Publication Ethics Services: Governance and Policies Your Indexers Will Check
Written policies, COPE-aligned case handling and submission screening for university, society and hospital journals. Your editors keep every decision; we make the process behind it stand up to an indexer’s review.
Prices in USD. Nothing above $2,000 is sold by self-checkout — it comes back as a written proposal.
The questions that arrive once the journal is running
Most ethics problems are a missing policy or a decision nobody on the board feels qualified to make.
"A reviewer says two figures look duplicated. Nobody on the board knows what happens next, or who writes to the author."
→ start with Publication Ethics Case Handling"DOAJ came back asking for our authorship, conflict-of-interest and corrections policies. We have never written them down."
→ start with Journal Policies & Author Guidelines"A guest editor is bringing eighteen papers for a special issue. Half the authors share his department, and he wants to run the reviews."
→ start with Special-Issue Oversight & Guest-Editor Checks"The dean asked whether our journal would pass an integrity audit. I said yes. I am not sure that is true."
→ start with Annual COPE / ICMJE Compliance ReviewEthics and governance services, priced per journal, case or submission
Start with the written policies. Add screening and case handling as submissions grow. Move to the annual program when the board wants one contract.
Journal Policies & Author Guidelines, Written for Your Journal
Removes: the "we have no written policy on that" answer to an indexer or a dean.
- Editorial, authorship, conflict-of-interest, data and licensing policies drafted for your field
- AI-use, corrections, retractions and appeals policies aligned to COPE Core Practices
- Author guidelines ready to paste into OJS or any submission system
- One round of board revisions included
Credibility Program — COPE, ICMJE & Editorial Board
Removes: six line items and the question of who is on call when a case lands.
- Full policy suite plus board governance documents (terms, rotation, COI declarations)
- Screening allowance, case-handling retainer and one training cohort per year
- Annual COPE / ICMJE audit with an evidence pack for indexers
Annual COPE / ICMJE Compliance Review
Removes: not knowing which practices an integrity office or indexer would object to.
- Line-by-line audit against COPE Core Practices and ICMJE Recommendations
- Gap list ranked by what indexers and funders check first
- Remediation plan with owners and dates, plus a signed summary for applications
Research Integrity Screening
Removes: paper-mill and manipulated-image submissions reaching your reviewers unflagged.
- Similarity, paper-mill signal and AI-disclosure checks on each submission
- Reviewer-identity verification for suggested reviewers
- Image forensics on figures where warranted
- Flagged report to the handling editor before review is assigned
Publication Ethics Case Handling
Removes: an allegation sitting in an inbox because nobody knows the procedure.
- COPE-aligned case management from allegation to closure
- Documentation, correspondence and a recommended action for the editor-in-chief to accept or reject
- Corrections, expressions of concern and retractions executed once the editor signs off
Special-Issue Oversight & Guest-Editor Checks
Removes: the special issue that later gets the whole journal flagged.
- Guest-editor identity, affiliation and publication-record check
- Conflict-of-interest screen across guest editors, authors and reviewers
- Review of the proposal, call for papers and reviewer pool before launch
Editor & Reviewer Training
Removes: board members never told what COPE expects of them.
- Live cohort for editors, associate editors and regular reviewers
- Case-based sessions on authorship disputes, COI, image concerns and appeals
- Your own journal’s policies used as teaching material
Align Your Medical Journal with ICMJE Recommendations
Removes: the gap between "we follow ICMJE" on the website and what the journal does.
- Clause-by-clause mapping of ICMJE Recommendations to your workflow
- Trial registration, data sharing and COI procedures written in
- Author forms and checklists updated to match
Also available
| Service | Unit | Price | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Appeals & Ombudsman Service | per year | $1,200 | Add to cart |
| Company-Sponsored Research Policy Alignment — GPP 2022 | project | $3,999 | Request a proposal |
| Licensing, Copyright & Author Agreements | project | $699 | Add to cart |
| Plan S & Funder Compliance | project | $899 | Add to cart |
From gap audit to an evidence pack for indexers
Week 1 — Gap audit against COPE and ICMJE
We read your site, submission system and last two volumes against COPE Core Practices and, for medical journals, ICMJE. You get a ranked gap list.
Weeks 2–3 — Write the policies for your journal
Authorship, COI, data, licensing, AI use, corrections and appeals, drafted for your field and reviewed once with the board.
Week 4 onward — Switch on screening and case handling
Submissions are screened before review. When an allegation arrives, a case file opens with the editor-in-chief as decision owner on every step.
Every 12 months — Review and evidence pack
The annual review checks what changed and what slipped. The evidence pack bundles policies, case logs and training records so applications are answered from the file.
Your editors decide. We run the process.
Editorial independence
The journal’s own editors keep final authority over reviewer selection, editorial assessment and acceptance. NeucitePress runs the process and the infrastructure — never the decision.
Platform independence
Open-source software (OJS), your own domain, your own DOI prefix, and full data export on request. You can leave at any time with everything.
No indexing guarantees
Inclusion in DOAJ, Scopus, Web of Science, MEDLINE or any other database is decided solely by that database. We prepare, document and apply — we do not promise outcomes.
Findings are recommendations
A screening flag or case report says what we found and what COPE guidance suggests. The editor-in-chief decides the outcome and signs any correction, expression of concern or retraction before it is issued.
Questions editors ask before they buy
Put the policies in writing before someone asks
Tell us where the journal stands and we will reply with the gaps we see and a written plan.
Nothing above $2,000 is sold by self-checkout — those requests come back as a written proposal within 3 business days.