Decisions about Corrections, Expressions of Concerns, or Retractions resulting from an investigation are made by Editors-in-Chief, Section Editors-in-Chief or Editorial Board members, and communicated to authors. 

If a complaint is determined to be unsubstantiated, further communication will only be considered if new information or evidence is provided that substantiates the concern. Complainants may not receive updates on the status of an investigation until a final decision is made; however, they will be notified if any updates are published. The Editorial Office and Editorial Board members are not obligated to provide additional details beyond the final outcome.

Complainants should also be aware that investigations may take time to complete.

When submitting a complaint to the Editorial Office, please include: a clear description of the issue, its scholarly, scientific, or academic relevance, a summary of the main points, any prior correspondence with the authors, and a statement disclosing any actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest.

Corrections

Erratum

If errors are introduced into an article by the publisher, an erratum will be issued to correct the original article. All changes made by the publisher are highlighted to the author during the proof stage, and any errors should ideally be identified by the author and corrected by the publisher prior to final publication.

Corrigendum

Should the author wish to publish to a change to their article that at any time after acceptance a corrigendum will be published. Authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, who will determine the impact of the change and decide on the appropriate course of action. 

Retractions

Sometimes a paper needs to be retracted from the body of research literature. This could be due to inadvertent errors made during the research process, gross ethical breaches, fabrication of data, large amounts of plagiarism, or other reasons. Such articles threaten the integrity of scientific records and need to be retracted.

We follow the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction.

If a Retraction is published, the original publication is amended with a “RETRACTED” watermark, but will still be available for future reference. However, retracted articles should not be cited and used for further research, as they cannot be relied upon. Retractions are published using the same authorship and affiliation as the paper being retracted, so that the notice and the original retracted paper can be properly found by readers within indexing databases. 

A paper will only be completely removed in very exceptional circumstances, such as:

(1) The removal has been mandated by a court or government authority;

(2) The content threatens personal privacy or the legal rights of others, and cannot be sufficiently addressed through editorial notices or updates;

(3) The research was conducted or published unlawfully, and its continued availability may result in legal or privacy concerns;

(4) Despite being marked as retracted, the content still presents risks to the public.

Under these situations, the retraction notice explains why the entire paper has been removed, and only the metadata (title and authors) is kept.

Expressions of Concern

For complex, inconclusive, or prolonged situations, an Expression of Concern may be published. If investigations into alleged or suspected research misconduct have not yet been completed or prove to be inconclusive, an editor or journal may wish to publish an Expression of Concern, detailing the points of concern and what actions, if any, are in progress.