WOLTERS KLUWER PUBLISHING ETHICS AND PEER-TO-PEER REVIEW

Wolters Kluwer expects the highest ethical standards from their authors, reviewers, and editors when conducting research, submitting papers, and throughout the peer-review process.

Wolters Kluwer is committed to:

Fostering the editorial independence of journal editors

Working with and supporting editors to set policies and run their journals ethically and transparently

Maintaining an accurate and transparent academic record, including publishing corrections and retractions when necessary

Responsibilities

Editors

Provide guidelines to authors for the preparation and submission of manuscripts

Establish a system for effective and rapid peer review

Make editorial decisions with reasonable speed and communicate them clearly

Establish policies for the handling of incidences of academic misconduct or systemic error that necessitate a correction of the scientific record

Communicate clearly all other editorial policies and standards

Reviewers

Maintain the confidentiality of the review process

Provide unbiased feedback in a timely manner, addressing the appropriate aspects of the work

Authors

Ensure that the submitted work is original and has not been previously published or submitted elsewhere

Cite source materials clearly and obtain appropriate permissions

Confirm that the work does not infringe on any rights of others, including privacy rights and intellectual property rights

Report any conflicts of interest accurately

Communicate to the Editor any material errors immediately upon discovery

Represent authorship of the paper accurately and ensure that all individuals credited as authors participated in the actual authorship of the work and that all who participated are credited and have given consent for publication

Here are the steps in the peer-review process:

1. An author writes an article to disseminate research or professional practice.
2. The author submits the article to a journal for publication.
3. Withholding the author’s name, the journal editor sends the article to one or more peer reviewers for feedback.
4. The peer reviewers independently read and evaluate the article and recommend whether it should be published. To ensure objectivity, reviewers don’t know who else is reviewing the article.
5. The journal editors also review the article and, based on their own judgment, knowledge of their readers’ needs, and the recommendations of the peer reviewers, decide whether to publish it.4

Not everything published in a peer-reviewed journal necessarily undergoes the peer-review process. For example, news items, editorials, letters, and book reviews may not be peer-reviewed.