Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and pays regard to the principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). 

» Duties of Editors
» Duties of Authors
» Duties of Reviewers
» Duties of Publisher
» Publication decisions
» Fair play
» Confidentiality and anonymity
» Disclosure and conflicts of interest
» Citation policies
» Updating published papers
» Investigations
» Data fabrication and falsification
» Journal policy on ethical oversight
» Sex and gender in research
» Journal policies on intellectual property
» Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility
» Data availability statement
» Post-publication discussions and corrections

Publication decisions

The editors of the Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editors are guided in reaching their decision by referees’ reports and may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision. 

Fair play

All manuscripts will be reviewed based on intellectual content without regard for age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, country of origin, or the political philosophy of the author(s).

Confidentiality and anonymity

All manuscripts submitted for peer review are kept strictly confidential. The editor and any 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 as appropriate. At no time will editors or reviewers utilize submitted materials without the consent of the authors.  

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest (COI’s, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside the research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. A clear declaration of all possible conflicts – whether they had any influence or not – allows others to make informed decisions about the work and its review process. Conflicts of interest include the following:

  • Financial
  • Affiliations 
  • Intellectual property 
  • Personal 
  • Ideology
  • Academic 

Citation policies

COPE has produced a discussion document on "Citation Manipulation" with recommendations for best practices. Our journal follows COPE's guidelines in this regard. For more information please see: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.3.1

 

Updating published papers

Complaints made against papers or requests to update are thoroughly investigated by the Editorial Office with the support of the Editorial Board and final approval by the Editor-in-Chief. Other persons and institutions will be consulted as necessary, including university authorities, or experts in the field.

Corrections: Corrections should be submitted for any scientifically relevant errors in published articles.  A note will also be added to the Article Versions Notes and to the abstract page, which tells the readers that an updated version was uploaded.

Retractions: The Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction

Expression of Concern: The Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for Expression of Concern.

Comments and Replies: Comments are short letters to the editors from readers questioning either the results reported or the experimental methods used in a specific article.

Addendum: If crucial results (e.g., additional affiliation, clarifying some aspect of methods/analysis, etc.) were unintentionally omitted from the original publication, the original article can be amended by using an Addendum, reporting these previously omitted results. 

 

Investigations

Suspected breaches of our publication’s ethics policies, either before or after publication, as well as concerns about research ethics, should be reported to our Research Integrity team. Claimants will be kept anonymous if requested, although claimants may also wish to use an anonymous email service such as ProtonMail or TorGuard. The Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs may ask the authors to provide the underlying data and images, consult editors, and contact institutions or employers to ask for an investigation or to raise concerns. The editors and publisher of the journal follow COPE's guidance in this regard. For more information please see:  Allegations of misconduct.

 

Data fabrication and falsification

in case of observation of any data fabrication and falsification, this journal has the right to reject the submitted manuscript. Plagiarism, Multiple submissions, Redundant publications (or ‘salami’ publications), and Citation manipulation are different types of Data fabrication and falsification.

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Journal policy on ethical oversight

Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs follows the COPE guidelines relating to ethical oversight, namely “Ethical oversight should include but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices”. Approval must have been obtained for all protocols from the authors’ institutional or other relevant ethics committee (Institutional Review Board) to ensure that they meet national and international guidelines. Details of this approval must be provided when submitting an article, including the institution, review board name, and permit number(s).

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Sex and gender in research

We encourage our authors to follow the ‘Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER – guidelines’   developed by the European Association of Science Editors (EASE). Authors should use the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances) carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms.  

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Journal policies on intellectual property

Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs is an open-access journal where our published materials are under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY ). Under this license, readers of the Journal are free to adapt and share the published materials for non-commercial purposes, provided that the Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs is duly accredited and cited.  Our journal follows COPE's guidelines on Intellectual property.  For more information in this regard please see Copyright, Licensing, and Repository Policy.

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Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility

Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs support the FAIR principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR Principles). Failure to provide access to the raw data for publication without good justification is likely to result in the article being rejected. All articles must include a Data Availability statement at the end of the manuscript, even where no data is associated with or has been included in the article.

General repositories: Where subject-specific or institutional/funder repositories are not available, authors may wish to choose a general repository, such as:

Repository Name

Information on costs

URL

- Dryad Digital Repository

Fees apply

Visit the  website

- Figshare

Fees apply

Visit the website

-Harvard Dataverse

Contact repository for datasets over 1 TB

Visit the website

Open Science Framework

Free of charge

Visit the website

Science Data Bank

Free of charge

Visit the website

Zenodo

Donations towards sustainability encouraged

Visit the  website

Our journal follows COPE's guidelines on "data sharing and reproducibility". For more information in this regard please see: https://publicationethics.org/data 

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Data availability statement

As part of our commitment to supporting open research, the Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs now requires all manuscripts to include a “Data Availability Statement” in order to be accepted for publication. A data availability statement tells the reader where the research data associated with a paper is available, and under what conditions the data can be accessed.  The table below contains template statements that you can use or adapt. 

Availability of data

Template for data availability statement

Policy

 

- Data is openly available in a public repository that issues datasets with DOIs

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name ] at xxx .

All

 

- Data openly available in a public repository that does not issue DOIs

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at [URL].

All

 

- Data derived from public domain resources

The data that support the findings of this study are available in [repository name] at [URL/DOI].  These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: [list resources and URLs].

All

 

- Data available within the article or its supplementary materials

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article [and/or] its supplementary materials.

Basic, Share upon Request

 

- Data generated at a central, large-scale facility, available upon request

Raw data were generated at [facility name]. Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author [initials] on request.

Basic, Share upon Request

 

- Embargo on data due to commercial restrictions

The data that support the findings will be available in [repository name] at [URL / DOI link] following a [7-month] embargo from the date of publication to allow for the commercialization of research findings.

Basic, Share upon Request

 

- Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [initials]. 

Basic, Share upon Request

 

- Data subject to third-party restrictions

The data that support the findings of this study are available [from] [third party]. 

Basic, Share upon Request

 

- Data available on request from the authors

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [author initials], upon reasonable request.

Basic, Share upon Request

 

- Data sharing is not applicable – no new data is generated

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

All

 

- Non-digital data available

Non-digital data supporting this study are curated at [add location].

Basic

 

- Data not available due to [ethical/legal/commercial] restrictions

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

All

 

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Post-publication discussions and corrections

This journal allows debate on post-publication through letters to the editor, or on an external moderated site, such as PubPeer. PubPeer is a website that allows users to discuss and review scientific research after publication. Our journal follows COPE’s guidelines on Post-publication discussions and corrections.

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Duties of Editors

Our journal follows COPE's guidelines on the "Code of conduct for journal editors". For more information in this regard please see: https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf

Types of conflicts of interest for editors are: Personal conflicts,  Financial conflicts, Non-financial conflicts, Submission by an editor, Submission from the same institution, Personal relationships, Political or religious beliefs, Submission by a family member of the editor(s) or by an author whose relationship with the editor(s)  might create the perception of bias. Our Publisher and editors always are willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

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Duties of Authors

Authorship

The term authorship can refer to the creator or originator of an idea (eg, the author of the theory of relativity) or the individual or individuals who develop and bring to fruition the product that disseminates intellectual or creative works. in this regard,  COPE provides key information resources for authors, core policy guidance for editors, notes on the scope of submission guidelines, resources for managing pre- and post-publication authorship disputes, guidance for institutions to manage and support authorship integrity. Our journal follows COPE's guidelines on "Authorship". For more information in this regard please see: COPE Discussion Document: Authorship

  

Credit Author Statement

CRediT offers authors the opportunity to share an accurate and detailed description of their diverse contributions to the published work. CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to scientific scholarly output. The roles describe each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output.

Recommendations for applying the CRediT taxonomy are:

  1. Multiple roles possible - Individual contributors can be assigned multiple roles, and a given role can be assigned to multiple contributors;
  2. Degree of contribution optional - Where multiple individuals serve in the same role, the degree of contribution can optionally be specified as ‘lead’, ‘equal’, or ‘supporting’;
  3. Shared responsibility - Corresponding authors should assume responsibility for role assignment, and all contributors should be given the opportunity to review and confirm assigned roles.
  4. Not all categories are relevant to each type of research. Only select those contribution roles that are applicable to your study.
  5. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the descriptions are accurate and agreed by all authors.
  6. The role(s) of all authors should be listed, as they appeared in the article.

For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used:

CRediT author statement:

Conceptualization: J.F., S.M., R.B, M.W. Data curation: S.M., J.F., J.S., J.P.B. Formal analysis: M.W., J.F., S.M., R.B. Funding acquisition: J.F., S.M., R.B. Investigation: S.M., J.S., J.P.B., J.F. Methodology: J.F., S.M., R.B., M.W. Project administration: S.M., J.F. Writing—original draft: S.M., J.F. Writing—review and editing: J.F., S.M., R.B., J.S., M.W., J.P.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Note: The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors, keep co-authors informed, and involve them in major decisions about the publication. Joint first authors can be indicated by the inclusion of the statement “X and X contributed equally to this paper” in the manuscript. The roles of the equal authors should also be adequately disclosed in the contributorship statement.

Sources:

  1. The presentation of the 14 roles has been adapted from the Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration (CASRAI) website.
  2. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.1210

        Read more about CRediT here

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Duties of Reviewers

Reviewers of the Journal of contemporary urban affairs must follow the Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers developed by COPE. Promptness,  objectivity and expressing their views clearly with supporting arguments, confidentiality, and respect for ethical aspects of disclosure and conflicts of interest through peer review based on the regulations stated by COPE  are the main duties of the reviewers.   

 

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Duties of the Publisher

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our own digital archive. The publisher undertakes to maintain independent editorial decision-making. The publisher bears all the responsibility for taking precautions against scientific abuse, fraud and plagiarism. In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work.  

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For more information please see the Journal policies

The Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs publication ethics and malpractice statement has been written in accordance with COPE general guidelines http://publicationethics.org/