Retraction, Correction and Expression of Concern Policy

SSIJ corrects the scholarly record openly when a published article contains errors or is unreliable, following the COPE Retraction Guidelines. Published articles are never silently changed or deleted; every change is made through a linked, freely available notice.

Types of notice

Notice	When it is used	What happens to the article
Correction	An honest error affects part of the article (for example an author name, affiliation, table or figure), but the main findings still stand	A correction notice is published and linked to the article. The article is updated and marked as corrected.
Expression of concern	There is credible evidence of a serious problem, but an investigation is still under way or inconclusive	The article stays online with the notice linked to it. The notice is later followed by a retraction or withdrawn.
Retraction	The findings are unreliable because of major error, fabrication or falsification; or the article involves plagiarism, duplicate publication, unethical research, manipulated peer review, or an undisclosed conflict of interest that invalidates it	The article stays online, but every page of the PDF is marked RETRACTED and linked to the retraction notice.
Removal	Only in exceptional legal cases, such as defamation, a breach of participants' privacy, or a court order	The full text is removed. The title, authors, DOI and a notice explaining the removal remain online.

Who can request a change

Authors, readers, reviewers, editors and institutions can raise a concern by writing to [editorial email] with the article's DOI and the reasons.

Process

The Editor-in-Chief acknowledges the request within 5 working days.
The editor assesses the evidence, consults reviewers or subject experts if needed, and follows the relevant COPE flowchart.
The authors are told about the concern and normally have 14 days to respond.
The editor decides on the type of notice. A retraction can proceed without the agreement of all authors; the notice states which authors agreed.
The notice is published in the next issue and linked to the original article, and the article's metadata is updated with Crossref.

Content of a notice

Each notice states the article title, authors and DOI, the reason for the notice, and who requested it. Notices are free to read and are listed in the table of contents of the issue in which they appear.

Withdrawal before publication

Authors may withdraw a manuscript at any time before acceptance by sending a written request, with reasons, signed by all authors. After acceptance, withdrawal is possible only with the editor's agreement and for serious reasons, such as an error found in the data. SSIJ charges no withdrawal fee.