JOS Acceptance 3 is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record. This page explains how we handle changes to articles after publication and what the Crossmark button on our articles tells you.
The Crossmark button
Crossmark is a service of Crossref. Clicking the Crossmark button on an article page shows the current status of the article: whether it is still current, or whether it has been corrected, retracted, removed, or is the subject of an expression of concern, together with links to the relevant notices. The button only reports updates that we have registered with Crossref.
Editorial and peer review policy
Peer review for research articles, reviews, letters and notes follows the review model specified by the journal: single-anonymous or double-anonymous review. In both models, reviewer identities are withheld from authors and other reviewers; in double-anonymous review, author identities are also withheld from reviewers. An academic editor oversees peer review and recommends a decision. The editorial office makes the final decision and may also reject a manuscript without external review. First-round submissions and major revisions require at least two completed reviews before the academic editor can submit a recommendation. Editorials and errata are prepared by the editorial office and are not peer reviewed.
Publication ethics
We follow the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Authors declare their funding, competing interests and the use of AI tools, and provide data availability and ethics statements where applicable. Reviewers declare any competing interests when they accept an invitation.
Reporting a concern
If you believe that a published article contains an error, or you have concerns about its integrity, please contact office@jos.test. Give the article's DOI or title and describe the issue. We will look into every report and, where necessary, publish a notice as described below.
Changes after publication
Once published, a version of an article is never changed in place. Every change is made in one of the ways below and leaves a public record on the article page. Earlier versions remain available from the article page, except for removed articles (see Removal below).
- Minor changes. Changes that do not affect the interpretation or the credit of the work, such as typographical or formatting fixes, may be published as a new version of the article. They are not reported as Crossmark updates.
- Corrections. An error that affects the interpretation or the credit of the work is corrected either by publishing a new version of the article together with a correction notice, or by publishing a separate correction (erratum) that links to the original article. Correction notices appear on the article page. Once registered with Crossref, they are also reported through Crossmark.
- Expressions of concern. When there are serious concerns about an article that have not yet been resolved, we may publish an expression of concern on the article page.
- Retractions. An article that should no longer be relied upon is retracted. The article page remains available and is clearly marked as retracted, with a retraction notice explaining the reason. When the retraction is registered with Crossref, the article title in that record begins with "RETRACTED:". A retraction is not reversed. If a retraction notice itself contains an error, we add a further notice; earlier notices are never altered.
- Files no longer provided. In exceptional circumstances, for example when a file contains information that must not remain public, we may stop providing an individual file of an article. The article page states that the file is no longer available.
- Removal. In rare cases, for legal reasons such as infringement, defamation or privacy, or when an article was published in error, the content of an article is removed. The article page then shows only the bibliographic details and a removal notice. Further notices may be added to correct the removal notice.
The Crossmark button shows updates registered with Crossref. Check the article page for the notices published on this site, including updates that have not yet been registered with Crossref.