, ensuring the integrity and standard of the work is consistent throughout.

•    Information included in the final, published version should be free from bias, data manipulation, and deliberate misinformation, having been sourced in an ethical and legal manner by the author.

•    The author should be free and independent from outside influence including financial, political, or ideological agents.

•    No author should falsely claim ownership of another’s written or intellectual property; detailed citations for any referenced or quoted work should be provided.

•    Financial contributions, as well as written contributions from other authors, should be freely and transparently disclosed and referenced.

•    Authors should take responsibility for their published work and therefore ensure that everything contained within it is, to the best of their knowledge, correct.

•    Any promotional activities should be an accurate representation of the content that is being published. 

•    Arguments about contribution criteria and issues of misconduct are the most common; the PIE is able to act in arbitration role for a successful outcome should such a disagreement take place.

Introduction

The effects of bad practice impinge not only on the integrity of the publishing industry, they can have unforeseen consequences on future researchers, authors, and even on society itself. PIE guidelines aim to succinctly characterise, define, and promote the ethical responsibility of those operating in the publishing sector. The following measures are to assist individuals involved in the creation of published materials, and prevent conflicts of interest arising amongst authors and editors.    

PIE will not be successful in achieving its goals if authors and other publishing personnel are merely aware of the ethical rules in their job; they must be willing to fully comply with the guidelines. We encourage all authors therefore to register with the PIE organisation, and ask for guidance or help should they become aware of any circumstances deemed problematic or conflicting. These issues can be connected with their own work or otherwise, and includes all publishing professionals under its remit.

Like all those working in the publishing sector, authors are obliged to assume the role of guardians of the editorial ethical code of conduct. Swift action must be taken against any other party that is found to be in breach of the guidelines.
PIE endeavours to uphold an international benchmark for ethical authorship, and to help ensure that published material is scrutinised under all current legislation. PIE trusts these guidelines will be useful, fair, and necessary and, furthermore, hopes they will be adopted by all professional authors and editors. 

Integrity of authorship

1     Standards of consistency

1.1   Authors must certify that all reports and articles are informative, fair, accurate, and well balanced before submission. Any incongruities should be thoroughly checked and certified, and specialist advice sought should it be deemed necessary.   

1.2   Inconvenient or conflicting data must not be omitted for the expedience of the author’s proposition or discourse.

1.3   Authors must not deliberately try to misinform their readers by falsified documents or manipulated data; any such instance will be considered an act of calculated deception.  

1.4   If they are aware of editorial misconduct, errors and/or inaccuracies in the published materials, authors must promptly endeavour to correct them. This stipulation should be followed regardless of whether complaints have been filed against them or not.

1.5    Any shortfall in evidence should be fully addressed in the publication. Dialogue between editor and author, regarding limitations, should be consistent throughout the publishing process and every effort made to ensure they are visible.

1.6    If a peer-review will be conducted prior to the publishing of an article, authors must take into consideration the reviewer’s advice and recommendations, making the agreed and required corrections to the text prior to publication.

1.7    All research carried out by the author must be ethical and legal, corresponding with all recognised conventions and institutional bodies to ensure the welfare of human and animal life. Evidence, including licences and consent forms, should be available to the editor and publisher at any point throughout the duration of the project as well as after publication.

1.8    Any clinical trials performed should meet all appropriate and legal requirements. 

2     Conflicts of interest

2.1   Authors’ relationship with the editors and publishers must always be founded on the principle of editorial independence and freedom. They must signal any problem related to their independence or publisher involvement in the editorial decision, whether it is a personal, political, or a commercial request.

2.2   If intentionally misleading information is proffered when writing an advertising article, it must be refused from the outset. If the information is found to be manipulated at any point whilst working on the job, walking away at the point of discovery is the correct course of action. 

2.3   Authors, as well as the other individuals involved in the publishing sector, must take action without delay when they detect conflicts of interests, whether political, financial, or otherwise. This is regardless of whether the complaint is about peer-reviewers, publishers, or editors.

2.3   All decisions regarding the chosen subject area to be of interest to the reader must be based on the quality and informative nature of the topic, and not on political or financial gains.

2.4    Authors must respect the privacy of individuals involved in their journalistic investigations, protect their sources of information and the dignity of each person involved.

2.5    Agreements whereby sponsors and funding agents can prohibit unappealing truths and/or unfavourable aspects relating to their own agenda should not be entered, unless the information is deemed to have security issues and is therefore classified by a governmental body.  

2.6    All financial backing to a given project should be disclosed, along with accreditation to relevant writers, researchers, and contributors.   

3     Originality

3.1    All authors must be aware of the importance of quality and originality in their written words; they have to signal problems related to plagiarism, gift, and ghost authorship as soon as they appear.

3.2    All authors should provide comprehensive references to others’ work in quotations and citations. 

3.3    Copyright laws and regulations should be applied to all published material and any reproduced data should be accredited with permission from those who hold the copyright.

3.4    Any data, be it words, ideas, or numerical, that is the work of another should not be accredited as the work of the author; any information sourced from another’s work should be acknowledged to the person who created it. 

3.5    Persons considered to have made significant contributions should be accredited as an author, whereas minor contributors are to be recognised in the acknowledgement section. For more information on this point, see the section below entitled “Authorship problems and disputes”. 

4     Responsibility

4.1    Authors are expected to take responsibility for published work and check the sources, data, and research underlying their assertions. With regards to research and reports, the author generally takes half the responsibility for the quality and veracity of the research that backs up the written work. Any research where the author does not take responsibility should be clearly outlined in the published material. 

4.2    Any associate of the author that could be seen to have had an influence on the published work, be it financial, political, ideological, or otherwise, must be disclosed in full.

4.3    Authorship entails a relationship between the author, the editor, and the publisher; all three should work in tandem to guarantee the integrity of the finished product.

4.4    An author is accountable for responding to queries and observations after the work has been published in an appropriate and sensible time frame with clarifying information. This includes peer reviews as well as correspondence post-publication. 

4.5    Unless agreed as a co-publication, authors should not submit their work to more than one publisher. Any information regarding a co-publication should be relayed in the published material 

4.6    Editors should be kept informed of all decisions relating to peer review. This includes if a work is withdrawn from review or if advice is not to be taken and acted upon after a conditional approval beforehand.

4.7     Media activity and publicity should be handled in co-operation of author, publisher, and editor to ensure a satisfactory outcome for all. All material relating to promotion and publicity should accurately reflect the content of the work to be published, including press releases, advertisements, and conferences.

Authorship problems and disputes

The two most common authorship problems that may appear are related to gift authorship and ghost authorship. Gift authors refer to persons who fail to meet authorship criteria and had little or no contribution to the article yet are still credited as authors. This can often be because of financial contributions or as an act of favour, and is considered a conscious act of deception. Ghost authorship on the other hand refers to cases where the publisher or editor fails to credit or leaves people out who were active in the research or the writing of the article in question, and crediting the work to another or forgetting them entirely. Both are common causes for disagreement but can more often than not be curtailed through prevention, following the PIE Guidelines, and adhering to a few basic principles of editorial conduct.

5     Preventative measures

5.1    Encouraging and promoting a culture of ethical authorship by following the PIE guidelines set out above.

5.2    Discuss any authorship problems and matters before the commencement of an article or research for a project. Many problems arise because of miscommunication that should have been established at the outset.

5.3    Have a robust understanding of the ethical guidelines in general and in particular the editorial policy of the publication. Anyone found to be misinformed should be forwarded the relevant literature, thus preventing any further misunderstanding occurring later down the line.

5.4    Any practice, person, or institution that encourages ghost or gift authorship should be reported and avoided.  

6     Acknowledgement

6.1    Before publication, all contributing authors should be briefed about expected roles and desired contributions. Any changes to the list of contributors made throughout the exercise must be the result of a consultation between all the listed authors including those already removed from the list.

6.2    All authors need to approve the final publication before its release. Upon the publication of the agreed version, any queries and comments must be forwarded to all involved parties before a response is issued. 

6.3    Authors should never consciously set out to credit a contributor for work that they have not performed, nor should they knowingly discredit someone who has had a meaningful involvement with the finished article.  

Manuscripts should be typewritten or prepared on a word processor, with all material double-spaced, on one side of letter-sized paper, with suitably wide margins. All pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with page 1, the title page. Tables and figures should be numbered serially, and legends to illustrations should be prepared on separate sheets. Tables and figures will be placed near their first mention in the text; all tables and figures must be referred to in the manuscript.

Title Page: The following elements must be included:

• Title of the article;
• Name(s) and initial(s) of author(s), preferably with first names spelled out;
• Affiliation(s) of author(s);
• Footnotes to the contribution title;
• Name, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author.

Abstract: Each article is to be preceded by a succinct abstract, of up to 250 words, that highlights the objectives, methods, results, and conclusions of the paper.

Key Words: To identify the subjects under which the article may be indexed, 6-10 key words should be provided.

References: In the text, references to the literature should be by author and year; where there are two authors, both should be named; with three or more only the first author's name plus "et al." need be given. The list at the end of the paper should include only works mentioned in the text and should be arranged alphabetically by name of first author. References should be cited as follows:

• Journal papers -- name(s) and initial(s) of author(s), year in brackets, full title, name of the journal as abbreviated in Chemical Abstracts, volume number, first and last page numbers:   Quiring R, Walldorf U, Koter U, Gehring WJ (1994) Homology of the eyeless gene of Drosophila to the small eye gene in mice and aniridia in humans. Science 265:785

Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic references rests entirely with the author, who is requested to use as few "in press" citations as possible. In press citations must include the name of the journal that has accepted the paper.

The journal invites the following kinds of submissions:

1. Full-length articles (not exceeding 3,000 words including references but excluding Tables and Figures).

2. Short theoretical articles (not exceeding 2,000 words including references).

3. Review Articles (not exceeding 6000 words).

Engineering and Technology

Section default policy

Copyright Notice

Definition of Open Access Publication According to Bethesda Statement

An Open Access Publication is one that meets the following two conditions:

1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.

    

2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the biomedical sciences, PubMed Central is such a repository).

Notes:

1. Open access is a property of individual works, not necessarily journals or publishers.

2. Community standards, rather than copyright law, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now.

Statement of the Institutions and Funding Agencies Working Group

Our organizations sponsor and nurture scientific research to promote the creation and dissemination of new ideas and knowledge for the public benefit. We recognize that publication of results is an essential part of scientific research and the costs of publication are part of the cost of doing research. We already expect that our faculty and grantees share their ideas and discoveries through publication. This mission is only half-completed if the work is not made as widely available and as useful to society as possible. The Internet has fundamentally changed the practical and economic realities of distributing published scientific knowledge and makes possible substantially increased access.

To realize the benefits of this change requires a corresponding fundamental change in our policies regarding publication by our grantees and faculty:

1. We encourage our faculty/grant recipients to publish their work according to the principles of the open access model, to maximize the access and benefit to scientists, scholars and the public throughout the world.

    

2. We realize that moving to open and free access, though probably decreasing total costs, may displace some costs to the individual researcher through page charges, or to publishers through decreased revenues, and we pledge to help defray these costs. To this end we agree to help fund the necessary expenses of publication under the open access model of individual papers in peer-reviewed journals (subject to reasonable limits based on market conditions and services provided).

    

3. We reaffirm the principle that only the intrinsic merit of the work, and not the title of the journal in which a candidate’s work is published, will be considered in appointments, promotions, merit awards or grants.

    

4. We will regard a record of open access publication as evidence of service to the community, in evaluation of applications for faculty appointments, promotions and grants.

We adopt these policies in the expectation that the publishers of scientific works share our desire to maximize public benefit from scientific knowledge and will view these new policies as they are intended —an opportunity to work together for the benefit of the scientific community and the public.

Statement of the Libraries & Publishers Working Group

We believe that open access will be an essential component of scientific publishing in the future and that works reporting the results of current scientific research should be as openly accessible and freely useable as possible. Libraries and publishers should make every effort to hasten this transition in a fashion that does not disrupt the orderly dissemination of scientific information.

Libraries propose to:

1. Develop and support mechanisms to make the transition to open access publishing and to provide examples of these mechanisms to the community.

    

2. In our education and outreach activities, give high priority to teaching our users about the benefits of open access publishing and open access journals.

    

3. List and highlight open access journals in our catalogs and other relevant databases.

Journal publishers propose to:

1. Commit to providing an open access option for any research article published in any of the journals they publish.

    

2. Declare a specific timetable for transition of journals to open access models.

    

3. Work with other publishers of open access works and interested parties to develop tools for authors and publishers to facilitate publication of manuscripts in standard electronic formats suitable for archival storage and efficient searching.

    

4. Ensure that open access models requiring author fees lower barriers to researchers at demonstrated financial disadvantage, particularly those from developing countries.

Statement of Scientists and Scientific Societies Working Group

Scientific research is an interdependent process whereby each experiment is informed by the results of others. The scientists who perform research and the professional societies that represent them have a great interest in ensuring that research results are disseminated as immediately, broadly and effectively as possible. Electronic publication of research results offers the opportunity and the obligation to share research results, ideas and discoveries freely with the scientific community and the public.

Therefore:

1. We endorse the principles of the open access model.

    

2. We recognize that publishing is a fundamental part of the research process, and the costs of publishing are a fundamental cost of doing research.

    

3. Scientific societies agree to affirm their strong support for the open access model and their commitment to ultimately achieve open access for all the works they publish. They will share information on the steps they are taking to achieve open access with the community they serve and with others who might benefit from their experience.

    

4. Scientists agree to manifest their support for open access by selectively publishing in, reviewing for and editing for open access journals and journals that are effectively making the transition to open access.

    

5. Scientists agree to advocate changes in promotion and tenure evaluation in order to recognize the community contribution of open access publishing and to recognize the intrinsic merit of individual articles without regard to the titles of the journals in which they appear.

    

6. Scientists and societies agree that education is an indispensable part of achieving open access, and commit to educate their colleagues, members and the public about the importance of open access and why they support it.

Establishing open access as a worthwhile procedure ideally requires the active commitment of each and every individual producer of scientific knowledge and holder of cultural heritage. Open access contributions include original scientific research results, raw data and metadata, source materials, digital representations of pictorial and graphical materials and scholarly multimedia material.

1. Open access contributions must satisfy two conditions:The author(s) and right holder(s) of such contributions grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship (community standards, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now), as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
   
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in an appropriate standard electronic format is deposited (and thus published) in at least one online repository using suitable technical standards (such as the Open Archive definitions) that is supported and maintained by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, inter operability, and long-term archiving.

 An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet. The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds. Removing access barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge.

For various reasons, this kind of free and unrestricted online availability, which we will call open access, has so far been limited to small portions of the journal literature. But even in these limited collections, many different initiatives have shown that open access is economically feasible, that it gives readers extraordinary power to find and make use of relevant literature, and that it gives authors and their works vast and measurable new visibility, readership, and impact. To secure these benefits for all, we call on all interested institutions and individuals to help open up access to the rest of this literature and remove the barriers, especially the price barriers, that stand in the way. The more who join the effort to advance this cause, the sooner we will all enjoy the benefits of open access.

Representing our community of scholarly publishers and related organizations, OASPA works to support the transition to a world in which open access becomes the predominant model of publication for scholarly outputs.

We are committed to our mission of developing and disseminating publishing solutions that advance open access, preserve the integrity of scholarship, and promote best practice. We help to ensure a diverse, vibrant, and healthy open access market that supports a wide variety of innovative solutions and business models.

All our members undergo a strict initial review procedure and must then continue to exemplify high standards to remain part of OASPA. Having this core evaluation process ensures that we only represent organizations that share our dedication to maintaining best practices in OA publishing globally.

Open access is a broad international movement that seeks to grant free and open online access to academic information, such as publications and data. A publication is defined 'open access' when there are no financial, legal or technical barriers to accessing it - that is to say when anyone can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search for and search within the information, or use it in education or in any other way within the legal agreements. 

Open access is a publishing model for scholarly communication that makes research information available to readers at no cost, as opposed to the traditional subscription model in which readers have access to scholarly information by paying a subscription (usually via libraries). 

One of the most important advantages of open access is that it increases the visibility and reuse of academic research results. There is also criticism, and the aspect of quality deserves the extra effort. The principles of open access are set out in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003). This declaration has been signed by many international organizations for academic research, including all Dutch universities and research organizations.

There are different ways of publishing open access: 

• The golden route: 

1) Full Open Access journals: publication via publisher platforms, in fully open access journals. This route may involve a charge. The publication costs, known as ‘article processing charges’ (APCs), are covered by authors or by their institutions. Most research funders support open access and are willing to cover the costs themselves. A list of fully open access journals that are accessible worldwide can be found on the DOAJ website.

2) Hybrid Journals: publication via ‘hybrid’ journals. These journals are subscription journals that allow open access publication of individual articles on payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC). Thanks to a series of deals between the VSNU and several academic publishers, Dutch-affiliated researchers can be published for free in thousands of hybrid journals.

• The green route: the full text of academic publications is deposited in a trusted repository, a publicly accessible database managed by a research organization. You can find all Dutch institutional repositories via NARCIS, the Dutch portal for research information. NARCIS gives access to all the publications in Dutch repositories.
• The diamond route: publication via diamond journals/platforms that do not charge author-facing publication fees (APCs). Diamond open access journals are usually funded via library subsidy models, institutions, or societies.

Peter Suber, one of the earliest thought-leaders on open access, gave this definition.

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