Journal Policies

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING

Authors contributing to Information Research agree to publish their articles under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license, which gives third parties the right to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. It also gives third parties the right to remix, transform and build upon the material for any purpose, except commercial, on the condition that clear acknowledgment is given to the author(s) of the work, that a link to the license is provided and that it is made clear if changes have been made to the work. This must be done in a reasonable manner, and must not imply that the licensor endorses the use of the work by third parties. The author(s) retain copyright to the work. Learn more >>

AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA

Each author, and any co-authors, must meet the following criteria:

1. All must have made a significant contribution to the design of the study, the collection of data, or the analysis and interpretation of data;
2. All must, either by writing or by helping to edit the manuscript, have contributed to the design of its intellectual content to a significant degree;
3. All must have approved the submitted manuscript.

Each author must also be able to take responsibility for part of the article's content and be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for the remaining parts.

Those who do not meet these criteria but who nevertheless contributed significantly to the final manuscript should be included in the acknowledgments section. It is the author's responsibility to obtain the written approval of persons named in the acknowledgments section.

When one or more corresponding authors are appointed for a multi-authored contribution, they are responsible for making sure all authors know of and agree with these rules.

POLICY ON THE USE OF AI TOOLS

In accordance with COPE’s position statement on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, AI tools such as Large Language Models, chatbots and image creators cannot be credited with authorship of any manuscript submitted to this journal. Authorship attribution implies responsibility for the integrity, originality, accuracy and validity of a work, and AI tools cannot take such responsibility.

In any instance where generative AI tools have been employed in the creation of written content, generation of images or graphical elements, or the collection and analysis of data within a submitted work, authors are required to disclose these uses within the manuscript. This acknowledgement should provide explicit information about the specific tasks performed by AI tools, including the identification of the tool(s) and their respective versions. AI tools used to improve or correct spelling and grammar need not be credited.

Authors bear full responsibility for the content of their manuscript, including any portions generated with the assistance of AI tools. Consequently, they are liable for any potential breaches of publication ethics. Authors must ensure that all quoted and referenced material is appropriately credited.

PEER REVIEW POLICY

We ask that reviewers only accept to assess manuscripts that fall within their own subject area, and that they declare to the editors any conflicts of interests with the authors they are reviewing (when this information can be inferred from the anonymized contribution).

Conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to: being close colleagues, family members, romantically involved, collaborating on the same research project, or otherwise currently having a close collaboration.

We also ask that reviewers respond to invitations without delay where possible, and that they submit their completed reviews within the suggested timeline. When reviewers are prevented from completing their review in time, they are expected to contact the editor ahead of time, so this may be taken into consideration.

Finally, we ask that reviewers provide constructive feedback for the authors, with concrete examples on how to improve the text. Of course, this feedback should not be influenced by the author's nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender, or commercial interests. Feedback should always be respectful, and not contain any hostile or provocative language. We therefore expect that our reviewers refrain from writing personal attacks, slander, sexualized, racialized, or abusive language, or making other types of derogatory comments. When reviewers neglect to follow these basic principles, editors reserve the right to ask the reviewer to rephrase their feedback, or to discount the review entirely, depending on the severity of the abuse.

POLICY FOR PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF ARTICLES

The journal's editors allow authors to make available earlier drafts of manuscripts/articles on the condition that authors agree to the following:

Authors retain all rights to any previously published version and are permitted to submit their updated manuscript to the journal.

Authors accept that the journal's editors cannot guarantee full anonymity in the review process, even if the author anonymizes his manuscript when earlier versions of the manuscript are made available.

If the manuscript is published in the journal, the author is expected to cross-link, with DOI link, the different versions of the manuscript/article.

POLICY FOR SELF-ARCHIVING

Article authors have the right to self-archive the submitted ("preprint") version of the manuscript and the published version without any embargo period.

Submitted manuscripts and published versions of articles can, for example, be archived on:

• the author's personal website
• the author's company website and/or institutional repository or archive
• non-profit preprint servers or subject-based archives

ORCID POLICY

The journal's editors strongly recommend that authors who submit manuscripts register an "Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier" or ORCiD.

This registration provides a unique and stable digital author identity that ensures that the article is attributed to the correct person and improves the searchability of all the author's publications. As a person's ORCiD remains the same as long as the account exists, any name changes, change of employment, department affiliation or research field do not affect the searchability of previous publications.

The journal's editors encourage all authors to include ORCiD along with other author information when the manuscript is registered in the system. If the article is accepted, this will be published with the article.

OPEN DATA

As research funders' and universities' demands for open research data become increasingly common, some authors may be required to make their collected empirical material open and available to everyone.

In cases where this applies to the journal's authors, the journal's editors encourage making the data available according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

In that case, the material made available must be linked to within the submitted manuscript under a special heading. Research data should then be made public when the article is published. Empirical material obtained from other researchers must be referenced in the same way as other scientific sources. For further questions about guidelines for handling open data and guidelines about how data should be handled and published, please contact your university.

CORRECTION AND RETRACTION POLICIES

The conditions of publication with persistent identifiers such as DOIs include that the object published is final and not changed without readers being clearly informing of this.

Articles published in the journal cannot therefore be changed without a) an erratum or b) a change notice being published and linked to the original article.

If a factual error in an article is discovered, this should be reported to the editor-in-chief, who decides on possible actions and possible corrections.

COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS POLICY

Any formal complaints, disputes, or appeals should be directed to the editor-in-chief, who is responsible for ensuring that a fair, deliberative, and thorough investigation is conducted. This includes, but is not limited to: conflicts between authors, reviewers, and/or editors; proof of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism; copyright infringements; discovery of undisclosed conflicts of interest; the use of harmful or abusive language; or other forms of harassment or the creation of an unsafe environment.

In severe cases, unpublished contributions may be rejected, and contributors or editors stripped of their association with the journal. In severe cases pertaining to published contributions, the editor-in-chief reserves the right to retract these from the journal's issues retroactively.

ARCHIVING POLICY

Beginning when the journal joins Publicera, its current and future content is made available via Publicera and stored long-term on a secure and central server at the National Library of Sweden (KB).

The journal's owner and KB aim for the journal's archive to be transferred and made available via Publicera, and thus the archive will also be stored long-term on a secure and central server at KB. In the event that the journal ceases publishing, the journal's content on Publicera will remain archived at KB.

POLICY FOR ETHICAL OVERSIGHT

The journal follows the ethical guidelines and best practices set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All cases of ethical misconduct will be handled in accordance with COPE's recommendations and guidelines.