|
Editor obligations
- An editor should give unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication, judging each on its merits without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s). An editor may, however, take into account relationships of a manuscript immediately under consideration to others previously or concurrently offered by the same author(s).
- An editor should consider manuscripts submitted for publication with all reasonable speed.
- The sole responsibility for acceptance or rejection of a manuscript rests with the editor (Editorial member/Co-editor). Responsible and prudent exercise of this duty normally requires that the editor seek advice from reviewers, chosen for their expertise and good judgment, as to the quality and reliability of manuscripts submitted for publication. However, manuscripts may be rejected without review if considered inappropriate for the journal.
- The editor (co-editor/editoral members) and members of the editor’s staff should not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than those from whom professional advice is sought. (However, an editor who solicits, or otherwise arranges beforehand, the submission of manuscripts may need to disclose to a prospective author the fact that a relevant manuscript by another author has been received or is in preparation.) After a decision has been made about a manuscript, the editor and members of the editor’s staff may disclose or publish manuscript titles and authors’ names of papers that have been accepted for publication, but no more than that unless the author’s permission has been obtained.
- An editor should respect the intellectual independence of authors.
- Editorial responsibility and authority for any manuscript authored by an editor and submitted to the editor’s journal should be delegated to some other qualified person, such as another editor (co-editor or editoral board member) of that journal or a member of its Editorial Advisory Board. Editorial consideration of the manuscript in any way or form by the author-editor would constitute a conflict of interest and is therefore improper.
- Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations disclosed in a submitted manuscript should not be used in an editor’s own research except with the consent of the author. However, if such information indicates that some of the editor’s own research is unlikely to be profitable, the editor could ethically discontinue the work. When a manuscript is so closely related to the current or past research of an editor as to create a conflict of interest, the editor should arrange for some other qualified person to take editorial responsibility for that manuscript. In some cases, it may be appropriate to tell an author about the editor’s research and plans in that area.
- If an editor is presented with convincing evidence that the main substance or conclusions of a report published in an editor’s journal are erroneous, the editor should facilitate publication of an appropriate report pointing out the error and, if possible, correcting it. The report may be written by the person who discovered the error or by an original author.
- An author may request that the editor not use certain reviewers in consideration of a manuscript. However, the editor may decide to use one or more of these reviewers, if the editor feels their opinions are important in the fair consideration of a manuscript. This might be the case, for example, when a manuscript seriously disagrees with the previous work of a potential reviewer.
|