Publication Ethics Statement

NOASP, a division of Cappelen Damm AS, and all journals published by NOASP including Arctic Review on Law and Politics, comply with the membership guidelines and best practices set forth by the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

NOASP journals are listed with the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

NOASP recognizes the importance of the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record to researchers, librarians, and others and has therefore drawn up a policy on article corrections, retractions, plagiarism and peer review integrity.

Composition of Editorial Teams

Editors-in-chief must be of at least an associate professor level. Ideally the editorial team of each journal shall include at least one senior full professor. Editors-in-chief are highly involved in the selection of the editorial team. NOASP seeks to ensure that the editorial team is comprised of individuals from multiple institutions and preferably located in different countries to limit competing interests. In some cases, an editorial team may be based at one institution.

All journals are governed by an editorial board, the members of which may be appointed by the editorial team and, when appropriate, by the publisher. Members of the editorial board are charged with monitoring and safeguarding publishing ethics among other things.

Detecting Plagiarism

All manuscripts submitted to a journal published by NOASP are run through iThenticate* before being sent out to peer reviewers, unless rejected at the triage stage (direct rejection). The reports generated from iThenticate are evaluated by the editor-in-chief or a qualified subject editor.

Editors and staff are required to report any case of suspected plagiarism to NOASP. The publisher and editor-in-chief determine the steps to be taken vis-a-vis a case of suspected plagiarism.

*iThenticate is an online plagiarism screening service that verifies the originality of a manuscript submitted for publication.

Peer Review

Manuscripts submitted to a journal published by NOASP are subjected to external peer review. The decision to accept or reject a paper is based on comments from at least two reviewers. At least one of the peers will be an expert outside the editorial board. As a main rule, one of the peers will be from the same country as the author, or will be familiar with the professional tradition in the author’s country. Editorials, book reviews, and similar, are not necessarily peer reviewed.

If authors themselves suggest reviewers in a submission's cover letter, editors may contact these individuals if the suggestions are reasonable and the editor is confident that no competing interests are present (e.g. a colleague at the same department, a former co-author, or someone within the author’s research network).

Only scientifically qualified persons evaluate reviews and make the decision to accept or decline a submission. Typically, this means the editor-in-chief makes a final decision, or a subject editor or guest editor, where applicable. The editor-in-chief is accountable for the quality of editorial decisions.

Published manuscripts state the name of the responsible editor who managed the peer review process and made the final decision.

Editors consider competing interests when a manuscript is submitted by a colleague at their own institution or their own research network. In such cases, a co-editor – or an external trusted expert – with no such connections is asked to act as the editor for that particular paper.

Should a member of a journal’s editorial team submit a manuscript to the journal, a co-editor will be assigned to take charge of the entire review process and act as editor for that particular paper. Alternatively, the co-editor may assign an external trusted expert. The person acting as editor will be specified as responsible editor for the article, indicating that the editor who submitted the paper has had nothing to do with the evaluation of this particular article.

All manuscripts submitted to journals published by NOASP, including meeting proceedings, etc., are handled through the NOASP platform. In cases where a guest editor is involved in handling the review of meeting proceedings, NOASP will provide support and ensure that all materials are handled through the platform.

It is the responsibility of the editor-in-chief to appoint guest editors of special issues. Guest editors are informed that the practices outlined above also apply to them.

Peer reviewers are expected to disclose any competing interests. Reviews shall be objective and constructive. Reviewers shall consider the methodological rigor of the submission, the appropriateness of findings on the basis of methodology, the appropriateness of conclusions, proper establishment of the contribution within the scholarly literature more broadly, among other things. All reviewed manuscripts shall be treated confidentially.

Correction and Retraction Policies

Articles that have already been published will remain unaltered as far as is possible, though updated with information that an erratum/corrigendum or other amendment exists.

Article Correction

Should the author discover a major mistake or error in his/her article after it has been officially published online, the editor will be consulted/notified and if found necessary an erratum or corrigendum will be published. There will be links from the online version of the article to the erratum/corrigendum and vice versa.

Article Retraction

This action is reserved for articles that are seriously flawed, and the findings or conclusions cannot be relied upon. Articles may be retracted for several reasons. These may include honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to mixing up samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is subsequently found to be faulty) as well as issues such as research misconduct (data fabrication), duplicate or overlapping publication, fraudulent use of data, plagiarism or unethical research. For any retracted article, the reason for the retraction and the party that instigated the retraction will be clearly stated in a retraction notice. The retraction notice will be linked to the retracted article and the article will be clearly marked as retracted (including the PDF).

In-house Training

Editors-in-chief who become part of the NOASP network of editors receive initial training to review editorial guidelines and standards, and ongoing support from the publisher.

Each NOASP publication is assigned an in-house managing editor who is a member of the NOASP team at Cappelen Damm Akademisk. All managing editors receive initial and ongoing training in the detection of irregularities in the editorial process.

Internal Audits

To prevent and detect any potential breaches in proper editorial management of peer review – whether inadvertent or deliberate – NOASP carries out regular internal audits of all journals. Following a rotating schedule, each journal is subjected to a review every three years.

This audit covers a random selection of articles, including spontaneously submitted content and those from special issues where contributions have been invited and the peer review performed by a guest editor. Any articles submitted by a member of the editorial team during the preceding three-year period shall be included in the review.

All documents associated with the peer review of the selected articles are reviewed for: evidence of clear and appropriate external peer review, competing interests, and adherence to general practices and standards.

Author’s Responsibilities

Authors are responsible for disclosing all relationships that could be viewed as potential competing interests. Any authors listed must meet the criteria for authorship, which are described in the Author Guidelines of all NOASP publications. Other contributors shall be mentioned in the acknowledgements section of the paper and their contribution described. Authors shall verify that all data referred to in the manuscript are authentic. Any errors detected or other discoveries warranting a correction or a retraction of the article shall be brought to the attention of the publisher immediately.

Complaints Policy

Authors who wish to submit a complaint related to the peer review process should contact NOASP’s division leader, Simon Aase: simon.aase@cappelendamm.no.

Complaints regarding suspected abuse or inappropriate content shall be submitted to the specific journal’s editor-in-chief as a first point of contact, with a cc to Division Leader Simon Aase: simon.aase@cappelendamm.no.