CrossMark, Correction and Retraction Policy

Retractions and corrections

Articles published by GPPS form part of the scholarly record, the integrity and completeness of which must be protected. As such, published articles cannot be simply amended or removed. If articles are found to contain errors or pose problems, we will issue a correction, expression of concern or retraction notice after investigation, in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics’ guidelines (see Wager et al., Retractions: Guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Version 1, September 2009). Specifically, these guidelines state that:
Journal editors should consider retracting a publication if:

• they have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error)
• the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication)
• it constitutes plagiarism
• it reports unethical research

Journal editors should consider issuing an expression of concern if:

• they receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors
• there is evidence that the findings are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case
• they believe that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive
• an investigation is underway but a judgement will not be available for a considerable time

Journal editors should consider issuing a correction if:

• a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error)
• the author/contributor list is incorrect (i.e. a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included)

Only the journal’s editor can decide to retract an article or publish a correction. Retraction or correction notices will contain the reason for the notice, who's issuing it, and will clearly identify the publication affected.

Should the publisher introduce errors in the article, it will issue an erratum.

In any case, the original manuscript will remain available online, with a clear message indicating its retracted or corrected status. GPPS participates in the CrossMark scheme, a multi-publisher initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of a piece of content. By applying the CrossMark logo GPPS is committing to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes, such as corrections and retractions, if and when they occur. Clicking on the CrossMark logo will tell you the current status of a document as well as the additional publication record information about the document (namely funding, license, copyright, peer review details and publication history).

In very rare cases, chiefly relating to legal issues, articles may be removed from the record (i.e. no longer available, although their metadata will remain).

Small inconsequential errors (e.g. some typos) may be corrected in the published article without issuance of a correction notice.