Ethics

More information about ethical standards for scholarship can be found at:

Wager E & Kleinert S (2011) Responsible research publication: international standards for authors. A position statement developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore, July 22-24, 2010. Chapter 50 in: Mayer T & Steneck N (eds) Promoting Research Integrity in a Global Environment. Imperial College Press / World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (pp 309-16). (ISBN 978-981-4340-97-7)

Some points for consideration include: 

 

1. Honesty 

  • Authors should present their views and results honestly and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. Data should not be modified or presented in a misleading way. Argumentation should not omit inconvenient, inconsistent or inexplicable findings that do not support the authors’ hypothesis or interpretation.
  • Authors should strive to describe their approach or methods and to present any findings clearly and unambiguously. Study limitations should be addressed in publications. 
  • Authors should alert the editor promptly if they discover an error in any submitted, accepted or published work. Authors should cooperate with editors in issuing corrections or retractions when required. 
  • Authors should represent the work of others accurately in citations and quotations; they should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work. 

 

2. Originality 

  • Authors should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original and has not been published elsewhere in any language. Work should not be submitted concurrently to more than one publication unless the editors have agreed to co-publication. If articles are co-published this fact should be made clear to readers. 
  • Applicable copyright laws and conventions should be followed. Copyright material (e.g. tables, figures or extensive quotations) should be reproduced only with appropriate permission and acknowledgement. 
  • Relevant previous work and publications, both by others and the authors’ own, should be properly acknowledged and referenced. Original wording taken directly from publications by others should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.
  • New findings should be presented in the context of existing work. Scholarly reviews and syntheses of existing research should be complete, balanced, and should include findings regardless of whether they support the argument. Reviews and opinion pieces presenting a single viewpoint or argument should be explicit in their orientation. 
  • Translations and adaptations for different audiences should be clearly identified as such, they should acknowledge the original source, and should respect relevant copyright conventions and permission requirements. If in doubt, authors should seek permission from the original publisher before republishing any work. 

 

3. Transparency 

  • All sources of funding, including direct and indirect financial support, supply of equipment or materials, and other support (such as specialist statistical or writing assistance) should be disclosed. Authors should also disclose the role of the funder(s) or sponsor (if any) in the design, execution, analysis, interpretation and/or reporting of the scholarship. 
  • Authors should disclose relevant financial and non-financial interests and relationships that might be considered likely to affect their perspective or any other information which editors, reviewers or readers might reasonably wish to know. This includes any relationship to the journal, for example if editors publish their own research in their own journal. In addition, authors should follow journal and institutional requirements for disclosing competing interests.
  • Neither funders nor sponsors should be able to veto publication of findings or claims that do not favour their product or position. Academics should not enter agreements that permit the sponsor to veto or control the publication of the findings.

 

4. Authorship and Acknowledgement 

  • Authors should ensure that only those individuals who meet authorship criteria (i.e. made a substantial contribution to the work) are rewarded with authorship and that deserving authors are not omitted.
  • In cases where major contributors are listed as authors, those who made less substantial, or purely technical, contributions to the research or to the publication can be listed in the contributor statement, the criteria for authorship and acknowledgement should be agreed at the start of the project.   Responsibility for the correct attribution of authorship lies with authors themselves. 
  • All authors should agree to be listed and they should approve the submitted and accepted versions of the publication. Any change to the author list should be approved by all authors including any who may have been removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and he/she should keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication (e.g. responding to reviewers’ comments).
  • Authors should not use acknowledgements misleadingly to imply a contribution or endorsement by individuals who have not, in fact, been involved with the work or given an endorsement.

 

5. Accountability and Responsibility 

  • All authors should have read and be familiar with the reported work and they should ensure that publications follow accepted principles for publication. In most cases, authors will be expected to take joint responsibility for the integrity of the scholarship. However, if authors take responsibility only for certain aspects of the work and its reporting, this should be specified in the publication and/or in the contributor statement. 
  • Authors should abide by relevant conventions, requirements, and regulations to make materials, software or datasets available to others who request them. 
  • Authors should respond appropriately to post-publication comments and published correspondence. They should attempt to answer correspondents’ questions and supply clarification or additional details where needed. 

 

6. Adherence to Peer Review and Publication Conventions 

  • Authors should inform the editor if they withdraw their work from review, or choose not to respond to reviewer comments after receiving a conditional acceptance. 
  • Authors should respond to reviewers’ comments in a professional and timely manner.