Cell & Developmental Biology
Open Access

Abstract

The Ten Commandments of Ethical Publishing

Gaetano Santulli

This article describes the position of the Journal on the major ethical principles of academic publishing. Academic publishing depends, to a great extent, on trust. Editors trust peer reviewers to provide fair assessments, authors trust Editors to select appropriate peer reviewers, and readers put their trust in the peer-review process [1,2]. Publication of ethically uncertain research occurs albeit well-published guidelines set forth in documents such as the Declaration of Helsinki (http:// whqlibdoc.who.int/euro/1994-97/EUR_ICP_CEH_212.pdf). Such guidelines exist to aide editorial staff in making decisions regarding ethical acceptability of manuscripts submitted for publication, yet examples of ethically suspect and uncertain publication exist [3,4]. The editor of any medical Journal has to be aware of the ethical and legal framework within which medical research is conducted [5]. With an Open Access Journal, we are committed to the widest possible dissemination of Research outputs observing the highest ethical publication practices [6,7,8].