Given the novelty of the publication platform and the popularity of micropublications, Specimen aims to adhere to the best editorial practices. We therefore adhere to the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics as well as to those of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors with respect to copyright and author privilege.
Requirements for manuscript submission:
° Unique specimen identifier (usually in the format of the specimen depository) as found on a unique label with the specimen
° Collection event data
– Locality (including geoposition coordinates with margin of error)
– Date
– Name of collector, ideally with an ORCID or WikiData Q identifier
– Other pertinent data (e.g. habitat, associated organisms)
° Determination data including
– Taxon name with authority string
– Taxon concept and/or identification tool(s) used, including DOI or other unique identifier
– Determiner (ideally with ORCID or WikiData Q identifier) and date of determination
° Any Darwin Core data fields are acceptable. A description of the recommended fields and examples of their content can be accessed at the following Google Sheet. In fact, authors are encouraged to use this sheet as a template for submitting their data.
There is no pre-determined publication frequency: an article is published within a week of being formally accepted. Within a month of publication, a copy of the article is submitted in PDF format to Library and Archives Canada for digital archiving.
Articles published in Specimen are open access and have a Creative Commons (CC BY) attribution license. Even if the author maintains his or her copyright, the license permits the work to be shared, reproduced, distributed, adapted, and even used for commercial purposes so long as the authors are credited. Separate parts of the published article cannot hold a separate license.
All data published on Canadensys are in the public domain (CC0).
To qualify for the right of authorship, each author must meet the following four eligibility criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors:
Any contributor to the work that does not meet these four criteria can, with their consent, be named in the acknowledgements section.
The author or the administrator handling the manuscript submission to Specimen is responsible for:
At the time of submission, authors are requested to recommend a minimum of two peer reviewers who should not be under any perceived conflict of interest. Upon submission, the editor will make a preliminary assessment of the manuscript. If it is inappropriate for the journal, whether in presentation or content, the editor will return the manuscript and withdraw it from consideration, explaining the decision to the manuscript submitter. If the manuscript is deemed appropriate, the editor will select at least one external peer reviewer at his or her discretion (whether or not from the list provided by the submitter), who will evaluate the scientific validity and merit of the manuscript. All published articles will have been subject to a minimum of one peer and one editorial review. Following review, the submitting author will then have the opportunity to edit the manuscript or rebut specific elements of the review with which he or she disagrees. The decisions to pursue peer review and to ultimately publish an article rest solely with the editor.
In the case of a significant conflict of interest with the editor, a guest editor will be recruited to handle the manuscript.
All authors of a manuscript submitted to Specimen should transparently declare any possible conflict of interest related to the submission. A declaration of a potential conflict of interest will not automatically result in the rejection of a submission, but rather such honesty will allow all parties to be aware of the situation. For more information, please see the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics. External reviewers are also responsible to declare any potential conflict of interest that might influence their objectivity.
For the moment, there are no charges involved in publishing in Specimen. This policy is subject to revision as the journal grows.
In order to be as transparent as possible regarding any funding regarding the work contributing to publication, the journal asks that authors declare any source of financial support.
At present, the journal has been financially supported by a grant from the Institut de recherche en biologie végétale. The journal does not publish any advertising.
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature must be followed in any publication describing a new animal species, genus, or family. All the pertinent information must be registered in ZooBank and the ZooBank taxon LSID must be included in the publication. The journal editors will handle ZooBank registration in order to avoid any delays.
New names of plants, algae, or fungi must follow the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. New plant taxa must have an International Plant Name Index code. MycoBank issues codes for fungi.
Permitting information must be included in the manuscript, namely in the materials and methods section, for any specimens examined in the published study that required a collection permit, be it issued by an institution, a governmental organization at any level, or any other entity.
Without these details, the authors implicitly declare that the specimens used in their study were collected legally. Any allegations of research misconduct will be investigated by examining the specimens cited in the published or submitted work. Missing specimens will result in the retraction of the article. Unrealistic specimen metadata will be reviewed by an ad hoc panel of experts from three different institutions who will take the decision whether or not to retract the article. See also the statment by the Committee on Publication Ethics for logistical procedures.
Editor-in-chief: Colin Favret, Institut de recherche en biologie végétale and Université de Montréal, 4101 East Sherbrooke St, Montreal, Canada H1X 2B2. colinfavret(a)specimenpub.org
Associate editors will be recruited as the journal grows.
