- Policies
- International Journal of Ornithology
Editorial Policies
The ethical and editorial framework that applies to every manuscript submitted to the International Journal of Ornithology.
Screening and peer review
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Decisions remain independent of fees, services, memberships and roles.
Authorship, conflicts of interest and originality
- Authors are those who made substantial contributions to the work, approved the final version and accept accountability for it. Contributions should be described in the manuscript.
- Authors disclose financial and non-financial interests that could be seen to influence the work, and name its funders.
- Editors and reviewers withdraw from any manuscript in which they have a conflict of interest.
- Submitted work must be original, must not be under consideration elsewhere, and must credit prior work appropriately. The journal screens for text overlap and may ask authors to explain it.
- Preprints are permitted when disclosed at submission.
Animals, field work and permits
Research involving live birds, eggs, nests or specimens must follow institutional, national and international animal-welfare and conservation requirements. Where applicable, manuscripts report:
- ethics committee or institutional animal-care approval, with the approval reference;
- permits for capture, ringing or banding, handling, sampling, nest access, collection, export and research in protected areas;
- reporting that follows relevant guidelines, such as ARRIVE, where they apply to the study design;
- ethics approval or a documented exemption, and informed consent, where people take part in a study, for example in surveys or citizen-science projects.
Permit and approval numbers are stated in the manuscript.
Authors should avoid publishing precise locations of nests or roosts of threatened or persecuted species when disclosure could put the birds at risk; coarse locations are acceptable.
Data availability
Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement. Authors are encouraged to deposit data and code in a public repository. See Data Archiving and Permissions.
Use of AI tools
Authors disclose any use of generative AI tools in preparing a manuscript, and remain responsible for its content. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
Corrections, retractions and concerns
Errors that affect the reliability of a published article are corrected by a published notice. Where findings are unreliable or misconduct is established, the article may be retracted, following the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Concerns about a published or submitted manuscript can be sent to the editorial office.
Article processing charge
The article processing charge of JIO is USD 1,200, payable only after acceptance; withdrawal after submission is subject to the journal's withdrawal policy. The complete policy is on the Article Processing Charges page.
Digital preservation
This journal’s content is committed to Portico, a not-for-profit digital-preservation archive run by ITHAKA (the organization behind JSTOR). As articles are deposited they enter Portico’s permanent archive, so the scholarly record stays available for the long term — even if a title one day ceases to publish. Read our preservation policy.