Submission Guidelines
It’s wonderful news you are interested writing a post for a future edition of the Research Ethics Monthly (www.ahrecs.com/blog). Please email us as soon as you can at [email protected] if you’re working on a post and what the post will be about.
Research Ethics Monthly publishes short papers relating to human research ethics and research integrity with the aim of contributing to improvements in policy and practice. Consistent with that aim, we do not publish papers that seek only to expose particular examples of research misconduct or comment on examples that are still under investigation.
Research Ethics Monthly is produced at the end of each month. In general, we already have all the articles we need for the next three months. The deadline is the 20th of the month prior to when you would like your piece to appear. Research Ethics Monthly does use a peer review process. This is mostly done in-house using AHRECS consultants with an emphasis on constructive feedback.
The notional word count should be 350-750 words (excluding references) but, as you can see in past issues, there’s certainly precedent for much longer items – especially if your article provides practical tips for researchers, research ethics reviewers and/or research office staff.
In addition to text we can accommodate links, tables, images, charts, downloadable pdfs and short videos.
The tone of posts is typically formal and academic but we have certainly published more conversational pieces and do encourage people to write in plain English. You retain copyright of your submitted piece but grant us perpetual permission to publish it on this website and to distribute it via email. We do ask that you let us know if you publish it anywhere else.
The majority of our readership are based in Australia, around 13% are in the US, 7% New Zealand, with a few percent across the UK, SE Asia and Canada. While we welcome articles from any country, we particularly encourage submissions from colleagues in the Asia-Pacific region.
Research Ethics Monthly asks contributors to include a declaration of any conflicts of interest at the end of their article. The disclosure information must include relevant financial and non-financial relationships.
For further guidance, please see CSIRO’s conflict of interest policy.
http://www.publish.csiro.au/bt/PublishingPolicies#2
When you submit your post please also provide:
- How you would like your institution/position described;
- The URL of your staff profile (if you have one); and
- Whether you’re happy for your email to be listed for enquiries about your post.
Peer review
As associate members of COPE, we have adopted COPE’s ethical guidelines for peer reviewers. Reviews are pre-publication; single-blind with an option of being open if the reviewer wishes; the editor mediates initial interactions between reviewers and authors, once reviews have been submitted to the editor and returned to the author reviewers can communicate directly with the author if the editor considers that that is likely to be constructive for the author; peer reviews are not published; review is facilitated by the journal; reviews are owned by the authors of the reviews.
One of the editors takes the lead role on each article. Reviewers are largely drawn from the AHRECS team, whose names appear on the AHRECS website. These may include other editors. The lead editor may invite additional reviews where expertise is required that is not held within the team. The lead editor may also act as a reviewer; where this is done, it will be undertaken transparently and not under the guise of an anonymous additional reviewer.
Reviewers should only agree to review if they have the necessary expertise to assess the manuscript and can be unbiased in their assessment. Reviewers are expected to declare all potential competing, or conflicting, interests. Reviewers may provide confidential comments to the editor as well as comments to be read by the authors. The editor is expected to synthesise comments and provide clear guidance to authors about the decision of the journal and any revisions required.
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