CODE OF CONDUCT AND BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES FOR JOURNAL EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS

Background/structure

Kairos – Slovenian Journal of Psychotherapy serves to further academic discussions of topics, irrespective of their nature – whether religious, gender-based, environmental, ethical, political or other potentially or topically contentious subjects. Publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal serves several functions, one of which is to validate and preserve the “minutes” of research. It is therefore of immense importance that these “minutes” are accurate and trustworthy. The act of publishing involves many parties, each of which plays an important role in achieving these aims. It therefore follows that the author, the journal editor, the peer-reviewer, the publisher and the owner of the journal have responsibilities to meet expected ethical standards at all stages in their involvement from submission to publication of an article.

Kairos is committed to meeting and upholding standards of ethical behaviour at all stages of the publication process. We follow closely the example of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), that sets standards and provides guidelines for best practices in order to meet these requirements. Below is a summary of our key expectations of editors, peer-reviewers and authors.

As mentioned above, the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors served us as a good example because it is designed to provide a set of minimum ethical standards. The Best Practice Guidelines are more aspirational and were developed for guidance about a wide range of increasingly complex ethical issues.

In this combined version of the documents, the mandatory Code of Conduct for Journal Editors standards are shown in regular script and the more aspirational Best Practice recommendations are shown in italics.

General duties and responsibilities of editors

Editors of Kairos are responsible for everything published in the journal. They are responsible to:

• strive to meet the needs of readers and authors;
• constantly improve the journal;
• ensure the quality of the material they publish;
• champion freedom of expression;
• maintain the integrity of the academic record;
• preclude business needs from compromising intellectual standards;
• publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

Best practice for editors would include:

• actively seeking the views of authors, readers, reviewers and editorial board members about ways of improving their journal’s processes
• encouraging and being aware of research into peer review and publishing and reassessing their journal’s processes in the light of new findings
• working to persuade their publisher to provide appropriate resources, guidance from experts (e.g. designers, lawyers)
• supporting initiatives designed to reduce research and publication misconduct
• supporting initiatives to educate researchers about publication ethics
• assessing the effects of their journal policies on author and reviewer behaviour and revising policies, as required, to encourage responsible behaviour and discourage misconduct
• ensuring that any press releases issued by their journal reflect the message of the reported article and put it into context.

Relations of editors with readers

Readers should be informed about who has funded research or other scholarly work and on the role of the funders in the research.

Best practice for editors would include:

• ensuring that all published reports and reviews of research have been reviewed by suitably qualified reviewers (including statistical review where appropriate)
• ensuring that non-peer-reviewed sections of their journal are clearly identified
• adopting processes that encourage accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting including technical
• editing and the use of appropriate guidelines and checklists
• considering developing a transparency policy to encourage maximum disclosure about the provenance of non-research articles3
• adopting authorship or contributorship systems that promote good practice (i.e. so that listings accurately reflect who did the work)4 and discourage misconduct (e.g. ghost and guest authors)
• informing readers about steps taken to ensure that submissions from members of the journal’s staff or editorial board receive an objective and unbiased evaluation

Relations of editors with authors

• Editors are responsible to take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognising that journals and sections within journals will have different aims and standards.
• Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper’s importance, originality, and clarity, and the study’s relevance to the remit of the journal.
• A description of peer review processes should be published, and editors should be ready to justify any important deviation from the described processes.
• A declared mechanism for authors to appeal against editorial decisions is available (see bellow).
• Editors are responsible to publish guidance to authors on everything that is expected of them. This guidance should be regularly updated and should refer or link to this code.
• Editors should not reverse decisions to accept submissions unless serious problems are identified with the submission.
• New editors should not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous editor unless serious problems are identified.

Best practice for editors would include:

• reviewing author instructions regularly and providing links to relevant guidelines
• publishing relevant competing interests for all contributors and publishing corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication
• ensuring that appropriate reviewers are selected for submissions (i.e. individuals who are able to judge the work and are free from disqualifying competing interests)
• respecting requests from authors that an individual should not review their submission, if these are well-reasoned and practicable
• being helped by the COPE flowcharts (http://publicationethics.org/flowcharts) in cases of suspected misconduct or disputed authorship
• publishing details of how they handle cases of suspected misconduct (e.g. with links to the COPE flowcharts)
• publishing submission and acceptance dates for articles

Relations of editors with reviewers

• Editors should publish guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them. This guidance should be regularly updated and should refer or link to this code.
• Editors should require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.
• Editors should have systems to ensure that peer reviewers’ identities are protected — unless they have an open review system that is declared to authors and reviewers.

Best practice for editors would include:

• encouraging reviewers to comment on ethical questions and possible research and publication misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, insufficient detail on patient consent or protection of research subjects (including animals), inappropriate data manipulation and presentation)
• encouraging reviewers to comment on the originality of submissions and to be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism
• considering providing reviewers with tools to detect related publications( e.g. links to cited references and bibliographic searches)
• sending reviewers’ comments to authors in their entirety unless they contain offensive or libellous remarks
• seeking to acknowledge the contribution of reviewers to the journal
• encouraging academic institutions to recognise peer review activities as part of the scholarly process
• monitoring the performance of peer reviewers and taking steps to ensure this is of high standard
• developing and maintaining a database of suitable reviewers and updating this on the basis of reviewer performance
• ceasing to use reviewers who consistently produce discourteous, poor quality or late reviews
• ensuring that the reviewer database reflects the community for their journal and adding new reviewers as needed
• using a wide range of sources (not just personal contacts) to identify potential new reviewers (e.g. author suggestions, bibliographic databases)
• following the COPE flowchart in cases of suspected reviewer misconduct

Relations with editorial board members

Editors should provide new editorial board members with guidelines on everything that is expected of them and should keep existing members updated on new policies and developments.

Best practice for editors would include:

• having policies in place for handling submissions from editorial board members to ensure unbiased reviewidentifying suitably qualified editorial board members who can actively contribute to the develop­ment and good management of the journal
• regularly reviewing the composition of the editorial board
• providing clear guidance to editorial board members about their expected functions and duties, which might include:
  • acting as ambassadors for the journal
  • supporting and promoting the journal
  • seeking out the best authors and best work (e.g. from meeting abstracts) and actively encouraging submissions
  • reviewing submissions to the journal
  • accepting commissions to write editorials, reviews and commentaries on papers in their specialist area
  • attending and contributing to editorial board meetings
• consulting editorial board members periodically (e.g. once a year) to gauge their opinions about the running of the journal, informing them of any changes to journal policies and identifying future challenges.

Relations of editors with journal owners and publishers

The relationship of editors to publishers and owners is often complex but should in each case be based firmly on the principle of editorial independence.

Notwithstanding the economic and political realities of the journal, editors should make decisions on which articles to publish based on quality and suitability for readers rather than for immediate financial or political gain.

Editors should have a written contract(s) setting out their relationship with the journal’s owner and/or publisher. The terms of this contract should be in line with the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors.

Best practice for editors would include:

• establishing mechanisms to handle disagreements between themselves and the journal owner/publisher with due process7
• communicating regularly with their journal’s owner and publisher

Editorial and peer-review processes

Editors should strive to ensure that peer review at their journal is fair, unbiased and timely.

Editors should have systems to ensure that material submitted to their journal remains confidential while under review.

Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognising that journals and sections within journals will have different aims and standards

Best practice for editors would include:

• ensuring that people involved with the editorial process (including themselves) receive adequate training and keep abreast of the latest guidelines, recommendations and evidence about peer review and journal management
• keeping informed about research into peer review and technological advances
• adopting peer review methods best suited for their journal and the research community it serves
• reviewing peer review practices periodically to see if improvement is possible
• referring troubling cases to COPE, especially when questions arise that are not addressed by the COPE flow charts, or new types of publication misconduct are suspected
• considering the appointment of an ombudsperson to adjudicate in complaints that cannot be resolved internally
• having systems in place to detect falsified data (e.g. inappropriately manipulated photographic images or plagiarised text) either for routine use or when suspicions are raised
• basing decisions about journal house style on relevant evidence of factors that raise the quality of reporting (e.g. adopting structured abstracts, applying guidance such as CONSORT rather than simply on aesthetic grounds or personal preference.

Complaints

Editors should help themselves with the procedure set out in the COPE flowchart on complaints (see link http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).

Editors should respond promptly to complaints and should ensure there is a way for dissatisfied complainants to take complaints further.

Encouraging debate

Cogent criticisms of published work should be published unless editors have convincing reasons why they cannot be.

Authors of criticised material should be given the opportunity to respond.

Studies that challenge previous work published in the journal should be given an especially sympathetic hearing.

Studies reporting negative results should not be excluded.

Encouraging academic integrity

Editors should ensure that research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.

Editors should seek assurances that all research has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g. research ethics

committee, institutional review board). However, editors should recognise that such approval does not guarantee that the research is ethical.

Protecting individual data

Editors are responsible to protect the confidentiality of individual information (e.g. that obtained through the psychotherapist – patient relationship). It is therefore almost always necessary to obtain written informed consent from patients described in case reports and for photographs of patients. It may be possible to publish without explicit consent if the report is important to public health (or is in some other way important); consent would be unusually burdensome to obtain; and a reasonable individual would be unlikely to object to publication (all three conditions must be met).

Best practice for editors would include:

• publishing their policy on publishing individual data (e.g. identifiable personal details or images) and explaining this clearly to authors

Encouraging ethical research (e.g. research involving humans or animals)

Editors should endeavour to ensure that research they publish was carried out according to the relevant internationally accepted guidelines (e.g. the Declaration of Helsinki for clinical research, the AERA and BERA guidelines for educational research).

Editors should seek assurances that all research has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g. research ethics committee, institutional review board) where one exists. However, editors should recognise that such approval does not guarantee that the research is ethical.

Best practice for editors would include:

• being prepared to request evidence of ethical research approval and to question authors about ethical aspects (such as how research participant consent was obtained or what methods were employed to minimize animal suffering) if concerns are raised or clarifications are needed
• ensuring that reports of clinical trials cite compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki, Good Clinical Practice and other relevant guidelines to safeguard participants
• ensuring that reports of experiments on, or studies of, animals cite compliance with the US Department of Health and Human Services Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals or other relevant guidelines
• appointing a journal ethics advisor or panel to advise on specific cases and review journal policies periodically

Pursuing misconduct

Editors have a duty to act if they suspect misconduct. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers.

Editors should not simply reject papers that raise concerns about possible misconduct. They are ethically obliged to pursue alleged cases.

Editors should first seek a response from those accused. If they are not satisfied with the response, they should ask the relevant employers or some appropriate body (perhaps a regulatory body) to investigate.

Editors should help themselves with the COPE flowcharts where applicable (link to flowcharts http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).

Editors should make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation is conducted; if this does not happen, editors should make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.

Ensuring the integrity of the academic record

Whenever it is recognised that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distorted report has been published, it must be corrected promptly and with due prominence.

If, after an appropriate investigation, an item proves to be fraudulent, it should be retracted. The retraction should be clearly identifiable to readers and indexing systems.

Best practice for editors would include:

• taking steps to reduce covert redundant publication (e.g. by requiring all clinical trials to be registered)
• ensuring that published material is securely archived (e.g. via online permanent repositories, such as PubMed Central)
• having systems in place to give authors the opportunity to make original research articles freely available

Intellectual property

Editors should be alert to intellectual property issues and work with their publisher to handle potential breaches of intellectual property laws and conventions.

Best practice for editors would include:

• adopting systems for detecting plagiarism (e.g. software, searching for similar titles) in submitted items (either routinely or when suspicions are raised)
• supporting authors whose copyright has been breached or who have been the victims of plagiarism
• being prepared to work with their publisher to defend authors’ rights and pursue offenders (e.g. by requesting retractions or removal of material from websites) irrespective of whether their journal holds the copyright

Encouraging debate

Editors should encourage and be willing to consider cogent criticisms of work published in their journal.

Authors of criticised material should be given the opportunity to respond.

Studies reporting negative results should not be excluded.

Best practice for editors would include:

• being open to research that challenges previous work published in the journal

Commercial considerations

Editors should have declared policies on advertising in relation to the content of the journal and on processes for publishing supplements.

Misleading advertisements must be refused, and editors must be willing to publish criticisms, according to the same criteria used for material in the rest of the journal.

Reprints should be published as they appear in the journal unless a correction is to be added.

Best practice for editors would include:

• publishing a general description of their journal’s income sources (e.g. the proportions received from display advertising, reprint sales, sponsored supplements, page charges, etc.)
• ensuring that the peer review process for sponsored supplements is the same as that used for the main journal
• ensuring that items in sponsored supplements are accepted solely on the basis of academic merit and interest to
• readers and decisions about such supplements are not influenced by commercial considerations.

Conflict of interest

Editors should have systems for managing their own conflicts of interest as well as those of their staff, authors, reviewers and editorial board members.

Best practice for editors would include:

• publishing lists of relevant interests (financial, academic and other kinds) of all editorial staff and members of editorial boards (which should be updated at least annually)

Code of conduct for journal publishers

Publishers who are Committee on Publication Ethics members and who follow COPE as a good example should:

• Follow this code, and encourage the editors they work with to follow the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors
• Provide reasonable practical support to editors so that they can help themselves with the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors

Publishers should:

• Define the relationship between publisher, editor and other parties in a contract
• Respect privacy (for example, for research participants, for authors, for peer reviewers)
• Protect intellectual property and copyright
• Foster editorial independence

Publishers should work with journal editors to:

• Set journal policies appropriately and aim to meet those policies, particularly with respect to:
  • Editorial independence
  • Research ethics, including confidentiality, consent, and the special requirements for human and animal research
  • Authorship
  • Transparency and integrity (for example, conflicts of interest, research funding, reporting standards
  • Peer review and the role of the editorial team beyond that of the journal editor
  • Appeals and complaints
• Communicate journal policies (for example, to authors, readers, peer reviewers)
• Review journal policies periodically, particularly with respect to new recommendations from the COPE
• Code of Conduct for Editors and the COPE Best Practice Guidelines
• Maintain the integrity of the academic record
• Assist the parties (for example, institutions, grant funders, governing bodies) responsible for the investigation of suspected research and publication misconduct and, where possible, facilitate in the resolution of these cases
• Publish corrections, clarifications, and retractions
• Publish content on a timely basis

 

Additional information

• Main Kairos page
• Contemplation about Kairos
• Editorial advisory board and Editorial Board
• Notes for contributors