Misconduct and Sanctions

Please report any suspected breach of CSDT's publication ethics policies to the journal, whether it concerns a manuscript under review or an article already published. The same applies to concerns about research ethics. You may remain anonymous if you wish.

When we receive a report, the editors investigate it thoroughly. Authors may be asked for underlying data, images or other supporting material, and we may consult other editors or ask the relevant institution or employer to investigate.

If a manuscript is found to breach our ethical guidelines, it will be rejected. Such breaches include duplicate submission, fabricated data, plagiarism, citation manipulation and false claims of authorship.

If the article has been accepted but not yet published, we will remove it and post a notice of withdrawal. Authors who stop responding after review and provisional acceptance are also treated as having withdrawn. If the article has already been published, it will be retracted following the COPE Retraction Guidelines.

We follow the COPE flowcharts for handling misconduct.

Depending on how serious the misconduct is, the journal may also:

• Suspend the individual's right to submit for one to three years
• Bar them from serving as an editor or reviewer
• Report the matter to their institution, employer and funders

Honest, minor mistakes are not misconduct. They are fixed with a corrigendum if the authors made them, or an erratum if we did.