New York, NY, and Washington, DC —The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) is pleased to announce that the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has approved the Association’s application for Associate membership.
AUPresses applied for this membership status to signal the Association’s support for the ethical practices COPE works to articulate and promote in scholarly communications. The benefits of COPE affiliation for AUPresses and its members include:
- Increasing awareness of issues surrounding publication ethics within the university press community
- Strengthened ties to COPE’s community of practice
- Adding the voice of mission-based publishers to conversations about publication ethics for journals in the Humanities & Social Sciences
- Increasing awareness among learned societies, editors, authors, and others that university presses adhere to the high ethical standards expected by the publishing community
- Moving forward conversations about publication ethics for monographs
As an organization that provides practical guidance to publishers, editors, authors, and reviewers in journals publishing, COPE membership has been a priority for the AUPresses journals community for some time.“COPE’s Core Practices documents are excellent resources when making decisions about best ethics practices in journals publishing and are already referenced by many member presses in their ethics statements,” explains the AUPresses Journals Committee (2018-2019 Chair Katie Kaefer, Marketing Manager, American Historical Association; 2019-2020 Chair Emily Taylor, Journals Manager, The Ohio State University Press) in a statement that accompanied the Association’s application. “By aligning themselves with the COPE organization, AUPresses demonstrates a continuing commitment to the highest standard of publication ethics and an increased awareness of the complex issues of greatest concern to the larger journals publishing community. As a member of COPE, AUPresses will be able to better educate and support its own members with additional resources and/or guidance with regards to publication ethics.”
About the Association of University Presses
AUPresses is an organization of 160 international nonprofit scholarly publishers. Since 1937, the Association of University Presses advances the essential role of a global community of publishers whose mission is to ensure academic excellence and cultivate knowledge. The Association holds intellectual freedom, integrity, stewardship, and equity and inclusion as core values. AUPresses members are active across many scholarly disciplines, including the humanities, arts, and sciences, publish significant regional and literary work, and are innovators in the world of digital publishing.