The College Music Symposium: Journal of the College Music Society is committed to issuing high-quality, peer-reviewed content, governed by rigorous ethical standards that are transparent and fair. Symposium’s policies are closely based on COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Core Practices (2017). Symposium adheres to the utmost ethical standards and in no way encourages or supports citation manipulation.
Information on Copyright Clearance and Permissions, including Permission to Re-Use Symposium material, can be found on the journal site here.
Responsibility of the Editors
General and Component Editors1Editor Guides can be found at: https://symposium.music.org/images/pdf/editor-guidelines.pdf
The General Editor is responsible for the final product, its tone and consistency, the editorial direction, and policies of the publication. The General Editor is also responsible for the final selection, management, and training of Component Editors, who in turn instruct their respective boards and referees.
The Symposium has several Component Editors who determine, in their respective areas, which manuscripts the journal will accept for publication or which submitted items (books, audio, tech, PLL, etc.) will receive a published Review. Component Editors also determine any adjustments that may be needed to a manuscript before publication. Editors ensure that decisions are made on the basis of a work’s merit (relevance, importance, validity, originality, clarity), and they ensure that the process is fair, that the author or creator’s gender, race, religious or political beliefs, ethnicity, or citizenship are not considered. Editors should also be vigilant in regard to suspected research misconduct in submissions, including citation manipulation, data fabrication, or plagiarism.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Editors
Component Editors will recuse themselves from considering submissions in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors/creators, companies, or institutions connected to the submission. For instance, one must recuse themselves when: a.) there is a financial interest in or professional association with the submitted work or review item; b.) a personal relationship with the author/creator; c.) a history of discord with the author/creator; d.) or there is a direct competition between the Editor’s personal work and the work under review/evaluation.
If the Editor has a conflict of interest, they will ask another member of their editorial board or other specialist to handle the manuscript.
Confidentiality
Editor and referee assessments of manuscripts are confidential, and Editors ensure that such information is only revealed to the author of the original manuscript or perhaps to other referees, editorial board members, or others as is required or otherwise deemed appropriate. Editors, editorial board members, or referees will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research without the original authors’ explicit consent.
Publication Decisions
The Editors ensure that all submissions under consideration undergo peer-review by at least two referees who are expert in the field. Component Editors may confer with the General Editor, board members, additional referees or outside specialists when making decisions.
Allegations of Misconduct:
Allegations of misconduct are taken seriously by the Symposium and should be brought to the attention of the General Editor at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Any unethical publishing behavior that is reported will be investigated, whether it pertain to a pre or post publication manuscript or creative material. If the ethical concern is well-founded, then the violating manuscript/creative material may be removed from publication and/or a correction, erratum, retraction, or note of concern may be published online and in a subsequent PDF/hard copy of the journal, with the reason for the action provided. Symposium remains aligned with COPE guidelines.
If brought to the attention of the General Editor, criticism of a published article that is raised by “whistle blowers” on social media or on a post-publication peer-review site will be addressed according to COPE recommendations.
N.B., it is the obligation of the author to promptly correct or retract a problematic work or, if legitimate allegations arise, to provide evidence of the validity of the content.
Responsibility of the Referees (peer reviewers)
A referee (peer reviewer) is an expert in the field who evaluates an author or creator’s work before publication. This peer review process is a crucial component in helping the Editor reach editorial or publishing decisions. The referee assessment may also serve the author in improving the quality of the submission. The Symposium peer review process is outlined here.
Promptness and Qualifications
If a referee feels unqualified to assess a submission or cannot provide an assessment within the time frame that is provided by the Editor, the referee should withdraw from the review process immediately.
Confidentiality
Manuscripts under review are confidential documents and should not be discussed with others without the approval of the Editor. Referees will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research without the original authors’ explicit consent.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Referees
Referees will recuse themselves from assessing submissions in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors/creators, companies, or institutions connected to the submission. For instance, one must recuse themselves when: a.) there is a financial interest in or professional association with the submitted work or review item; b.) a personal relationship with the author/creator; c.) a history of discord with the author/creator; d.) or there is a direct competition between your own work and the work under review/evaluation.
Objectivity
Referees should strive to be objective in their assessments. Referee comments should be clearly expressed and supported by scholarship, argument, or data. Submissions are “blind” meaning the referee should not know the identity of the submitter and the submitter should not know the identity of the referee. Work is judged on merit (relevance, importance, validity, originality, clarity) and assessments should be fair with no consideration to gender, race, religious or political beliefs, ethnicity, or citizenship. Referee assessments that include personal criticism of any author/creator is inappropriate and should not be submitted to the Editor.
Research Misconduct and Recognizing Additional Sources
Referees should notify Editors of any suspected research misconduct, including citation manipulation, data fabrication, or plagiarism. A referee should call to the Editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have knowledge. If the referee identifies relevant published work in the manuscript that has not been cited by the author, they should inform the Editor.
Responsibility of the Author
(including authors of Book, Technology, Audio, and PLL Reviews)
Manuscripts submitted for publication should represent the author’s original research or perspective and cannot have been previously published as copyrighted material or be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Redundant or duplication publication is not permissible. Submitting or publishing basically the same work in two journals is unacceptable and such manuscripts will not be published by Symposium.
Plagiarism is unacceptable. Text or data by others cannot be presented as if it is the author’s own. The work of others must be properly acknowledged.
Data, including images and figures, must be legitimate and not fabricated or manipulated to support conclusions. If an author discovers a significant error after a manuscript has been published, the General Editor should be notified immediately, and the manuscript may be corrected or an erratum or note of concern may be published, or in severe cases, the manuscript may be retracted.
Authors whose names appear on the submission must have contributed significantly to the work.
Authorship
All participants who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative contributions of the individuals, regardless of their status. If the multiple-authored publication substantially derives from a student’s dissertation or thesis, the student is usually listed as principal author. Conversations involving authorship and name order should begin early in the life of a project, and once the editor has accepted the final draft, there should be no changes in authors.
Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Acknowledgements might include someone who provided purely technical help, or an administrator who provided only general support.
Allegations of Misconduct:
Research misconduct, publishing false information, plagiarizing, passing off other’s work as one’s own, damages trust in the journal and such allegations are taken seriously. It is the obligation of the author to promptly correct or retract a work that they discover to be problematic or to provide evidence of the validity of the content if a legitimate allegation is submitted. In the case of significant, well-founded allegations, the author’s institution may be informed of the infraction.
1 Editor Guides can be found at: https://symposium.music.org/images/pdf/editor-guidelines.pdf