Publication Integrity & Ethics (PIE) was developed over a decade ago to address several areas of concern and promote real editorial freedom.Read more.
Join PIE
Journal
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You are invited to join the Publication Integrity and Ethics as one of its founding members. PIE offers free membership to all interested individuals. Read more. |
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As an Editor-in-Chief Member you will play a central role in shaping the organisation; you will benefit from the many and varied facilities the P.I.E. Read more. |
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The Publication Integrity and Ethics intends to publish a special peer-reviewed periodical that will publish short debate articles in science. Read more. |
Read about Publication Integrity and Ethics
- P.I.E. history - P.I.E. council -
While membership of PIE has many benefits for individual editors, peer-reviewers and authors, journals may also capitalise from membership of the editorial team and the staff that contributes to it.
The editor-in-chief of a journal is the person that is ultimately responsible for the ethical conduct of their team as they have the ability to take action whenever it is required to, in order to maintain the standards of best practice. These standards may be maintained when all the members of the staff hired by the publisher follow the guidelines and the code of ethical editorial conduct. While they may comply with the PIE guidelines even if they are not members of the organisation, the membership allows them to be up to date with changes that occur in the guidelines.
Membership also renders the code mandatory for all individuals registered with the Publication Integrity and Ethics. Moreover, PIE facilitates the resolution of any complaints formulated against the journal or by the staff of the journal against other publications. The PIE Council Sub-Committee offers mediation, access to information and a simple, effective procedure of analysing and closing disputes. Usually, complaints are formulated against journals or editors-in-chief about articles, images, news, reports, scientific research and other published material.
Who can complain to the PIE Council?
Any member, whether he or she is part of an editorial team or not, may formulate a complaint about published material. The PIE organisation and its Council Sub-Committee facilitate the dialogue between complainant and the journal through its website. However, PIE does not encourage publishers to formulate complaints against other publishers.
When should complaint be made against a journal? Individuals may formulate complaints as soon as an ethical problem is signalled, or any other issues regarding the editorial work such as:
- author mistakes
- authorship of an article
- copyright infringement
- publishing without consent
- data fabrication/manipulation/falsification
- editorial independence and decisions
- editorial misconduct
- ethical problems regarding the editorial team
- lack of ethical approval from peer-reviewers
- issues regarding article submission
- confidentiality of the source or participant to a study
- inappropriate peer-review process
- complaints about plagiarism
- issues about the role of the publisher
- retraction of published articles
- selective reporting of data…and more.
Apart from the editors-in-chief and authors, members of the editorial board are also welcomed to register freely with PIE. By becoming members of the organisation, they agree to follow the PIE guidelines and to comply with the code of good and ethical editorial conduct. Their duty is to also signal any misconduct or breaches in the guidelines and take immediate action. They must promptly correct the errors if they are related to their publication or formulate complaints against other publications if it is the case.
