Wiley's policy for handling post-publication amendments

Wiley is committed to upholding the integrity and accuracy of the publication record. Through our Integrity Assurance & Case Resolution team we work with Editors to investigate and resolve research integrity concerns in accordance with our Best Practice Guidelines for Research Integrity and Publication Ethics, individual author guidelines for the journals we publish, and the guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We publish a range of post-publication amendments, for different circumstances, as outlined below. These amendments are permanent, accessible and indexable, adhering to the practices and guidance described by NISO recommended practice for the Communication of Retractions, Removals and Expressions of Concern (CREC).

Integrity and ethics concerns and questions about these policies can be submitted to Wiley’s Research Integrity Team using this form. Queries received will be directed to the Integrity Assurance & Case Resolution team.

Retractions

Wiley publishes retractions in cases where it has been determined that the findings reported in a published research article cannot be relied upon, in accordance with COPE’s Retraction guidelines.

Articles may be retracted in accordance with Wiley’s policies and COPE’s Retraction guidelines, if:

There is major error which would invalidate the conclusions of the article, for example, where there is clear evidence that findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. misinterpretation, miscalculation or experimental error) or a major conflict of interest which could have affected the interpretation of the research.
Where the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication).
Where there are ethical issues such as plagiarism (appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit including those obtained through confidential review of others' manuscripts) or manipulation of authorship which could undermine the integrity of the research (see COPE discussion document on Authorship).
Where unethical research has been reported.
Where an investigation uncovers evidence of systematic manipulation of the publishing process.

Withdrawals

It is Wiley's policy to strongly discourage withdrawal (removal) of the Version of Record in line with STM guidelines on the preservation of the objective record of science. Therefore, withdrawal of the Version of Record is rare, and Wiley will only consider it in exceptional circumstances, such as, but not limited to, the following:

Where withdrawal is necessary to preserve the privacy of a research subject;
Where there are errors to which a member of the general public might be exposed and if followed or adopted, would pose a significant risk to health;
Where a clearly defamatory comment has been made about others in the relevant field or about their work; or
Where violations of copyright, intellectual property rights, or violation of confidentiality have been identified.

Expressions of Concern

Journal editors/publishers may consider issuing an Expression of Concern if they have serious concerns about a published article and feel that readers should be made aware of them, but do not have sufficient evidence that the article should be retracted. Therefore, Expressions of Concern should only be issued if an investigation into the concerns relating to the article prove inconclusive, and if there remain strong indicators that the concerns are valid. On some occasions, an Expression of Concern may be issued where serious concerns have been raised and an investigation is underway, but a final decision may not be available for a considerable time.

Corrections

Articles may be corrected, for instance, if:

Important content is incorrect or presented in such a way that the intent of the relevant section of the article is unclear;
An error affects the interpretation of data or information presented in the article, but is not significant enough to impact the conclusions;
Acknowledgements of funder support or non-author contributors have not been included; or declarations related to ethics approval or conflicts of interest need to be added; or
The article’s metadata (author list, title, etc.) is wrong, thereby affecting its discoverability on third-party abstracting and indexing sites.

Minor copyediting or typesetting errors that do not affect the meaning or interpretation of an article are generally not corrected after publication, nor is content added to an article that is beyond its original scope, such as additional references or updates to the text based on information not available at the article’s time of publication. The journal’s editor and publisher will determine whether an error is significant enough to merit correction.