Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas. Advances in Polar Science (APS) publishes in accordance with the following Publishing Ethics, which apply to authors, peer reviewers, associate editors, the editorial office and the journal as a whole. Details as applicable to APS can be found below.

Article assessment

All manuscripts are subject to peer review and are expected to meet standards of academic excellence. If approved by the editor, submissions will be considered by a minimum of two independent peer reviewers.

APS uses a single-blind peer review model. This means that the identity of the authors is known to the peer reviewers, but the identity of the peer reviewers is not known to the authors.

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. Transparency about the contributions of authors is encouraged. An individual who does not meet authorship criteria for a specific piece of work but has contributed in some capacity should be acknowledged, with their approval.

Editors and editorial team members are excluded from publication decisions when they are authors or have contributed to a manuscript.

In the event of a dispute or change request, at any stage of the publishing process, APS will be guided by the relevant Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowchart in deciding the appropriate action(s).

Plagiarism and test recycling

Plagiarism is defined as “using someone else’s ideas, words, data, or other material produced by them without acknowledgement”. All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wording must be limited and be attributed or quoted in the text. APS do not tolerate plagiarism in any of our manuscripts. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or part, will be rejected. If plagiarism is discovered post-publication, the published article(s) will be retracted.

Text recycling is when an author re-uses sections of text from their own previous publications without proper attribution. APS will follow COPE guidelines when assessing acceptability of text recycling in a given manuscript. If text recycling is deemed unacceptable, a submitted manuscript might be rejected.

Duplicate and redundant publication

Author(s) should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication, no matter in the same or a different language. However, publication in the form of an abstract, an academic thesis, or an electronic preprint will not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication.

Manuscript(s) submitted to APS must not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press elsewhere. And manuscript(s) must be withdrawn before being submitted elsewhere.

Fabrication and falsification

Data fabrication is the intentional misrepresentation of research data by making-up findings, recording, or reporting of results. Data falsification is the manipulation of research materials, equipment, or processes, including omitting and changing data, with the intention of giving a false impression. Manuscript(s) with fabricated or falsified the results, including the manipulation of images will be rejected. If fabrication and falsification is discovered post-publication, the published article(s) will be retracted.

Disclosure of interests and funding

Editors, authors, and peer reviewers should disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present, review or publish work objectively. These might include relevant financial, personal, political or religious interests.

All authors must include a competing interest declaration in accordance with APS author instructions. Peer reviewers are expected to declare any competing interests arising at any point during the peer review process. If a reviewer’s competing interest is too significant to mitigate, the reviewer should decline to be involved. Editors are responsible for declaring any competing interests and recuse themselves as appropriate.

Special issue policy

Special issue follows common policies as detailed above. The review process and editorial procedure for papers in special issues follows the same protocol as for regular papers.