Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Policy

Background

As a publisher, the European Association of Geochemistry fully supports the highest standards of ethical behaviour in publishing and takes all possible measures against publication malpractice. In establishing our publication ethics and publication malpractice policy, we referred to guidelines shared by several organisations dedicated to setting out best practices for publishers of open access journals.

Duties and responsibilities of the publisher

Publication Policy and guardianship of the scholarly record

The publisher fully adheres to the policy of Open Access publication, defined as “free and unrestricted online availability” of journal literature, and commits to publishing all accepted articles under this policy. See additional details in our Publication Policy.

The publisher endeavours to ensure that the entire process from submission to publication is fair, unbiased, and timely.

The publisher is responsible for archiving and safely storing published articles.

Safeguarding editorial independence

The publisher commits to ensuring that possible commercial revenues or donations have no impact or influence on editorial decisions.

Complaints

The publisher or the editor, as appropriate and in consultation with a second member of the editorial board, is responsible for investigating and addressing complaints made against the journal, its staff, or a member of the editorial board. Any complaint of this nature should be sent in the first instance to the editorial office at the contact address provided on the journal website.

Involvement in investigations of alleged misconduct

Should any ethical complaint be presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published article, the publisher shall, in collaboration with the editor and a second member of the editorial board, take reasonably responsive measures. Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript and giving due consideration to the respective complaint or claims made, may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if the complaint is upheld, publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour will be investigated, even if discovered years after publication.

Duties and responsibilities of editors

Publication decisions

The editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The decision will be based on the paper’s quality, importance, originality and novelty. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers (or society officers) in making these decisions.

Peer review process

Geochemical Perspectives Letters uses a single-blind peer review process, where the names and affiliations of authors are known to reviewers, but reviewers remain anonymous in the reports provided to authors. If they wish, reviewers may choose not to remain anonymous.

Articles are first reviewed by the editor. The editor may reject an article out of hand because it does not deal with the subject matter of the journal. If the editor deems a submission otherwise not appropriate for the journal, or decides a manuscript is of such low quality, then after consultation with a second editor, they can decide that it cannot be considered at all and it will be rejected a priori.

Articles that are considered suitable for review are typically sent to at least two external and independent experts in the field of the paper, and where necessary the editor shall seek additional opinions. The editor shall review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and suggestions for self-citation made by reviewers in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias. The editor shall ensure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely..

Reviewers are asked to classify the article as publishable immediately, publishable with revisions and improvements, or not publishable. Reviewers’ evaluations usually include explicit recommendations of what to do with the manuscript. Reviewers’ comments are then seen by the author.

Fair play

The editor shall evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask another member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and to publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication.

Complaints

The editor, in consultation with the second member of the editorial board, is responsible for investigating and addressing complaints made against authors or reviewers. Any complaint of this nature should be sent in the first instance to the editorial office at the contact address provided on the journal website.

Involvement in investigations of alleged misconduct

An editor, in collaboration with a second editor and with the publisher (or society), should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published article, Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript and giving due consideration to the respective complaint or claims made, may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if the complaint is upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

Duties and responsibilities of reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Geochemical Perspectives Letters uses a single-blind peer review process, where the names and affiliations of authors are known to reviewers, but reviewers remain anonymous in the reports provided to authors. If they wish, reviewers may choose not to remain anonymous.

Promptness

Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument has been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer´s own research without the written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties and responsibilities of authors

Publication and Submission fee

No fees or charges are required from authors for submitting manuscripts.

Authors of accepted articles are invited to contribute to the journal through an Open Access Contribution of 1,250 Euros.

Open Access Policy

The journal is freely available online. Authors are required to agree with this open access policy which enables unrestricted access and reuse of all published articles. The articles are published under the Creative Commons copyright license policies CC-BY or CC-BY-NC-ND. Authors retain copyright of their article and grant the publisher an exclusive license to publish the original article on acceptance, and license to reproduce, distribute, display or store the material in all formats and all media. See additional details at Copyright and Permissions.

Reporting standards

Authors of papers should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial ‘opinion’ works should be clearly identified as such.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Each new submission will be screened by the tool iThenticate / Similarity Check to detect possible plagiarism.

Plagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another´s paper as the author´s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour. In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper. Electronic preprints (an author’s version of a manuscript that has been deposited on a preprint server or institutional website prior to undergoing peer review at a journal) are not considered as previous publication. If an article has been deposited as a preprint prior to submission, the author must inform the editor in the cover letter at the time of submission and provide the link to the preprint as well as any relevant licensing information. If the manuscript is eventually accepted for publication in Geochemical Perspectives Letters, the preprint should be updated to include the reference to the published article, including its url link and DOI.

The copyright remains with the authors (see Copyright and Permissions), thus they can make decisions about eventual republication of their material. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Authorship of the paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Examples of potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible. Readers should be informed about who has funded research and on the role of the funders in the research.

Errors in published works

When an author discovers an error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author´s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or editorial office and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. Pending approval and instruction by the editor, the correction may be published as a corrigendum.

If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or to provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that they have been approved by the appropriate institutional committee(s). Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

References

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf

COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers https://publicationethics.org/files/Code%20of%20conduct%20for%20publishers%20FINAL_1_0.pdf

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association https://oaspa.org

Directory of Open Access Journals https://doaj.org