International Journal of Speech Technology - Guest-Edited Collections Policies

Announcement of New Policies for Guest-Edited Collections

Thanks to investigations by the Springer Nature Research Integrity Group and evidence from whistleblowers in the research community, we determined that select Guest-Edited collections (i.e. special issues) of the International Journal of Speech Technology had certain security vulnerabilities that made them good places for bad actors to discreetly publish unethical or improperly-reviewed research. Although these vulnerabilities have been discovered and addressed, they still led to the publication of several so-called paper mill articles in our journal. 

These vulnerabilities were taken advantage of across the field of research publishing, but our Research Integrity investigations have revealed that our journal in particular was disproportionately targeted by such bad actors. As such, we have been in the process of reexamining and retracting all Guest-Edited IJST content that fails to meet Springer’s standards for peer review and scientific integrity. 

Paper mill articles are an affront to the overwhelmingly honest and hardworking researchers, the authors and editors that make up our community, and to the general collaborative and open spirit of research publishing. We apologize for allowing our editorial processes to be manipulated and truly regret that our oversight contributed to the publication of paper mill articles.

As our efforts to investigate and retract previous journal collections continue, the International Journal of Speech Technology has implemented new checks and safeguards to protect our collections system against future abuse, so as to ensure the good faith and cooperation of future Guest Editor partners in the field of speech technology.

• Only invited special issue proposals will be considered for inclusion in the journal.
• The journal has lowered the maximum number of special issues it can have open concurrently. 
• Citations and reference lists of submissions to Guest-Edited collections will be reviewed to preempt attempts at citation manipulation. 
• Researchers who are interested in serving as Guest Editors will be invited to join the journal editor-in-chief and publishing editor for a telephone call to discuss their areas of expertise and previous editorial experience.
• Informal background checks will be conducted on all prospective Guest Editors by the Springer publishing editor. This includes confirming institutional affiliations; previous publications and collections; and any recorded retractions, ethical complaints, or incidents of publication manipulation on file with the Springer Research Integrity Group.
• Individuals who are chosen to serve as Guest Editor are required to prepare and invite their own set of reviewers for submissions to their collection.
• If there are substantial grounds to suspect the integrity of a journal collection has been compromised (e.g., excessive self-citations, obvious plagiarism, suspicious review panel responses, etc.), we will revoke the permissions of its Guest Editor and suspend its publication in order to prevent any unethical or otherwise invalid research from being published. These permissions may be reinstated at a later point if a Research Integrity investigation deems that these suspicions of unethical behavior were incorrect.

As ever, our mission remains to protect the integrity of the scholarly record and to publish innovative new peer-reviewed research. In addition to implementing the changes above, we at Springer Nature and the International Journal of Speech Technology are re-committing ourselves to these ideals and hope we can count on your continued support of the journal in the future. 

Thank you for reading.

Patrick Keefe
Publisher, International Journal of Speech Technology 
On behalf of Springer Nature and the IJST Editorial Team

Last updated June 16, 2022