Policy – Infinity Science Press

Committee on Publication Ethics

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is a forum for editors of peer-reviewed journals to discuss issues related to the integrity of the scientific record. It supports and encourages editors to report, catalog and instigate investigations into ethical problems in the publication process. In 2024, all Infinity Science Press-published journals obey the rules of COPE as part of Infinity Science Press’s commitment to providing guidance and support to journal editors in handling actual or suspected infringements of publication ethics. Enlisting journals in COPE ensures that our journal editors have an alternative source to refer to when dealing with publishing ethics issues.

History

COPE was founded in 1997 by a group of medical journal editors concerned about publication misconduct, e.g., plagiarism, attempted or actual redundant publication, attempts to pass off fraudulent data, unethical research, breaches of confidentiality, and so on. Originally a loose gathering of individuals COPE is now a limited company (“incorporated”) and registered charity (“not-for-profit organization”).

Role

When a complaint is raised, COPE does not attempt to investigate, nor to offer judgment on, the rights or wrongs of specific allegations of research or publication misconduct. COPE’s investigations and reports are therefore focused solely on whether the journals involved behaved according to the COPE code of conduct and best practice guidelines for editors

Cases

COPE members can bring cases to the quarterly COPE Forum for advice. The COPE Forum meets in London, UK and is open to members and appropriate guests. Invitations and minutes (including advice and follow-up information on all cases discussed) are circulated to all COPE members. Attendance is possible in person or by telephone. Members who are signed in are invited to submit a case in advance, which are anonymized before circulation and then discussed during the Forum, with advice given on appropriate action. Members are asked to provide feedback about their cases at subsequent meetings. All cases submitted to the Forum (suitably anonymized and without any information about the submitting journal) are entered into the Database. This database is accessible to COPE members and may be helpful in answering queries about cases similar to those that have been discussed before. It will also form a useful research tool. Members, furthermore, have the facility to obtain confidential advice on sensitive ethical issues or between Forum meetings from COPE’s chairman or officers.

Other facilities

Other membership benefits include:

Free attendance at annual seminar
Website with members area: blog, wiki, sample letters, presentations
Publication ethics audit tool
Newsletter
eLearning program on how to handle and prevent misconduct

COPE will email editors on occasion to inform them of relevant initiatives, and invite them to participate in Forums, workshops and meetings. COPE may also contact them in reference to specific cases involving their journals.

Questions

Should you have questions on your journal’s membership with COPE, access to the member area or about COPE, its website, policies, activities or publication misconduct, please refer to https://publicationethics.org/contact-us or ask your publishing contact.

Note regarding COPE charts

COPE charts are useful tools for editors as they show in visual form the general process of investigation, communication, and decision-making. There are, however, some minor differences between COPE-recommended procedures as described on these charts and Infinity Science Press-recommended procedures. It is therefore suggested that editors always discuss and agree with their publishing contact on a course of action together.

Article Correction, Retraction and Removal Policy

Policy overview

Ifspress recognizes the importance of the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record to the scientific community and attaches the highest importance to maintaining trust in the authority of its published articles. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as far as is possible. However, circumstances may arise where an article needs to be corrected, retracted, or even removed.

It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor of a learned journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision, the editor is guided by policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force, for example regarding libel, copyright infringement and privacy issues. An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly record as a permanent and historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Therefore, when the scientific record requires correction, this will be made by a notice that will be permanently linked to the article, providing transparency for the scientific community.

This policy describes ifspress’s approach to correcting the scientific record. It is reviewed and updated as standards and best practices evolve.

Authors who discover an error in their published article

Authors who discover an error in their published article must contact the journal as soon as possible using the contact details listed on the journal’s home page.

In most cases, the corresponding author will be responsible for sharing the details of the error with the journal. The journal Editor or a designated representative (such as another member of the editorial team with appropriate subject matter expertise) will review the proposed correction, together with any accompanying data or information. They may send the proposed correction for further peer-review. The journal Editor will determine the appropriate mechanism to correct the article. They may also consult with the journal’s editorial team before reaching their decision.

Article correction

A Corrigendum will be published where it is required to correct an error or omission, but the integrity and findings of the article are not impacted by the error.

The Corrigendum should be drafted by the authors. All authors must agree to publication. The Corrigendum will be linked to the article that it corrects.

On rare occasions the Publisher may need to correct an error made during the publication of an article. Where this is the case, the journal will issue an Erratum to correct the error. The Erratum will be linked to the article that it corrects.

Expressions of concern

Journal editors or designated representative(s), in consultation with ifspress, will consider issuing an Expression of Concern if any of the below conditions have been met:

They receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct, which has not been resolved by aninvestigation and which warrants notification to readers.
They believe that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive.
An investigation is underway, but a judgment will not be available for a considerable time.

This Expression of Concern may be temporary or permanent. Where a temporary Expression of Concern is published, it will generally be replaced with a further notice – which may include a permanent Expression of Concern, a retraction or removal, or a notice of exoneration in the form of an Editor’s Note – that outlines the outcome of the investigation and the conclusions of the editor or their designated representative.

Article withdrawal

Articles-in-Press which represent early versions of articles that have been accepted for publication but not yet published in their final form may be withdrawn prior to final publication. Articles-in-Press may be withdrawn where:

They are found to contain errors.
They are discovered to be an accidental duplicate of another published article.
They may have breached ifspress’s journal publishing policies in the view of the editor, e.g., multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data.
hey represent an early version of an article that was published due to an editorial or production error.

When Articles-in-Press are withdrawn, the article content (e.g. PDF) will be removed and replaced with a PDF stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the Ifspress Policy on Article in Press Withdrawal, with a link to this policy.

Article retraction

The retraction of an article by its authors or the journal Editor under the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world. Articles may be retracted to correct errors that impact the findings reported by an article where they are too extensive in the view of the editors to publish a correction, or due to infringements of ifspress’s journal policies, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like.

Journal editors or designated representative(s), in consultation with ifspress, will consider retracting an article where:

They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (e.g., of data) or falsification (e.g., image manipulation).
It constitutes plagiarism.
The findings have previously been published elsewhere and the authors have failed to provide proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (i.e. redundant publication).
It contains material or data that the authors were not authorised to publish.
Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (e.g., libel, breach of privacy).
There is evidence of compromised peer-review or systematic manipulation of the editorial process.
There is evidence or material concerns of authorship being sold.
There is evidence of citation manipulation.
The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have materially affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and/or peer reviewers.
There is evidence of any other breach of the journal’s publishing policies and the editor has therefore lost confidence in the validity or integrity of the article.

Standards for retracting articles have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and the following best practice is used by ifspress:

A retraction notice titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the editor and, if appropriate, by the authors is published in a subsequent issue of the journal, is paginated and is listed in the table of contents.
In the electronic version, a link is made between the retraction notice and the original article.
The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.
The original article is retained unchanged except for a watermark on the .pdf indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”
The HTML version of the article is removed.

Article removal: legal limitations

In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online archive of the journal where it was published. Given the importance of maintaining the scholarly record as a permanent and – as far as possible – unaltered record of the transactions of scholarship, removal of an article is rare and will only occur where it is determined that:

The article is defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, and retraction is not a sufficient remedy.
The article is, or ifspress has good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order.

In these circumstances, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text of the article will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.

Article replacement

In cases where the authors of the original article may wish to retract the original and replace it with a corrected version. In these circumstances the procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the database retraction notice will publish a link to the corrected re-published article and a history of the document. Ifspress’s official archives will retain all article versions, including retracted or otherwise removed articles.

Copyright

Authors’ licensing and copyright options

In order for ifspress to publish and disseminate research articles, we need authors to grant us certain publishing rights, which are determined by the author’s choice of publishing model and, in the case of open access articles, the author’s choice of end user license.

Irrespective of the model under which an article is published, ifspress is committed to protecting and defending authors’ works and their reputation. We take allegations of infringement, plagiarism, ethical disputes, and fraud very seriously.

ifspress offers two publishing routes for authors to choose from, which have different implications for authors and others:

Open Access, which usually requires a fee from the author, or their institution or funder, to publish. When publishing open access with ifspress, the author retains their copyright in the article and grants ifspress a license to publish it. We provide Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, Each author can re-use their article themselves and also grant others (additional to ifspress) a license to re-use their article for any purpose without permission from, or payment to, ifspress.
Subscription, where articles are free to publish, but usually require a subscription or payment to read. When publishing subscription the author typically transfers copyright to the publisher. However, each author retains the right to re-use the article for certain personal and scholarly purposes, including the creation of some derivative works, without permission from, or payment to, ifspress.

In all cases, any rights the author grants to ifspress apply only to the published article. ifspress does not require, nor ever request, rights to the underlying research itself. Authors (and institutions or employers) will continue to retain patent, trademark and other intellectual property rights relating to the research, as well as the right to use their research data freely and without restriction.

Comparing reuse rights

The below tables compare rights for authors and others under the publishing agreements for open access articles (OA) with CC BY and subscription articles.

Authors’ rights in the article

	OA with CC BY	Subscription
Receive proper attribution and credit for their published work	√	√
Re-use their article in their own new works, without permission from ifspress or payment to ifspress, including by: • making copies of the article (or part of the article) to promote companies or products they own, whether or not such promotion is commercial; • including the article in a thesis or dissertation; • extending the article to a book, including the article in a subsequent compilation of their own work, or re-using portions, excerpts, and their own figures, tables and images from the article in their own new works (which in each case may be published with ifspress or with a third party commercial or non-commercial publisher, at the author’s discretion)	√	√
Use and share their article for scholarly purposes, including: • for classroom teaching; • at conferences; • for non-commercial Massive Open Online Courses; • create translations of the article and authorize others to do so for non-commercial scholarly collaborations and sharing	√	√
Publicly share the preprint anywhere at any time	√	√
Publicly share the final published article immediately on non-commercial sites e.g., institutional repositories, ensuring attribution	√	×
Publicly share the final published article immediately on commercial scholarly collaboration networks, ensuring attribution, for the purpose only of hosting by those websites	√	×
Publicly share the final published article immediately on commercial scholarly collaboration networks, ensuring attribution, for reuse by those websites	√	×
Publicly share the accepted manuscript on non-commercial sites after an embargo period and attaching a CC BY end user license	√	√
Right to license others to exercise the above rights for commercial purposes	√	×
Retain copyright of their article	√	×

Authors’ institutions’ rights in the article

	OA with CC BY	Subscription
Distribute copies for classroom teaching and internal training purposes	√	√
Include in (online) coursework and courseware programs for use within the institution	√	√
Include in non-commercial Massive Open Online Courses	√	×
Include in applications for grant funding	√	√
Post publicly as part of theses and dissertations, with DOI links to the formal publication	√	√

Ifspress’s rights in the article

	OA with CC BY	Subscription
Rights to publish, reproduce, display, distribute and otherwise use all or any part of the article, including tables, illustrations or other materials, in print, electronic and all other media (whether now known or later developed)	√	√
To prepare derivative works, in any form, in all languages, throughout the world, for the full term of copyright	√	√
The right to license others to exercise the above rights	√	√
Manage permissions for third party reuse and adaptation of the work for commercial purposes	×	√

Others’ rights to use the article without permission or payment

	OA with CC BY	Subscription
Distribute the article for non-commercial purposes	√	×
Distribute the article for commercial purposes	√	×
Include in a collective work (such as an anthology) for non-commercial purposes	√	×
Include in a collective work (such as an anthology) for commercial purposes	√	×
Create and distribute revised versions, adaptations or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation) for non-commercial purposes	√	×
Create and distribute revised versions, adaptations or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation) for commercial purposes	√	×
Text or data mine the article for non-commercial purposes	√	×
Text or data mine the article for commercial purposes	√	×

Publishing Agreements at ifspress

Authors publishing with ifspress sign a Publishing Agreement. This has several important functions, including to confirm the author has complied with publishing ethics policies and that the published article will be the final version of record. When publishing open access, the publishing agreement will set out the terms of the license the author grants to ifspress to publish their article. In the case of publishing subscription, the agreement will transfer copyright to ifspress and set out reuse rights to the work.

Custom publications

The following are ifspress’s global standards and execution guidelines for custom publications and commercial activities derived from, or associated with, ifspress’s journals programs. This policy is designed to ensure maximum transparency to end users with regards to the origin, funding and editorial responsibility of the custom publication.

What are custom publications?

Custom publications and commercial activities (“custom publications”) are publications (print products, electronic services, conferences and related activities) that have partial or full third-party sponsorship/sponsored distribution. The amount of involvement by ifspress can vary in terms of the production, hosting and editorial assistance, depending on the publication and the specifics of the agreed sponsoring contract.

Examples include: commercial article reprints, journal supplements, special editions, compendia and other custom publications derived from our journals programs that may also contain third-party materials.

Transparency

Full, clear and prominent disclosure should be made of the content origin, the role of all involved parties (editors, authors, sponsors), all vested interests therein and any conflicts of interest relating to both ifspress and third-party content included in ifspress publications. This is applicable for content that is delivered in print, electronically or face-to-face as part of conference activities. Specifically, the following should be disclosed:

Source of the content and any sponsorship of its editors, authors or of the original research
Sponsorship of the distribution of the custom publication (i.e., “This [xxx] is distributed with the support of [company].”)
The fact that a selection of content has been made when content is chosen from more than one source or when content is amended, or is not reproduced in its entirety
Any additional information as required by regulation

Journal publications

All journals published by any unit of ifspress will continue to be guided by the Uniform Requirements, including a high standard of peer review
While peer review is controlled by a third party (journal editor, guest editor), ifspress is still expected to consider its adequacy and make appropriate disclosures
ifspress will ensure peer-reviewed journals are clearly identified by stating “This journal” in their copyright notices (all other publications will state “This publication”)
The term “journal”, journal imprints or trademarks and a combination of journal layout features (such as volume and issue numbers, and editorial board listings) must not be used on publications that are not peer-reviewed journals.

Journal derived products

The creation and sale of supplements and special editions of a peer-reviewed journal will continue to be guided by current guidelines for: Editorial permission, standards of peer review, research sponsorship, Journal branding

Questions concerning any interpretation of this policy should be referred to the Standards Committee

Other custom publications

All other custom publications will require permission for the use of ifspress content and brands, including online webinars/seminars, translations, local editions, conference activities, promotional materials, etc.

Granting of permission

Permission is required for the use of ifspress content and brands (and for association with other editorial or content), Permission must be obtained separately for any third-party content included (Note: with Society-owned titles, the publishers will liaise with the editor in chief and societies)
Journal reprints: These require the permission of the publisher who will liaise as necessary with the editor-in-chief and society
Other custom publications: Permission is required

We have nominated representatives within the ifspress to coordinate permission requests within the business (including permission requests for commercial customizations such as sponsor branding and logo).

Third-party sales agencies

Sale of content by third-party commercial sales agencies will be assessed on a case-by-case basis by the relevant ifspress Commercial Sales Groups taking into account these guidelines, including permission requirements
Guidelines on use of external sales agencies, discounting and related commercial terms will be created by Commercial Sales and will incorporate the requirements for clear disclosures when ifspress content is used

Use of ifspress logos and imprints

Only custom publications that follow the guidelines (as set out in the transparency and editorial responsibility tabs) on editorial responsibility and the disclosure of origin and funding are permitted to be ifspress products.

With ifspress content:

The ifspress imprints and journal title brands are used in custom publications to identify content derived from ifspress journals
The ifspress brand may be used in custom publications that include ifspress material only if they follow the guidance on full transparent disclosure and editorial responsibility

With non-ifspress content:

The separate brand is intended for use with other non-ifspress commercial imprints and when the material is not ifspress content
The use of the separate brand by other ifspress businesses requires the permission of the ifspress internal Standards Committee

Compliance and communications

The guidelines set out in the previous tabs form part of a dynamic process for ever-evolving custom publication solutions. We will update them accordingly to take account of ongoing developments and the latest best practices.

All ifspress staff involved in the creation of custom publications will be expected to acknowledge receipt, understanding and compliance with the latest version of these guidelines
On a quarterly basis, management teams will need to confirm that their custom publications have been produced in accordance with these guidelines for the previous three months
The guidelines are intended to protect ifspress’s reputation for world class content. If you have concerns about a product, then you should raise them with Journal Manager before referring to the Standards Committee for any further clarification

Digital archive

ifspress is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and to ensure accessibility by converting and upgrading digital file formats to comply with new technology standards.

ifspress maintains a local state-of-the-art facility to store a complete, accurate digital version of data. The current format standards are XML and PDF, with most files being retained in both formats.

For titles we publish on behalf of a third party:

For journals we no longer publish or cease to have electronic rights for: We will use reasonable efforts to ensure that either the volumes published remain available through ifspress or that the owner makes them available on the same access terms via a new host and that the journal archive remains in the designated independent third party archives.
For journals which have been sold or otherwise transferred to another publisher: We will use reasonable efforts to retain a non-exclusive copy of the digital archive for that title and make it available through ifspress to existing subscribers. The title will also be retained in third party archives.
For journals which have stopped publication: The digital archive will be maintained at ifspress and be made available. The title would also remain in the third party archives.

Editorial Decision Appeals Policy

Authors who wish to appeal the revision or rejection decision for their manuscript may submit a formal appeal. Appeal requests must be made in writing to the journal (authors can find the journal’s email address on the journal’s homepage) with the word “Appeal” and the manuscript reference number in the subject line. Appeals will only be considered for manuscripts that have been peer-reviewed and will not be considered for those rejected outright by the journal editorial team. The appeal must be submitted by the corresponding author of the manuscript. All authors must agree to the submission of the appeal.

Corresponding authors should:

submit their appeal within 1 month of the date on which the authors receive the editorial decision.
not submit their manuscript to any other journal or start a transfer process to another journal while their appeal is being considered.
detail in the appeal letter why they refute the decision and provide point-by-point responses to any of the editors’ and/or reviewers’ comments that may have contributed to the rejection decision, together with supporting evidence. Please note that appeals will not be considered where manuscripts have been rejected because they do not comply with journal publishing policies or where there is a difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal.
provide supporting evidence if they believe the Editor or Reviewer has made technical errors in their assessment of the manuscript.
provide supporting evidence if they believe the Editor or the Reviewer may have a conflict of interest or has been biased.

Appeal requests which do not comply with the above requirements will be rejected and not considered by the journal.

The time required for the consideration of an appeal may vary from journal to journal and in accordance with the scientific field, and the complexity of the manuscript and its conclusion, among other reasons.

The corresponding author may withdraw an appeal request by sending an email to the same email address used to submit their appeal with the words “Appeal withdrawal” and the manuscript reference number in the subject line.

The appeal request will be considered by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief or their designated representative (such as members of a journal’s Ethics Committee), or by a member of ifspress staff depending on the nature of the appeal. Where there is an allegation of a conflict of interest on the part of the Editor, the appeal will be handled by a different member of the editorial board.

The appeal request will be assessed in accordance with the journal’s policies and aims and scope. The journal will notify the corresponding author of the outcome of the appeal.

Should the journal agree to reconsider the manuscript, acceptance is not guaranteed, and the reconsideration process may involve re-review by previous or new reviewers and/or Editors, and substantive revision. Only one appeal per submission will be considered and the appeal decision will be final. The journal is unable to consider appeals in which the subject matter is part of a legal dispute and reserves the right to suspend or discontinue an ongoing appeal in such cases.

Editorial independence

The following Statement of Principle speaks to a core ifspress value of intellectual freedom and independent editorial decisions. Of course, journal editors and publishers will always work together on the business of managing a particular journal, and share duties and responsibilities in this connection as further discussed in our ethics policy.

We believe strongly in ensuring that we keep the editorial decision making processes of our publications completely separate from our commercial interests.
Safeguarding this editorial independence requires that all editorial decisions, or concerns or complaints, about editorial decisions are dealt with strictly within the editorial structures of a publication.
These structures typically include editors, editors-in-chief, editorial boards or review boards, and ombudsmen or analogous structures for the editorial governance of any given publication.
It further requires that no one on the commercial or executive side of the business can get involved in, interfere with or even comment on editorial decisions under any circumstances.
To deviate from the rigorous application of this principle in any individual situation would ultimately serve to undermine the integrity of the principle of editorial independence altogether.

Generative AI policies for journals

These policies have been triggered by the rise of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies, which are expected to increasingly be used by content creators. These policies aim to provide greater transparency and guidance to authors, reviewers, editors, readers and contributors. ifspress will monitor this development and will adjust or refine policies when appropriate.

For authors

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in scientific writing

Please note this policy only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyze and draw insights from data as part of the research process.

Where authors use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, these technologies should only be used to improve readability and language of the work. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control and authors should carefully review and edit the result, because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. The authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Authors should disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies and a statement will appear in the published work. Declaring the use of these technologies supports transparency and trust between authors, readers, reviewers, editors and contributors and facilitates compliance with the terms of use of the relevant tool or technology.

Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans. Each (co-) author is accountable for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved and authorship requires the ability to approve the final version of the work and agree to its submission. Authors are also responsible for ensuring that the work is original, that the stated authors qualify for authorship, and the work does not infringe third party rights, and should familiarize themselves with our ethics policy opens in new tab/window before they submit.

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools in figures, images and artwork

We do not permit the use of Generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts. This may include enhancing, obscuring, moving, removing, or introducing a specific feature within an image or figure. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Image forensics tools or specialized software might be applied to submitted manuscripts to identify suspected image irregularities.

The only exception is if the use of AI or AI-assisted tools is part of the research design or research methods (such as in AI-assisted imaging approaches to generate or interpret the underlying research data, for example in the field of biomedical imaging). If this is done, such use must be described in a reproducible manner in the methods section. This should include an explanation of how the AI or AI-assisted tools were used in the image creation or alteration process, and the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer. Authors should adhere to the AI software’s specific usage policies and ensure correct content attribution. Where applicable, authors could be asked to provide pre-AI-adjusted versions of images and/or the composite raw images used to create the final submitted versions, for editorial assessment.

The use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in the production of artwork such as for graphical abstracts is not permitted. The use of generative AI in the production of cover art may in some cases be allowed, if the author obtains prior permission from the journal editor and publisher, can demonstrate that all necessary rights have been cleared for the use of the relevant material, and ensures that there is correct content attribution.

For reviewers

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the journal peer review process

When a researcher is invited to review another researcher’s paper, the manuscript must be treated as a confidential document. Reviewers should not upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a generative AI tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and proprietary rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, reviewers should not upload their peer review report into an AI tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

Peer review is at the heart of the scientific ecosystem and ifspress abides by the highest standards of integrity in this process. Reviewing a scientific manuscript implies responsibilities that can only be attributed to humans. Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies should not be used by reviewers to assist in the scientific review of a paper as the critical thinking and original assessment needed for peer review is outside of the scope of this technology and there is a risk that the technology will generate incorrect, incomplete or biased conclusions about the manuscript. The reviewer is responsible and accountable for the content of the review report.

ifspress’s AI author policy states that authors are allowed to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process before submission, but only to improve the language and readability of their paper and with the appropriate disclosure, as per our instructions in ifspress’s Guide for Authors opens in new tab/window. Reviewers can find such disclosure at the bottom of the paper in a separate section before the list of references.

For editors

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the journal editorial process

A submitted manuscript must be treated as a confidential document. Editors should not upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a generative AI tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and proprietary rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to all communication about the manuscript including any notification or decision letters as they may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, editors should not upload their letters into an AI tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

Peer review is at the heart of the scientific ecosystem and ifspress abides by the highest standards of integrity in this process. Managing the editorial evaluation of a scientific manuscript implies responsibilities that can only be attributed to humans. Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies should not be used by editors to assist in the evaluation or decision-making process of a manuscript as the critical thinking and original assessment needed for this work is outside of the scope of this technology and there is a risk that the technology will generate incorrect, incomplete or biased conclusions about the manuscript. The editor is responsible and accountable for the editorial process, the final decision and the communication thereof to the authors.

ifspress’s AI author policy opens in new tab/window states that authors are allowed to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process before submission, but only to improve the language and readability of their paper and with the appropriate disclosure, as per our instructions in ifspress’s Guide for Authors opens in new tab/window. Editors can find such disclosure at the bottom of the paper in a separate section before the list of references. If an editor suspects that an author or a reviewer has violated our AI policies, they should inform the publisher.

Pricing

Transparent price setting

ifspress publishes journal articles under two separate models to suit author preferences:

Subscription articles funded by payments for reading made by subscribing individuals or institutions
Open access articles funded by payments for publishing made by authors, their institution or funding bodies, commonly known as Article Publishing Charges (APCs)

We calculate pricing for each of these models separately. Subscription prices are set excluding open access articles; in other words, open access articles are not factored in when setting subscription prices.

Article Publishing Charges (APCs)

Irrespective of the publishing model chosen by the author, our goal is to ensure articles are published as quickly as possible, subject to appropriate quality controls, and widely disseminated.

Where an author has chosen to publish open access, which typically involves the payment of an article publishing charge (APC) by the author, their institution or funding body, we make their article freely available immediately upon publication on public in perpetuity with the author’s chosen user license attached to it.

ifspress’s APCs are set on a per journal basis, fees range no less than $325 US Dollars, excluding tax, with prices clearly displayed on our APC price list opens in new tab/window and on journal homepages.

Adjustments in ifspress’s APCs are under regular review and are subject to change. We set APCs based on the following criteria which are applied to open access articles only:

Journal quality (as measured by journal quality Field Weighted Citation Impact Tier)
The journal’s editorial and technical processes
Competitive considerations
Market conditions
Other revenue streams associated with the journal

A small percentage of titles may support more than one APC, for example when a journal supports one or more article types that require different APCs.

We do not vary the APC prices for our proprietary journals based on the user license chosen by the author. However, we also publish journals on behalf of learned societies or other third parties that reserve the right to determine their own prices and pricing policies. Any deviations in pricing from ifspress’s standard APC price list per journal will be clearly displayed on the journal’s homepage.

Reimbursement policy

To ensure ifspress does not charge twice for the same article, we will fully refund an APC when alternative funding is provided for the open access article. For example, where an open access article is part of a Special Issue which is later made available in its entirety on an open access basis, such as through sponsorship by an organization, we will fully refund individual APCs paid by an author or on their behalf.

No refund or credit will be offered in the following circumstances:

Article retraction or removal: ifspress has provided publishing services. The later retraction or removal of the article is typically for reasons beyond our control, and does not detract from the publishing services provided, nor from our ongoing maintenance of the scientific record, e.g., corrections to the record.
Delays resulting from editorial decisions or author changes: These are a standard part of the publishing process.
License changes: Where an author requests a change to the user license they initially chose we will endeavor to respond to these within 5 working days.
Circumstances beyond our control: This may include, for example, where natural or other disasters prevent us from fulfilling our obligations.
Article unavailable on another platform: ifspress’s responsibility is to ensure that the definitive published versions of articles we publish are available on public, or any successor platform, in ways that are accessible to all. We provide APIs to enable third party platforms to manage this process themselves, for example to identify and pull gold open access articles or to update their platforms to reflect changes subsequently made to the article, such as author license choice changes, errata, and retractions. ifspress is not responsible for ensuring third party repositories maintain accurate metadata and full-text.

Subscription prices

ifspress publishes subscription articles whose publication is funded by payments that are made by subscribing individuals or institutions. Subscription prices are set independent of open access articles and open access articles are not included when calculating subscription prices. Subscription prices are calculated and adjusted based on the following criteria:

Article volume
Journal quality (as measured by journal quality Field Weighted Citation Impact Tier)
Journal usage
Editorial processes
Competitive considerations
Other revenue streams such as commercial contributions from advertising, reprints and supplements

These criteria are applied only to subscription articles, not to open access articles, when setting list prices.

ifspress provides a range of purchasing options for subscription articles which are tailored for a wide variety of people. These include:

For libraries and institutions: There are a number of subscription options available which are tailored according to the specific customer situation and reflect a number of factors. For customers who purchase collections these considerations include competitive considerations, market conditions, the number of archival rights they purchase, and agreement specific factors like agreement length, currency and payment terms. Collection prices are adjusted on an annual basis, and any adjustment is based on factors including competitive considerations, market conditions, the number, quality, and usage of subscription articles published, and on technical features and platform capabilities. Open access articles are not included in these calculations.
Individuals: Researchers who are not affiliated to an institution, or who would simply like convenient access to a title not available from their library, can take advantage of our personal access options. These options include credit card based transactional article sale and article rental.

No double dipping

Concerns around double dipping are often premised on the expectation that open access articles are replacing the number of subscription articles being published and therefore that prices should be changing to correspond to this.

ifspress does not charge subscribers for open access articles; when calculating subscription prices, we only take into account subscription articles — we do not double dip.

List prices for journals that publish both open access and subscription articles

Adjustments in individual journal subscription list prices will be based only on criteria applied to subscription articles. Open access articles will not be considered in the individual journal list price. Similarly, the APC per journal will only be determined based on the criteria applied to open access articles.

Collections

As with journal list prices, collection prices reflect subscription articles only; they are linked to the prices of individual titles in a collection, which do not count open access articles when setting prices.

Retrospective open access

To ensure we uphold our no double dipping policy and separate calculations regarding list prices from open access articles, we do not offer authors the option to make a subscription article gold open access retrospectively after publication as a general rule.

However, we appreciate that there are sometimes exceptional circumstances and we want to assist authors where possible. In such instances, authors can make a subscription article, published in a hybrid journal, gold open access up until 31 January of the following year. For example, if the article is published in March 2024, the author can make it open access up until the 31 January 2025. This cut-off date is necessary to accurately assess the open access uptake in each individual hybrid journal for the previous year which ensures we do not charge subscribers for open access content.

Privacy

Ifspress Privacy Principles

At ifspress, we recognize that the proper handling of personal data is very important to our customers and the communities we serve. We are committed to behaving with integrity and responsibility regarding data privacy. We support the right of individuals to manage how their personal information is collected and used. Our Privacy Principles guide our approach to collecting and handling personal data:

Value: We carefully use personal data to help us support customers and individual users through customization/personalization options in our products to inform product development, monitor the performance our systems, ensure data security, and to comply with our legal and contractual obligations.
Transparency: We tell users about the personal information we collect, including how and why we will use and share it.
Choice: Users are given choice over the collection, use and sharing of their personal information.
Anonymization: We depersonalize and aggregate personal information where individual identification is not necessary.
Accountability: We are committed to acting as a responsible steward of personal information.

ifspress and legal compliance

ifspress views compliance with emerging privacy laws as building on this commitment to responsible data privacy practices. As part of our data privacy program, we evaluate, and where necessary require enhancements to, our products, services and practices to ensure that we treat personal data in line with applicable privacy laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and with what the community expects of us.

If you have any questions about ifspress’s privacy program, please reach out to ifspress contact.

Research data

Introduction

Data sharing enables others to reuse the results of experiments and supports the creation of new science that is built on previous findings, making the research process more efficient. Data sharing also supports transparency and reproducibility, building trust in science. ifspress plays a key role in supporting researchers who want to store, share, discover and reuse data, and we are committed to working with other stakeholders to address challenges in making data more effective.

Although much research data is disseminated as part of journal articles, a host of other data is not made available through article publication. This policy concerns research data that often underlies, but exists outside of research articles. Publishers can help make this hidden data discoverable and our research data policy provides the framework for our support and engagement in this important area. The precise notion of what constitutes research data will differ from field to field, but, broadly speaking, it refers to the result of observations or experimentations that validate research findings, and which are not already published as part of a journal article. Research data can include, but are not limited to: raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, methods, materials.

Principles

The following principles underpin ifspress’s research data policy:

Research data should be made available free of charge to all researchers wherever possible and with minimal reuse restrictions
Researchers should remain in control of how and when their research data is accessed and used, and should be recognized and valued for the investments they make in creating their research data and making it available
Expectations and practices around research data vary between disciplines and discipline-specific requirements need to be taken into account
Enabling effective reuse of research data is a shared aim and all stakeholders should work together to pursue this collectively, to find efficiencies and avoid duplication of effort
Platforms, publications, tools and curation services can enhance research data by improving their discoverability, use, reuse and citation
Where others add value and/or incur significant cost in enhancing research data to enable its reuse, these contributions need to be recognized and valued

Our policy

In line with the principles set out above we will:

Encourage and support researchers to share research data where appropriate and at the earliest opportunity, for example, by enhancing our submission processes to make this easier
Standardize and align our author data guidelines where this is possible to make it easier for authors to understand how and where they can store and share their data, enabling optimal access and reuse
Make it easier for researchers to comply with data management requirements, for example, by supporting data availability statements to enhance transparency
Develop tools and services to support researchers to discover, use and reuse data to further their research, for example, by encouraging and enabling two-way linking of relevant datasets and publications using permanent standard identifiers
Ensure researchers can gain credit — and credit others — for sharing research data, by encouraging and supporting proper data citation practices
Work closely with the scientific community to establish data review practices to ensure that published research data is valid, properly documented and can be re-used
Support the publication of research data as a separate, peer-reviewed output, to support reusability and provide additional ways for authors to gain credit for their work
Support researchers, research institutions and funders by providing the structure, workflows and technology needed to manage data effectively and make researcher and institutional workflows more efficient.
Continue to participate in industry initiatives and standards and policy bodies to support more effective discovery, use and reuse of research data.

Article sharing

Authors who publish in ifspress journals can share their research in several ways. Researchers who have subscribed access to articles published by ifspress can share, too. There are some simple guidelines to follow, which vary depending on the article version you wish to share.

Quick definitions

Preprint

This is the author’s own write-up of research results and analysis that has not been peer reviewed, nor had any other value added to it by a publisher (such as formatting, copy-editing, technical enhancements and the like).

Accepted manuscript

An accepted manuscript is the manuscript of an article that has been accepted for publication and which typically includes author-incorporated changes suggested during submission, peer review and editor-author communications. They do not include other publisher value-added contributions such as copy-editing, formatting, technical enhancements and, if relevant, pagination.

Published journal article

A published journal article (PJA) is the definitive final record of published research that appears or will appear in the journal and embodies all value-adding publisher activities, including peer review co-ordination, copy-editing, formatting, pagination (if relevant) and online enrichment.

Preprint

Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time
If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Authors can update their preprints on arXiv with their accepted manuscript
Preprints should not be added to or enhanced in any way in order to appear more like, or to substitute for, the final versions of articles

Accepted manuscript

Authors can share their accepted manuscript:

Immediately:

Via their non-commercial personal homepage or blog
By updating a preprint in arXiv with the accepted manuscript
Via their research institute or institutional repository for internal institutional uses, or as part of an invitation-only research collaboration work group
Directly by providing copies to their students or to research collaborators for their personal use
For private scholarly sharing as part of an invitation-only work group on commercial sites with which ifspress has an agreement

After the embargo period opens in new tab/window:

Via non-commercial hosting platforms, such as their institutional repository
Via commercial sites with which ifspress has an agreement

In all cases accepted manuscripts should:

Link to the formal publication via its DOI.
Bear a CC-BY license — this is easy to do
Not be added to or enhanced in any way to appear more like, or to substitute for, the published journal article

Published journal article

Policies for sharing published journal articles differ for subscription and open access articles:

Subscription articles:

If you are an author, please share a link to your article rather than the full-text
If you are an author, you may also share your Published Journal Article (PJA) privately with known students or colleagues for their personal use
Theses and dissertations which contain embedded PJAs as part of the formal submission can be posted publicly by the awarding institution with DOI links back to the formal publications
The Published Journal Article cannot be shared publicly, for example, on ResearchGate or Academia.edu opens in new tab/window, to ensure the sustainability of peer-reviewed research in journal publications

Open access articles:

May be shared according to the end-user license and should contain the end user license and a DOI link to the formal publication

How to attach a user license

ifspress requires authors posting their accepted manuscript to attach a Creative Commons user license (CC-BY). This is easy to do. On your accepted manuscript, add the following to the title page, copyright information page or header/footer: ©MONTH YEAR AUTHORs. License: CC-BY 4.0 see [insert license URL].

For example:

You can also include the license badges available from the Creative Commons website opens in new tab/window to provide visual recognition. If you are hosting your manuscript as a webpage, you will also find the correct HTML code to add to your page.