Scientific misconduct includes but is not limited to data fabrication, data falsification including deceptive manipulation of images, duplicate publication (repeated publication of data or ideas) and plagiarism (see our policy below). When scientific misconduct is alleged, or concerns are otherwise raised about the conduct or integrity of work described in submitted or published papers, appropriate procedures will be initiated. Dagstuhl Publishing plans to become a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and supports the recommendations of the COPE Core Practices in our policies and procedures. Dagstuhl Publishing`s proceedings and journal editors are expected to work within the framework of the Core Practices. When there are allegations of misconduct, Dagstuhl Publishing follows the COPE Best Practice Guidelines.
Publishing Ethics
Dagstuhl Publishing as a division of Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik GmbH (LZI, or Schloss Dagstuhl for short) and its series and journals adhere to CORE practices guidance laid by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and are committed to the rules of good scientific practice in accordance with the guidelines of the Leibniz Association and the German Research Foundation (DFG). By operating a central scientific research information infrastructure, we bear responsibility with respect to the integrity of computer science research results and the freedom of science for the international computer science community as well as for our own scientific staff. To ensure good scientific practice in the daily editorial and scientific work of the publishing team, we have established the following procedures and organizational structures which are designed according to COPE practices.
Ombudsperson system
LZI and the Leibniz Association provide ombudspersons for good scientific practice. For details see the LZI’s ombudsperson system.
1. Allegation of misconduct
2. Policies on authorship and contributor-ship
It is important to list everyone who made a substantial effort (study conception, design, data acquisition, analysis, drafting revising, approval of final version, including students or laboratory technicians) in completing the research paper, to avoid ghost publication.
Do not include your senior member, supervisor or any other person, if he or she has not actually contributed to your research paper because it will be considered as gift authorship or honorary authorship.
The author(s) must not violate the above instructions and is also advised to check COPE guidelines to avoid anything which is considered unethical in COPE guidelines. If we found any violation of COPE guidelines is done by author/authors, the action will be taken according to COPE guidelines on case-to-case basis.
3. Handling of complaints and appeals
Whenever a conflict of interest arises among the parties involved in the publication process (authors, reviewers, editors, journals, publisher) or there is an allegation of misconduct reported by any of these parties or a whistle-blower, the procedure described below will be followed. The publisher welcomes complaints as they provide an opportunity for improvement. The following points are only intended to give a broad overview and are not exhaustive. We adhere to COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and we will follow and act according to COPE guidelines on case-to-case basis for any complains and appeals.
To make a complaint reach Dagstuhl Publishing at publishing@dagstuhl.de with clear identification of the complaint nature and source of an address. All complaints will be acknowledged within five business days by email. Concern or issue will be taken seriously and required action will be taken against the complaint (if any).
A committee or panel will be formed and a notice will be served by email to the concerned person in 30 days. The composition of the panel depends on who the complaint or appeal is against. All parties involved in the publication process (authors, reviewers, editors, journals, publishers) to whom the complaint does not relate should be included. In general, however, all parties (especially all co-authors and all co-editors) are also always informed about all intermediate steps. After receiving the notice, the receiver will be liable to reply back with satisfactory reasons in the next 30 business days.
After receiving the response, the appropriate investigation will be initiated. Our panel will review the case in detail. An unbiased decision or action will be taken based on the final report.
For a unpublished contribution, we will review the allegation and make a preliminary assessment. If our panel decides that there is merit to the allegation, the manuscript will be rejected and the author(s) will be notified about the same.
For a published contribution, serious action will be taken like withdrawal, retraction or removal of the paper from publication. Unless there is an issue like plagiarism, misrepresentation of authorship, data falsification (fabrication), manipulation in the citation, the published contribution will not be retracted.
If you have any complaint or appeal to make against the decision of Dagstuhl Publishing, please address the mail to the ombudsperson of Schloss Dagstuhl and explain clearly the basis for that appeal and submit an appeal to ombud@dagstuhl.de and appropriate action will be taken.
4. Policies on conflicts of interest
Conflicts of interest (COIs, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. This can happen at any stage in the research cycle, including during the experimentation phase, while a manuscript is being written, or during the process of turning a manuscript into a published article.
If unsure, declare a potential interest or discuss with the editorial office. Undeclared conflicts may incur sanctions. Submissions with undeclared conflicts that are later revealed may be rejected. Published articles may need to be re-assessed, have a corrigendum/erratum published, or in serious cases be retracted. For more information on COIs, see the COPE guidelines.
Conflicts of interest do not always stop work from being published or prevent someone from being involved in the review process. However, they must be declared. A clear declaration of all possible conflicts – whether they actually had an influence or not – allows others to make informed decisions about the work and its review process.
If conflicts of interest are found after publication, this may be embarrassing for the authors, the editor and the journal. It may be necessary to publish a corrigendum or reassess the review process.
Conflicts include the following:
- Financial — funding and other payments, goods and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
- Affiliations — being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
- Intellectual property — patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization
- Personal — friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections
- Ideology — beliefs or activism, for example, political or religious, relevant to the work
- Academic — competitors or someone whose work is critiqued
Authors
Authors must declare all potential interests when submitting a manuscript, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict. If there are none, the authors should state “The author(s) declare(s) that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.” Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests.
Authors must declare current or recent funding (including article processing charges) and other payments, goods or services that might influence the work. All funding, whether a conflict or not, must be declared in the ‘Funding Statement’.
The involvement of anyone other than the authors who 1) has an interest in the outcome of the work; 2) is affiliated to an organization with such an interest; or 3) was employed or paid by a funder, in the commissioning, conception, planning, design, conduct, or analysis of the work, the preparation or editing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish must be declared.
Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers and included in the published article.
Editors and reviewers
Editors and reviewers must decline to be involved with a submission when they
- Have a recent publication or current submission with any author
- Share or recently shared an affiliation with any author
- Collaborate or recently collaborated with any author
- Have a close personal connection to any author
- Have a financial interest in the subject of the work
- Feel unable to be objective
Reviewers must declare any remaining interests in the ‘Confidential’ section of the review form, which will be considered by the editor.
Editors and reviewers must declare if they have previously discussed the manuscript with the authors.
5. Policies on data sharing and reproducibility
Dagstuhl Publishing is an Open Access publisher. This means the published manuscript's data can be used by others until they properly attribute it according to Creative Commons CC BY License.
Dagstuhl Publishing encourages authors to share the data, software, source code and other artifacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors should include an availability statement to their paper including information regarding the research artifacts and links to the repository they have used. This statement will describe how the artifact (e.g., the data) can be accessed, and include a persistent identifier (e.g., a DOI for the data, or an accession number) from the repository where you shared the artifact. Shared artifacts should be cited.
6. Policy on ethical oversight
According to COPE “Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices”. Dagstuhl Publishing is compiling the above policy and if we find any breach of the above policy, we will take action according to COPE policy.
7. Policy on the intellectual property
All series and journals published by Dagstuhl Publishing are open-access series and journals. This means all content can be accessed immediately after publication free of charge. Authors retain copyright and all content can be reused unrestrictedly according to the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. Preprints (pre-review manuscripts), post prints (authors accepted manuscripts, AAM), and the version of record (VoR) can be deposited without restrictions.
7.1 Plagiarism policy
Plagiarism is the unattributed appropriation of someone else’s work (data, words or theories) as an author’s own, or more commonly, the re-use of chunks of text from published papers by the same author(s) (self-plagiarism). Plagiarism is not acceptable in Dagstuhl Publishing proceedings and journals.
If plagiarism is detected before acceptance, the author(s) will be asked to rewrite the content and / or to cite the references from where the content has been taken. In some cases, the paper may be rejected.
If plagiarism is detected after a paper is published, the journal will conduct an investigation following COPE guidelines, and appropriate procedures will be initiated. If plagiarism is found, a Corrigendum/Erratum (see below) may be published. In severe cases, the paper may be formally retracted.
8. Publishing management
8.1 Ownership and Management
All series and journals published by Dagstuhl Publishing are owned, funded, managed and edited by Dagstuhl Publishing. Dagstuhl Publishing is a department of the Leibniz Center for Informatics Schloss Dagstuhl, which is a member of the Leibniz Association. As such, Schloss Dagstuhl is advised and supervised in all scientific matters by its scientific advisory board. In order to be able to advise on publication-specific issues, a Publishing Advisory Board was also established in 2023.
The Dagstuhl Publishing Advisory Board has the task of supporting the publishing department of LZI Schloss Dagstuhl and providing scientific guidance. This board is composed of proven computer scientists and experts in research infrastructures. It advises on all matters concerning the strategic development of Dagstuhl Publishing and defines the guidelines and standards for the inclusion of new series and journals in the Dagstuhl Publishing portfolio. Separate Editorial Boards are responsible for the selection of content and quality assurance for each series and journal published by Dagstuhl Publishing.
8.2 Quality management of Dagstuhl Publishing
The quality of Dagstuhl Publishing's work and results is managed and controlled at various levels. At the highest level, the Publishing Advisory Board advises the LZI on all matters concerning the strategic development of Dagstuhl Publishing and defines the guidelines and standards for the inclusion of new series and journals in the Dagstuhl Publishing portfolio. At the operational level, Editorial Boards decide on the publication of conference proceedings (in the case of LIPIcs, OASIcs, Dagstuhl Follow-Ups and DARTS) or on the publication of individual works (in the case of LITES and the Dagstuhl Manifestos). The criteria for evaluation but also the necessary information for an application for publication are publicly available [1] and are continuously being developed. A criterion for all volume-based publication series (i.e., LIPIcs, OASIcs, Dagstuhl Follow-Ups and DARTS) is a peer review process organized and documented by the respective editorial board (e.g., by a programme committee).
After acceptance for publication, all articles undergo a clearly structured publication process in which, in addition to optimizing and standardizing the presentation according to the publisher's format guidelines, essential descriptive metadata is checked and completed (e.g., checking ORCIDs, completing and standardizing affiliations, adding cross-linking to related work and supplementary materials such as research data and software). All adjustments made by the publisher are documented. Before publication, first the authors and then the editors have the opportunity to make final corrections to the document and the extracted metadata. This allows authors to comment on changes made to the submitted version by the editors and also helps to clarify any inadequacies identified by the publisher. There are also opportunities to correct metadata and publications after publication. Everything is done in compliance with the guidelines and recommendations by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
In order to follow up on the needs of editors and authors, they have the opportunity to respond anonymously to a questionnaire after each publication.
[1] Criteria are different and individual for each series/journal, see https://www.dagstuhl.de/en/publishing/series.
9. Peer review process
All contributions (with a few clearly marked exceptions such as contributions to the Dagstuhl Reports or summaries of invited talks) are sent for external peer review prior to an editorial decision on regarding whether to accept or reject a submission.
Editorial teams are expected to adhere to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, and the editors and editorial boards receive ethical guidance and undertake professional networking. All series and journals of Dagstuhl Publishing adhere to the COPE guidelines for best practice.
10. Post-publication corrections and discussions
10.1 Corrigenda/Erratum
Dagstuhl Publishing will consider issuing a corrigendum/erratum to correct errors of fact to ensure an accurate publication record. A corrigendum/erratum will not usually be published for spelling or grammatical errors. A published corrigendum/erratum will be linked to the article’s version of record that it corrects.
10.2 Retractions
Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated use of data, major error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error) or the like similar incidences, the article may be retracted. Occasionally, a retraction will be used to correct major errors in submission or if the publication’s findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication).
A formal retraction will be considered after careful investigation if it is found that a published paper contains errors serious enough to invalidate its results and conclusions. Dagstuhl Publishing follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for retracting articles. The author(s) will be encouraged to assist in the investigation.
If a retraction is published, it will officially replace the original publication on the website. A 'RETRACTED' watermark and a retraction note on a new unnumbered first page will be added to the original paper. The authors are invited to express their agreement or disagreement with the retraction. Retractions (and expressions of concern) are 'authored' by the journal/editorial office.
10.3 Name change policy
In cases where authors wish to change their name after publication, Dagstuhl Publishing will update and republish the contribution and resubmit the updated metadata to indexing services. The editorial office recognizes that name changes can be sensitive and private for a variety of reasons, including (but not limited to) gender identity adjustment or as a result of marriage, divorce or religious conversion. Therefore, to protect the privacy of the author, Dagstuhl Publishing will not publish correction notes in the paper or inform co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the editorial office with their request for a name change.
Disclaimer
Any opinions expressed and information presented in series and journals of Dagstuhl Publishing are the views of the contributors and authors and not of the volume editors or Dagstuhl Publishing. The publication of contributions does not constitute endorsement or approval by the series and/or its publisher. Dagstuhl Publishing and its series and journals cannot be held responsible for any errors or for any consequences arising from the use of the information contained in this series and journals. While every effort is made by the volume editors to make sure that no erroneous or false data, view, or statement is published, Dagstuhl Publishing, and the volume editors accept no liability of any kind for the consequences of any such inaccurate or misleading data, information, opinion, or statement.