Journal Policies

Peer Review

Each submitted manuscript is assessed by at least two independent reviewers.

Reviewers are recruited based on their knowledge of or affinity with the main subjects of the article.

The reviewers are asked to rate each manuscript in terms of its value as a novel and significant contribution to scientific knowledge and its interest to the journal’s readership.

Publication Frequency

Accepted papers, once copy-edited and typeset, are published online at the earliest opportunity. At the end of each calendar year, the published papers are collated as a single online volume.

Indexing

Edinburgh Journal of Botany is indexed in the following databases:

  • CABI
  • EBSCOhost
  • Elsevier BV
  • OCLC
  • Proquest
  • Clarivate Analytics BIOSIS
  • Viniti Ran

Archiving

A permanent archive of the journal is held by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for purposes of preservation and restoration. The journal is registered with the PKP Preservation Network (PN) and LOCKSS secure digital preservation system.

Journal History

The journal has a 120-year history of publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed, international plant science research. It was established in 1900 as the Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, publishing reports of scientific investigations and points of interest relating to plant life. In 1990, its name was changed to the Edinburgh Journal of Botany to reflect the significance of the scientific papers being published. In early 2021, the journal’s peer-reviewed content will be made freely available online via an open access publishing model so that the valuable scientific information it publishes can be made available to as large a readership as possible.

Journal Sponsorship

Publication of the Edinburgh Journal of Botany, as part of the work of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, is supported by the Scottish Government’s Environment and Forestry Directorate (ENFOR).

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content, under a CC BY 4.0 licence, on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Edinburgh Journal of Botany uses a Diamond Open Access publishing model. There are no article-processing charges or other publication fees.

Copyright Policy

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms.
  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
    More information on Creative Commons licences.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are NOT permitted to post their submitted work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on their website) before or during the submission process because doing so can lead to major nomenclatural issues.  
  4. Authors are required to ensure that submitted content does not infringe third-party copyright. Authors must obtain permission to reproduce any third-party material for online – and print, if applicable – publication in perpetuity. It is also the authors’ responsibility to include any acknowledgements requested by copyright holders, and to mark clearly third-party material used with permission, material that has separate licensing terms, and material used under exceptions or limitations to copyright. More information is available from the UK's Intellectual Property Office and Creative Commons.
  5. It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse articles published in this journal, provided that reuse is in line with the article’s Creative Commons licence and attribution to the author(s) and the published article is maintained. Please note that these terms do not extend to any material that has separate licensing terms specified or any material that is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Permission to reproduce third-party material must be obtained directly from the relevant copyright holders.

Ethics Policy

The Edinburgh Journal of Botany (EJB) is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics and procedures. The responsibilities of contributors to the publication process outlined below has been compiled with reference to guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and is in line with the ethics of Edinburgh Diamond the online platform on which EJB is hosted.

Principles of Transparency

The Editors of EJB adhere to COPE’s Principles of Transparency (COPE/DOAJ/WAME, 2018). These can be found here.

Editor Responsibilities

Publication Decisions: Editors are responsible for the material published in the journal and have set criteria by which to assess submissions. Processes are in place for addendums, erratums, and retractions. The journal’s acceptance criteria and guidelines are fair. Manuscripts are evaluated on the paper’s clarity, originality and relevance to the scope of the journal. No discrimination is made on the basis of the Protected Characteristics of UK Equality Act 2010.

Confidentiality: Information about submitted manuscripts is kept between the editorial team, corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers and the publisher, as appropriate. Information must not be shared with anyone else. Editors also ensure peer reviewer identities are kept anonymous unless there is additional and exceptional agreement between reviewer and editor regarding anonymity.

Transparency: Editors ensure that everyone associated with reviewing, processing and publishing papers for EJB, are aware of their duties in accordance with publication ethics.

Peer review: The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for creating reviewer guidelines for their journal. These are available to reviewers once they have agreed to review a paper. It clearly states that two independent blind (anonymous) peer-review is the form of review used by EJB.

Competing interests: Editors will inform the Editor-in-Chief if they have competing, or conflicting, interests with a submission. Competing interests include rivalry and financial gain. Editors will not handle submissions where they have a competing interest, unless appropriate statements have been made that show all parties are aware of the conflict.

Suspected misconduct: Editors will refer to COPE flowcharts in cases of plagiarism, disputed authorship or general misconduct.

Ethical oversight: EJB adheres to the COPE definition of Ethical Oversight: “Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices”. The Editor-in-Chief will consider appeals regarding non-compliancy of ethical principles by authors.

  • Plagiarism: COPE defines plagiarism as follows: ‘When somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were his/her own and without proper acknowledgment’. Reviewers must inform the journal Editor/Editor-in-Chief of any suspected plagiarism in the content they are reviewing.
  • Corrections and Retractions The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for decisions on corrections and retractions. The Editor-in-Chief will not alter or remove published content, in line with the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers' (STM) guidelines.       However, the Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to issue expressions of concern, corrections or retractions if there is proof of author or research misconduct or inaccurate content. When              investigating allegations of misconduct, the Editor-in-Chief will follow the COPE flowcharts as            the basis for decisions.

 Expression of Concern

The Editor-in-Chief will consider issuing an expression of concern if:

  • There is an ongoing investigation or lawsuit into alleged misconduct or publication of falsified/fabricated data,
  • There is inconclusive evidence of misconduct from the authors,
  • The authors’ institution will not investigate misconduct,
  • There is not the possibility of an impartial, fair or conclusive investigation into the alleged misconduct.

The expression of concern will be published on the article landing page, linking directly to the related version of the article.

Correction

The Editor-in-Chief will consider issuing a correction if:

  • A small amount of an otherwise reliable article is misleading,
  • The scientific accuracy is compromised,
  • An author needs to be added or removed from the authorship list,
  • An author conflict of interest has been disclosed post-publication (which isn’t significant enough to potentially change the conclusions of the article, in the judgement of the Editor-in-Chief).

The correction will be published on the article landing page, linking directly to the related version of the article.

Retraction

The Editor-in-Chief will consider issuing a retraction notice if:

  • There is clear evidence that findings are unreliable due to misconduct (such as data fabrication and plagiarism) or honest error (such as a miscalculation),
  • The article is a duplicate publication (the findings have been published elsewhere without cross-referencing or permission),
  • The article contains plagiarised content,
  • The article reports unethical research,
  • The peer review process has been compromised to the point where the integrity of the article cannot be guaranteed,
  • An author conflict of interest has been disclosed post-publication (which is significant enough to potentially change the conclusions of the article, in the judgement of the Editor-in-Chief).

The retraction notice will be published on the article landing page, linking directly to the related version of the article. The version of record PDF will not change, other than for a watermark with the word “retracted” on each page. The HTML version will be removed. The retraction statement should include the reason for retraction (to distinguish misconduct from honest error) and avoid defamatory or libellous statements.

Removal

In very rare cases an article may need to be removed. The Editor-in-Chief will only consider a removal:

  • If the article is the subject of a court order or injunction,
  • Defamation,
  • A serious medical error (such as an incorrect dosage that could lead to significant harm),
  • A serious breach of privacy or confidentiality.

The removal notice will be published on the article landing page, with a clear reason explaining the removal.

Note. To ensure compliance with the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, articles, once published, can not be completely removed from public view. However, if an article is found to infringe any person's rights, a clear statement to that effect will be attached to it.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Ethical: Peer reviewers must conduct reviews in an ethical and accountable manner. Reviewers should be objective and considerate.

Bias: Reviewers must remain unbiased by characteristics of the authors or editors. There should be no discrimination on characteristics protected by UK law.

Competing interests: Reviewers must declare all potential competing, or conflicting, interests. Competing interests include rivalry and financial gain. Reviewers should talk to the Editor-in-Chief if they are unsure.

Timeliness: Reviewers should aim to respond to an invite to review within a reasonable timeframe, even if they cannot accept the invitation. They should only accept to review if able to do so within the proposed or a mutually agreed timeframe. If circumstances change, the reviewers should let the relevant editors know as promptly as possible.

Plagiarism: Reviewers must inform the journal editor of any suspected plagiarism in the content they are reviewing.

Confidentiality: Information about submitted manuscripts must be kept between the editorial team, corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers and the publisher, as appropriate. Information must not be shared with anyone else.

Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers are on the COPE website: COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

Author Responsibilities

Authorship: Authors (those that completed the work reported in the article and those that wrote the piece) are responsible for deciding authorship appropriately, referring to authorship best practice within their discipline. The listing of authorship should reflect those that carried out the research as well as those that wrote the article. The order should be agreed upon by all co-authors and lead authors. All authors should be aware of the completed article and subsequent submission.

Originality: Authors should ensure all the work reported in their article is original, citing information and content from other sources, and avoiding plagiarism.

Competing interests: Authors must declare all potential competing, or conflicting, interests. Competing interests include financial, commercial, or legal, relationships with the journal, or any member(s) of the journal team, that could in any way influence the research. They also involve personal rivalry. Authors must include a disclosure statement in their submission if they have a competing interest and should talk to the Editor-in-Chief if they are unsure.

Copyright infringement: Authors are responsible for ensuring their work does not contain libellous matter or infringe any copyright, intellectual property rights, or third party rights. It is the author’s responsibility to ensure permissions are obtained for third-party content, including texts and images.

Simultaneous submissions: Authors should not submit their article elsewhere while under consideration by the journal. Any overlap in previously published content should be cited appropriately.

Funding: Any funding sources, or other sources of support, should be listed.

Errors: Authors should immediately inform the journal Editor-in-Chief if there are any major errors in the published work. The author will be responsible for working with the Editor-in-Chief to publish the necessary addendum, erratum, or retraction.

Ethical oversight: Authors should adhere to the COPE definition of Ethical Oversight: “Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices”.

  • Human/animal experiments: Data involving human or animal experiments should be descriptive about practices within the article. Work with humans (living or dead) or nonhuman animals should be accompanied by proof of ethical approval from an institution. This could be reference to the process in the manuscript, or additional documentation.
  • Human subjects: Authors should details how consent was obtained from any participants in their study. All participants have a right to confidentiality in regards to their personal data, which should not be broken without their consent. No identifying information should be included, unless essential to the work and written informed consent has been obtained, after which it can be included in the manuscript. No data on participants should be falsified  or amended.

Nagoya Protocol: The author is responsible for making sure that the principles and spirit of the UN Nagoya Protocol is followed when gathering material, data and/or traditional knowledge for publication to ensure the fair and equitable sharing of benefits resulting from accessing genetic material.

Author Appeals

Authors have the right to appeal editorial decisions. The Editor-in-Chief should consider appeals fairly. Decisions made by the Editor-in-Chief after the appeal is final. The process for an author to appeal is:

  • Write and send a response letter to the Editor-in-Chief which includes counterpoints to the decision and rebuttals to comments provided by the editor and peer reviewers,
  • The Editor-in-Chief should consider the appeal, looping in the editorial board as necessary. The Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final,
  • If the author’s appeal is granted, their article should be sent to another independent reviewer,
  • Based on the reviewer’s comment, the Editor-in-Chief should make a decision on the author’s article. The Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final.

References

COPE/DOAJ/ OASPA/WAME. (2018). Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing v3. Available online: https://publicationethics.org/files/Principles_of_Transparency_and_Best_Practice_in_Scholarly_Publishingv3_0.pdf (accessed January 2022)

Equality Act 2010. Available online: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents

The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing (2010): https://www.cbd.int/abs/

Privacy and Consent Policy

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal falls within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting aggregated data on readership behaviours, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.

This journal’s editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will assist in developing this journal platform (Open Journal Systems – OJS) may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project (PKP) in an anonymised and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here.

This journal uses the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s journal platform (OJS), which is hosted by Edinburgh University Library.

Registered users

Users who register with this journal, including authors and peer reviewers where applicable, consent to having the personal information being stored in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s journal platform (OJS) and processed by the platform and journal editorial teams.

Authors

Authors who submit a manuscript to this journal consent to the personal information they supply as part of the submission being stored in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s journal platform (OJS) and processed by the platform and journal editorial teams. Authors who submit a manuscript have the responsibility to ensure that all contributors have read this Privacy and Consent policy and consent to having their personal information that is supplied as part of the submission process being stored in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s journal platform (OJS) and processed by the platform and journal editorial teams. Authors published in this journal are also responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported in the journal.

Website visitors

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s journal platform (OJS) collects anonymised usage log data, including IP addresses, pages visited, date visited, browser information, and geographical data. This information is not used to identify visitors personally and it is not used for any purpose other what is described here. The platform also uses cookies to manage session history and provide a better user experience – more details can be found in the Cookies section below.

Rights of the individual

Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for “data subject rights” that include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of “the public interest in the availability of the data,” which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.

All users whose details are stored in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s OJS installation can exercise their rights of the individual, as they are detailed in the GDPR.

If you have a user account and wish to have it deleted, please email ejb@rbge.org.uk.

Accessibility Policy

This accessibility policy and statement applies to the Edinburgh Journal of Botany published by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) and hosted by The Journal Hosting Service of the University of Edinburgh Library as part of the University of Edinburgh (UoE).

We use Open Journal Systems (OJS) to provide a publishing platform to publish the journal. This open source software is developed by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP).

The journal, RBGE and UoE are committed to making our websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. We want as many people as possible to be able to use the websites and work is continuing to fulfil this aim.

On the Journal website, https://journals.rbge.org.uk/ejb, you should be able to:

  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We have also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

How accessible is this website?

We know that some parts of the website are not fully accessible, for example:

  • Some parts of the website, including status messages, online forms, headers, buttons and links may not be fully compatible with assistive technologies.
  • Colour contrast may not be high enough and some text spacing may not match minimum requirements.
  • Some text and images may spill off the screen at some screen resolutions.
  • Keyboard navigation and its focus indicator do not work on every part of every website.
  • Our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard and assistive technologies.
  • Most older PDF documents (pre- 2018) are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
  • Some elements may not always appear in the most logical order if you are using assistive technologies to navigate the page.

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

All PDF’s published since the start of 2022 are in accessible PDF format. If you need information on this website in a different format like large print we will do our best to support you. email:  webmaster@rbge.org.uk; call:  0131 552 7171.

We will confirm receipt of your request and get back to you in seven days.  Please add ‘accessibility’ into your subject header.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website.  If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements please email webmaster@rbge.org.uk

Enforcement Procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’).  If you are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical Information about this website’s accessibility

The Journal, RBGE and UoE are committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Non-text Content

Some images, non-text content and form controls do not have alternative text or descriptive enough labels to explain their content. This means that the information displayed by them is not available to people using a screen reader. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1.

Meaningful Sequence

When viewing the homepage with CSS disabled, the Google Translate component is causing the ordering of the page content to appear incorrect. This may confuse or disorient users when assistive technology reads the content in the wrong order. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.2.

Identify Input Purpose

All form fields lack the 'autocomplete' attribute. This makes it harder for the user, especially for people with cognitive disabilities, to fill out forms. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.5.

Resize Text

Some parts of the content may disappear or change context when zooming in up to 200%.  This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4.

Reflow

At certain resolutions, content may not reflow and there may be a loss of information or functionality which requires scrolling in two dimensions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10.

Text Spacing

We cannot guarantee that all the website text meets the minimum text spacing. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12.

Contrast

The colour contrast of some text and graphical objects on the website may not be high enough to display content clearly. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (contrast minimum) and 1.4.11 (Non-text contrast: graphical objects).

Keyboard

When using keyboard navigation, users may not be able to tab to all of the elements within the page or tab forward when navigating to a new page. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1.

Focus Order

When tabbing the page in some places the tab order may not be logical, which may result in some users finding it difficult to understand or operate the web page. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.3.

Focus Visible

In some places, a visible tab focus indicator is not present to highlight the element in focus for keyboard operable user interface components. As a result, if you use a keyboard to navigate, you may be unable to easily navigate the website. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7.

Error Suggestion

Within forms on the site, suggestions for input errors are not provided.  This means that some users may find it difficult to understand how to correct errors. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.3.

Labels or Instructions

Within forms, some elements may be missing labels or instructions. This means that some users may experience confusion over what input data is expected.  This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2.

Name, Role, Value

When navigating the website with JAWS enabled or via a keyboard in conjunction with macOS VoiceOver, some components across the page are announced twice which may result in screen readers stuttering and may disorientate users of assistive technologies. Also, when navigating forms with Dragon Naturally Speaking, the user is unable to navigate and select options via voice command. These fail WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2.

Status Messages

In the event of a status message being published on the website, this additional content may not be announced by assistive technologies without receiving focus. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.3.

Disproportionate Burden

We are committed to improving the criteria above and we are working hard to achieve that, but it will take some time due to the cost, conditions of contracts and complexity of the task.

We have assessed the cost of fixing all other accessibility issues against the planned digital projects and believe doing so would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. For any issues not resolved during upcoming projects, we plan to fix during any future redevelopment of the website. 

We have had the site audited independently by Zoonou to allow us to identify the work that needs to be carried out to make it accessible.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations 

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards. The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services.

All PDF’s published since the start of 2022 are in accessible PDF format.

Third party software, tools and content

Some types of content and technology used on the website are provided by third parties (like Google Translate, Google Maps and YouTube). We have not paid for, developed, nor controlled these services at any time; therefore, we are not liable for their accessibility compliance.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We are committed to inclusivity and will continue to improve our site when possible.

We are also:

  • Ensuring that all new components are built to WCAG 2.1 AA standards at a minimum.
  • Continuing our commitment to user testing and listening to our digital users.
  • Raising general accessibility awareness.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

The website was last tested on 1 March 2021. The test was carried out independently by Zoonou.

We tested:

  • our website platform with a full automated audit of every page
  • a sample of pages and templates manually. In selecting these pages, we considered the different audiences using the website and their most frequent user journeys starting from the home page.
  • Testing the website journeys of users with hearing-loss, dyslexia and partially-sighted and blind speech users.

If you would like to view the full accessibility test report, please email webmaster@rbge.org.uk

This statement was last updated on 10 May 2022.