Publication Ethics Statement
The guidelines presented in the following are based on the ones of other interdisciplinary journals, in particular PLOS journals, and follow best practices in ethical publishing, as suggested by the The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Collective Dynamics adheres to the guidelines published by COPE, but is not a member of COPE.
Revised April 2022.
Summary
Collective Dynamics expects all those involved in the publication process to know and follow the guidelines stated on this site and linked sites, and to generally adhere to best practice in ethical publishing.
Specific guidelines for authors on authorship, competing interests, plagiarism, submission of related work, research ethics, data preparation and presentation, confidentiality, and dual use research are detailed below, in the author guidelines, or in linked documents.
Collective Dynamics requires editors to adhere to a code of conduct and expects editors and reviewers to assess manuscripts in an unbiased and confidential way.
Collective Dynamics encourages open scientific debate and will thus facilitate formal corrections to published articles, should authors deem these to be necessary following a discussion with readers. Authors should contact the Editors-in-Chief in such cases.
The Editors-in-Chief should also be contacted if a breach of the guidelines outlined here is suspected and any issues raised, no matter by whom, will be investigated. In such cases, the confidentiality of those raising issues will be protected.
The Editors-in-Chief of Collective Dynamics are responsible for the guidelines stated here and should be contacted if there are any concerns related to specific published articles or journal processes in general.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the representation of copied work as one's own original work. Examples include copying text, images, or data from other sources without attribution, reusing one’s own previous work without attribution, and closely paraphrasing someone else’s writing.
The detection of plagiarism is a reason for rejecting manuscripts submitted to Collective Dynamics and for correcting or retracting previously published manuscripts. Cases of plagiarism will be dealt with according to the COPE guidelines.
Confidentiality
Authors may discuss work included in submitted manuscripts elsewhere, but the peer review process is strictly confidential. This means all parties treat all peer review correspondence confidentially, reviewers seek permission before sharing any submitted material with others (e.g. when involving others in their group in the review process), and reviewers and editors do not make use of information arising from the peer review process.
Cases where confidentiality is not maintained will be dealt with according to the COPE guidelines.
Anonymity
Reviewers remain anonymous by default but may sign reviews with their names. For the review process, authors have the option to remain anonymous.
Related Work
Published or submitted work directly related to manuscripts must be declared and copies of any related work must be provided at the point of submission. Permissible publication of closely related work includes student theses, scientific conference presentations, and deposits on preprint servers. Other published related work will be assessed by reviews and editors for similarity to submitted manuscripts and may lead to the rejection of manuscripts, especially in cases of duplicate submission. High similarity of manuscripts to published work detected after publication may result in retractions or corrections.
Concerns about Results or Figures
When concerns are raised about reported results, Collective Dynamics retains the right to request original data, computer code, and to make editorial decisions on manuscripts. The unavailability of original data in such cases may impact editorial outcomes, including rejection of submitted manuscripts and retraction of published manuscripts.
Figures or images should not be manipulated or presented in such a way that it could lead to a misinterpretation of information.
Dual Use Research of Concern
Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) is research that could reasonably be expected to be misused or misapplied to cause widespread harm. Authors are expected to declare any such concerns upon submission and reviewers and editors are expected to consider such risks during peer review. Collective Dynamics does not publish research for which the perceived risks are deemed to be too high and will take steps to minimise risks detected after publication.
Declaring Ethical Approval
When reporting experiments on human subjects or animals, authors are expected to indicate how the procedures followed were approved by an appropriate ethics committee.
