These statements are based on the Guidelines for Journal Editors by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Publication decisions

The Managing Editor of the APN Science Bulletin is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The Managing Editor will consider the policies of the journal and reviewers’ comments in making such decisions.

Fair play

The Managing Editor and editorial staff will evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The Managing Editor and editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers or other editorial advisers.

Intellectual Property

APN applies the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence to works it publishes in the APN Science Bulletin. This licence was developed to facilitate open access, and under this licence, authors agree to make articles available for reuse, without permission or fees, for any non-commercial purposes provided that the user gives appropriate credit, provides a link to the licence and indicates if changes were made.

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer reviewers assist the editor in making editorial decisions. Editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness

Any selected referee 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 be excused 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 authorised by the Managing Editor.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees 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 had 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

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 OF AUTHORS

Reporting Standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. All data collected or generated from such research should be represented accurately in the paper. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data Sharing and Reproducibility

In line with APN’s Data Sharing and Data Management Policy, authors must make all data collected, acquired, manipulated, processed,  and/or generated through an APN project or activy  available to other researchers. Research materials necessary to enable the reproduction of an experiment should be clearly indicated in the Methodology section as appropriate. Relevant materials such as protocols, analytic methods, and study material should be uploaded to an online repository providing a global persistent link/identifier. If this is not possible, authors are strongly encouraged to make this material available upon request to interested researchers, and this should be stated in the manuscript.

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 in the referencing style set forth by the journal. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.

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 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.

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 read 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. The authors should include the full name of APN and the project reference number in the following format:

This article is based on work supported by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) under Grant No. [insert grant number].

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the Managing Editor  and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS

Appealing the Editorial Decision

If the author believes the decision to reject the submission was not in accordance with the policy and procedures of the APN Science Bulletin, the author may appeal the decision by providing the Managing Editor with a detailed point by point response to reviewer and editor comments. The Managing Editor will review the peer review process undertaken for the submission. If the decision was made in line with editorial criteria, the Managing Editor’s decision to reject is final.

Appealing Corrective Action taken Post Publication

If concerns are raised on a published article, the Managing Editor, in line with guidance published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), will determine whether a published article needs to be retracted or that other corrective action or notification needs to be made to the published article. The authors can appeal this decision if new evidence impacting the underlying decision comes to light prior to the specified deadline for comment. Appeals will be considered by APN and may be discussed with the Managing Editor, Editorial Advisory Committee or Scientific Planning Group. Decisions on retraction and expression of concern appeals are final.

Complaints should be directly emailed to [email protected] and will be dealt with confidentially.