Persistence of the scholarly record
Material changes to published work should not be made invisibly. The original bibliographic record and the history of material changes should remain traceable.
Types of notice
- Correction / erratum — where an error does not invalidate the main conclusions.
- Retraction — where findings cannot be considered reliable, serious misconduct has occurred, or another substantial reason requires the article to be withdrawn from the active scholarly record.
- Withdrawal before publication — for material not yet published as the final version of record.
- Expression of Concern — where serious questions require further investigation but the evidence is not yet sufficient for a final decision.
Publishing the notice
A material correction, retraction or other formal notice should have a clear, persistent landing page and should be permanently linked to the affected publication. Where the publication has a DOI, its DOI metadata should be updated appropriately.