Supplementary written evidence submitted
by the Institute of Physics (PR 61a)
1. In relation to Q11 (transcript): How do
you "make it very easy for authors to be able to submit from
the arXiv into our journals"?
Within our online submission form there is an option
for authors to enter their arXiv reference number when they submit
the article to be considered for publication. This number enables
us to locate the article in question and automatically upload
the files from arXiv to our peer review system for processing.
2. In relation to Q11 (transcript): You stated
"Authors are encouraged to update their versions as well.
From the publishing side, we encourage them to update the references
so that the link goes back to the final version of record once
it has been peer reviewed and published." Why is this not
mandatory? Are there any initiatives in the physics community
to make it so?
Updating ArXiv is encouraged as best practice but
is currently not mandatory. As a publisher, although we can recommend
that authors update the links on ArXiv, it is not within our control
to mandate it. ArXiv is independently maintained and operated
by Cornell University with guidance from the arXiv Scientific
Advisory Board and the arXiv Sustainability Advisory Group. For
more information please see http://arxiv.org/help/general. Practically
it would also be difficult to enforce.
There are a few initiatives that proactively map
different versions of articles to one central reference, including
preprints on arXiv and the published version. Examples of these
initiatives are:
— www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/about/
— http://inspirebeta.net/
— http://adswww.harvard.edu/
However, it should be noted that they do not update
the links in the arXiv record itself as only the author has the
rights to do this.
3. In relation to Q30 (transcript): Do all
your journals participate in cascading submissions/reviews? Do
you have any data on: How many articles get cascaded? What percentage
of those offered take up the invitation? What percentage of those
cascaded articles are accepted?
All journals owned by IOP Publishing will pass on
articles to more relevant journals within our portfolio, if appropriate.
There are restrictions; if an article has been rejected due to
low quality or because referees found major errors then it is
rejected from all of our journals. We do not have data on how
many articles are cascaded. Generally the articles will be transferred
from a general journal to a more specific niche journal. There
are rare occasions when an author submits the anonymous referee
reports that he/she has received during the review process for
a journal published by another publisher; in cases like this it
is within the Editor's discretion to take these reports into account
in addition to seeking a further independent review.
4. Additional question: Where inaccurate,
misleading or fraudulent articles are published, what processes
are in place to ensure that corrections or retractions are implemented
in a timely fashion? Are retractions published by all your journals
free for everyone to read (or do they sit behind a paywall)?
This falls into three categories:
(i) If there is an error that is discovered by
the author then we will publish a corrigendum.
(ii) If post publication another researcher feels
there is an error in the paper, or that there is something misleading,
they can either raise the concern directly with the author who
can correct the error as outlined above, or the researcher can
submit a comment on the paper. Comments on an article are sent
to the original article author who has a set time (usually a couple
of weeks) to provide a reply to the comment. Both Reply and Comment
are then peer reviewed and either published together or the Comment
is published on its own if no Reply is received from the original
article author.
(iii) In the case of plagiarism we will investigate
obtaining any evidence we can, such as any duplicate articles,
and will work with other journal editors if appropriate to resolve
the issue. We then follow the guidelines provided by Committee
on Publications Ethics in issuing a retraction linked to the original
article. On the original article there is a notice posted onto
the article to say it has been retracted.
Retractions and corrigenda are made open access and
are not behind a paywall in any IOP Publishing journal. Comments
and Replies are currently behind a paywall in subscription journals.
1 June 2011
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