Ethical Guidelines

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the use of another person's ideas, data, or text without proper attribution. It misleads readers about the true origin of the work and is a serious breach of publication ethics. The US Office of Research Integrity (ORI) provides a working definition of plagiarism, describing it as: "both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work. It does not include authorship or credit disputes."

Wiley routinely screens submitted manuscripts for duplicated text using tools such as Crossref Similarity Check. If significant and unexplained overlap is identified, we will follow COPE guidelines on handling plagiarism in a submitted manuscript or published article to resolve the issue.

Text recycling/self-plagiarism

COPE defines text recycling/self-plagiarism as "reusing one's own previous writing without being transparent about this or appropriately referencing/quoting from the original." Reusing text can sometimes be appropriate; for example, text recycled in a methods section of a manuscript may be more acceptable than text recycled in the discussion section. However, authors should always be transparent and cite the source. We follow COPE endorsed guidance on handling text recycling in a submitted manuscript or published article. There may also be copyright implications, and authors must ensure they have the necessary permissions for reuse, as copyright of the original material may belong to someone else.

Duplicate (redundant) and fragmented publication

COPE defines duplicate/redundant publication as "the publication, or attempted publication, of whole or substantial parts of work/data/analysis that have already been published (or have been submitted elsewhere), without transparency or appropriate declaration/referencing."

Publishing the same manuscript multiple times distorts the scholarly record and is a serious breach of publishing ethics referred to as 'duplicate' or 'redundant' publication. To avoid duplicate and redundant publication, manuscripts must be submitted on the understanding that they are not published, in press, or submitted elsewhere. Reproducing significant parts of previously published work without justification may also be considered as redundant publication. Authors should declare any potentially overlapping publications on submission.

Fragmented publication, also referred to as "salami slicing" or "salami publication", differs from duplicate publication in that it involves dividing research findings into their smallest possible publishable units. This practice is also unethical, as it distorts the scholarly record and artificially inflates publication counts. If fragmentation or duplication of research outputs is identified, we will follow COPE guidelines on handling redundant (duplicate) publication in a submitted manuscript or published article to resolve the issue. There are some exceptions, as outlined in the "Acceptable reuse and prior publication" section.

Acceptable reuse and prior publication

Some prior dissemination and publication can be acceptable and does not constitute duplicate publication if it is transparently disclosed and cited in the submitted manuscript as follows:

  1. Abstracts or posters that have been presented and published as part of conference proceedings. However, material already published in full as part of conference proceedings is typically considered prior publication as it is available in citable form.
  2. Results presented at meetings, for example, to inform participants about findings.
  3. Results in databases and clinical trials registries i.e. data in the form of tables and text to describe information, without interpretation, discussion, context, or conclusions.
  4. Dissertations and theses in institutional archives.
  5. Manuscripts placed on preprint servers (for more information see IJISIP's general preprint policy).
  6. Translations of previously published work may be considered at the discretion of the editor, provided that the original journal or publisher agrees and the original copyright is not breached. For further information see COPE's position on publishing translations of previously published articles and ICMJE guidance on acceptable secondary publication.
  7. Transparent co-publication of the same article in multiple journals to raise awareness of a particular topic (e.g. community guidelines) may be considered at the discretion of the editor.