The Coalition for Responsible Publication Resources is one step closer to its mission to help preserve the integrity of the scholarly literature by sharing industry knowledge of irresponsible and in some cases predatory practices associated with academic publishing. The Coalition is also committed to ensuring transparency, discoverability, and accountability of responsible publishing services to industry norms, guidelines, and best practices, so that academic authors can make informed decisions when seeking publication services and when publishing their scholarly works. The Coalition intends to facilitate communication and collaboration among university, academic society, publisher, scholarly journal, publication services, pharmaceutical, funder, and government stakeholders, worldwide.
Dr. Donald Samulack, President of the US Operations of Editage, a division of Cactus Communications, and who has spearheaded the call-to-action for the development of the Coalition, announced at the Council of Science Editors (CSE; www.councilofscienceeditors.org) meeting in Denver, CO, USA that five companies have contributed development funds to Editage to begin the formal development of the administrative infrastructure, as well as the Web and software technologies of the Coalition. In alphabetical order, Atlantis Press, Cabell's International, Canadian Science Publishing, Editage/Cactus Communications, and Wolters Kluwer have all contributed substantively and financially toward building the foundation of the Coalition infrastructure. As Provisional Founding Members, these companies will be ratified as Founding Members upon incorporation of the Coalition as an independent and self-regulating not-for-profit US entity later in 2016.
At present, irresponsible, and in some cases predatory practices can be identified in almost every facet along the axis of the publication process, from the initial development of an academic manuscript, attribution of authorship, solicitation of submission with promises of publication, and processes of peer review, through to the fraudulent representation of editorial boards at certain journals, as well as look-alike and hijacked journals, journal metrics, and author services.
Together, the Coalition will develop and encourage the development of resources, strategies, and tools to not only help authors identify responsible publication resources and practices, but as an industry resource itself, it will hold Coalition members accountable – as a fundamental principle of membership in the Coalition – to uphold and maintain industry norms, guidelines, and best practices, as they provide services to the scholarly community.
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