Skip to main content

IODP Publication Policies

Focus and Scope

International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Publications Services publishes expedition reports and research results for IODP’s three platform science operators: JOIDES Resolution Science Operator (JRSO; riserless research vessel JOIDES Resolution); Institute for Marine-Earth Exploration and Engineering (MarE3; riser drilling vessel Chikyu); and European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) Science Operator (ESO; mission-specific platforms). Expedition publications are accessed by international researchers and scientists, as well citizen scientists and the public.

Expedition publications

Reports

Scientific Prospectus: outlines the proposal(s) background; expedition objectives; drilling, coring, and logging strategies; proposed drill site descriptions; risks and contingency planning; and sample and data sharing; and ties the expedition objectives to themes and challenges in the Science Plan.

Preliminary Report: reviews the background and expedition objectives; describes drilling, coring, and logging operations; presents principal standard measurements results for each site; and assesses achievement of expedition objectives.

Proceedings of the International Ocean Discovery Program

Expedition Reports: contain the expedition summary, a methods chapter describing shipboard measurement methods, and site reports that present site operations and shipboard results for sedimentology, structural geology, micropaleontology, geochemistry, microbiology, physical properties, and downhole measurements, and other, as applicable.

Expedition Research Results: include data reports, data sets from shore-based analyses of samples from cores collected during the expedition, and synthesis papers, which review and synthesize expedition research or results.

Publication Frequency

For each expedition, the Scientific Prospectus is published about 1 year before sailing, the Preliminary Report is published about 2 months after the ship docks, the Expedition Reports are published at the end of the 1 year data and publications moratorium, and Expedition Research Results are published on a continuing basis for 36 months after the end of the moratorium.

In general, JRSO sails ~4–5 expeditions per year, MarE3 sails ~1–2 IODP expeditions per year, and ESO sails ~1 IODP expedition per year.

Open Access Policy

IODP publications are Public Domain, Public Access, and Open Access, as defined by the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) in 2002: IODP publications are freely available on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.

Publications Archive and Availability Plan

In the event IODP research is no longer published, electronic backup and preservation of access to published content includes digital archiving available at:

Discovery Tools

We boost worldwide visibility and discovery of our publications by sharing metadata and content with the organizations listed below.

Metadata referencing electronic storage of data

All manuscripts are assigned a digital object identifier and are registered at CrossRef (https://www.crossref.org/). Author ORCiDs (https://orcid.org/), research funding information (https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/), and publication history are deposited through CrossMark validation service (https://www.crossref.org/services/crossmark/), and all manuscript reference lists are linked (https://www.crossref.org/services/reference-linking/) and submitted to CrossRef Cited By linking service (https://www.crossref.org/services/cited-by/).

Publication Ethics

IODP Publication Services takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities. IODP Publications expects authors, editors, and reviewers to comply with Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE; https://publicationethics.org/) Core Practices. We are a member of COPE.

Ethical Oversight

IODP Publications considers manuscripts without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors and will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author and reviewers.

Upon manuscript submission, the corresponding author completes a Creative Commons Author’s Certification and Copyright and License Agreement certifying that the work is original and agreeing to release the content under a CC BY license.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism involves the "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work." Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Graphic material reproduced from another source requires permission from the copyright holder and requires identification of the source. This applies also to material reproduced from another publication by the same author(s).

Authorship

Manuscript authorship should accurately state who contributed to the work. All authors take public responsibility for the content of the manuscript. The corresponding author takes responsibility for and speaks on behalf of all authors pre- and post-publication.

Peer Review Process

The Publications Coordinator mediates all exchanges between authors and peer reviewers during the peer review process. Submitted data reports and synthesis papers are evaluated by technical specialist peer reviewers (who can elect to remain anonymous) for accuracy and completeness of technical/scientific content, presentation (organization, coherence, clarity), and accuracy of credit to related studies, and by the assigned Editorial Review Board member for that expedition (composed of the Expedition Project Manager, Co-Chief Scientists, and an optional thematic specialist). Additional peer reviewers may be asked to help make a final editorial decision.

Conflicts of Interest

Assigned editorial review board (ERB) members, reviewers, and authors should disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present or review work objectively. ERB members or reviewers should not review manuscripts if they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive or collaborative connections with authors or institutions connected to the paper or other conflicts of interest (financial, personal, political, or religious). All sources of financial support to all authors should be included in the Acknowledgments.

Data and Reproducibility

Data sets published in IODP publications are freely accessible to any user. Authors should present an accurate and complete account of work performed and contain enough detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Data should be represented accurately to enable readers to appraise and use the published data.

Intellectual Property

Submitted manuscripts should contain no proprietary material unprotected by patent or patent application; responsibility for protection of proprietary material rests solely with the author(s) and their organizations. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining all necessary copyright release permissions for the use of any copyrighted materials in the manuscript prior to the submission.

Allegations of Misconduct

In cases of alleged misconduct, IODP Publications will follow COPE recommended practices. Concerns about potential research or publication misconduct should be addressed directly to the IODP Manager of Publications. Investigations into misconduct may result in a correction or other note published in the volume and the CrossMark validation metadata updated.

Complaints and Appeals

Complaints and/or appeals should be addressed directly to the IODP Manager of Publications.

Post-Publication Corrections

Changes to articles after they have been published online may only be made under the circumstances outlined below, based on best practice in the academic publishing community.

An Erratum is appropriate if the authors of a paper make correction(s) resulting from errors or omissions that may affect interpretation of the data or the conclusions of the paper. The corrected paper is retained online, and notice of erratum is added to the CrossMark validation attached to the manuscript. See http://iodp.tamu.edu/​publications/​crossmark.html for the IODP CrossMark Policy and IODP Corrections/Updates Policy.

Minor errors that do not affect the integrity of the metadata or a reader's ability to understand an article and that do not involve a scientific error or omission will be corrected at the discretion of the Publisher.

Author Instructions

Publication open access model: no publication fees

IODP publishes on an open-access model and content is entirely accessible for free. IODP levies no submission charges and does not apply any charges or fees for publication of accepted manuscripts. Therefore, we have no revenue from subscriptions or publishing fees for manuscripts published.

Submission guidelines

IODP submission guidelines, author instructions, and templates can be found at http://iodp.tamu.edu/​publications/​author_information.html.

Reference materials

IODP author reference materials including the IODP Editorial Style Guide, IODP Dictionary/Glossary, and Scientific Ocean Drilling Bibliographic Database can be found athttp://iodp.tamu.edu/​publications/​author_information.html.