What we expect of authors and reviewers, and how the published record is maintained and corrected.
We follow the principles and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the joint COPE/DOAJ/OASPA/WAME Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. Where a case is not covered by what follows, COPE guidance governs.
Authorship and Contribution
- Authorship requires a substantial contribution to the work and responsibility for it. Everyone who meets that standard must be named; nobody who does not may be.
- Honorary, gift and guest authorship are not acceptable, nor is omitting a contributor who should be named.
- All authors approve the final manuscript and are accountable for it. In edited volumes, chapter authorship is stated on each chapter.
- Contributions that fall short of authorship (research assistance, translation, data collection, technical work) are acknowledged.
- Disputes about authorship are for the authors and their institutions to resolve. We will not adjudicate, and we will not publish while a dispute is live.
Originality and Prior Publication
Manuscripts must be original and not under consideration elsewhere in the same form, though we welcome books that develop previously published articles where this is disclosed and the necessary rights are held. Substantial reuse of your own earlier work must be declared and cited. All manuscripts are screened with similarity-detection software before acceptance.
Research Integrity
- Research involving human participants must have appropriate ethical approval, stated in the book, with confirmation of informed consent.
- Anonymisation and the protection of participants, particularly vulnerable participants, must be addressed explicitly where the research touches them.
- Data, code and materials underlying the argument should be deposited openly and cited by DOI, except where ethical or legal restrictions prevent it, in which case the restriction should be stated and explained.
- Fabrication, falsification, and the selective presentation of evidence are grounds for rejection at any stage and for retraction after publication.
- Where images or figures have been processed, the processing must be described.
Generative AI
- AI systems cannot be authors. Authorship requires accountability, and a tool cannot be accountable.
- Any substantive use of generative AI in producing the work (drafting text, generating images, analysing or generating data, translating) must be disclosed in the manuscript, stating the tool and what it was used for.
- Routine assistance such as spelling, grammar and reference formatting does not require disclosure.
- You remain fully responsible for everything in your book, including anything a tool produced: its accuracy, its citations, its originality and any rights it may infringe.
- Reviewers may not upload any part of an unpublished proposal or manuscript to a generative AI system, or use one to write a report. This is a confidentiality breach regardless of the tool's data policy.
- We do not use generative AI to make editorial decisions or to replace human peer review.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors declare financial and non-financial interests relevant to the work (funding, employment, consultancies, advisory roles, and political or organisational commitments bearing on the subject), and these are stated in the published book. Reviewers decline where they have a conflict. Advisory Board members declare interests and recuse themselves entirely from proposals in which they have one. Editors do not handle proposals from close collaborators or from their own institutions.
Editorial Independence
Editorial decisions rest with the Editorial Director and the Advisory Board. Neither our trustees, nor a funder of a particular title, nor an institution has any role in deciding whether a book is published or what it says. Ability to pay the book processing charge is not known to the Advisory Board.
Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern
Because our books are digital and openly licensed, copies are downloaded, mirrored and reused. The published version of record therefore does not change silently. Our practice:
| Situation | What we do |
|---|---|
| Minor error: typographical or factual, not affecting the argument | Corrected in the file, with a dated correction note in the book and on its landing page. The DOI is unchanged. |
| Substantive error: affecting findings or conclusions | A formal, citable correction notice with its own DOI, linked from the book both ways. The original remains available. |
| Unresolved concern: a credible problem not yet established | An expression of concern published and linked to the book while the matter is investigated. |
| Fundamental error, established after investigation | Retraction, following COPE guidance. The book stays online, clearly marked as retracted, with a notice explaining why and who requested it. The text is not removed. What was published remains part of the scholarly record. |
Advertising, Sponsorship and Inducements
We carry no advertising. We accept no sponsorship of individual titles that carries any editorial condition, and any subvention supporting a book is disclosed in it. We do not offer or accept inducements in relation to editorial decisions.
Data Protection
We process personal data (author, contributor and reviewer details, and correspondence) in accordance with applicable Canadian privacy law. Reviewer identities are held confidentially and indefinitely for integrity purposes. Our privacy notice is available from the footer of this site.