PeerJ, an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal, has introduced a new policy to make it much easier for authors to change their names on published papers. The move is in response to feedback from the community.
PeerJ understands that an author might need to change their name for a variety of reasons. For some, legal name changes might not be available; and it might not be appropriate to perpetuate a previous name. The journal can change an author’s name on request, with as few barriers as possible. The journal will not require a reason or any proof of a legal name change to do so.
Names will be changed in both the HTML and PDF versions of PeerJ articles. The DOI will remain unchanged and the updated metadata will be transmitted to indexing partners with the intent that future citations will be associated with the correct name.
While the journal does not require that the author requesting the name change notify their co-authors, it is recommend to ensure that when co-authors cite the article they do so with the updated citation, to ensure consistency and citation matching. The request should come from the author themself. If a third party is making a request on behalf of an author, it is important to confirm that it is with the knowledge, and at the request, of the author involved.
PeerJ will try to follow the prevailing best practices in these matters, as recommended by COPE.
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