Ethical and transparent practices of the editorial board.

Abstract

The Australian Occupational Therapy Journal (AOTJ) is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), an organisation that supports editors, editorial boards, and publishers to ensure a culture of ethical practices. In accordance, the publication arrangements and policies of the journal must be ethically sound and transparent. It is particularly important that AOTJ, a society journal working with both Occupational Therapy Australia and the publisher Wiley, establish governance practices that are clear and transparent. The editorials within this volume of AOTJ have spoken to quality and research integrity, and it is time to take an inward view. The introduction of a publicly advertised expression of interest for board membership in late 2019 was a first step in creating transparent processes. A new structure was created within the editorial board: the Associate Editors continue to assist the Editor-in-Chief with the management of submitted manuscripts; and the Editorial Board Members (EBM) provide support for initiatives and reviews. The role of EBM supports new members to learn the business of the journal, including governance and publishing ethics, prior to their entry into role of Associate Editor and manuscript management. All members of the editorial board now have terms of appointment to support a regular turnover of members while ensuring continuity of knowledge and succession planning. The members of the editorial board are volunteers for Occupational Therapy Australia, and we are building a system of governance while recognising the importance of editorial independence. We are introducing an induction process for all new members to clearly outline journal policies and processes, code of conduct expectations, confidentiality statements, etc. The induction process includes a conflict of interest declaration and the board is examining how to manage conflicts of interest within meetings, management of manuscripts, and publishing. An upcoming, independently facilitated session will further develop our understanding of conflicts of interest in the context of a journal editorial board. As incoming Editor-in-Chief, I gave due consideration to perceived or actual conflicts of interest and implemented the following approaches early in 2020. Firstly, I consider that I have a conflict of interest during editorial and review processes for other occupational therapy journals. I have therefore made myself unavailable for the duration of my term with AOTJ. Secondly, I have identified a perceived conflict of interest for manuscripts submitted to the journal with a current colleague or collaborator as an author. It is now editorial policy to allocate these manuscripts to an Associate Editor for management, removing the potential for any perceived influence, and ensuring confidence in the rigorous review process and final editorial decision. The more difficult issue, for all members of the editorial board and myself as Editor-in-Chief, relates to publication within the journal. As leaders in the profession, the editorial board have collaborators and research students who wish to publish in their professional association journal. COPE advice that there are examples of when an editor may publish in their own journal but that every effort must be made to minimise bias (COPE, 2005). This advice has been applied across all members of the editorial board with the following processes. Any manuscript submitted by a member of the editorial board is managed by the Editor-in-Chief and the manuscript is reviewed by experts external to the board. Any manuscript submitted with the Editor-in-Chief listed as a co-author is automatically allocated by the publishing assistant at Wiley to an Associate Editor. The Editor-in-Chief has no access to the manuscript during any stage of the review process or the editorial decision. Finally, we are introducing a policy that any manuscript authored by members of the editorial board will include a conflict of interest statement that clearly outlines their association with the journal and how this conflict was managed during the review process. To be clear, the pursuit of ethical practices in publishing have always been a focus of the AOTJ Editorial Board. This year, with the support of Occupational Therapy Australia and Wiley, we are formalising existing policies and processes and enhancing governance practices. The AOTJ has a strong commitment to ethical and transparent practices that maintain the highest standards in publication ethics.