Recommendations for the Board of Directors

Board of directors reviewing documents in a professional business meeting.

As members of the Board of Directors at Global Journals®, you hold a vital role in upholding the integrity, reputation, and strategic direction of the organization. The following recommendations are intended to guide the Board in making decisions and establishing systems that support ethical publishing, editorial freedom, clarity in governance, and long-term sustainability.

A team of engineers assembling a spacecraft in a high-tech cleanroom environment.

Members must recognize and prepare for all possible disputes, which may relate to

  • Stocks and financial holdings
  • Consultancies or advisory roles
  • Patents and intellectual property
  • Editorial positions in competing journals
  • Employment or associations with competitor publishers
  • Personal, political, intellectual, or religious interests

The Board should maintain a duly approved manual that outlines acceptable practices and standard solutions for addressing such conflicts in a transparent and ethical manner.

Finally, all Board members are expected to establish a foolproof system for confidentiality. They must ensure that sensitive information about the journal, its authors, or its internal processes is never disclosed to outsiders without proper authorization.

Key Recommendations

Ensure Editorial Independence

  • Support editors in making publication decisions based solely on quality, rigor, novelty, and ethical compliance, not on commercial, political or personal pressures
  • Define in writing the scope of editor authority versus board/publisher oversight, especially when editors are dealing with content, peer review, and retractions.

Maintain Confidentiality and Transparency

  • Establish clear policies to safeguard confidentiality of unpublished submissions, reviewer identities (if double-blind), and editorial discussions.
  • Make publicly available the Board’s conflict of interest policy. Board members should disclose any affiliations, financial interests, or external commitments that might bias decisions.

Define Responsibilities and Processes

  • Create a written manual or charter for the Board that lays out roles, duties, decision processes, dispute resolution mechanisms, term limits, and expectations.
  • Ensure there are procedures for handling anticipated disputes: intellectual property, patents, consultancies, employment, competing journals, etc.

Promote Transparency with Stakeholders

  • Publish clear information about Board governance, policies, editorial structure, and decision-making processes on the website.
  • Ensure that authors, reviewers, and readers know the policies on conflicts of interest, peer review, corrections/retractions, authorship.

Uphold Ethical Standards

  • Align policies with COPE, OARS, and other international publication ethics guidelines
  • Ensure systems are in place for handling suspected breaches: plagiarism, data fabrication/falsification, duplicate submissions, etc.
  • Require Board members to undergo periodic training on publication ethics (e.g. on COPE/OARS flowcharts, conflict of interest, retraction procedures).

Establish Accountability and Monitoring

  • Set up measurable performance indicators for the Board itself, for example: adherence to review timelines, handling of ethical cases, responsiveness to authors/reviewers.
  • Conduct reviews (annual or bi-annual) of Board performance and compliance with policies.

Promote Transparency with Stakeholders

  • Publish clear information about Board governance, policies, editorial structure, and decision-making processes on the website.
  • Ensure that authors, reviewers, and readers know the policies on conflicts of interest, peer review, corrections/retractions, authorship.

Support Editors and Editorial Staff

  • Provide sufficient resources, staff support, and training to editors so that ethical and editorial standards can be followed without undue burden.
  • Avoid imposition of unrealistic expectations or metrics that may compromise reviewing or editorial quality (e.g. overemphasis on speed if it sacrifices review integrity).

Safeguard Reputation and Long-Term Sustainability

  • Monitor how emerging issues affect publishing (e.g. AI, preprint culture, open access trends) and plan accordingly.
  • Ensure financial models, partnerships, and commercial agreements do not compromise editorial or ethical standards.
  • Periodically evaluate company policies for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) responsibility (e.g. digital sustainability, data privacy, community impact).