European Journal of Archaeology Publications Ethics Policy
Background and general standards
The Executive Board of the EAA and the Editorial Board of the EJA are committed to ensuring that high ethical publishing standards are maintained by the EJA and EAA.
As a benchmark, the EJA subscribes to the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://publicationethics.org/core-practices
The EJA also subscribes to the Ethics Policy of our publisher, Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/core/about/ethical-standards
This EJA Policy is based on COPE, but also on the particular experiences of the EJA and its Editors. It has been approved by the Editorial Board of the EJA and by the Executive Board of the EAA, and was last revised on the 28 August 2022. It complements the EAAâs Code of Practice. It is a publications ethics policy; not an ethics code for the EAA.
The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with these standards and to refer their authors to relevant professional bodies and higher authorities.
1. Allegations of misconduct
The EJA and EAA take seriously, and will investigate, any allegations of misconduct, pre- and post-publication (e.g. editors or reviewers requiring authors to cite their own work, or authors withdrawing papers after acceptance then submitting their work to a high impact factor journal)
2. Authorship and contributorship
The EJA expects transparency around who contributed to a submitted piece of work and in what capacity.
The list of authors should accurately reflect who carried out the research and who wrote the article. The names of individuals who have not contributed significantly to the work should not be included. The EJA expects authors to resolve disputes between themselves but will investigate allegations of authors stealing work and seeking to publish it under their own name.
3. Complaints and appeals
The EJA takes seriously, and will respond to, complaints about the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher.
Authors have the right to appeal against editorial decisions. Appeals or complaints can be addressed directly to the Editors of the EJA (ejaeditor@e-a-a.org), or to the President and Administrator of the EAA (president@e-a-a.org and administrator@e-a-a.org). Major appeals or complaints will be referred to the Executive Board of the EAA.
We will investigate and respond to all appeals and complaints in a timely manner.
4. Conflicts of interest/competing interests
We will seek to handle and resolve conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors, our journal and our publisher.
Conflicts of interests might include (but are not limited to) situations where authors or others involved in research might receive financial benefit from publication or have personal relationships which affect the conduct and dissemination of the research.
All authors and peer reviewers must declare any conflicts of interest relating to submitted work.
Sources of support for the research to be published must be acknowledged by authors.
Authors are invited to suggest specialist peer reviewers, and can also indicate the names of certain experts whom they would prefer not to be included in the peer review process for stated reasons (e.g. a strong personal conflict), although the final decision on selection of peer reviewers will be taken by the Editors.
5. Materials and methods
The EJA expects authors to make all relevant data available, as well as details of methods used, although it reserves the right to publish this as Supplementary Information online only.
Any allegations of data manipulation will be investigated by the EJA
6. Ethical oversight
The ethical oversight of the EJA extends to issues such as consent to publish, publication on vulnerable heritage, and ethical conduct of research using cultural and human remains.
We expect ethical approval to have been secured for all research published in the EJA. Indeed, where relevant, ethical clearance and IRB decisions should be noted in the final manuscripts. In accepting the terms and conditions of the EJA, authors guarantee that their work was produced free of research misconduct.
In line with the EAAâs Code of Practice (1.6) which states that âArchaeologists will not engage in, or allow their names to be associated with, any form of activity relating to the illicit trade in antiquities and works of art, covered by the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property.â Archaeological material knowingly obtained illegally from unprovenanced sources should not be published in the EJA.
Work dealing with human remains must have been undertaken according to national legislation and informed by professional standards. In line with BABAOâs Code of Ethics (6), we request that âWhere applicable, images of human remains should not be published without consideration to the views of any demonstrated genealogical descendants or affiliated cultural communitiesâ.
It is the responsibility of corresponding authors to obtain consent to submit work to the journal from all co-authors, before the work is submitted.
Submissions to special issues of the EJA are subject to the same editorial standards as all other submissions to the EJA and may be rejected by the Editors of the EJA.
The EJA advocates freedom of scholarly expression and, therefore, reserves the right to publish criticisms of published work and of scholars, including any firmly substantiated claims of misconduct, and to report them to professional organisations and higher authorities for further investigation.
The EJA will seek to support EJA authors who can produce convincing evidence that they have been bullied or harassed by other scholars for the views that they have expressed in the EJA.
The editors reserve the right to edit peer reviews, including reviewersâ requests that authors cite their own work.
7. Intellectual property, including copyright
Authors are responsible for ensuring that they hold intellectual property rights to the work that they submit to the journal, including copyright on all illustrations. They are also responsible for any costs associated with obtaining such rights.
Suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript will always be investigated, andâif provenâauthors will be presented with the evidence.
The EJA will not consider any paper submitted simultaneously to another journal.
We do not publish work that has been previously published elsewhere (partly or in full), including in a different language.
Full acknowledgement to other works used to produce the paper must be given.
Publication of EJA articles online, via Cambridge Core, on FirstView are considered to be fully published versions of articles with copyright held by the EAA, and cannot, therefore, be published elsewhere by authors or modified by them without permission.
8. Journal management
The Editors of the EJA, working in collaboration with our publisher Cambridge University Press, are responsible for managing the journal in an efficient manner. Our work and processes are subject to the regular scrutiny of the EJA Editorial and Advisory Boards, the EAA Executive Board and the EAA membership.
Submitted papers, specialist peer reviewersâ comments and editorial decisions are stored securely on our Editorial Manager system, and are subject to the Privacy Notice of Cambridge University Press: http://www.cambridge.org/about-us/legal-notices/privacy-notice/
9. Peer review processes
The EJAâs peer review process is expected to be described transparently and well managed. We have a two-stage peer review process. Peer reviews are initially provided to the Editors by members of our Editorial Board. If a paper is regarded to be of sufficient merit by the Editorial Board, it is then sent out by the Editors for external peer reviewed by a minimum of two invited specialist reviewers.
We do not wish to burden external peer reviewers with papers that are well below standard. Submitted papers may therefore be rejected without external peer review if they are deemed (following review by the Editorial Board) not to meet the EJAâs requirements. Such rejections are only made when a minimum of four Editorial Board members have offered comments to the Editors on the paper.
We always provide feedback to authors on rejected papers.
The names of authors of rejected papers are not included in EJA reports or shared with the Executive Board of the EAA.
Our peer review process is double-blind. The Editors will make all attempts to ensure manuscripts are fully anonymized before being sent for review.
Peer reviewers are, by default, anonymous, but may make their names known to authors should they so wish.
Peer reviewersâ comments are only shared with the Editors and authors and must not be disseminated more widely.
Peer reviewers are expected to maintain confidentiality of any information supplied by the Editors or by the authors, but they are invited to alert the Editors to any content that has previously been submitted for publication elsewhere.
10. Post-publication discussions and corrections
The EJA encourages debate post-publication, and is committed to correcting any publishing errors.
Authors of research and publications reviewed or referred to critically in the EJA do not have an automatic right of published reply in the journal, but are welcome to submit their own work for publication in the EJA.
If proven to have been in error, we will publish corrections (when errors could affect the interpretation of the research data or interpretations), clarifications, retractions and apologies in the next available issue of the EJA.
The General Editors
Catherine Frieman and Zena Kamash