Journal policies

  1. Editorial policy
  2. Peer review policy
  3. Open data policy
  4. Equality, diversity and inclusion

Editorial policy

UCL Press regards it as fundamental that research should be conducted and published according to best ethical practice. Users will find the full list of editorial policies for the journal on the UCL Press editorial policy pages:

Editorial policies

Peer review policy

UCL Open Environment operates an open and transparent peer review process where readers can assess the peer reviewer reports as part of the article’s review history. Articles submitted to the journal are first posted to the preprint server to undergo open peer review before being published officially in the journal after editorial acceptance.

  • UCL Open Environment requires at least two external peer reviews of a submitted article to be made openly available online before an editorial decision for official publication in the journal can be made.
  • As far as possible, assigned Editors and invited reviewers will not possess any potential conflicts of interests to the submitted article. However, where this is not possible, in circumstances where specific and required expertise or other reasons that are deemed necessary, any decision to publish may require additional review to maintain fair review practice.
  • The journal Editor may also decide to reject a review after considering any and all conflicts of interest and the reviewer will be informed of this decision. The Editor’s decision is final.

Further information about our peer reviewer policy, including reviewer and editor ethical obligations, can be found on the UCL Press editorial policy pages:

Peer review policies

Open data policy

Data has the power to revolutionise and disrupt the way societies are governed for the better. This is especially the case with open data, which is free to access, free to use, and can be shared by anyone. That is why UCL Open Environment requires all authors to make all data and scripts on which the conclusions of their paper rely freely available to readers.


What is data?

Data are facts, observations or experiences on which an argument or theory is constructed or tested. Data may be numerical, descriptive, aural or visual. Data may be raw, abstracted or analysed, experimental or observational. Data include but are not limited to: laboratory notebooks; field notebooks; primary research data (including research data in hard copy or in computer-readable form); questionnaires; audiotapes; videotapes; models; photographs; films; and test responses. Research collections may include slides; artefacts; specimens; and samples.


Fair data principles

The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics supports the FAIR Data Principles (https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples), which means that data should be:

  1. Findable – making research outputs discoverable by the wider academic community and the public.
  2. Accessible – using unique identifiers, metadata and a clear use of language and access protocols.
  3. Interoperable - interoperable standards to encode and exchange data and metadata.
  4. Reusable – enabling the repurposing of research outputs to maximise their research potential.

Data availability statement

Authors must clearly state in their manuscript where their data are made available at time of submission. In circumstances where ethical and legal issues dictate restrictions on sharing data (including research using personal data), a statement to this effect must be included for clarity. Persistent identifiers (such as DOIs and accession numbers) for relevant data must be provided in the manuscript.

During submission, authors are required to confirm the data availability statement to indicate how fellow researchers can access their data. Authors will be required to select one of the following statements:

  1. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the repository: *[source]
  2. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
  3. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
  4. All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.
  5. The data that support the findings of this study are available from * but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of * [source]

* You may add a link here to your data sets and/or software at a standard data repository. We also strongly encourage you to cite your data in the reference section according to the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles.


Citing data and data deposit

Prior to submission, all authors should ensure that their data are either deposited in publicly available repositories (for example on OSF). Authors based at UCL are encouraged to use the UCL Research Data Repository (please see https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/research-support/research-data-management/ucl-research-data-repository.) For further information, including about FAIR data sharing, all authors can find some useful information about when, where, and how to share data as openly as possible, here https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/research-support/research-data-management/best-practices/how-guides/sharing-data.


Handling sensitive and personal data

In circumstances where ethical and legal issues dictate, any restrictions on sharing data (including research using personal data) should always be considered when storing and preserving research data. The journal also does not require public sharing of other sensitive data. Alternatives to public sharing of sensitive or personal data include:

  • Deposition of research data in controlled access repositories.
  • Anonymisation or deidentification of data before public sharing.
  • Only sharing metadata about research data.
  • Stating the procedures for accessing your research data in your article and managing data access requests from other researchers.

The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics adheres to the statement: 'as open as possible, as closed as necessary'. Further information about this can be found at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/research-support/research-data.


Data citation

The journal encourages authors to cite any publicly available research data in their reference list. References to datasets (data citations) must include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI). Citations of datasets, when they appear in the reference list, should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite and follow journal style.


Equality, diversity and inclusion

As a part of UCL (University College London, UK), UCL Press and its publication UCL Open Environment are committed to UCL’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

In particular:

UCL defines “equality” as the absence of unjust social hierarchy such as those based on age, disability, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and religion, and “diversity” as the presence of different cultural traditions and identities.
We wish to foster a positive cultural climate where all staff and students can flourish, where no-one will feel compelled to conceal or play down elements of their identity for fear of stigma. UCL will be a place where people can be authentic and their unique perspective, experiences and skills seen as a valuable asset to the institution.

UCL Press and the Editorial Board of UCL Open Environment aim to foster this positive cultural climate for all authors, reviewers, users and staff of the publication, to discuss, debate and encourage critical thinking on real world problems with the aim of benefitting humanity.