Policies

Peer Review

JEP publishes peer reviewed articles and book reviews. Generally, articles undergo double anonymized peer review, but special issues may pursue different forms of peer review in consultation with the editors and editorial team. Reviewers are carefully selected and invited by JEP’s editors and the selection process considers required expertise, equity concerns, and the absence of competing interests. If you are interested in peer reviewing for JEP, please send an email to jep-info@umich.edu.

Author Charges

JEP does not charge author processing charges or submission fees.

Authors retain full rights to their article and grant JEP and its publisher, Michigan Publishing, the non-exclusive right to distribute the work and make the work available in perpetuity. This ensures that authors have the ability to publish and distribute their work elsewhere, in print or digitally, if necessary.

Authors select the license applied to their published article. However, JEP strongly endorses and encourages authors to select a Creative Commons Attribution license which helps ensure the work has the lowest barrier possible to its re-use.

If you are interested in using a JEP article outside of a stated license, please contact JEP staff at jep-info@umich.edu with your inquiry.

Submission Checklist

JEP is currently focusing on publishing special issues. If you want to submit an article to JEP, please see our current Calls for Papers here: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/jep/news/.

Each submission should include:

  • The e-mail address of the author to which readers can write if different from the e-mail address to be used by JEP's editors.
  • A narrative biography of each author, of no more than 125 words.
  • A short abstract of your article of no more than 300 words.
  • The URL of the author's personal home page, project or university department, and ORCID if available.

In addition, all DOIs, links to reference sources, examples, etc., should be checked twice. As of 2019, JEP requires that all published articles meet the basic digital accessibility standards for visual resources. Papers accepted for publication in JEP that publish visual assets (e.g. images) must include alt-text (or long descriptions) for each visual asset, as well as appropriate captions. For more information on the basic principles of describing visual resources for accessibility in arts and humanities publications, please visit Describing Visual Resources.org.

Footnotes and references: JEP uses the Chicago Manual of Style, Author-Date Style.

If you want to propose a submission that falls outside our current Call for Papers, or if you want to suggest a proposal for a future special issue, please contact the editors directly at jep.editors@gmail.com.

Publication Ethics

JEP’s policy for managing competing interests, complaints, appeals, and allegations of research misconduct is primarily based on the guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). These policies apply to manuscripts submitted, those under peer review, and published articles.

Disclosure of Competing Interests

JEP is dedicated to transparency and the integrity of the research process. To foster trustworthiness and accountability, all authors, reviewers, and editors must declare any interests that could compromise, conflict with, or influence the validity of their work. Competing interests must be disclosed at the time of article submission, including personal or financial relationships that could affect results. Everyone involved in the submission, editorial processing, peer review, and publication is required to disclose any competing interests as early as possible. By openly communicating potential competing interests, JEP aims to establish credibility with readers, funding bodies, and the academic community while ensuring academic rigour.

In this context, editorial responsibilities are:

  • Handling Editors: must not have any conflicts of interest regarding articles they consider for publication. If an editor has a conflict, they must withdraw from the selection and decision-making processes for the manuscript.
  • Authoring Editors: articles authored by editors or board members must include a 'Competing Interests' statement detailing how an independent editorial process and peer review were ensured.
  • Authors: should disclose in their manuscript any general, financial, or other substantive conflicts of interest that may have influenced their results or interpretations. If no conflicts exist, the standard statement "The authors declare that they have no competing interests" should be included.
  • Reviewers: must not have conflicts of interest related to the research, authors, or funding sources. 

Competing interests should cover at least the previous five years.

Complaints and Appeals

Complaints and appeals refer to expressions of dissatisfaction with the editorial process, decisions, manuscript handling, or issues related to publication ethics. To submit a complaint or appeal, relevant information must be emailed to jep.editors@gmail.com. Journal editors will evaluate the appeal's validity and acknowledge receipt in a timely manner while keeping the process transparent. If the response to a complaint or appeal is unsatisfactory, the issue may be escalated to the designated editorial board committee ("Complaints Board") by emailing jep-complaints@umich.edu. Complaints regarding the handling of submissions by the JEP editors may also be directed to this committee.

Allegations of Research Misconduct

Allegations refer to specific claims of misconduct during the research and publication processes, such as data fabrication or falsification, plagiarism, improper authorship, ethical violations and violation of the research integrity. Complaints about suspected misconduct should be emailed to jep.editors@gmail.com with detailed information indicating the specific instances of misconduct. The editors will conduct a confidential investigation and contact the corresponding author(s) to request explanations and evidence within 90 days. If the author(s) accept the misconduct claim, resolution actions will depend on the situation:

  • For published articles, corrections or retractions may be necessary.
  • For manuscripts under review, the review may continue with necessary amendments.
  • If no response is received within the stipulated timeframe or if misconduct is confirmed, the article may be permanently retracted or rejected. Once the issue is resolved, the complainant will be informed of the outcome.
  • The complainant will be informed of the outcome once the issue is resolved.
Corrections and Retractions

JEP editors or the designated committee reserve the right to determine whether a correction or retraction is necessary. Corrections will be issued for minor errors impacting an article's content or metadata, such as typographical errors or miscitations. Retractions may occur for significant issues affecting the integrity of the article, including evidence of misconduct, and will include the reason for retraction. Article removal will happen only in extraordinary circumstances involving copyright violations or potential harm, with a removal notice issued to explain the reasons. If the resolution does not satisfy the complainant, the matter may be escalated to COPE.

JEP editors or the designated committee reserve the right to determine whether a correction or retraction is necessary. Depending on their decision, several types of notices could be published:

  • Corrections: issued for minor errors impacting the article's content or metadata (e.g., typographical errors, data errors, miscitations) and will be linked to the original article.
  • Retractions: issued for significant issues affecting the integrity of the article, including evidence of misconduct or serious errors. Retraction notices will include the reason for the retraction and the instigator.
  • Removal: removal of articles will occur only in extraordinary circumstances where copyright violations or potential harm are implicated. A removal notice will be issued to explain the reasons for the removal.

To ensure that correction, retraction, and removal notices are clearly connected to the original published content, JEP follows standards, specific guidelines, and best practices, ensuring permanent hyperlinks and cross-referencing, placing a notice at the top of the original article, clear labelling, PDF watermark (for retracted articles), etc.

If the resolution does not satisfy the complainant, the matter may be escalated to the JEP Complaints Board.