Every article published by a Taylor & Francis journal, or a journal published by us on behalf of a scholarly society, either in the print issue or online, constitutes the Version of Record (VoR): the final, definitive, and citable version in the scholarly record (see NISO, 2008).
The VoR includes:
Recognizing a published article as a finalized Version of Record establishes the expectation that it can be relied upon as accurate, complete, and citable. Wherever possible it is our policy to maintain the integrity of the Version of Record in accordance with STM Association guidelines:
“Articles that have been published should remain extant, exact, and unaltered to the maximum extent possible”
STM Guidelines on Preservation of the Objective Record of Science
Sometimes after an article has been published it may be necessary to make a change to the Version of Record. This will be done after careful consideration by the Editor who is also supported by Taylor & Francis staff to ensure any necessary changes are made in accordance with guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Any necessary changes will be accompanied with a post-publication notice which will be permanently linked to the original article so that readers will be fully informed of any necessary changes. This can be in the form of a Correction notice, an Expression of Concern, a Retraction and in rare circumstances a Removal. The purpose of this mechanism of making changes which are permanent and transparent is to ensure the integrity of the scholarly record.
All correction, expressions of concern and retraction notices are free to access at the point of publication.
Authors should notify us as soon as possible if they find errors in their published article, especially errors that could affect the interpretation of data or reliability of information presented. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure consensus has been reached between all listed co-authors prior to putting forward any requests for corrections or retractions to an article.
If, after reading the guidance, you believe a correction or retraction is necessary for your article, contact the journal’s Production Editor, or contact us via this website.
A Correction notice will be issued when it is necessary to correct an error or omission which can impact the interpretation of the article, but where the scholarly integrity of the article remains intact. Examples include mislabeling of a figure, missing key information on funding or competing interests of the authors.
Taylor & Francis distinguishes between major and minor errors. For correction notices, major errors or omissions are considered to be any changes which impacts the interpretation of the article, but where the scholarly integrity of the article remains intact.
A Retraction notice will be issued where a major error (e.g. in the analysis or methods) invalidates the conclusions in the article, or where research misconduct or publication misconduct has taken place (e.g. research without required ethical approvals, fabricated data, manipulated images, plagiarism, duplicate publication etc). The decision to issue a retraction for an article will be made in accordance with COPE guidelines, and will involve an investigation by Taylor & Francis editorial staff in collaboration with the editor. Authors and institutions may request a retraction of their articles if their reasons meet the criteria for retraction.
The COPE retraction guidelines can be found on the COPE website.
Retraction will be considered:
Where the decision has been taken to retract an article Taylor & Francis will:
In some cases, an Expression of Concern notice may be considered where concerns of a major nature have been raised (e.g. serious research or publication misconduct), but where the outcome of the investigation is inconclusive or where due to various complexities the investigation will not be complete for a considerable time.
When the investigation has been completed a Retraction or Correction notice may follow the Expression of Concern, and alongside the original article, all will remain part of the permanent published record.
Publication of an expression of concern notice will be considered if:
The expression of concern will be linked back to the published article it relates to.
An article removal will be issued in rare circumstances where the problems are very serious in nature and cannot be addressed by a Retraction or Correction notice. Taylor & Francis will consider removal of a published article from Taylor & Francis journals in very limited circumstances such as:
In case of an article being removed from Taylor & Francis Online, a removal notice will be issued in its place.
An addendum is a notification of an addition of information to an article. Addenda do not contradict the original publication and are not used to fix errors (for which a Correction notice will be published), but if the author needs to update or add some key information then, this can be published as an addendum. Addenda may be peer reviewed, according to journal policy, and are normally subject to oversight by the editors of the journal.
All addenda are electronically linked to the published article to which they relate.
Comments are short articles which outline an observation on a published article. In cases where a comment on a published article is submitted to the journal editor, it may be subject to peer review. The comment will be shared with the authors of the published article, who are invited to submit a response.
This author response again may be subject to peer review, and will be shared with the commentator, who may be invited to submit a rejoinder. The rejoinder may be subject to peer review and shared with the authors of the published article. No further correspondence will be considered for publication. The editor may decide to reject correspondence at any point before the comment, response and rejoinder are finalized.
All published comments, responses, and rejoinders are linked to the published article to which they relate.
On F1000Research, authors can revise, change, and update their articles by publishing new versions, which are added to the original article’s history on the platform. The versioning system is user-friendly and intuitive, with new versions (and their peer reviews) clearly linked and easily navigable from earlier versions. Authors can summarize changes in the ‘Amendments’ section at the start of a new version.
As stated in the F1000Research Article Policies, articles may be retracted from F1000Research for several reasons, including research misconduct and duplicate publication, but the retracted article will usually remain on the site. Retracted articles are not ‘unpublished’ or ‘withdrawn’ so that they can be published elsewhere; usually the reasons for the retraction are so serious that the whole study, or large parts of it, are not appropriate for inclusion in the scientific literature anywhere.