Peer Community Journal

1. What is Peer Community Journal?

6. What does the Peer Community Journal do?

7. What does the Peer Community Journal not do?

8. Is Peer Community Journal an overlay journal?

9. Governance of the Peer Community Journal

10. Publication ethics - Complaint and integrity policy and procedure

12. Support for Peer Community Journal

1. What is Peer Community Journal?

1.1 Main features

This journal, created and funded by the not-for-profit and non-commercial “Peer Community In” (PCI) organisation, publishes PCI-recommended articles in open access, without further peer review, at no cost to the authors. PCI-recommended articles are articles evaluated and accepted by the thematic PCIs. On acceptance, the thematic PCI publishes a recommendation text encouraging readers to read, use, and cite the article, hence the name "PCI-recommended article".

The evaluation of articles, by peer review, is performed by each thematic PCI. Once an article has been evaluated, accepted and recommended by a PCI, the authors can opt to publish it in Peer Community Journal.
Peer Community journal is run by researchers for researchers and is funded by public research institutions. It is:

Unique = it is a single journal for all PCIs
Free = it is a diamond open-access journal (free for both authors and readers)
Exclusive = it publishes only articles recommended by PCI
Unconditional = it can publish any PCI-recommended article in its recommended version
Opt-in = it publishes articles only if the authors wish it
Immediate = there is almost no delay between submission and publication
Community-based = it is run by scientists for scientists

Peer Community Journal is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and was awarded the DOAJ Seal for best practices in open access publishing. It is also indexed in several other databases, such as Google Scholar, Scopus, Dimensions, Europe PMC, and Semantic Scholar - see all databases indexing Peer Community Journal. In addition, Peer Community Journal is compliant with Plan S, indexed in the Journal Checker Tool, and is currently being evaluated by international scientific databases for further indexation.

1.2 Open access policy

Peer Community Journal is a diamond open-access journal. It is free for both authors and readers.

The articles published by Peer Community Journal are published under a CC-BY license.

Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions.

According to the submission and evaluation procedures (see below), the submitted version and the accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript) must be deposited in an open repository. In addition, the published version (Version of Record) can be deposited in an open repository.

1.3 Timeliness and publication volume

Peer Community Journal operates under a continuous publication schedule with one volume per year - volume 1 corresponding to the year 2021.

2. Aims and scope

The aim of PCJ is to promote and freely disseminate expertly peer-reviewed scientific knowledge.

PCJ publishes articles in numerous fields across life sciences and medical disciplines, physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities. It also publishes articles based on registered reports. The broad and inclusive scope, and robust peer-review of PCJ articles arises from an increasing number of rigorous thematic preprint peer-review platforms (thematic PCIs) that cover a wide range of disciplines (see, current thematic PCIs).
PCJ therefore publishes rigorous articles that have been peer-reviewed and recommended by a thematic PCI. An article that has not been recommended by a thematic PCI cannot be submitted to Peer Community Journal, but can be submitted to a PCI.

The articles must describe empirical or theoretical studies and be based on observations from experiments or nature or previously acquired data. They may also report the results of verbal, computer or mathematical models. Studies of methodologies are also appreciated. Perspectives, reviews and opinions and comments on previously published articles are also welcome.

PCJ publishes only articles of high scientific quality that are methodologically and ethically sound. To this end, Peer Community Journal:

Requires data, computer codes and mathematical and statistical analysis scripts to be made available to reviewers and recommenders at the time of submission and to readers after publication.
Welcomes reproductions of studies.
Welcomes submissions based on preregistrations (whether or not the preregistrations were reviewed).
Welcomes articles reporting negative results, provided that the questions addressed and the methodology are sound.
Does not accept submissions that have been previously published. The preprint submitted to the relevant thematic PCI, or prior use in an academic thesis or conference presentation/proceedings does not count as prior publication, but theses and conferences should be acknowledged.
Does not accept submissions presenting financial conflicts of interest. Other conflicts of interest must be declared and appropriately managed.

3. Editorial policy

3.1 Scope

3.2 Editorial criteria

3.3 Types of articles

3.4 Reproducibility of science and open science

3.5 Ethics

3.6 New taxon names

3.1 Scope

You should choose one of the thematic PCIs, according to the topic of your article, for submission. The scope of the PCIs is not exhaustive. Please look at the current thematic PCIs to decide which is the most suitable for your article.

3.2 Editorial criteria

The Peer Community Journal publishes only preprints accepted and recommended by the thematic PCIs as being of high scientific quality and methodologically and ethically sound. To this end, the thematic PCIs:
- Require raw data, computer code and mathematical and statistical analysis scripts to be made available at the time of submission, at least to reviewers and recommenders, and to readers after recommendation.
- Welcome reproductions of studies.
- Welcome preprint submissions based on preregistrations (whether or not reviewed)
- Welcome preprints reporting negative results, provided that the questions addressed and the methodology are sound.
- Do not accept submissions of preprints presenting financial conflicts of interest. Other conflicts of interest must be minimal and declared.
- Ensure that, as far as possible, the recommenders and referees have no conflict of interest with the content or authors of the study being evaluated.

The thematic PCIs do not guarantee the evaluation of all submitted preprints. Only preprints considered interesting by at least one competent recommender (equivalent to an associate editor in a classical journal) from the thematic PCI to which the preprint is submitted will be peer-reviewed. The interest of the preprint, as determined by the recommender, can relate to its context, the scientific question addressed, the methodology, or the results. Each thematic PCI has a large number of recommenders, ensuring a considerable diversity of interests.

3.3 Types of article

The articles considered may be of different types: reviews, comments, opinion papers, research articles, data papers, technical notes, computer notes, etc. Preregistrations should be submitted to PCI Registered Reports.

3.4 Reproducibility of science and open science

The Peer Community Journal wishes to promote scientific reproducibility and reliability to improve the overall robustness and integrity of science.

To this end, the Peer Community Journal has established three mandatory rules and makes two additional suggestions to authors:

Mandatory rules:

Articles published by the Peer Community Journal must provide readers with:

-Raw data, made available directly in the text or through an open repository, such as Zenodo, Dryad or an institutional repository (see the Directory of Open Access Repositories) with a DOI. Data must be reusable, and the metadata and accompanying text must, therefore, carefully describe them.

-Details of quantitative analyses (e.g. data processing and statistical scripts in R, bioinformatic pipeline scripts, etc.) and simulations (scripts, code) must be provided either in the text or through a correctly versioned deposit in an open repository, such as Zenodo, Dryad or some other institutional repository (see the Directory of Open Access Repositories) with a DOI or another permanent identifier (such as a SWHID of Software heritage). Note that Git URLs are not permanent. Information on how to issue a DOI for a GitHub repository is given at https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/archiving-a-github-repository/referencing-and-citing-content. The scripts or code must be carefully described such that another researcher can run them.

-A clear justification of sample sizes for empirical studies (see Lakens, 2022; https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.33267), especially with respect to the following, as relevant: statistical power, Bayes factor thresholds, or estimate precision (quantitative studies) and information power or saturation thresholds (qualitative studies).

-Details of experimental procedures must be provided in the text.

Suggestions to authors:

-The Peer Community Journal encourages authors to use preregistrations. Authors may post their research questions and analysis plan to an independent registry before observing the research outcomes and, thus, before writing and submitting their article to a thematic PCI. This provides a way of clarifying their hypotheses, avoiding confusing “postdictions” and predictions, and carefully planning appropriate statistical processing of the data (e.g., see 10.1073/pnas.1708274114). For evaluation and recommendation, preregistrations should be submitted to PCI Registered Reports.

-The Peer Community Journal welcomes articles proposing replication studies. All submissions are assessed by the thematic PCIs according to the same criteria, provided that the article is considered interesting by the recommender handling it and the research question is judged to be scientifically valid

3.5 Ethics

The Peer Community Journal is published by Peer Community In, which subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In addition, articles published by the Peer Community Journal should respect the ethical principles defined by the European Association for Science Editors (EASE) and by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The following guidelines are adapted from the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and of the EASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators of Scientific Articles to be Published in English. Peer Community In prepared this reprint. The ICMJE and the EASE have not endorsed nor approved the contents of this reprint. The official version of the ICMJE Recommendations and the EASE guidelines are located respectively at www.ICMJE.org and at https://ease.org.uk/.

Ethical oversight

The Managing Board of each thematic PCI (who belongs to the editorial board of the journal) is responsible for monitoring the ethical aspects of submitted articles. Reviewers are invited to expose their concerns (if any) about ethics or scientific misconduct during peer review.
iThenticate’s CrossCheck software is used to detect plagiarism.

Submissions by members of the managing boards

Peer Community In (PCI) and Peer Community Journal (PCJ) are unique in the scientific publication landscape: the PCI platform offers free and transparent evaluation for preprints, and PCJ is one of the rare generalist journals published in Diamond Open Access. Consequently, it would be unfair to prevent managing board (MB) members from submitting their articles to PCI and publishing in PCJ.
Hence, submissions to PCI X (and publication in PCJ) of articles authored by members of the MB of PCI X are allowed, but these authors:
-must declare that they are members of the managing board of a PCI in the conflict of interest disclosure of the article at submission
-are not able to act as MB members on their submissions during the evaluation process of their article without the other MB members awareness.

Original or acceptable secondary publication

No part of the manuscript (MS) has been published except for passages that are properly cited.
In the MS, original data are clearly distinguished from published data. All information extracted from other publications is provided with citations.

Use of copyrighted material

If authors reproduce previously published materials (e.g., figures), they must ask the copyright owners for permission and mention them in the captions or in the acknowledgements.

Authorship

All people listed as authors of the MS meet the authorship criteria, i.e., they contributed substantially to study planning, data collection or the interpretation of results and wrote or critically revised the MS and approved its final submitted version and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work (ICMJE 2017).

All people listed as authors of the MS are aware of their authorship and have agreed to be listed.
No person who meets the authorship criteria has been omitted.

Ethical experimentation and interpretation

If the study reported in the MS involved human participants, it should meet the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (WMA 2013).
If appropriate, the study reported in the MS should meet the Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare for Editors concerning the humane treatment of animals and should be approved by an ethics review committee.
In fields of research requiring approval from an ethics committee or institutional review board, the authors should ensure that all the necessary approvals have been obtained before submission.
If applicable, the authors should include a statement in the manuscript indicating that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects.

Case reports and informed consent

As stated in the Rules for Submission of Articles to Biomedical Journals, proposed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, 2019), patients' right to privacy prohibits the publication of articles without informed consent. No information should identify patients, neither in text or photos nor in an indirect manner (descriptions of individual case histories, photos, X-rays, genetic pedigrees…).

In the case of articles reporting on research involving human subjects, the authors must specifically describe their study's compliance with the ethical rules set up by the responsible Ethics Committee and by the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Association of Physicians (WMA 2013) revised in 2013. Unless written consent is obtained from the patient, identifying details must be removed before submission of the article (including illustrations and videos). This requirement also applies when a report involves deceased persons.

Should consent from a patient be requested, the authors of the articles concerned must attest that the relevant form has been signed by the patient or a proxy.

The journal does not collect the signed patient forms: authors should attest that the original of the signed form is held by the treating institution.

Best research practices

The authors should do their best to avoid errors in experimental design, data presentation, interpretation, etc. However, should they nevertheless discover a serious error in the MS (before or after publication), they must alert the Peer Community Journal.
None of the data presented in the MS has been fabricated or distorted, and no valid data have been excluded. The images shown in the figures have not been manipulated to give readers a false impression.
The study results have been interpreted objectively. Any findings that run contrary to the authors’ point of view are discussed in the MS.
The article does not, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, contain anything that is libellous, illegal, infringes on anyone’s copyright or other rights, or poses a threat to public safety.

Acknowledgements

All sources of funding for the study described in the MS should be reported.
All people who are not listed as authors but made a major contribution to the study reported in the MS or who assisted in its writing (e.g., author’s editors, translators, medical writers) should be mentioned in the Acknowledgements.
All people named in the Acknowledgement must have agreed to be mentioned. They are not, however, responsible for the final version of the MS.
Consent must be obtained from the authors of any unpublished data cited in the MS.
The owners of the copyright to any previously published figures or tables must agree to their inclusion in the MS.

Conflict of interest

Financial conflicts of interest are forbidden; see the PCI code of conduct.
Authors should declare any potential non-financial conflicts of interest.

Complaints and appeal process

Authors of rejected manuscripts can appeal against the thematic PCI decision within 30 days of receiving it, by contacting the managing board of the thematic PCI at the contact email address. Appeals will be considered by the specialist recommender(s) who handled the manuscript and the thematic PCI Managing Board. Decisions following the appeal are final.

Complaints and Integrity policy and procedure are described in the versioned document found at https://osf.io/erc6x. The version applicable to a complaint is the latest version of the document at the date of the complaint.

Data sharing and reproducibility

See the paragraph "2.4 Repeatability of science and open science" above.

Misconducts
Peer Community Journal will follow the recommendations of COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics) in the event of misconduct.
When the executive board of Peer Community Journal has knowledge of potential misconduct regarding a paper published in Peer Community Journal, it will ask an ad hoc committee of editors to investigate the case. The ad hoc committee will advise the journal's Executive Board, and based on COPE's recommendations, the Executive Board will make a decision on what action to take.
Retractions, expressions of concern, or corrections may be published by the journal.

Intellectual property

The articles published by Peer Community Journal are published under a CC-BY 4.0 license. Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions.

Post-publication discussions and corrections

Readers are invited to submit articles discussing articles published by Peer Community Journal. These submissions should be submitted to the corresponding thematic PCI for evaluation and then, in case of acceptance, transferred to Peer Community Journal for publication.
In case of misconduct, retractions, expressions of concern, or corrections may be published by the journal.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI)

AI tools and their use evolve rapidly, and Large Language Models (LLMs) pose new challenges in scientific writing. The following text will thus be continuously and frequently updated.

Scientists sometimes use artificial intelligence, including LLMs, to translate, correct or improve text or software code. This is similar to using traditional language correction services and poses no problem. This use is not problematic as soon as the authors review/approve/check the production.

Scientists sometimes also use AI to analyse their bibliography or their data. Data analysis using AI is not intrinsically different from other analytical methods and thus poses no problem as soon as these methods have been published and are properly cited or are original and sufficiently detailed.

Generating text, illustrations and code using AI can be problematic, because of plagiarism, AI hallucination(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination_\(artificial_intelligence\)) (false information that is fabricated by AI) and lack of human verification.

-Authorship and AI

Artificial intelligence cannot be considered an author of an article submitted to PCI because "All people listed as authors of the MS must meet the authorship criteria, i.e. they contributed substantially to study planning, data collection or the interpretation of results and wrote or critically revised the MS and approved its final submitted version and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work (ICMJE 2017)."

-AI and intellectual property

Plagiarism issues can arise when using artificial intelligence because AI tools may generate texts or illustrations identical or very similar to those found in existing sources used to train the AI models. Authors, reviewers and recommenders must ensure that no part of the manuscript has been published except for passages that are properly cited.

-Using AI to generate text, code and illustrations

When AI is used to generate text and code, authors of submitted articles must

carefully check that there is no plagiarism, hallucinations or other errors.
disclose how they used AI in the section describing methods or in the acknowledgements.

Authors must not generate illustrations using AI because of plagiarism issues.

If authors do not comply with the above-mentioned rules, their submission will be rejected.

Reference Sources

https://www.ease.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/doi.10.20316.ESE_.2018.44.e1.pdf

https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DoH-Oct2013-JAMA.pdf

http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf

https://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/node/5487

3.6 New taxon names

The electronic publication of new taxonomic names is now permitted by the relevant codes of nomenclature. However, a certain number of requirements must be met for the electronic version of the work and the new names to be considered published. Authors of new zoological, botanical, and fungal names must comply with the following requirements.

Zoological names

The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) allows the electronic publication of new zoological names and nomenclatural acts as long as the work in which they appear is properly archived and registered. Details of the publication must be entered into Zoobank, the official ICZN registry. Peer Community Journal is archived in CLOCKSS and will appear as a known journal during the Zoobank registration process.

Authors must register their publication and their new names into Zoobank to obtain corresponding LSIDs (Life Science Identifiers). For nomenclatural acts other than a new species, genus, or family name, only the registration of the published work is currently mandatory.

In the Systematics or Results section, the LSID must be listed after each new species, genus, and family name, for example:

Homo naledi sp. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:C85CAAC2-658B-4189-B1D8-F9488F67E544

In the Methods section, authors must also include the following statement:

"The electronic version of this article conforms with the requirements of the amended International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). Hence, the new names and nomenclatural acts contained herein are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone. This published work and the nomenclatural acts it contains have been registered in ZooBank, the online registration system for the ICZN. The ZooBank LSIDs (Life Science Identifiers) can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID to the prefix “http://zoobank.org/”. The LSID for this publication is: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:XXXXXXX. The electronic edition of this work is archived and available from the following digital repositories: Peer Community Journal and CLOCKSS."

Botanical names

Since January 2012, the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) recognizes electronic work published with an ISSN or an ISBN as effectively published under the Code. It is also accepted that the description or diagnosis of a new taxon can be given in either Latin or English. For vascular plants and fungi, please see the additional requirements below.

For vascular plants

Peer Community Journal requires new names, new combinations, or replacement names to be registered into the International Plant Names Index (IPNI).

The LSIDs (Life Science Identifiers) obtained from the IPNI should be listed under the new names in the Systematics or Results section and the following text should be added in the Methods section:

"The electronic version of this article conforms with the requirements of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). Hence, the new names and nomenclatural acts contained herein are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone. In addition, new names contained in this work have been submitted to the International Plant Names Index (IPNI), from where they will be made available to the Global Names Index. The IPNI LSIDs can be resolved, and the associated information can be viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID to the prefix https://ipni.org/. The electronic edition of this work is archived and available from the following digital repositories: Peer Community Journal and CLOCKSS."

For fungi

Authors need to contact either MycoBank or Index Fungorum to obtain a LSID (Life Science identifier) for their new name or nomenclatural act (mandatory since January 1st, 2013). The LSID must be included in the protologue. Authors must also add the following text in the Methods section (update as necessary):

"The electronic version of this article conforms with the requirements of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). Hence, the new names and nomenclatural acts contained herein are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone. In addition, new names contained in this work have been submitted to the MycoBank / Index Fungorum, from where they will be made available to the Global Names Index. The LSIDs can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID to the prefix https://www.MycoBank.org/MB/ OR http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/NamesRecord.asp?RecordID=. The electronic edition of this work is archived and available from the following digital repositories: Peer Community Journal and CLOCKSS."

4. Peer Review workflow

Peer Community Journal publishes only articles first peer-reviewed, accepted and recommended by one of the thematic Peer Communities In (PCIs, see current thematic PCIs). The editorial policy, evaluation process, editorial decisions and appeal process of the Peer Community Journal are those of the thematic PCIs.

1) Deposit your article on a preprint server or in an open archive and obtain a DOI (or another unique identifier). Data, statistical scripts, command lines and simulation code must be made available to reviewers and recommenders at the time of submission and to readers after acceptance and recommendation. After recommendation, they must be available to readers, either in the text or through a correctly versioned deposit in an open repository with a DOI or another permanent identifier. Templates for preprints are available in docx, google doc and latex users.

2) Submit your article to one of the thematic PCIs according to their scope. Please consult the guide for authors of the corresponding PCI (e.g., see the guide for authors of PCI Ecology).

3) In case of acceptance by the thematic PCI, your article is recommended.

4) Submit your article to the Peer Community Journal for publication by completing a basic form on the journal website and uploading a formatted version of your manuscript (see below section 4. Formatting your article for Peer Community Journal).

The instructions described below are those of the thematic PCIs.

5. Peer Review policy

For each article, the evaluation process is performed by one of the original thematic PCIs. This evaluation is very similar to article evaluation in ‘traditional’ journals. Just like journal editors, the recommenders appointed by the PCI handle preprints: they are responsible for finding reviewers, collecting reviews, and making editorial decisions based on reviews. After one or several rounds of review, they should decide whether to reject or accept the article. Note that recommenders suggest editorial decisions and the managing board of the PCI validates (or not) the decision. Preregistration recommendation works similarly, with one recommender appointed to handle the preregistration and a few reviewers to judge the value of the proposed study.

5.1 At submission, PCI

Considers all types of articles (experimental work, theory, review, opinion, etc.)
Does not impose any format or restrictions in terms of article length, number of figures or tables
Considers anonymous submissions
Welcomes reproductions of studies
Welcomes preregistration submissions and preprint submissions based on preregistrations (with or without prior review)
Welcomes preprints reporting negative results, provided that the questions addressed and the methodology are sound
Checks articles for plagiarism with IThenticate
Checks articles for the absence of conflict of interest (see the definition of a conflict of interest)
Makes sure that raw data, codes and scripts are available
Checks that the article is readable (figures)
Checks the compliance of the article with ethical standards
Helps authors to suggest appropriate recommenders to handle their article
Informs authors within 20 days if no recommender can be found to handle the article

5.2 During evaluation, PCI

Evaluates only articles considered interesting by at least one of the many recommenders
Provides explicit guidelines for the recommender handling the preprints (https://peercommunityin.org/2020/10/28/pci-recommender-guide/)
Organizes rigorous peer review (https://peercommunityin.org/2020/10/22/pci-reviewer-guide/) for selected articles
Tries to keep delays as short as possible by sending reminders to reviewers and recommenders to ensure that the necessary tasks are completed promptly
Verify that the rules of the code of conduct of PCI are followed
Provides technical assistance to authors, recommenders and reviewers
Allows authors to follow the evaluation process of their article online
Makes sure that recommenders obtain at least two reliable review reports before making editorial decisions on the original version of the article
Makes sure that recommenders make an editorial decision that is reliable and respectful to the authors

Several safeguards exist during evaluation:

When they accept an invitation to handle the evaluation of a preprint, recommenders have to certify that they do not have any COI with the authors or with the content of the article;
When they accept an invitation to review a preprint, reviewers have to certify that they do not have any COI with the authors or with the content of the article
Recommenders in charge of the evaluation of an article must check that reviewers have no COI with the authors of the article or with the content of the article. In particular, they must check that the reviewers have not co-authored articles during the last 4 years with the authors of the submission with a PCI internal tool
The Managing Board of each thematic PCI checks that the recommender in charge of the evaluation process of an article is not in COI with the authors or with the paper's content. In particular, it checks that the recommender has not co-authored articles during the last 4 years with the authors of the submission with a PCI internal tool
Transparency is a tool to avoid COIs. The reviews and the recommendation of an article published in Peer Community Journal are published on the thematic PCI website and can be accessed through their DOI that is mentioned on the Peer Community Journal website. Anyone can see and report any COI between the recommender or reviewers (if they signed their review) and the authors or the content of the article

5.3 At the revision stage, PCI

Communicates regularly with the authors to ensure that the revision process is performed correctly and promptly for the preprint concerned
Allows the authors as much time as they need to revise their article

5.4 In case of acceptance, PCI

Publishes an open-access citable recommendation with a DOI relating to the entire editorial process (reviews, editorial decisions, author's replies)
Creates OpenCitations and machine-readable metadata for recommendations

If the article is not recommended, PCI provides authors with transferable reviews

6. What does the Peer Community Journal do?

The Peer Community Journal:

Publishes unconditionally, free of charge, exclusively, and immediately (as soon as possible) in open access. any article accepted and recommended by a PCI. This publication occurs only if the authors choose to publish their accepted article in the Peer Community Journal.
Provides a link between the published article and its evaluation, formal acceptance and recommendation on the corresponding thematic PCI website
Aims to offer the authors of PCI-recommended articles the opportunity to publish in a journal
Publishes articles on a rolling basis in thematic sections corresponding to the themes covered by the current PCIs
Archives the published articles in CLOCKSS
Keeps control of the publishing process within the scientific community

To see what each PCI does before recommendation, please consult the help/How does it work section of each PCI

7. What does the Peer Community Journal not do?

It does not provide any language, copyediting or typesetting services. It only checks the accuracy of references
It has no other editorial policy than to accept any PCI-recommended articles and only PCI-recommended articles
It does not charge fees to authors or readers
It does not play the citation metrics (impact factors, etc.) game and does not display citation metrics on its website

8. Is Peer Community Journal an overlay journal?

Peer Community Journal is not an overlay journal. Why? because authors submitting their articles to PCI can use all preprint servers and open archives that currently exist (arXiv, bioRxiv, OSF preprints, HAL, etc.), and some of them:

Do not accept deposits of formatted articles or versions of record
Do not provide any information about the publication of the article in a journal

9. Governance of the Peer Community Journal

Peer Community Journal belongs to and is published and funded by the PCI organisation.
Peer Community Journal is a member of the Centre Mersenne for Open Scientific Publishing.
Peer Community Journal is web-published by Centre Mersenne (for sections related to Science, Technology, and Mathematics) and UGA Editions (for sections related to Humanities and Medicine).
The Peer Community Journal is endowed with:

An editorial board composed of all the managing boards of all the thematic PCIs. The editorial board is responsible for the evaluation of articles by each PCI before their transfer to and publication in Peer Community Journal. It checks and validates editorial decisions made by recommenders (rejection, request of modification or acceptance) and recommendation of articles. The editorial board of Peer Community Journal is the ultimate decision-maker for the accepted articles and is accountable for the published content.
An executive board is composed of members of the PCI board. The executive board:
- is legally responsible for the publication of articles
- manages the logistics, funding, administrative aspects and promotion of the journal
- checks all articles before publication in Peer Community Journal and verifies that articles have the right structure, that data scripts and codes are available, that funding and conflicts of interest are properly disclosed, and that articles have the right format
- when it has knowledge of potential misconduct regarding a paper published in Peer Community Journal, the executive board will ask an ad hoc committee of editors to investigate the case. The ad hoc committee will advise the executive board, and based on COPE's recommendations, the executive board will decide on what action to take.
A managing coordinator who is responsible for controlling the workflow for article publication.

How does a new thematic PCI become a section in the Peer Community Journal?

Once the creation of a new thematic PCI is validated by a vote of the members of the PCI organisation (see next point), the creation of a corresponding section in Peer Community Journal is automatically approved at the same time. Once the new PCI is created, the managing board of the new thematic PCI integrates the editorial board of Peer Community Journal.
When a group of researchers wishes to establish a thematic PCI, they first draft a project describing the creation of this new thematic PCI and submit it to the PCI organisation. A vote by the members of the PCI organisation then occurs to decide whether to accept the creation of the new PCI. The members of the PCI organisation include the Editorial Board, the Executive Board, and the Managing Co-ordinator of Peer Community Journal.
The PCI organisation is responsible for ensuring the quality of both new thematic PCI and current ones. The PCI organisation has the authority to close a thematic PCI if it does not meet a sufficient standard of quality. Additionally, two partners assist the PCI organisation in conducting posterior quality checks of the thematic PCIs’ work: The Scientific Council of MathDoc (the French National Document Coordination Unit for Mathematics, CNRS and Université Grenoble Alpes) and UGA Editions (Université Grenoble Alpes Publisher). They can alert PCI to any detected problems (though this has never occurred).

10. Publication ethics - Complaints and integrity policy and procedure

Peer Community Journal follows strong ethical principles. Read more on the journal's publication ethics.

11. Advertising policy

Peer Community In (PCI) does not advertise any brand or product except its own brands and products (PCI, the thematic PCIs, and Peer Community Journal).

All advertisements are independent of editorial decisions.

Financial conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers and recommenders are forbidden by the PCI code of conduct. Publications of PCI are therefore not compromised by financial interests.

Complaints about advertising should be sent to contact [ at ] peercommunityin [ dot ] org.