Journal policies

Open Access
Peer review process
Publication ethics
Data policy
ORCID IDs
Permission to reproduce figures and extracts
Material disclaimer
Manuscript Preparation Instructions

Open access

All content published in Journal of Urban Ecology is made freely available online to all under an Open Access model. Information about open access fees and waivers for this journal is available in the general instructions.

After a manuscript is accepted for publication, the corresponding author will be required to accept a mandatory license to publish agreement.  Authors can use the Creative Common Attribution license (CC BY) and Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) for their articles. Visit the OUP licensing website to find out more about Creative Commons licences.

Peer review

Newly submitted manuscripts are sent to the Editor-in-Chief to be assessed for suitability. If the manuscript is judged to be appropriate in terms of remit and quality, the Editor assigns it to a member of the Editorial board, who oversees the review process. Manuscripts are reviewed by at least two independent experts in the relevant area. The reviewers make a scientific assessment and a recommendation to the Editors. Reviewers remain unknown to authors, a process referred to as single anonymized peer review. The Editor considers the manuscript and the reviewers' comments before making a recommendation to return for minor revision, return for major revision, reject or (rarely for original submissions) to accept. The final decision is transmitted to the author by the Editor-in-Chief.

Revised manuscripts are assessed by the same Editor and may be sent to one or more external experts for further review. Some manuscripts may be rejected with an invitation to re-submit once the problems identified have been resolved, but they are considered as new submissions and are likely to undergo the full reviewing process. Authors are expected to include a point by point response to reviews with any revised or re-submitted manuscript.

Peer reviewers that have a conflict of interest relating to a submitted manuscript should recuse themselves and will not be assigned to oversee, handle, or peer review the manuscript. If during peer review an editor, reviewer, or author becomes aware of a conflict of interest that was not previously known or disclosed they must inform the Editor-in-Chief immediately.

At initial submission, the corresponding author must declare if the Editor-in-Chief, an Editor, or an Editorial Board Member of the Journal is an author of or contributor to the manuscript. Another Editor without a conflict of interest will oversee the peer review and decision-making process. If accepted, a statement will be published in the paper describing how the manuscript was handled.

Publication ethics

Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors’ own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of the work are all unacceptable practices. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

Ethics Statement

Any study using human subjects or materials needs to state the Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval and number, and any study using animals needs to state the Institutional Animal Care approval and number. Any other ethics approvals should also be listed. If no ethical approvals were required, please state this.

Authorship

All authors should have been involved in the writing of the manuscript at draft and any revision stages, and have read and approved the final version. Anyone who made major contributions to the writing of the manuscript should be listed as an author (e.g. “ghost writing” is prohibited by the journal). Any other individuals who made less substantive contributions to the study or the writing of the manuscript should be listed in the acknowledgement section. Any change in authorship (including author order) after the initial manuscript submission must be approved in writing by all authors.

Authorship and 'Umbrella' groups

Many large collaborative studies are organized under a group name which represents all the participants. All articles must have at least one named individual as author. Authors who wish to acknowledge the umbrella group from which the data originate should first list the author(s) of the article and follow this with 'on behalf of the GROUP NAME'. If necessary the names of the participants may be listed in the Acknowledgements section.

Plagiarism

Manuscripts submitted may be screened with iThenticate anti-plagiarism software in an attempt to detect and prevent plagiarism. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose part or all of the text has been previously published. Prior to final acceptance any manuscript that has not already been screened may be put through iThenticate. Please see more information about iThenticate.

Conflicts of interest

At the point of submission, each author should reveal any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated – including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition. When considering whether you should declare a conflicting interest or connection please consider the conflict of interest test: Is there any arrangement that would embarrass you or any of your co-authors if it was to emerge after publication and you had not declared it?

Data policy

We strongly encourage authors to make the data underlying their published research freely available to others, wherever legally and ethically possible. We also encourage authors to make the availability and location of their data clear in a data availability statement after the acknowledgements.

Where specialised, subject-specific public repositories are available, we encourage authors to deposit their data in these. See the biosharing website for a curated list of databases in the life sciences. Authors may also upload datasets as Supplementary Material with their paper for publication. Where none of these options is feasible, authors are required to make data their available upon reasonable request for the purposes of verification.

ORCID IDs

Journal of Urban Ecology requires submitting authors to provide an ORCID iD at submission to the journal. More information on ORCID and the benefits of using an ORCID iD is available. If you do not already have an ORCID iD, you can register for free via the ORCID website.

Permission to reproduce figures and extracts

In order to reproduce any third party material, including tables, figures, or images, in an article authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder and be compliant with any requirements the copyright holder may have pertaining to this reuse. When seeking to reproduce any kind of third party material authors should request the following:

• non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the specified article and journal;
• electronic rights, preferably for use in any form or medium;
• the right to use the material for the life of the work; and
• world-wide English-language rights.

Further guidelines on clearing permissions can be found.

Material disclaimer

The opinions expressed in Journal of Urban Ecology are those of the authors and contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors, the editorial board, Oxford University Press or the organization to which the authors are affiliated.