General principles

For the purposes of this policy on the correction and retraction of articles, [Name of Journal] follow, at the best of its ability, the guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and refers to them when processing the requests described below.

The editorial board of [Name of Journal] is solely responsible for deciding whether articles submitted will be published. This decision is informed by the journal's policies and framed by the legal and ethical requirements regarding defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Following the good practice and the principles of quality scholarly publishing, the editorial board of [Name of journal] recognises the importance of and its obligation to maintain the accuracy, integrity and completeness of the content it publishes. However, it recognises the eventuality that an article may need to be amended, retracted or even deleted following its publication. In such cases, the necessary actions will never be taken lightly. This policy is intended to inform and govern the terms and procedures for all changes and corrections to content published by [Name of Journal], and the reason for such changes. 

The editorial board of [Name of Journal] therefore reserves the right to publish corrections, retraction statements and other post-publication updates.

Corrections

[Name of the Journal] encourages its readers and authors to point out any errors or shortcomings in the articles, as long as these relate to the accuracy of the information published. Only errors that have a significant impact on the article will be considered. Any corrections to a published article will be made with the permission and at the discretion of the Editorial board of the journal. The correction procedure depends on the stage of publication of the article.

The extent of corrections is at the discretion of the editorial board. Minor corrections are made directly to the original article. For major changes, the editorial board of [Name of journal] recognises and will apply the following cases:

Erratum (= editor's correction)

Un erratum est une déclaration qui décrit brièvement toute correction résultant d'erreurs ou d'omissions importantes (généralement durant la production) qui affectent la version publiée de l’article, la réputation de ses auteur-es ou celle de la revue.

L'article corrigé n'est pas retiré du journal, mais un avis d'erratum est ajouté à l’article (version PDF et HTML).

Corrigendum (= author's corrections)

A corrigendum is usually published when errors are relatively minor and do not substantially alter the conclusions of the work, but nevertheless damage the scientific integrity of the article or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

The corrected article is not removed from the journal, but a corrigendum notice is added to the article (PDF and HTML version).

Addendum

An addendum is a notification that information has been added to an article. An addendum is issued when it has been determined that the additional information is crucial to the understanding of an important part of a published article. The addendum may be peer reviewed and is subject to the supervision of the journal's editorial board.

Please note that addendums are an exceptional measure and will only be published in cases of force majeure. All addendums are linked to the original article to which they relate and are noted in the PDF and HTML versions of the article.

Retraction

The retraction is a mechanism for alerting readers to articles with serious flaws in their content or data that render their findings and conclusions unreliable. The retraction procedure consists of the publication of a retraction notice. This notice indicates that the article is should not be considered as part of the scientific literature. The main purpose of the retraction is therefore to correct the literature and ensure its integrity without punishing the authors involved.

Retractions are issued if there is clear evidence that the results are wrong or fraudulent and therefore unreliable, resulting either from fraudulent conduct or honest error. Retraction may be considered in particular if:

  • The results have already been published elsewhere without proper referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication).
  • The article contains clear evidence of plagiarism
  • The article reports unethical research
  • The article contains obvious errors or the main conclusions of the article are no longer valid or are seriously challenged by new findings of which the authors were not aware at the time of publication

To protect the continuity and integrity of the scientific record, the retracted article is not removed from the online journal. The decision to retract is entirely at the discretion of the editorial board of [Name of Journal].

The retraction process begins as promptly as possible and is carried out as follows: a retraction notice signed by the authors and/or the editorial board is published in a subsequent issue of [Name of Journal] and the retraction is reported as far as possible to all platforms on which the article has been indexed or referenced.

The retraction notice shall be written in an objective and factual manner and contain the following information:

  • be unambiguously identified as a retraction, rather than an erratum or corrigendum
  • the reason for the retraction, in clear and unambiguous language that differentiates whether it is an honest mistake or fraudulent conduct
  • which aspects of the article are affected (i.e. what specific data or conclusions are invalid)
  • the person or entity behind the retraction and which authors accepted the retraction
  • the date of publication of the retraction notice (to clearly differentiate this date from the date of publication of the original article).

The retracted article is modified as follows:

  • the word "retracted" is added to the title of the article
  • a "retracted" watermark is added on each page of the PDF version of the article
  • the retraction notice is linked to the HTML version of the article and accessible without restrictions

Sources : COPE Retraction Guidelines, Atlantis Press