Editorial Standards & Ethics

The below guidelines are expected of OSINT Insights staff to which all authors, editors, and members are expected to adhere.

  1. General duties and responsibilities of editors
    1.1. Editors should be accountable for everything published in their journals
  1. General duties and responsibilities of editors
    1.1. Editors should be accountable for everything published in their journals
    This means the editors should
    1.2. strive to meet the needs of readers and authors;
    1.3. strive to constantly improve their journal;
    1.4. have processes in place to assure the quality of the material they publish;
    1.5. champion freedom of expression;
    1.6. maintain the integrity of the academic record;
    1.7. preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
    1.8. always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

Best practice for editors would include
• actively seeking the views of authors, readers, reviewers and editorial board members about ways of
improving their journal’s processes
• encouraging and being aware of research into peer review and publishing and reassessing their
journal’s processes in the light of new findings
• working to persuade their publisher to provide appropriate resources, guidance from experts (e.g.
designers, lawyers)
• supporting initiatives designed to reduce research and publication misconduct
• supporting initiatives to educate researchers about publication ethics
• assessing the effects of their journal policies on author and reviewer behaviour and revising policies, as
required, to encourage responsible behaviour and discourage misconduct
• ensuring that any press releases issued by their journal reflect the message of the reported article and
put it into context

  1. Relations with readers
    2.1. Readers should be informed about who has funded research or other scholarly work and whether the
    funders had any role in the research and its publication and, if so, what this was.
    Best practice for editors would include:
    • ensuring that all published reports and reviews of research have been reviewed by suitably qualified
    reviewers (including statistical review where appropriate)
    • ensuring that non-peer-reviewed sections of their journal are clearly identified
    • adopting processes that encourage accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting including
    technical
    • editing and the use of appropriate guidelines and checklists
    • considering developing a transparency policy to encourage maximum disclosure about the provenance of
    non-research articles
    • adopting authorship or contributorship systems that promote good practice (i.e. so that listings
    accurately reflect who did the work)4 and discourage misconduct (e.g. ghost and guest authors)
    • informing readers about steps taken to ensure that submissions from members of the journal’s staff or
    editorial board receive an objective and unbiased evaluation