These COPE Guidelines provide an overview of editorial board appointment and engagement, roles and responsibilities, and key details to consider during recruitment such as participation on multiple editorial boards.
COPE Guidelines are formal COPE policy and are intended to advise editors and publishers on expected publication ethics practice.
Editorial roles should be clearly defined to include: the number of reviews expected, definitions of review quality and expectations; the level of editorial decisions to be made; and details of decision chains.
Appointment terms should be defined with details such as appointment criteria, length of term, renewal terms, and reasons to end the appointment early.
Journals should define the types or levels of conflicts of interest that are not permissible for their editors which, if present, should preclude an editor from joining the board or result in an editor’s removal if not resolved.
Journals should ask potential editorial board members to provide a list of their potential conflicts of interest
When journals recruit editors at any level, they might need to decide whether it is appropriate for any individual to be a member of more than one editorial board at the same time within the same field, with the same levels of decision-making, or article commissioning responsibility.