Code of Best Practice in Scholarly Journal Publishing, Editing and
Peer Review
Susan Veldsman
Director: Scholarly Publishing Programme
Scholarly Publishing Webinar Series
22 March 2023
ASSAf Code of Best Practice (2018)
Code of Best Practice?
A code of best practice is a procedure that has been shown by research and experience to produce
optimal results and that is established or proposed as a standard suitable for widespread adoption (Merriam-
Webster, n.d.).
Quality assurance through Code of Best Practice
• Scholarly publishing occurs in an environment of compelling scholarly, economic, political and financial interests that may compete with each other or which might not be aligned with each other
• To foster an ethical, sustainable and efficient publishing system, informed decisions and strongly guided editorial processes need to be designed to manage these interests,
• This would help not only to establish research output formats of integrity but also to raise the quality of research publishing .
• Good publication practices will only become recognised and implemented if they are actively endorsed by all stakeholders in the scholarly publishing system (Graf et al, 2007).
• Codes of best practice are necessary for journals in order to be visible and respected in the international research landscape
Role of Code of Best Practices
• Provide a framework of assessment criteria against which journals can be evaluated to establish whether they are adhering to quality publishing and transparency of publication processes whilst raising the credibility of the research published
“Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) Network urges all editors of scholarly journals “to seek improvement of every aspect of scientific journal publishing, to identify, stimulate, and develop a core collection of scientific journals with the same quality standards as leading scientific journals elsewhere” (Velterop, 2015)”.
Examples of Code of Best Practices
• International codes of best practice
•
Open Access scholarly publishing organisation
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).
• Principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing
•
Commercial publishing house
• Best Practice Guidelines on Publication Ethics (Wiley Blackwell)
Examples of Code of Best Practices
• Africa
• Africa Journals Online
• Journal Publishing Practices and Standards (JPPS) Framework
• Journals assessed against the JPPS criteria are given one of six ratings:
Inactive title ; New title; No stars; One star; Two stars; Three stars
• South Africa
• Statement on ethical research and scholarly publishing practices in Pretoria on 31 July 2019 (ASSAf, CHE, DHET, DST, NRF and USAf, 2019:1).
• ASSAf’s Code of best practice in scholarly journal publishing, editing and peer review
ASSAf’s Code of Best Practice in scholarly journal publishing
• Strategic approach to scholarly publishing in South Africa, published in March 2006
• ASSAf Council established a Committee on Scholarly Publishing in South Africa (CSPiSA), as well as a Scholarly Publishing Unit (SPU) within the ASSAf secretariat
• In line with its mandate CSPiSA convened a meeting of over 100 editors of SA scholarly journals in Pretoria on 25 July 2007. The three-fold purpose of the meeting was to explore the following activities to implement the recommendations of the report (see ASSAf, 2006)
Terms of Reference of NSEF
•
Establishing a national scholarly
editors’forum under the auspices of the Academy;
•
A national code of best practice in editing and peer reviewing --to strengthen the system; and
•
the willingness of the editors to participate in periodic discipline
grouped peer review of their journals, as a preparatory step (inter alia)
to increasing government support for open access publishing of
national journals
Terms of Reference of NSEF
• The National Code of Best Practice in Editorial Discretion was drafted and finalised with extensive input from the NSEF, and
• Approved by both CSPiSA on 5 February 2008 and the ASSAf Council on 7 March 2008
• Considering the changing scholarly landscape, the code was reviewed and revised in 2018, and is now known as
Code of best practice in scholarly journal publishing, editing
and peer review
Outline of the Code of Best Practice
• Fundamentals of research publishing
• Editorial process
• Editorial policy
• Editorial Board/Governance
• Peer Review Process
Fundamentals of Research Publishing
•
The reported findings and/or conceptual insights must be original, in the sense that that they are novel findings or insights that are not published elsewhere.
•
Author(s) have certified that the paper submitted is not under consideration by another publication, and
•
will not be submitted to any other journal until a final rejection decision (or formal withdrawal) from the present journal has been received.
•
Authors may be asked to enter into a publishing agreement.
Fundamentals of Research Publishing
• Sufficient detail, of the methods and materials used in the study
• No apparent inconsistent data are omitted
• Literature must be appropriately and fairly cited,
• Self-citation must be limited;
• Efforts should be made to ensure that reference is made to the
first report of a finding
Fundamentals of Research Publishing: Authorship
• Special attention to the first ‘lead’ author (sometimes explicitly shared), and the inclusion in the authorship listing only of persons who have made a significant contribution to the production of the work at an intellectual, practical or conceptual level.
• Acknowledgement of funding sources and possible conflicts of interest must be stated.
• Author affiliations should be provided which reflect both the
period of the study and the present situation.
Role of Code of Best Practices: General
• Priority is given to the date of acceptance of an article (i.e. once the peer review has already taken place), not from its date of receipt. However both dates are always provided in the published version.
• Post-publication errors and falsifications must always be corrected and/or retracted in a later issue of the same journal by means of an erratum or a retraction notice which should be published on the article HTML/website page as well as the PDF.
• Studies addressing a particular question should not be broken up into a series of fragmented short publications or articles but should preferably be presented as a full article of the work and its results.
Editorial process
•
Scholarship should be opened to authors from multiple institutions from South Africa.
•
Submissions from the African continent and internationally are encouraged.
•
An editorial policy must exist and must be accessible to authors.
•
Accuracy, Fairness, Transparancy, Impartiality, Accountability,
Humanity, Editorial Integrity and Independence and Protecting
Children
Editorial Policy
• An Editorial Policy outlines the aim of the journal:
• the field(s) to be covered;
• the kinds of articles that may be accepted for publication (research articles or letters or short communications; commentaries and reviews that provide a synthesis of existing knowledge; book reviews; correspondence, etc.);
• the absolute need for originality and not being considered for publication simultaneously elsewhere;
• technical specifications as to submission of materials;
• the use of referees and editorial discretion;
• possible charges (e.g. article processing).
Editorial Policy
• The following policies are recommended:
• Conflict of interest;
• Confidentiality;
• Ethical issues (including plagiarism);
• Corrections (Errata, Corrigenda, Retractions);
• Copyright; (on all articles and website)
• Advertising;
• Preprints,
• Digital archiving,
• Preservation;
• Peer review
• Editors must ideally not submit papers to their own journals---to prevent the perception of dishonesty
• If they do……
• Full editorial discretion should be delegated to an associate editor\Chair Editorial Board.
Editorial Board--governance
• The journal must have an editorial board, which is reflective of expertise in the relevant subject area(s), and with diversity of members beyond a single institution.
• The journal must list the full names and affiliations of editorial board members on its website.
• Members should be appointed competitively for a specific term.
• Board members must be qualified to contribute to and assist the Editor-in-Chief to achieve the best strategies and policies for the journal.
• The composition of the board must be reviewed regularly.
• Submissions from editorial board members must be handled with extra confidentiality and attention so as not to compromise the peer review process.
• Editorial board members must be given clear guidelines on their role in the journal and their expected duties.
Peer review Process
• Journals must have a peer review policy
• Articles accepted for publication in the journal must be peer reviewed.
• Editors must carefully examine submitted manuscripts so that they are sent to appropriately selected reviewers.
• A paper to be considered for publication should ideally be sent to at least two reviewers.
• Peer reviewers should preferably be scholars who have not previously co- published with the author(s)
• They must have expertise and competency in the topic.
Peer review Process
• The reviewer must declare any potential or real conflict of interest before the review is submitted and must be free of known bias in relation to the subject matter.
• Reviewer reports are carefully assessed by the editor to decide whether they constitute
• the basis to publish of the article in question, or
• publication should follow if certain improvements are effected and/or further work done and reported on; or
• whether the paper should be rejected.
• Editors reserve the right to reject papers without review if they are not appropriate for the journal concerned.
• Studies that are fundamentally flawed may also be rejected without review.
• All peer reports and substantive correspondence must be retained within a well designed record system for possible later scrutiny.
THANK YOU
susan@assaf.org.za
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
ASSAf Research Repository http://research.assaf.org.za/
B. Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) Events I. Other
2023-03-22
ASSAf Webinar for New Editors –
Scholarly Publishing Code of Best Practice
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
https://youtu.be/16lYpTWnDlc
Downloaded from ASSAf Research Repository, Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
