Publication ethics and research misconduct policy

1 Study design and ethical approval
Good research should be well justified, planned, appropriately designed, and ethically approved. To conduct research to a lower standard may constitute misconduct. Here are the main points to consider:
•    Laboratory research should be driven by protocol that seek to answer specific questions, rather than just collect data.
•    Protocols must be carefully agreed by all contributors and collaborators, form part of the research record and ideally shared upon publication.
•    Early agreement on the precise roles of the contributors and collaborators, and on matters of authorship and publication, is advised.
•    Statistical issues should be considered early in study design, including power calculations, to ensure there are neither too few nor too many participants.
•    Animal experiments require full compliance with local, national, ethical, and regulatory principles, and local licensing arrangements. International standards vary.
•    Formal supervision, usually the responsibility of the principal investigator, should be provided for all research projects: this must include quality control, and the frequent review and long-term retention (may be up to 15 years) of all records and primary outputs.

2 Data analysis 
Data should be appropriately analysed, but inappropriate analysis does not necessarily amount to misconduct. Fabrication and falsification of data do constitute misconduct. 
•    All sources and methods used to obtain and analyse data, including any electronic pre-processing, should be fully disclosed; detailed explanations should be provided for any exclusions.
•    Methods of analysis must be explained in detail, and referenced, if they are not in common use.
•    The post-hoc analysis of subgroups is acceptable, as long as this is disclosed. Failure to disclose that the analysis was post hoc is unacceptable.
•    The discussion section of a paper should mention any issues of bias which have been considered, and explain how they have been dealt with in the design and interpretation of the study.

3 Authorship
There is no universally agreed definition of authorship but as a minimum, authors should take responsibility for a particular section or the whole of the study.
•    The award of authorship should balance intellectual contributions to the conception, design, analysis and writing of the study against the collection of data and other routine work.
•    To avoid any disputes over attribution of academic credit, it is helpful to decide early on in the planning of a research project who will be credited as authors, as contributors, and who will be acknowledged.
•    If professional writers are employed, then their names should be included, and any conflicts of interest have to be declared.
•    All authors must take public responsibility for the content of their paper. The multidisciplinary nature of much research can make this difficult, but this can be resolved by the disclosure of individual contributions.
•    Careful reading of the journal’s “Guide for Authors” is advised, in the light of current uncertainties.
•    Authors should be vigilant about allowing their name to be used on a piece of work to add credibility to the content.

4 Conflicts of interest
Conflicts of interest arise when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgements on what is published. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial. “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and company support for staff.
•    Conflicts of interest, where relevant, must be declared to editors by researchers, authors, and reviewers. If in doubt, disclose.
•    Editors disclose to readers their own conflicts of interest and those of their teams, editorial boards, managers, and owners.
•    Sometimes conflicts of interest may be so extreme that publication will not be possible or people (reviewers or editors) may have to be excluded from decisions on publication.

5 Peer review
Peer reviewers are external experts chosen by editors to provide written opinions, with the aim of assessing and improving the study. Soil Organisms practices a double-blind peer-review, when both names of the author(s) and peer-reviewers are not disclosed.
•    Suggestions from authors as to who might act as reviewers are welcome, but there is no obligation on editors to use them.
•    The duty of confidentiality in the assessment of a manuscript must be maintained by expert reviewers, and this extends to reviewers’ colleagues who may be asked (with the editor’s permission) to give opinions on specific sections. 
•    The submitted manuscript should not be retained or further spread by peer reviewers.
•    Reviewers and editors should not make any use of the data, arguments, or interpretations from the manuscript under review, unless they have the authors’ permission.
•    Reviewers should provide speedy, accurate, courteous, unbiased and justifiable reports.
If reviewers suspect misconduct, they should write in confidence to the editor.

6 Redundant publication
Redundant publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross reference, share the same hypothesis, data, discussion points, or conclusions.
•    Published studies do not need to be repeated unless further confirmation is required.
•    Previous publication of an abstract during the proceedings of meetings does not preclude subsequent submission for publication, but full disclosure should be made at the time of submission.
•    Re-publication of a paper in another language is acceptable, provided that there is full and prominent disclosure of its original source at the time of submission.
•    At the time of submission, authors should disclose details of related papers, even if in a different language, and similar papers in press.

7 Plagiarism
Plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ published and unpublished ideas, including research grant applications to submission under “new” authorship of a complete paper, sometimes in a different language, without disclosing it. It may occur at any stage of planning, research, writing, or publication. It applies to print and electronic versions.
•    All sources should be disclosed, and if large amounts of other people’s written or illustrative material is to be used, permission must be sought.

8 Duties of editors
Editors are the stewards of journals. They provide direction for the journal and aim to build a strong management and editorial team. They must consider and balance the interests of readers, authors, staff, publisher and the editorial board members.
•    Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper’s originality, and clarity, and the study’s relevance to the remit of the journal.
•    Studies that challenge previous work published in the journal should be given an equal opportunity to be published.
•    Studies reporting negative results are not excluded, but are regarded as an essential part of scientific work and hypothesis testing.
•    All original studies should be peer reviewed before publication, taking into full account possible bias due to related or conflicting interests. 
•    Editors must treat all submitted papers as confidential.
•    When a published paper is subsequently found to contain major flaws, editors must accept responsibility for correcting the record prominently and promptly.
•    Where misconduct is suspected, the editor must write to the authors first before contacting the head of the institution concerned.

9 Media relations
Soil biological and ecological research findings are of increasing interest to the print, broadcast and online media. Journalists may read papers published by Soil Organisms.
•    Authors approached by the media should give as balanced an account of their work as possible, ensuring that they point out where evidence ends and speculation begins.
•    Simultaneous publication in the mass media and a peer-reviewed journal is advised, as this usually means that enough evidence and data have been provided to satisfy informed and critical readers.
•    Where this is not possible, authors should help journalists to produce accurate reports.
•    Authors are recommended to consult media policies operated by the journal and Senckenberg.

10 Advertising
Soil Organisms is fully financed by the publisher. Deriving any income from advertising is an exception and must be approved by the publisher and disclosed by the editors to the readers and the editorial board. 
•    Editorial decisions must not be influenced by advertising revenue.
•    Advertisements that mislead 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.

 

Dealing with misconduct
The defining principle of misconduct is the intention to induce others to regard false information as true. The examination of misconduct must therefore focus, not only on the particular act or omission, but also on the intention of the researcher, author, editor, reviewer or publisher involved. Deception may be by intention, by reckless disregard of possible consequences, or by negligence. It is implicit, therefore, that “best practice” requires complete honesty, with full disclosure. Codes of practice may raise awareness, but can never be exhaustive.

Investigating misconduct
•    Editors should not simply reject papers that raise questions of misconduct. They are ethically obliged to pursue the case.
•    For legal reasons, external bodies like COPE can only be consulted on anonymised cases.
•    It is for the editors to decide what action to take.

Serious misconduct
•    Editors must take all allegations and suspicions of misconduct seriously, but they must recognise that they do not usually have either the legal legitimacy or the means to conduct investigations into serious cases.
•    The editors must decide when to alert the employers of the accused author(s).
•    Some evidence is required, but if employers have a process for investigating accusations—as they are increasingly required to do—then editors do not need to assemble a complete case. Indeed, it may be ethically unsound for editors to do so, because such action usually means consulting experts, so spreading abroad serious questions about the author(s).
•    If editors are presented with convincing evidence—perhaps by reviewers—of serious misconduct, they should immediately pass this on to the employers of the author(s) and notify the author(s) that they are doing so.
•    If accusations of serious misconduct are not accompanied by convincing evidence, then editors should confidentially seek expert advice. If the experts raise serious questions about the research, then editors should notify the employers of the author(s). If the experts find no evidence of misconduct, the editorial processes should proceed in the normal way.
•    If there is no organisation with the legitimacy and the means to conduct an investigation (or if employer of the author(s) has not conducted an adequate investigation), then the editors may decide that the case is sufficiently important to warrant publishing it in the journal after legal advice from the publisher.
•    Authors should be given the opportunity to respond to accusations of serious misconduct.

Less serious misconduct
•    Editors may judge that it is not necessary to involve employers in less serious cases of misconduct, such as redundant publication, deception over authorship, or failure to declare conflict of interest. Sometimes the evidence may speak for itself, although it may be wise to appoint an independent expert.
•    Editors should remember that accusations of even minor misconduct may have serious implications for the author(s), and it may then be necessary to ask the employers to investigate.
•    Authors should be given the opportunity to respond to any charge of minor misconduct.
•    If convinced of wrongdoing, editors may wish to adopt some of the sanctions outlined below.

Sanctions
Sanctions may be applied separately or combined. The following are ranked in approximate order of severity:
•    A letter of explanation (and education) to the authors, where there appears to be a genuine misunderstanding of principles.
•    A letter of reprimand and warning as to future conduct.
•    A formal letter to the relevant employer or funding body.
•    Publication of a notice of redundant publication or plagiarism. 
•    An Editorial giving full details of the misconduct. 
•    Refusal to accept future submissions from the individual, unit, or institution responsible for the misconduct, for a stated period. 
•    Formal withdrawal or retraction of the paper from the scientific literature, informing other editors and the indexing authorities. 
•    Reporting the case to the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung.