Publication Ethics Statement

The International Society for Porous Media (InterPore) is the Publisher for the InterPore Journal, and as such, we support the highest standards of ethical conduct in publishing, and we will implement all possible measures against misconduct and malpractice in publishing.

InterPore Journal follows the standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). This page outlines the standards we follow in regard to peer review and publication of articles submitted to InterPore Journal.  

Concerns, Complaints, Allegations and Appeals

All concerns, complaints, or allegations of ethical misconduct or related should be directed to our our Committee on Publication Ethics at CPE@InterPore.org. Currently, this committee is composed of the following people, all of which are also members of our Editorial Board.

When such issues or complaints do arise, this Committee will work with the Editor-in-Chief as well as the Managing Editor of the Journal to conduct a preliminary analysis of the situation to determine if there is merit to the allegation. Should there be merit to the allegation, further analysis will be conducted and the corresponding author of the paper in question will be contacted via an official letter which will contain a summary of the allegation and request an explanation. Further analyses as needed will be conducted (i.e. forensic analysis of images, similarity checks). Depending on the nature of the allegation, it may also be necessary to contact the relevant institution, research body or employer.

We will refer to the policies, guidelines and flowcharts by COPE when researching allegations and determining the most appropriate corrective actions. When necessary, publication of a correction, retraction, or expression of concern will be published. Should the allegation concern a paper currently undergoing review, the review process will be put on hold until the issue has been resolved.

All items that are reported or discovered, will be investigated, regardless of when the paper was published.

Authors may appeal a decision by writing to our Publication Ethics Committee within 4 weeks of the original decision.

Duties and Responsibilities of the Publisher

The International Society for Porous Media (Interpore) as the publisher of InterPore Journal strives to publish and disseminate research and related content of the highest standard and which is rigorous, reproducible, impactful and has value for our readership and the porous media community. We will continuously evaluate how we can improve upon and better promote for the openness and transparency of the work which is published in this Journal.

We fully support the principles of open access as defined in the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities” of 2003 in that all content which is published by InterPore Journal can be freely read, downloaded and used via the internet and that the license for content published remains with the authors.

As the publisher, we will also support the journal financially in ensuring that the needed software, systems, support, and staff are provided, including the appointment of an Editor-in-Chief.

Full authority over the editorial content however remains solely in the hands of the Editor-in-Chief and under no circumstances will the publisher interfere directly or indirectly in the evaluation or acceptance of articles submitted to the journal, attempt to influence editorial decisions, or interfere directly or indirectly in the preparation of accepted articles for publication.

Duties and Responsibilities of the Editors

The appointed Editor-in-Chief and Editors of the journal promise to uphold the scientific record by publishing and disseminating research and related content of the highest standard and which is rigorous, reproducible, impactful and has value for our readership and the porous media community. We will continuously evaluate how we can improve upon and better promote for the openness and transparency of the work which is published in this Journal.

During the entire peer review and publishing process, we strive to always keep the entire process free from bias, fair and timely. All manuscripts which have been submitted for review will be treated as confidential documents, and information will only be shared with the parties involved in the entire review and production process (this includes the Editor-in-Chief, the Managing Editor, the assigned Editor, the Reviewers if an open or single-anonymized review process is chosen, and those involved in the production process should the manuscript be accepted).

Though we are a society journal, the Editor-in-Chief operates independently from the Society and has full authority over editorial decisions. In no way or form are any InterPore Executive Board or Council Members involved deciding what papers get accepted for publishing.

We also ensure that no bias or influence ever results from commercial revenues or donations, nor do we currently accept advertising on our website as a source of revenue.

Duties and Responsibilities of the Authors

When submitting papers to InterPore Journal for publication consideration, authors (via the submitting/corresponding author) are required to confirm and agree to the following statements:

  • You agree to have your data collected and stored in accordance with our privacy policy/statement.
  • This submission is an original submission which has not been previously published, nor is it currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
  • All authors are listed, all authors approve of the author order, all authors agree to the submission for publication consideration, and all authors have read and approved of the final text and are willing to be held accountable for the work.
    All relevant information pertaining to this submission, including conflicts of interest, have been stated in the cover letter and relevant statements and declarations to your paper.
  • All relevant references which pertain to your work have been included in the reference list.
  • When relevant, the necessary permissions have already been obtained for any items included in your paper, such as figures or tables, which originate from another source.
  • During the submission process you will also have the chance to suggest potential reviewers as well as the names of any reviewers that should be avoided.

Apart from that, we also expect that authors will agree to our open access policy, submit research that is original and their own work, and which is an accurate representation of their own work. IF authors have also used the work or ideas of others in conducting their own research and preparing their paper, it is expected that the authors then properly cite or quote the work and ideas of others. Submitted papers, as well as papers that are accepted for publication, should include enough information and data so that others can accurately reproduce or build upon their work.

It is also the authors responsibility to correct the scientific record should later errors, inaccuracies or other issues be found in their published work.

Peer Review Process & Policy

All manuscripts are submitted online via the InterPore Journal website, and upon submission, the manuscript is assigned a number (please use this number in all communications with the Editorial Office or use the function within your author center via the relevant manuscript to contact us). A single anonymized peer review process is set up in our system as the standard, however, the authors can choose to instead have a double anonymized or open review process if preferred. This should be stated with the original submission; the Managing Editor will follow up with the submitting author when this is unclear. In a single anonymized review process, the names and affiliations of the authors are known to the reviewers, while the names and affiliations of the reviewers remain unknown. In a double anonymized review process, all names and affiliations are kept confidential, whereas in an open review process, both the names and affiliations of the authors and reviewers are known.

Articles are first checked for completeness by the Managing Editor, after which they are then assigned to the Editor-in-Chief (EIC). The EIC will then perform an initial review of the manuscript regarding its suitability for this journal. Articles may be rejected at this point if they are deemed unrelated to the scope of the journal or if the quality is too low. Should no issues be found, the manuscript will then be assigned to an Editor, based on their specialty, who will then manage the entire peer review process. Articles are normally sent to two external reviewers who are considered experts in the field of the paper, and when necessary further opinions will be sought out. The Editor will also review any stated conflicts of interest to ensure that appropriate reviewers are selected. The Editor will also consider reviewers which have been suggested by the submitting author when inviting the reviewers.

Once all reviews have been completed, the assigned Editor will evaluate the reviews and make a recommendation (Reject, Major Revision, Minor Revision, Accept) for the EIC, who will then review everything and then issue the final decision to the authors.

Please note that for the following article types, peer review may be performed at the Editors discretion: Commentaries on Previously Published Articles, Invited Commentaries, Letters to the Editor, Short Communications, and Invited Commentaries.

Conflicts of Interest

Our conflict of interest policy applies to all involved in the peer review and decision making process for all submitted manuscripts. This includes the authors, the Editor-in-Chief, the Editors, all Editorial Board Members and the Reviewers. The main goal is to ensure that all possible conflicts of interest are recognized and accounted for.

Authors

The corresponding author is required to declare on behalf of all authors any actual or potential conflicts of interest during the submission process. This can be done either in the cover letter or within the field “Comments for the Editor. All papers which are published are also required to have a Conflict of Interest Statement at the end in which all possible and actual conflicts are declared.

Editors

For situations in which an Editor, including the Editor-in-Chief, has a conflict of interest in regards to a submitted paper, then that Editor will be removed from the entire review and decision making process for that paper. This would also include the situation where the Editor, or Editor-in-Chief is one of the authors of a submitted paper, or otherwise involved as a supervisor or related to the authors of a submitted paper.

Editors who are assigned to a specific submitted paper are required to inform the Editor-in-Chief should a conflict of interest exist in relation to a paper assigned to them. Examples of possible conflicts of interest include handling papers from current or former students, current work colleagues, individuals with whom the editor is currently or has recently collaborated with or with whom they are a joint grant holder. In such situations, a new editor will be assigned the paper, and the past editor will no longer be involved in any form with that paper.

Reviewers

When assigning reviewers to a paper, the assigned Editor will make sure to select reviewers that should not have a conflict of interest in relation to the authors. Any reviewers which the authors have indicated should be avoided will be honored. Reviewers should declare any conflicts of possible or actual conflicts of interest in regard to papers they have been invited to review, and they should not review any papers for which there is a conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest include situations in which the reviewer has a personal, professional, financial, or institutional connection with one or more of the authors. A conflict of interest may also exist when the manuscript is closely related to the reviewers own current work in progress. If a reviewer feels that there may be a conflict of interest, then the Editor should be informed so that the situation can be examined, and if necessary, the reviewer removed from that specific paper.

Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest

If at any point during the review or production process it is suspected or known that there is an undisclosed conflict of interest, please inform the Editorial office at Laura.Lenz@interpore.org so that we can investigate and take the required steps to correct. During this process, we will refer to the COPE guidelines. This may include contacting the author(s), reviewer(s), or assigned Editor, and if necessary, the relevant institution. The review or production process may be placed on hold until the concern has been investigated and resolved. Resolution may also require the authors to submit a signed conflict of interest statement. Should an undisclosed conflict of interest concern arise following publication, then the same investigative process will be followed and may result in post-publication changes, including publishing or a retraction or correction to the Conflict of Interest Statement as well as making a public record informing the readership of this investigation.

Publication Decisions

The Editor-in-Chief holds final authority regarding which papers will in the end be accepted for publication. This decision will be based on the paper’s quality, its importance and originality or novelty, and its contribution to the scientific literature and on the comments received from the Reviewers and the recommendation received from the Editors. When needed, the Editor-in-Chief may confer with the editor(s) in making these decisions.

One exception to this is the situation where the Editor-in-Chief is an author of a submitted paper. In such situations, as previously described, the Editor-in-Chief will not be involved in the review process. Instead the paper will be assigned to an Editor who will then have final decision authority in regards to that specific paper.

Editorial Policies

Authorship and Contributorship

When considering who can be considered an “author” we follow the guidelines set out by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which state that in order to be considered an author, one must meet all of the below requirements (as taken from the ICMJE):

  • Have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition of data for the work; and
  • Have been involved in drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; and
  • Given final approval of the version to be published; and
  • Have agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Anyone who does not fulfill all four criteria should be listed in the acknowledgements.

If a collaboration group should be listed as an author, the group name should be listed along with all individual members of the group that accept responsibility for the article (as defined by the Council of Science Editors). All individual members of a collaboration group can then be listed in the “Acknowledgements” section.

Large Language Models or other artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies cannot be listed as an author. However, if any AI-assisted technologies were used at any stage during the research or in the preparation of the paper, this should be noted in the cover letter and documented in the Materials and Methods section. Any text or images which have been produced by AI should be carefully controlled and verified to be free of any plagiarism, errors, or biases.

When writing the Authors Contributions statement, we recommend that authors use the CRediT format, which is a taxonomy system that includes 14 defined roles that can be used to represent the various possible author contributions. By identifying who performed what work, one increases transparency as well as ensuring that credit and responsibility for the work are attributed to the appropriate individual(s).

Changes in Authorship & Authorship Disputes

Prior to first submission, it is the responsibility of the authors to discuss and agree to the names of all authors listed in the paper, the order in which they are listed, and the contributions stated for each author. Once a paper has been submitted, any change to the names of authors for a paper, including addition, deletion or changing of order will require the authors contacting the Editorial Office via an official letter in which the desired change is described and an explanation as to why this change is desired. It will also be necessary for all authors to agree to the change as well as why the change is required. Should the request occur prior to publication of the paper, the review process or production process will be put on hold until the change request has been resolved. Should the request come once the paper has been published, further investigative steps may be required, and if necessary, a correction or letter will be published to the paper. When processing such requests, we will refer to the guidelines and flowcharts that COPE has made available.

Please note that minor changes, such as a misspelled names, institutions, or credentials can generally be corrected at the discretion of the Editor without requiring contacting all authors. However, it would be best to let all authors know of these corrections for transparency’s sake.

Errata, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

If an error, discrepancy or misrepresentation be found in one’s own published article, it is the duty of the author(s) to inform the journal editor or editorial office as soon as possible. Should a non-author inform the journal editor or editorial office of a possible error in a published article, then the author(s) of the paper in question will be contacted for confirmation and a correction. Errors in papers will  require publication of a correction or erratum, and these corrections will be made in such a way so that secondary publication services such as PubMed will also identify these corrections as belonging to the original article.

Publication of an Expression of Concern may be done to raise awareness of a potential issue with an article in the following instances:

  • when investigation of the concern is inconclusive,
  • when there is evidence that the findings may be unreliable but the authors(s) or their institution will not investigate,
  • when an investigation cannot be completed in a fair, impartial or conclusive way, or
  • when an investigation is being conducted, but it may take some time until a conclusion can be reached.

When deciding whether or not to publish an expression of concern, we will refer to the COPE guidelines on this.

Data, Code & Protocol Availability

We currently encourage all authors to share their research data, code, and experimental protocols via public repositories. We also require that all published papers include a “Data and Code Availability” statement. The decision to publish will not be affected by whether or not authors share their research data, code and/or protocols. For more information on this policy, please see here.

Previous Publications and Preprint Servers

InterPore Journal publishes original research which has not been previously published elsewhere and which is not under consideration elsewhere. During the original submission process, the corresponding author on behalf of all authors confirms that “the submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration”.

Electric preprints (a pre-publication version of an author’s work that has been deposited on a preprint server or institutional website prior to undergoing peer review at a journal) are not considered as a previous publication. However, the author must inform the editor in the cover letter at the time of first submission should their article be available as a preprint prior and provide a link to this preprint along with any relevant licensing information. Should the article later be accepted for publication in InterPore Journal, then the preprint publication should also be updated to include the reference to the published article along with its URL link and DOI.

We also do not consider submissions based on abstracts or conference posters to be a previous publication. We however do ask that should your paper be based on an abstract or conference poster to state this in the cover letter and to provide a link to the abstract or conference poster.

Should your article have been previously published as an abstract elsewhere, this should be mentioned in the cover letter including where and when it was published as an abstract, and if possible, a link to the published abstract.

If during the review process it is discovered that the paper has already been published elsewhere, the paper will then be removed from the peer review process and no longer considered for publication. Should the paper have already successfully completed the review and is now published, a retraction may be required. The same goes for if the findings presented in the paper have already been published elsewhere. When deciding whether or not a paper should be retracted, we will refer to the COPE Guidelines.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, as defined by the World Association of Medical Editors, is “the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source.” There are four main forms of plagiarism: Direct plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, self-plagiarism, and overlapping (“salami slicing”) publication.

Direct plagiarism, as defined by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), is “the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work.” This includes “the unauthorized use of ideas or unique methods”.

Duplicate or redundant publication, according to ORI, is when content submitted for publishing, or content which has already been published, is a near verbatim of complete copying of one’s own content that has already been published elsewhere and not properly cited. This can include using the same dataset or materials and methods from a previous publication.

“Text recycling” or self-plagiarism is similar to duplicate or redundant publication. This occurs when one reuses portions of their previous work into a new manuscript and not providing a citation to the original source(s). At times this may be acceptable – such as when one is writing the Materials and Methods section of a paper - as long as the original source is appropriately cited.

“Salami slicing” or minor overlap, according to ORI, is when ones work is similar to other published works of theirs, but not so similar as to constitute clear recycling of previous publications.

Should a case of plagiarism or duplicate/redundant/overlapping publication ever be suspected or reported to us, we will take the necessary steps, which may include submitting the manuscript text to a screening tool such as the Crossref Similarity Check or iThenticate Service and/or contacting the relevant institution.

For more information on plagiarism, please see the following websites, to which we also referred to when writing the above section:

Post-publication discussions and corrections

InterPore Journal offers readers the chance to comment on papers which have previously been published in our journal. Comments should be submitted under the category “Commentary on a Previously Published Article” and they should be submitted within 12 months of the publication date of the paper being commented upon. Commentaries should be well reasoned and backed up with evidence. The Editor-in-Chief or a nominated Editor will decide whether a commentary is valid and meets the standards for publication. Commentaries may also undergo peer review at the Editor's discretion, and revision prior to publication may be required. In most cases, if a commentary is accepted for publication, the authors of the original paper will first be contacted and invited to provide a response. Should the authors provide a response, the response will be published alongside the Commentary, and both will be linked to the original paper.

References

We have referred to the following websites when putting together our policies outlined here: