Policies

Open Access Policy

This journal Sexual Offending: Theory, Research, and Prevention (SOTRAP) provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. SOTRAP also charges no author fee for submission or publication of papers.

Preprint Policy

As part of SOTRAP's submission process, authors are required to confirm that the submission has not been previously published, nor has been submitted (or will be submitted while under consideration at SOTRAP). However, prior to submitting their article and prior to acceptance and publication in SOTRAP, authors may make their submissions available as preprints on personal or public websites.

A preprint "is a scholarly work that has not (yet) undergone peer review. The term is sometimes also used to refer to the manuscript version of a work that is submitted for publication to a journal or a publisher" (Open Access Network, 2024, Glossary. Retrieved from https://open-access.network/en/information/glossary). Published conference presentations, posters etc. are considered preprints, provided they do not appear in a peer-reviewed, published conference proceeding. After a manuscript has been published in SOTRAP we suggest to link to the final article version, using the assigned article DOI in this way: https://doi.org/DOI, e.g. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623

Publication Ethics

Responsibilities of SOTRAP's editors, reviewers, and authors concerning publication ethics and publication malpractice are described in PsychOpen's Guidelines on Publication Ethics.

Human/Animal Rights

When reporting a study that involved human participants, their data or biological material, authors should include a statement that confirms that the study was approved (or granted exemption) by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee (including the name of the ethics committee) and certify that the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that an independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. If a study was granted exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the reasons for the exemption).

Informed Consent

For all research involving human subjects, freely-given, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript. Individuals may consent to participate in a study, but object to having their data published in a journal article. Authors should make sure to also seek consent from individuals to publish their data prior to submitting their paper to a journal. This is in particular applicable to case studies.

Permanency of Content

In accordance with generally accepted standards of scholarly publishing SOTRAP does not alter articles after publication: "Articles that have been published should remain extant, exact and unaltered to the maximum extent possible" ( STM, 2006. Preservation of the objective record of science). In cases of serious errors or (suspected) misconduct SOTRAP publishes corrections, expressions of concern and retractions (see below).

SOTRAP participates in the CrossMark scheme, a multi-publisher initiative that has developed a standard way for readers to locate the current version of an article. By applying the CrossMark policies, SOTRAP is committed to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur. Clicking on the CrossMark logo (at the top of an SOTRAP article or the article landing page) will give you the current status of an article and direct you to the latest published version; it may also give you additional information such as new peer review reports.

In order to maintain the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record, the following policies will be applied when published content needs to be corrected.

Corrections

In cases of serious errors that affect the article in a material way (but do not fully invalidate its results) or significantly impair the reader's understanding or evaluation of the article SOTRAP publishes a correction note that is linked to the published article. The published article will be left unchanged.

Retractions (Expressions of Concern)

In accordance with the "Retraction Guidelines" by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) QCMB will retract a published article if:

  • there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation),
  • 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.

An article is retracted by publishing a retraction notice that is linked to or replaces the retracted article. SOTRAP will make any effort to clearly identify a retracted SOTRAP may choose to alert readers by publishing an expression of concern .

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under the CC BY license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article, but authors grant others permission to use the content of publications in whole or in part provided that the original work is properly cited. Users (redistributors) of the journal are required to cite the original source, including the author's names, the journal as the initial source of publication, year of publication, volume number and DOI (if available).
  • Authors may publish the manuscript in any other journal or medium but any such subsequent publication must include a notice that the manuscript was initially published in this journal.
  • Authors grant the journal the right of first publication. Although authors remain the copyright owner, they grant the journal the irrevocable, nonexclusive rights to publish, reproduce, publicly distribute and display, and transmit their article or portions thereof in any manner.