JOINNew Resources on Best Practices for Guest-Edited Collections
Guest-edited collections, often published as special issues or themed volumes, curated by experts in a specific field, play an important role in scholarly publishing offering a focused exploration of contemporary topics, emerging trends, or specialised areas of study.
However, guest-edited collections have been accompanied by increasing challenges, including coordinated attempts to manipulate the publishing record and instances of guest editors perpetrating fraudulent behavior. In response to these publication integrity concerns raised by publishers, editors, and the scholarly community, COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics) published an initial Discussion Document on Best Practices for Guest-Edited Collections and hosted a discussion Forum on the topic in 2023. This timely and well-received discussion and document highlighted vulnerabilities facing journals and publishers.
The scholarly community further recognised the importance of developing formalised best practices to both support the vital role of guest-edited collections and protect against their misuse. Today marks an important milestone, as COPE and STM (the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers) jointly publish two new, complementary documents.
The formal COPE guidance, released today, consolidates and builds upon the key themes and recommendations identified in COPE’s earlier forum discussion and discussion documents on guest-edited collections. It aims to support publishers in recognising and preventing fraudulent activity in special issues, and underscores the importance of regular audits.
Working alongside these guidelines, and as part of its engagement with the community, STM’s Research Integrity Committee has started Task & Finish Groups to provide practical guidance on pressing research integrity challenges – including issues related to “special issues”. One such initiative focused on best practices for Guest Edited Issues. Drawing on the collective expertise of a wide range of publishers, this came to life as a detailed ‘how-to’ guide*, linked below, offering practical, step-by-step advice for conducting audits and implementing safeguards concerning guest editors and collection content. It emphasises the importance of validating guest editors before projects begin and conducting regular audits during and after peer review to detect misconduct and operational weaknesses, supporting more robust risk mitigation.
By working together, our organisations aim to empower publishers and editors to uphold integrity, transparency, and trust in guest-edited collections. We invite all stakeholders to consult and apply these resources as we strengthen best practices across the scholarly publishing landscape.
* While STM aims to make this guidance accessible to all editors and publishers, there is concern that its details could be misused by bad actors to bypass the quality and integrity measures of journals. Therefore, the STM document is currently only available in member-restricted sections of various organisations. Please contact Leila@stm-assoc.org should your organization be interested in sharing this document with its members. The COPE guidance is available without restriction.
Access the COPE Guidelines here.
Access the STM Guest Editors / Issue Validation and Audit here.