Publishing policy
Publishing policy
The following editorial and publishing policies apply to all of Nordic Society Oikos (NSO) journals, unless otherwise noted. In addition to the policies below, we encourage authors and editors to consult Wiley's Guidelines on Publishing Ethics.
Nordic Society Oikos | NSO Journals | Equity, Diversity and Inclusion | Editorial structure | Publication fees | Copyright and license policies | On authorship | Conflicts of interest | Sharing of data, materials and software | Policies regarding submission of a new taxon name | Manuscript referrals | Submission of related manuscripts | Reviewer and editor exclusions | Confidentiality | Corrections and additions | Publication ethics | Research ethics and animal treatment | Blogs, Wikis and the Media
NORDIC SOCIETY OIKOS
The Nordic Society Oikos mission is to support scientific research in ecology and related disciplines and to stimulate and enhance communication between stakeholders in ecological research in the Nordic countries and beyond. The aims are pursued through the publication of journals and monographs in ecology and related disciplines, through the organization of congresses and symposia, and other activities that lend support to ecological research in the Nordic countries and beyond.
NSO JOURNALS
The Nordic Society Oikos publishes five international scientific journals:
For detailed information on each journal, visit the respective website. The NSO journals are produced by the Oikos Editorial Office and published in cooperation with Wiley.
EQUITY, DIVERSITY, INCLUSION
It is the mission of the Nordic Society Oikos to advance synthesis in ecology by promoting an open and inclusive science that reflects diversity of approaches, taxa and environments. The NSO recognises that these aims can only be reached by welcoming submissions from authors of all origins, races, ethnicities, religions, ages, career stages, gender identities, sexes, sexual orientations, disabilities, or any other individual state. We request all authors to adhere to Best Practices in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in research as provided by their institutions, funding agencies or other sources.
The NSO works to ensure that there are no gender biases concerning scientific evaluation of manuscripts, nomination of editors and staff. Gender equality and neutrality is of utmost importance for all NSO activities. The NSO strives towards a gender balance in editorial boards, the appointment of editors and reviewers.
NSO emphasizes that all activities by the society, including the publication of journals, are free from religious, cultural and geographical biases.
Any statements of political, geopolitical or religious nature published in NSO journals are to be viewed as expressed by authors and must not be regarded as agreed on, sanctioned by, or representing the views of the editors, the journal, the NSO or the Oikos Editorial Office.
EDITORIAL STRUCTURE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Each journal is edited by one or several Editors-in-Chief (EiC). The EiCs are appointed by the Board of the NSO. The EiC carries the scientific responsibility for the journal, accepts/rejects manuscripts, upholds the aims and scope of the journal and appoints subject editors. An EiC is remunerated for his/her work by the NSO. The EiC of an NSO journal is not allowed to hold a similar position for any competing journal but may act as reviewers for such a journal. The EiC is welcome to submit manuscripts to the journal he/she holds the position as EiC for. In these cases, the manuscripts will be handled and decided upon by a Deputy EiC or Subject Editor (SE). Such a decision has to be seconded by another Deputy EiC or SE.
DEPUTY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Deputy EiCs fulfils the role as EiC when the EiC of a journal is unable to do so. Dep-EiCs may also act as coordinators of a journal’s special section, for instance Forum. Dep-EiC are remunerated. Dep-EiC are welcome to submit manuscripts to the journal he/she acts as Dep-EiC for. In these cases, the review and decision of the manuscript is done by another EiC.
SUBJECT EDITORS
A subject Editors (SE) is appointed by the EiC and represents specialised knowledge in his/her field. SEs are responsible for handling the review process, evaluating reviews and suggesting a decision on a manuscript to the EiC. SEs are not remunerated for their work. SEs are welcome to submit manuscripts to the journal for which he/she acts as SE. In these cases, the manuscripts are handled by another SE.
MANAGING EDITOR
Coordinates the activity of the journal and marshals the manuscript handling. A managing editor is employed by the Oikos Editorial Office and is welcome to submit manuscripts to the journal for which he/she is the Managing Editor. In these cases, the manuscripts are handled and decided on in a process separated from the ME.
TECHNICAL EDITOR
Technical editors copy-edit and/or proofread accepted manuscripts for NSO journals. A Technical Editor is employed by the Oikos Editorial Office and is welcome to submit manuscripts to the journal he/she is the Technical Editor for. In these cases, the manuscripts are handled and decided on in a process separated from the Technical Editor.
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF NSO/MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF THE OIKOS EDITORIAL OFFICE
Members of the Boards are welcome to submit manuscripts to any NSO journal.
PUBLICATION FEES
There is no publication fee for Oikos and the Nordic Journal of Botany. An author can choose to pay to publish a paper Open Access in these journals. In these cases, an APC (Article Processing Charge) will be charged, unless the authors institute have a Pay-to-publish agreement with the publisher (Wiley). The fee will be collected at acceptance, information on the APC, possible discounts and possible waivers are to be found on the website of the journal.
Ecography, Wildlife Biology and Journal of Avian Biology are fully Open Access journals, all accepted papers will be charged an APC. Our publisher, Wiley, has Open Access agreements with many countries, and researchers affiliated with universities and other research organizations in these countries may publish in NSO's Open Access journals with no direct cost (a list over current Open Access agreements can be found here). Through the partnership between Wiley and research4life, authors based in low- and lower middle-income countries can request automatic waivers and discounts during the submission process (a list over countries covered by the research4life partnership can be found here). In addition, the individual NSO OA journals may offer a limited number of internal waivers for authors not covered by any agreement or the research4life partnership. Information about internal waivers can be found the respective webpage of each journal.
The capacity to pay the APC will not have any influence on the review or the decision to accept/reject a manuscript submitted to any NSO journal.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE POLICIES
The NSO journals publish papers under two license policies: Open Access and non-Open Access. All licensing is administrated by the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS).
All Open Access papers are published under the CC-BY license. NSO does not allow papers to be published under the more restrictive CC-BY SA NC ND licenses. Read more about CC-BY here.
To publish non-Open Access papers, the authors needs to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA). The exact phrasing of the CTA depends on who the copyright owner is (author, authors employer, government etc). You can find more information about the CTA here.
ON AUTHORSHIP
PROCESS
All authors will be contacted by email at submission to ensure that they are aware of and approve the submission of the manuscript, its content, and the authorship of it.
AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA
All NSO journals base their criteria for authorship on those outlined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations, which are excerpted below. Contributions and input to a manuscript that fall short of authorship should be mentioned in the Acknowledgements section of the paper.
Condensed Statement on authorship: Papers should conform to recommendations for authorship provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. That is, authorship of a paper carries with it responsibility as well as credit. All those whose names appear as authors should have played a significant role in designing or carrying out the research, writing the manuscript, or providing extensive guidance to the execution of the project. They should be able to present and defend the work in a public forum. Honorary authorship is to be avoided. All authors must be in agreement on both the submission and full content of any article carrying their name. Any violation of these conditions represents academic misconduct and will be dealt with accordingly. Additional information on our view of authorship, e.g. on multi-author groups, see here.
CRediT
All NSO journals mandate the use of CRediT author contribution (Contribution Roles Taxonomy). This information will be entered when submitting the manuscript and is mandatory for revisions. The CRediT author contribution statement replaces any Author contribution statement written in the manuscript file. You can read more about CRediT here.
CHANGES IN AUTHORSHIP
The NSO journals follow the COPE guidelines and Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics covering changes in authorship. NSO journals will allow authors to correct authorship on a submitted, accepted, or published article if a valid reason exists to do so. All authors – including those to be added or removed – must agree to any proposed change. To request a change to the author list, please complete the Request for Changes to a Journal Article Author List Form and contact either the journal’s editorial or production office, depending on the status of the article. Authorship changes will not be considered without a fully completed Author Change form. Correcting the authorship is different from changing an author’s name (see information on authorship above and Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines under “Author name changes after publication).
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Only one corresponding author is accepted. The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way, and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication.
Please note that corresponding author does not give merit per se, but rather is the one person the Oikos Editorial Office turns to for any questions related to a manuscript.
CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS
NSO policy on conflicts of interests. NSO is committed to ensuring that research is as free from bias as possible and is seen to be so. It is increasingly recognized that everyone — authors, authors' employers (e.g. an academic institution, government department, commercial company, or other), sponsors of the work, reviewers, editors, and publishers — has conflicts of interests of some sort. It is difficult for individual readers to assess objectively whether conflicts of interests could have biased the presentation of, peer review of, or decision to publish a given work. Transparency of competing interests allows readers to better evaluate the possibility of such bias. Journals and their editors must take all competing interests into account during the review process and ensure that any relevant ones are declared in the published article. NSO journals therefore have the following two requirements:
Authors must declare all relevant conflicts of interest for consideration during the review process.
Editors (professional or academic, paid or unpaid) and reviewers must declare their own conflicts of interest and if necessary, disqualify themselves from involvement in the assessment of a paper.
What is a conflict of interest? The NSO defines a conflict of interest as anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to one of the journals. Conflicts of interests can be financial or non-financial, professional, or personal. Conflicts of interests can arise in relationship to an organization or another person.
SHARING OF DATA, MATERIALS AND SOFTWARE
The Nordic Society Oikos mandates authors to make freely available all data and metadata, custom written code (simulations and non-standard statistical analyses), and bespoke software necessary for fully replicating the analyses in accepted articles. When re-using datasets, these should be mentioned in the data availability statement and cited in the reference list.
The NSO believes that accessible and transparent data and code are essential for scientific progress and expects authors to adhere to minimum standards for data and code. Making data and code available in public repositories benefits authors, other researchers and the general public. Data and code sharing is key for reproducibility of research and allows assessment of the generality of findings. Archiving data and code, and issuing it a permanent identifier facilitates long-term preservation of data and code and reduces the burden of managing data access requests. It makes datasets and code citable and, thus, ensures that authors can be properly acknowledged for their work, for example, when the data is included in meta-analyses. Moreover, data and code availability can be the basis for invaluable training opportunities from reproducing previous analysis.
DATA AVAILABILITY
All NSO journals mandate authors to make all data, code and related metadata necessary to fully replicate the study publicly available in a permanent, freely accessible repository. Repositories may be either subject-specific (where these exist) and accept specific types of structured data, or generalist repositories that accept multiple data types, such as e.g. Dryad. At submission, the author(s) will be asked to provide the data and code for reviewers and editors. At this stage data and code does not need to be public. Exceptions to the data archiving policy will normally not be considered, except for data relating to e.g. sensitive species. For sensitive species etc, the first step should be to anonymise the data, so that e.g. locations cannot be identified, but analysis still can be performed. An exception to data deposition will only be considered if anonymising the data is not possible. Authors can themselves choose to embargo their data for up to 12 months, if the chosen repository allows this (the data will still have to be uploaded upon manuscript acceptance).
FOR REVIEW, please use, for example, Dryad’s 'Private for Peer Review' to provide anonymized links containing your data and code. If authors do not want to archive their data prior to submission (e.g., because the intended archive does not allow anonymous archiving), data and code can be uploaded directly as Supporting information in the submission system (zip files for large files).
FOR PUBLICATION, authors must obtain a persistent identifier such as e.g. a DOI for their datasets and code from a repository that is permanent and freely accessible.
If authors require an exception to any archiving policy, they should contact the editorial office in advance of submitting their manuscript.
If authors did not collect data themselves, but used another source, this source must be mentioned in the data availability statement and the data set(s) cited in the reference list. Authors who have questions regarding the policy, or readers who have difficulty accessing data, are encouraged to contact the editorial office of the journal.
UNACCEPTABLE DATA ACCESS RESTRICTIONS
NSO journals will not consider manuscripts for which the following factors influence the ability to share data:
The conclusions depend solely on the analysis of proprietary data (e.g. data owned by commercial interests, or copyrighted data). If proprietary data are used, the manuscript must include an analysis of public data that validates the conclusions so that others can reproduce the analysis and build on the findings.
EXPLANATORY NOTES ON THE MINIMAL DATASET AND MINIMUM STANDARDS FOR DATA AND CODE
The NSO defines the “minimal dataset” to consist of the dataset used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript with related metadata and methods, and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. Core descriptive data, methods, and study results should be included within the main paper, regardless of data deposition. Editors and reviewers may require particular data types for certain articles on a case-by-case basis. Authors who have datasets too large for sharing via repositories or uploaded files should contact the relevant journal for advice.
Datasets should be prepared so they follow the minimum standard as described in Jenkings et al. (2023). The key features are:
detailed metadata with a README file, describing relevant details about data collection, processing, analysis and presentation.
organised and clearly labelled data tables and files.
clearly outlined steps for data processing as described in the associated study.
if bespoke scripts, analysis, or modelling methods were used, all associated programming scripts, software, and code required to run any analyses used in the study. Clear and consistent file naming, avoiding long names, spaces, and special characters.
references to other data, where applicable. Primary data should be included, either via repository upload or in the Appendix (provide DOIs). Secondary data users should cite the original data resources and respect all the conditions of data (re)use set by the data creators or managers.
data should be stored in an open and re-usable format (e.g., .csv or .txt files for tables, not PDFs, and scripts in the original software format, not .txt).
clearly stated licence under which the data are distributed (e.g., CC0, CC-By etc).
GUIDANCE ON DATA REPOSITORIES
The NSO encourages that authors comply with field-specific standards for preparation and recording of data and select repositories appropriate to their field, for example deposition of microarray data in ArrayExpress or GEO; deposition of gene sequences in GenBank, EMBL or Dryad. Authors are encouraged to select repositories that meet accepted criteria as trustworthy digital repositories, such as criteria of the Centre for Research Libraries or CoreTrustSeal. Large, international databases are more likely to persist than small, local ones. Authors should not use repositories with licensing policies that are more restrictive than CC-BY.
Links to GitHub repositories do not fulfil the requirement of a persistent repository for data and code and authors are recommended to deposit their GitHub code on e.g. Zenodo to provide a permanent identifier (before doing so, please ensure that your GitHub deposit contains only files that are final and necessary). Instructions about how to do this can be found here. Authors can still link to their GitHub repository as a complement to the uploaded dataset.
AVAILABILITY OF CODE
As part of our commitment to scientific reproducibility, the NSO requires authors to provide custom data analysis or simulation code (e.g., R or Python scripts or notebooks) used to generate statistical results, figures, and models (no code is required for standard analyses such as t-tests or anovas). These may be provided as a single script or as separate scripts for each figure, table, or coherent set of analyses.
Code should be included in your data repository along with all data files needed to run the code. This allows reviewers, editors, and readers to check the statistical analysis if they so choose.
AVAILABILITY OF MATERIALS
The NSO is committed to ensuring the availability of materials that underpin any articles published in the NSO journals. The NSO's ideal is to make all materials relevant to a given article immediately available without restrictions.
POLICIES REGARDING SUBMISSION OF A NEW TAXON NAME
ZOOLOGICAL NAMES
When publishing papers that describe a new zoological taxon name, the NSO aims to comply with the requirements of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).
BOTANICAL NAMES
When publishing new names or nomenclatural combinations in botany, authors should strictly comply with all articles and recommendations of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (ICN). Editors of NSO journals should as far as possible make sure that new names and combinations published in NSO journals are validly published as defined by the ICN, but the full responsibility for compliance with the ICN remains by the author(s). The NSO should ensure that its journals are effectively published as defined by the ICN.
Apart from what is stipulated by the ICN, when publishing new names for previously undescribed taxa in NSO journals, authors and editors should make sure that 1) the description is based on studies of a sufficient plant material (in general descriptions based on single individuals/specimens are not acceptable), 2) all preserved plant material used for the description, i.e. all types including paratypes, is explicitly referred to and deposited in accredited public herbaria, 3) a full description of the new taxon using the terminology established by the botanical tradition of the taxonomic group concerned is included, 4) the new taxon is explicitly compared with all previously known taxa with which the new taxon is likely to be confused, including the provision and discussion of diagnostic characters. If at all possible, type material should be distributed to several accredited herbaria.
MANUSCRIPT REFERRALS
Editors of Oikos and Ecography have the option to offer the author a transfer to the NSO sister journals Nordic Journal of Botany and Journal of Avian Biology. Manuscripts submitted to Ecography and Oikos may also be suggested for transfer to the Wiley Open Access journal Ecology and Evolution. The NSO journals also participate in the Journal Transfer Networks provided by the publisher Wiley. Journal editors may recommend your manuscript to a more suitable Wiley journal via an expedited referral process.
Transfers may be offered to facilitate rapid publication of good quality research that is unable to be accepted by the original journal. Manuscripts of authors who opt for a referral will be automatically transferred, along with any related reviews, for consideration by the editorial team of the receiving journal.
SUBMISSION OF RELATED MANUSCRIPTS AND PREPRINTS
RELATED WORK
If related work has been submitted elsewhere, then a copy must be included with the article submitted to the NSO journal. The EiC and SEs will evaluate the degree of overlap and the decide whether to send the submission to reviewers or not. If so, reviewers will be asked to comment on the overlap between related submissions.
PREPRINTS
The NSO journals will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.
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REVIEWER AND EDITOR EXCLUSIONS
Upon submission of a manuscript, authors are asked whether they wish to exclude any specific academic editors or reviewers from the peer review of their article. The editorial team will respect these requests so long as this does not interfere with the objective and thorough assessment of the article.
CONFIDENTIALITY
Editors and reviewers are required to treat all submitted manuscripts in strict confidence.
CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS
The NSO publishes corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern as appropriate, and as quickly as possible. We follow the ICMJE and COPE guidelines where applicable.
An erratum will be issued by the NSO to document and correct substantial errors that appear in articles when these errors significantly affect the content or understanding of the work reported (e.g. error in data presentation or analysis) or when the error affects the publication's metadata (e.g., misspelling of an author's name). In these cases, NSO will publish an erratum that will be linked to the original article.
Authors who wish to alert the NSO to a situation where a correction may be warranted are requested to contact us with the relevant details (journal, full citation of the article, and description of the error) at the respective journal office.
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PUBLICATION ETHICS
All NSO journals are members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), abide by its Code of Conduct and aim to adhere to its Best Practice Guidelines.
We will vigorously investigate allegations of publication misconduct in NSO journals (both before and after publication) and reserve the right to contact authors’ institutions, funders or regulatory bodies if needed. If we find conclusive evidence of misconduct, we will take steps to correct the scientific record, which may include issuing an erratum or retraction.
The following list outlines some key issues in Publication Ethics. It is not an exhaustive list. For further details authors should consult the references below.
Authors are expected to be aware of, and comply with, best practice in publication ethics specifically with regard to authorship (for example avoidance of ghost or guest authorship), dual submission, plagiarism, manipulation of figures, competing interests and compliance with policies on research ethics.
The NSO has incorporated Similarity Check by Crossref, into its journal-wide submission system in order to screen submitted content for originality before publication. Each NSO journal undertakes screening of all submitted papers. Authors will be contacted if needed following the screening process. The NSO journals will follow COPE recommendations when suspected cases of plagiarisms are identified.
Reviewers and editors are required to treat manuscripts fairly and in confidence, and to declare any competing interests. In cases of suspected or alleged misconduct, the COPE flowcharts will be followed. We may also seek advice on specific cases at the COPE forum.
Any concerns about the above should be addressed to the Managing Editor of the respective NSO journal or to the director of the Oikos Editorial Office (director[at]oikosoffice.lu.se). More extensive resources are available here.
RESEARCH ETHICS AND ANIMAL TREATMENT
Articles will be accepted only if they are considered ethically sound in the judgement of the editor.
Authors should include details of animal welfare (such as species, number, gender, age, weight, housing conditions, welfare, training and the fate of the animals at the end of the experiment) and relevant details of steps taken to ameliorate suffering. These details should be included in the Methods section of the article. We strongly encourage all authors to comply with the 'Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments' (ARRIVE) guidelines. These have been developed by NC3Rs to improve standards of reporting to ensure that the data from animal experiments can be fully scrutinised and utilised. Relevant information should be included in the appropriate section of the article, as outlined in the ARRIVE guidelines. Authors are also encouraged to consult the Directive of the European Animal Research Association (EARA). The Directive sets out legal requirements to implement the 3Rs principles of replacement, reduction and refinement: replace animals with non-animal methods where possible; reduce the number of animals used to a minimum while still obtaining scientifically valid results; and refine practices to reduce any possible pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm to the animals.
Articles describing work with animals will be accepted only if the procedures used are clearly described and conform to the legal requirements of the country in which the work was carried out and to all institutional guidelines. A brief statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments must be provided upon submission to be included in the article.
Any possible adverse consequences of the work for ecosystems, populations or individual organisms must be weighed against the possible gains in knowledge and its practical applications.
Research relating to animal behaviour and fieldwork studies must follow the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour / Animal Behavior Society Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research (Animal Behaviour, 2018, 135, I-X), the legal requirements of the country in which the work was carried out, and all institutional guidelines.
Referees are invited to express any ethical concerns regarding animal experimentation, human studies, conservation issues or potential risk of misuse or maltreatment of animals.
BLOGS, WIKIS AND THE MEDIA
Authors may present and discuss their findings ahead of publication: at scientific conferences, in public databases, and in blogs, wikis, tweets, and other informal communication channels. We recommend, however, that authors do not contact the media or respond to such contact unless an article has been accepted for publication and an embargo date has been established. Respect for press embargoes will help to ensure that the work is reported accurately in the popular media and that the full peer-reviewed paper is available to any interested reader when the news item is published. However, if a journalist has covered a piece of work ahead of publication, this will not affect consideration of the work for publication.
Ver. 8, 2024-06-26.