Table of Contents

• Publishing Policy for Royal Society Te Apārangi Journals
• Pre-referee screening
• English language
• Multiple submissions
• Authorship
• Copyright and permissions
• Misconduct
• Taxonomic work and online publication
• Colour publication
• Ethical use of non-human subjects in research
• Prior Publication
• Refereeing
• Rejection with Request to Resubmit
• Open access
• Proofs
• Conflicts of interest
• Correspondence and enquiries
• Post publication corrections
• Embargoes

Publishing Policy for Royal Society Te Apārangi Journals

Version 6.5 – Feb 2018

This document draws on ethical guidelines prepared by a number of scientific societies. The following sources were used in its preparation:

• Committee on Publication Ethics, Resources http://publicationethics.org/resources (Accessed 26 Feb 2016)
• Council of Science Editors http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/white-paper-on-publication-ethics/ (Accessed 26 Feb 2016)
• The Geological Society of America’s ethical guidelines for publication http://www.geosociety.org/pubs/ethics.htm (Accessed 26 Feb 2016)
• Royal Society of London, publishing ethics and other policies http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/authors/policy.xhtml (accessed 26 Feb 2016)

Pre-referee screening

All manuscripts are screened by the editorial office to assess their match to a particular journal’s aims and scope. Those deemed to be unsuitable for a particular journal may be rejected without being sent for review or, if they are suitable for a different RSNZ journal from that to which they have been submitted, the author will be asked if they wish the editorial office to transfer to a more appropriate journal.

English language

All manuscripts must be presented in native standard English. Authors for whom English is a second language are encouraged to seek assistance in writing from a native speaker. Manuscripts written in poor English will not be sent for review.

Multiple submissions

Authors must not submit their work to more than one journal at a time. Work which is published and later found to be a duplication of work already published by the same author will incur consequences. The publisher of the initial work will be notified and authors may be prohibited from publishing work in RSNZ journals in future. The author’s institution may also be notified.

Authorship

Authors should refrain from excessive fragmentation of work to maximise the number of publications from one study.

Please ensure all co-authors’ names and contact details are listed in  ScholarOne in addition to those of the corresponding author. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors named on the manuscript have agreed to the order in which the names appear and to its submission to the journal. The corresponding author is also responsible for the accuracy of all content in the proof.

All authors listed are expected to have provided some input into the concept, design, execution or interpretation of the work submitted. To eliminate any doubt as to the contribution of any named author, all authors may be asked to provide a written, signed statement indicating their eligibility for authorship on the work. The corresponding author will be responsible for obtaining these statements, if requested. The corresponding author is responsible for informing the co-authors of the manuscript’s status throughout the publishing process.

Professional writers who participated only in drafting the manuscript but did not have a role in the design or conduct of the study or the interpretation of results should be identified in the acknowledgements section and should not be listed as authors. Any payment for such services should be disclosed.

Agreement for change in authorship must be signed by all authors.

Journal style is for authors to be listed on the table of contents using initials and last name only but their full name should appear on the title page of their published paper on acceptance of their manuscript. 

Copyright and permissions

It is the author’s responsibility to ensure that they have the necessary permission to reuse copyrighted material in their work. Any costs incurred for permission to reuse work must be paid by the author.

Authors assign full copyright in their articles to the Royal Society of New Zealand. Taylor & Francis administer copyright protection and rights on behalf of Royal Society Te Apārangi journals.

Misconduct

Unauthorised and unattributed use of the work of others is not permissible. Please note that Royal Society Te Apārangi journals use CrossCheck™ software to screen papers for unoriginal material. By submitting your paper to Royal Society Te Apārangi journals you are agreeing to any necessary originality checks your paper may have to undergo during the peer reviewand production processes.

Authors may not use their own, previously published work without appropriate citation.

Fraudulent image manipulation will be seen as scientific ethical abuse. No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or colour balance to the entire image for clarity purposes are generally acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original.

Authors suspected of misconduct of any form at any time during the publication process will be alerted and given the opportunity to provide a satisfactory answer. If an author is not able to provide a satisfactory answer their manuscript will be withdrawn and their institution may be notified of the accusation. They may also be prohibited from publishing future work in the journal for a period of time.

Taxonomic work and online publication

The journals publish work of a taxonomic nature and adhere to the requirements of both the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN)(Melbourne Code) and the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).

Authors of works of a taxonomic nature are required to indicate whether they wish their article to be published online, ahead of print, on submission.

Papers published in this format are identical to the printed version, with the exception of final pagination numbers, and form the version of scholarly record. The date of publication is given in the electronic version of the paper as the ‘version of record first published’ date. This same date is also displayed on the title page when the paper is assigned to an issue. Authors publishing new names (including fossils) in New Zealand Journal of Zoology who wish their work to be published online ahead of print are required to lodge their work with ZooBank and provide a life science identifier number (LSID) prior to final acceptance of their manuscript by the editor. The publishing office of RSNZ will update the ZooBank record to insert the appropriate date after publication of the work. This also applies to authors of new fossil names who publish their work in any other RSNZ journal. Authors of new names of organisms treated as fungi must include an identifier number given by one of the three recognised repositories: Mycobank, Index Fungorum or Fungal Names.

Colour publication

Colour images are included without charge in both the online and printed journal for all newly submitting authors, from 1 March 2016. For existing authors, previous charges for colour reproduction in the printed journal apply as follows:

• 1–5 (inclusive) colour figures, corresponding author based at a NZ institution: NZ $100+GST per figure
• 1–5 (inclusive) colour figures, corresponding author based at an overseas institution: US$100 per figure
• For each subsequent colour figure over and above 5 figures: NZ/US $75 per figure

Ethical use of non-human subjects in research

The journals endorse the use of the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) guidelines, which has been developed to improve the design, analysis and reporting of research using animals. To this end research must be undertaken in accordance with the institutional and legal requirements and/or follow published guidelines such as the New Zealand code of recommendations and minimum standards for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes. Authors from countries other than New Zealand must follow all applicable laws and regulations of the country in which they conduct research.

Prior Publication

The Society’s journals consider for publication only original work that has not previously been published elsewhere. Deposition of a preprint version of the article in repositories such as arXiv, bioRxiv and Research Square etc., is not viewed as prior publication and are therefore permitted. Recorded presentations, poster presentations or publication of abstracts at scientific conferences do not preclude later submission of the full article to a Royal Society journal. Publication as an academic thesis can also be considered.

Formal, published reports from Foundations, Academic Institutions, Institutes, Trade Associations, and Government Agencies that have gone through an editorial process, that have been intended to reach a wide audience, and that are publicised and available to any interested party (whether free or not) typically will not be considered for journal publication. A paper that is based on such a report might be considered for publication if it were sufficiently different in emphasis or intent. In such instances, the author should explain at the time of submission (or before) how the paper differs from the previously released report and why its publication would represent a distinct and important contribution.

Please consult the publishing team if you have questions about whether or not a particular use constitutes prior publication.

Refereeing

All Royal Society Te Apārangi Journals operate a single blind peer-review system, with the exception of Kōtuitui which operates a double blind peer-review system. Referees will be sourced from both domestic and overseas institutions. All manuscripts are normally refereed by two experts but where there is disparity regarding the merits of the work, an additional review may also be requested or one of the journal’s editors may give an evaluation. An exception to this is in New Zealand Journal of Botany where short taxonomic note manuscripts are refereed by one expert in the field; all others undergoing a two referee process. Supplementary material is subject to editorial oversight and is made available to reviewers.

Direct correspondence between referees and authors is not permitted; all correspondence between these parties must be made through the editor.

Rejection with Request to Resubmit

When a previously rejected submission is resubmitted to the journal on the encouragement of the handling editor, authors must include a detailed written response to prior review comments pertaining to the original submission, clearly indicating what has been done to meet each revision request. Where a prior revision request has been disregarded, authors should give their rationale for doing so. In their covering letter, authors should state that the manuscript is a resubmission and outline any particular justification for the resubmission. Please give the original manuscript tracking number when prompted. While a detailed response to previous referee comments is essential, the resubmission will not be treated as a revision and will instead be subject to the same review policy as a new submission. A resubmission may be sent back to either or both of the original referees and/or one or more new referees at the discretion of the handling editor. We do not guarantee further review or publication of any resubmitted manuscript.

Open access

The journals offer Taylor & Francis’ open select option for gold open access publication.

Proofs

Turnaround time for proofs is typically short and it is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that all co-authors have agreed to any changes requested. Please keep changes to a minimum as trivial changes, changes to improve prose style, adding new material or deleting cannot be accommodated. Adding new, unrefereed, content is not acceptable.

Conflicts of interest

Authors, editors and reviewers are required to disclose any conflict of interest relating to a manuscript. These include, but are not limited to, past (within the last 5 years) or current collaboration, personal friend or family member, institutional relationship, someone with whom the editor or reviewer has had a past or present scientific controversy or where the author/reviewer/editor stands to gain financially by publication or rejection of the manuscript.

Work submitted by editors on the journal will be delegated to other editors and the submitting editor will be masked from access to records pertaining to their manuscript within the journal’s ScholarOne™ site.

Correspondence and enquiries

All queries should be addressed to the Royal Society Te Apārangi’s publishing office in the first instance at publish@royalsociety.org.nz

Post publication corrections

Errors in published articles require a published erratum or corrigendum. Any such published corrections will be linked to the original article. For further information please read the Taylor and Francis statement on corrections to published articles.

Embargoes

Authors should not generally allow their findings to be reported in the press prior to article acceptance or publication. Authors should liaise with the editorial office to coordinate any required media activity related to their article. Any press releases should reflect only the work carried out and should not go beyond actual research findings.