MRS Policy on Publication Ethics and Responsibilities
One of the constitutional objectives of the MRS is to disseminate information relevant to the interest of the materials community. The Journal of Materials Research, MRS Communications and the MRS Proceedings fulfill part of this mission by publishing the results of original scientific research and overviews of the field. The policy below has been endorsed by MRS to ensure that the information has been generated, processed, and published using the highest ethical standards.
The policy adopts and builds on the Statement of Ethics and Responsibilities of Authors Submitting to AIP Journals published by the American Institute of Physics. We thank AIP for permission to use the statement as the basis of our policy. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions to the development of this statement by AIP, the American Physical Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Chemical Society. The AIP statement is online at http://www.aip.org/pubservs/ethics.html.
I. Original Research Articles
Research Results The results of research should be recorded and maintained in a form that allows analysis and review, both by collaborators before publication and by other scientists, for a reasonable period after publication. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances to preserve privacy, to assure patent protection, or for similar reasons.
Fabrication of data is an egregious departure from the required norms of scientific conduct, as is the selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive, as well as the theft of data or research results from others.
Publication and Authorship Practices The authors' central obligation is to present a concise, accurate account of the research performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to public sources of information to permit others to repeat the work.
Proper acknowledgment of the work of partners, competitors, and predecessors used in a research project must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, should not be used or reported without explicit permission from the investigator with whom the information originated. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, cannot be used without permission of the author of the work being used. Preliminary reports of results in symposia, conference proceedings or other journal articles, including re-used figures, should be cited.
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant scientific contribution to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the research study. All those so defined should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as authors. Contributions such as:
- obtaining the funds for the research,
- contributing important materials,
- training co-authors in certain methods,
- collecting and assembling data,
- directing an institution or working unit in which the publication originates,
while significant, are not by themselves regarded sufficient to justify authorship.[1]
The sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Plagiarism constitutes unethical scientific behavior and is never acceptable.
It is unethical for an author to publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently is also unethical and unacceptable. Papers published as MRS Proceedings, however, are "snapshots in time," encompassing recent research work as well as overviews of the field. They are not intended to serve as the complete description of a research project, but instead as a rapid means of sharing a work-in-progress with the materials community. While it is unethical to publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication, MRS Proceedings are intended to be a convenient and rapidly available summary of the research results presented at an MRS symposium, and are therefore considered a different publication venue than journals. It is fully anticipated that papers in the MRS Proceedings will reveal some results of a research project in progress that will later be fully documented in materials journals. Because editorial standards for journals vary, authors should understand the policy of the journals in which they ultimately wish to publish before submitting the proceedings paper to MRS. Journal of Materials Research, for example, welcomes the submission of MRS Symposium Proceedings papers that report results of completed research projects. Authors wishing to submit such proceedings papers to JMR may do so, provided that they reference the original article. These papers are subject to the usual JMR peer review standards
When an error is discovered in a published work, it is the obligation of all authors to promptly retract the paper or correct the results.
Individuals who think that these policies have been violated for a specific paper are welcome to contact the editor in writing for advice and possible adjudication.
Collaborations All collaborators share some degree of responsibility for any paper they coauthor.
The author who submits the paper for publication should ensure that all appropriate coauthors and no inappropriate coauthors are included on the paper, and that all coauthors have seen the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Some coauthors have responsibility for the entire paper as an accurate, verifiable report of the research. These include, for example, coauthors who are accountable for the integrity of the critical data reported in the paper, carry out the analysis, write the manuscript, present major findings at conferences, or provide scientific leadership for junior colleagues. Other coauthors may have responsibility mainly for specific, limited contributions to a paper.
Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a paper should not be a coauthor.
Peer Review
Review by independent scientists provides advice to editors of scientific journals and proceedings volumes concerning the publication of research results. It is an essential component of the scientific enterprise, and all scientists have an obligation to participate in the process.
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for competitive gain. Reviewers must disclose conflicts of interest resulting from direct competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, and avoid cases in which such conflicts preclude an objective evaluation.
Reviewers should judge objectively the quality of the research reported and respect the intellectual independence of the authors. In no case is personal criticism appropriate. Reviewers should explain and support their judgments in such a way that editors and authors may understand the basis of their comments.
Reviewers should point out relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.
A reviewer should treat a manuscript sent for review as a confidential document. It should neither be shown to nor discussed with others except, in special cases, to persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted should be disclosed to the editor.
Reviewers should not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a manuscript under consideration, except with the consent of the author.
Editorial Responsibilities The editor of a journal or proceedings has complete responsibility and authority to accept a submitted paper for publication or to reject it. The editor may confer with associate editors, co-editors, or reviewers for an evaluation to use in making this decision.
An editor should give prompt and unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication, judging each on its merits without regard to race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors, and respecting the intellectual independence of the authors. Situations that may lead to real or perceived conflicts of interest should be avoided.
The editor and the editorial staff should not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than reviewers and potential reviewers. Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations disclosed in a submitted manuscript should not be used in an editor's own research except with the consent of the author.
An editor presented with convincing evidence that the substance or conclusions of a published paper are erroneous should promote the publication of a correction or retraction. If an editor suspects or has an allegation of fraud, he/she has an obligation to investigate.
An editor as an author or with other vested interests in a submitted manuscript should disclose this information. JMR editors should also recuse themselves from any associated editorial function. The JMR policy for editors as authors is available at http://www.mrs.org/jmr-editor-manuscripts.
II. Review Articles
Research and Authorship Practices By its nature a review article does not have the originality feature of an original research paper. Thus many of the policy elements in Part I do not apply.
Authors of review articles should explicitly state the topical scope of their review. Within that scope they should reference the most relevant and influential published papers, and provide an objective discussion of their content.
[1] These examples are from: "Vorschläge zur Sicherung guter wissenschaftlicher Praxis / Proposals for safeguarding good scientific practice", Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 1998. It can be found at the web site http://www.dfg.de/aktuelles_presse/reden_stellungnahmen/download/self_regulation_98.pdf.
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