The editor-in-chief is the formal chair of the editorial team. The editor-in-chief represents the journal against authorities and third persons. He/she has the final decision power in the discussions within the editorial team if no consensus can be reached. The editor-in-chief may act as a regular handling editor.
Handling editors are the regular members of the editorial team.
An external guest editor may be called for to handle a special volume or in case the regular editors have conflicting interests. It is the journal's responsibility to provide a ‘tutor’ who would guide the guest editor through the journal workflow, without interfering with the actual decisions taken. It is expected that the guest editor applies the same quality standards as a regular member of the editorial team would do.
These recommendations are inspired by the COPE's short guide for ethical editing.
As an editor, you represent the journal in contacts with the authors, reviewers, funders, and the broader scientific community. In many cases, a long-term opinion about the journal will be shaped by a single personal communication with you. It is ultimately important that you:
An editor should not accept handling a manuscript in case of competing interests of personal, financial, intellectual, professional or political nature. For example, if the editor is (or have recently been) employed at the same institution as any of the authors, involved in mentorship relations, close collaborations or joint grant holding, he/she should inform the editor in-chief and suggest assigning another handling editor. In case all members of the editorial team have competing interests, an external guest editor should be approached.
An editor should treat submitted manuscripts as confidential documents, not revealing neither the fact of a submission nor its contents to anyone outside the editorial team or the peer-review process. A full-text manuscript is shared with a reviewer only upon acceptance of the review request. The reviewers' names are not revealed to the authors unless the manuscript has been accepted for publication (though authors names are visible to the reviewers, see the description of the Open peer-review process).
During ongoing disputes, complaints or misconduct investigations, the information collected should be treated with extreme care and not revealed to anyone not directly involved in the investigation. In special cases, the final investigation report might be further distributed by a decision of the editorial team.
The details of financial transactions (article processing charges, discounts or waivers, sponsorship contributions, etc.) are kept confidential, too.
In some cases, the handling editor may also act as one of the reviewers. In this case, the ethical guidelines for reviewers apply to the editor, too.
The TSR does not forbid the members of the editorial team to publish in the journal. However, exceptional transparency and independence of the reviewing and decision taking process are required. An external guest editor must be called for, and in choosing the candidate, special efforts are made to minimize his/her conflict of interests. The circumstances and the way they have been addressed by the journal must to be clearly described under the ‘Declaration of competing interests’.
Editor's checklist
OJS software guide
How to handle peer-reviewer database
Countries, regions, income (compilation from UN and World Bank)
CRediT generator
Mailchimp
Typeset.io
Webmail
TSR booklet
TSR flyer
TSR logotype
Mail signature (for editors)
Mail signature (for authors)
COPE Committee on Publication Ethics
PKP guide to OJS 3.4
Traffic Safety Research is accepted as a member of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).
TSR calls for submission to a special volume on ‘Traffic safety in low- and middle-income countries’.
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ISSN 2004-3082 (online) www.tsr.international |
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