Scrutiny of the COPE/DOAJ/OASPA/WAME Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing

Four publishing-related organizations, the first dedicated specifically to the creation and dissemination of ethics policy, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), established a set of 16 principles related to journal and publisher transparency and “best” publishing practices. The first version was published in 2014, followed by the second version in 2015, and the third version in 2018. Membership principles dictate that these organizations can only become members if they satisfy these principles. Many journals also claim to follow these principles. In this paper, the three versions are compared to appreciate how the content and wording has changed in and across them. An assessment is also made to determine whether all principles are related to transparency and best principles, and if any may be missing. It is concluded that while the 16 principles do offer broad guidance to several important aspects related to journal and publishing ethics and management, that the vast majority of the 16 stated principles are in general excessively broad, sometimes vague, or lacking in examples or specifics, and thus have practical limitations. There is also no transparency regarding the consequences for members that may violate, or not abide by, these principles. Given the considerable superficiality and opacity of the currently stated 16 principles of “best” publishing practices, the opinion is held that COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME need to rethink and redevise these principles, with much greater attention to detail.