Publication ethics

CODE follows the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

Authors

• Submit original work that is not under review elsewhere; disclose earlier versions such as preprints or theses.
• Research that requires ethics approval, in every discipline, must have it. The name of the committee, the date and the decision number are given in the Methods section and on the first or last page. Surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation and experiments with people usually require approval; when none is needed, the article says why.
• Studies with children, patients or vulnerable groups describe consent and assent, and the protection of the data collected.
• Scans of heritage objects that belong to communities state the community's permission and the limits on use of the data (CARE principles).
• State funding, conflicts of interest and each author's contribution at the end of the article.
• Declare the use of generative AI as set out in the AI policy.

Reviewers

• Keep manuscripts and products confidential and do not use them before publication.
• Decline when there is a conflict of interest, and say so.
• Give reasoned, respectful comments within the agreed time.

Editors

• Decide on the merits of the work alone, independent of the authors' origin, institution or beliefs.
• Do not handle their own manuscripts or those of close colleagues.
• Investigate suspected misconduct following the COPE flowcharts.

Similarity, corrections and retractions

Submissions are screened for similarity with iThenticate before review. Errors after publication are corrected with a published correction; articles are retracted following the COPE retraction guidelines, and the retraction notice is linked to the article.