After an article has been published, authors may find minor or major errors requiring changes to the original version of the paper. Changes may be made after careful consideration by the African Cities Journal (ACJ) editorial team to ensure that this is done in accordance with the African Cities Lab’s policies and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

Except in cases of minor error, any necessary changes should be accompanied by a post-publication notice, which will be permanently linked to the original article. Post-publication modifications may take the form of an expression of concern, or a correction notice. In more rare circumstances, the article may need to be retracted or deleted. It may also happen that an author requests a change of name or affiliation after publication.

The post-publication notice linked to the original published article ensures transparency around any changes and guarantees the integrity of the scientific record. Note that all post-publication notices are freely accessible from the point of publication.

This page contains our policies on correcting, retracting, or deleting an article, and changing author names or affiliations. But before introducing our policies, the following section will give you some background on the notion of an article's "version of record".

Versions of record of an article

Often, the submitted or accepted version of a manuscript (see below) can be fully opened and uploaded to an institutional repository. This practice is also authorized by the ACJ editorial team. To this end, it is important to understand the following terms in the process of publishing a scientific article, as they often define the rights/permissions you have as an author.

• The submitted version is the pre-print of the manuscript, which precedes the peer review. It is the author's version of the article that is sent to a journal for review.
• The accepted version is the post-print of the peer-reviewed manuscript. It is the author's version of an article that has been modified to reflect any revisions made during the publication process.
• The published version: the final version, or version of record, as it appears in the magazine.

As in all other scientific journals, the version of each article published by African Cities Journal constitutes the “version of record” (VoR), i.e., the final, definitive and citable version in the scientific file.

The VoR of an article is obtained once:

1. The article has been received, revised and accepted after peer review, in its final form, including abstract, text, references, bibliography and all accompanying tables, illustrations and data. Other elements may be included, such as the date of first appearance (pre-print).
2. Any additional resources.

Recognizing a published article as VoR provides additional assurance that it is accurate, complete and fair.

Post-publication policy and notices to guarantee the accuracy of an article's scientific file

This policy describes ACJ's approach to correcting a scientific record. It is reviewed and updated as standards and best practices evolve. The policy implemented by the ACJ editorial board is in line with the general principle of scientific communication that the editorial board and particularly the editor-in-chief of the scholarly journal is solely, freely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal will be published after peer review. In making this decision, the editor is guided by the policies of the journal's review board and constrained by prevailing legal requirements, for example in relation to libel, copyright infringement and confidentiality issues. One result of this principle is the importance of an article's scientific file as a permanent and historical record of academic exchanges. Thus, when the scientific record requires correction, this will be done by means of a notice that will be permanently linked to the article, thus ensuring transparency for the scientific community.

What should authors do if their article contains an error?

Authors should inform us as soon as possible if they find any errors in their published article, particularly errors that could affect the interpretation of the data or the reliability of the information presented. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that a consensus has been reached between all listed co-authors before requesting corrections to an article, as the commitment of all authors will be required to initiate the process. If a correction of a published article is consensually deemed necessary, please contact the editor or manager of ACJ magazine.

Article correction policy and notices

Requests for corrections will be evaluated by the editorial team and, if deemed necessary, will be published promptly in a subsequent issue. Corrections must provide clear and transparent explanations of the errors and their corrections.

A correction notice (CORRIGENDUM) will be issued when it is necessary to correct an error or omission, when the interpretation of the article may be affected but the scientific integrity or original conclusions remain intact.

A correction notice, whenever possible, should always be drafted and approved by all the authors of the original article. In very rare cases where it may be necessary to correct an error made during the publication process, the ACJ editorial team may be required to publish a correction without direct input from the authors. However, should this occur, the journal will make every effort to inform the authors.

Please note that correction requests may be subject to peer review, and if questions are raised, you may be asked to provide additional information before the correction is approved. ACJ distinguishes between major and minor errors. For correction notices, major errors or omissions are considered to be changes that impact the interpretation of the article, but the overall scientific integrity remains intact. Minor errors are considered to be errors or omissions that do not impact the reliability or readers' understanding of the article's interpretation.

1. Major errors are always accompanied by a separate correction notice. The correction notice should provide clear details of the error and the changes made to the version of record. In these circumstances, the ACJ editorial team will:

• • Correct the online article;
  • Issue a separate correction notice electronically linked to the corrected version;
  • Add a footnote to the article displaying the electronic link to the correction notice;
  • Include the correction notice in the online issue;
  • Make the correction notice free and visible.

2. Minor errors will be accompanied by a separate correction notice. Instead, a footnote will be added to the article informing the reader that the article has been corrected.
3. Concerns about the integrity of a published article should be reported by e-mail to: info@africancitiesjournal.org

Policy and notices of expressions of concern

In some cases, an expression of concern may be considered where concerns of a serious nature have been raised (for example, research or publication misconduct), but where the outcome of the investigation is inconclusive or where, due to various complexities, the investigation will not be completed for a considerable amount of time. This could be due to ongoing institutional investigations or other circumstances beyond the journal's control.

Once the investigation is complete, a retraction or correction notice may follow the expression of concern alongside the original article. All will become part of the permanent publication record. Notices of expression of concern will be considered in cases where:

• There is inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the author(s), but the nature of the concerns justifies informing the readers.
• There are well-founded concerns about the unreliability of the findings or the possibility that misconduct by the author(s) has taken place, but the cooperation of the author(s)' institution(s) in investigating the concerns raised is limited.
• There is an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication that was not, or would not be, fair, impartial or conclusive.
• An investigation is underway, but a resolution will not be available within a reasonable amount of time, and the nature of the concerns warrants informing the readers.

The expression of concern will be linked to the published article to which it relates.

Policy and notices of withdrawal of articles

A retraction will be issued when a major error (e.g., in methods or analysis) invalidates the conclusions of the article, or when it appears that research or publication misconduct has occurred (e.g., research without required ethical approvals, fabricated data, manipulated images, plagiarism, duplicate publication, etc.). Retractions are issued to correct the scientific record and should not be interpreted as sanctions for the authors.

The decision to remove an article will be made in accordance with ACJ’s policies and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. The decision will follow a thorough investigation by the ACJ editorial team in collaboration with the African Cities Labs’ legal team. Authors and institutions may request retraction of their articles if they feel their reasons meet the criteria for retraction.

An in-press article may be withdrawn when:

• It contains major errors;
• It turns out to be a copy (accidental or not) of another published article;
• In the opinion of the publisher, they may have violated ACJ’s publication policies, for example by submitting multiple articles, false claims of authorship, plagiarism or fraudulent use of data;
• It is the first version of an article accepted for publication due to an editorial or production error.

When an article in-press is removed, its contents (HTML and PDF) will be removed and replaced by an HTML page indicating that the article has been removed in accordance with ACJ's editorial policy, in accordance with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

Article deletion policy and notices

An article deletion will be issued in rare circumstances where problems cannot be resolved by a retraction or correction notice. The ACJ editorial team will consider deletion of a published article in very limited circumstances, in the following cases:

• The article has contents that could present a serious risk of harm/discrimination to a group of individuals;
• The article has contents that violate the privacy rights of a study subject;
• The article is defamatory or infringes other individual rights;
• The article is subject to a court order.

If an article is deleted from the ACJ platform, a deletion notice will be issued in its place.

Article replacement policy and notices

In cases where an article could present a serious risk to a group of individuals, the authors of the original article may wish to withdraw and replace it with a corrected version. In this case, retraction procedures will be followed.

Author name change requests

The ACJ wishes to guarantee a smooth process and experience to facilitate changes in author names or other author information in the event of errors discovered after publication. Authors may change their name for different reasons, including marriage, divorce, change of religion or other personal reasons. As part of our author name change policy, we will strive to adhere to the following principles.

Principles for changing authors' names

Authors have the option of updating their name with or without an indication that a change has been made. Changes will be made directly on the published article. Unless explicitly requested, ACJ will not include correction notices in any format. ACJ respects your right to privacy and will not ask you for the reasons for the name change, nor will we ask for evidence documenting a "legal" name change. However, authors must confirm that they are requesting the change in their own name.

ACJ will not require the approval of the article's co-authors to update the name. Researchers may wish to inform their co-authors of the change, for example, so that they can use an updated offline copy or change the way they cite the publication. Alternatively, ACJ will inform only the corresponding author, in line with current practice. Authors may ask ACJ to wait for a particular date to adopt the name change to allow time to contact co-authors if they wish.

As part of any author name change request, ACJ will endeavor to make all necessary changes to all references to the author's identity, for example, e-mail address, pronouns, images, author's signature or any other occurrence in the body of their article.

ACJ recommends the use of an ORCID iD for authors who change their name and wish to ensure that all their previous publications are visible in the same place.

ACJ will update the PDF and HTML versions of the document on our website and alert downstream indexes and databases such as Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science if possible with updated metadata. ACJ cannot control whether or when author name changes are made to non-ACJ sites. If an author wishes his or her work to be fully visible on all indexing and archiving sites under previous and current names, authors may need to contact the indexes and databases directly.

Unfortunately, ACJ is unable to update citations in other publications for ACJ articles in which a name change has been made.

ACJ will retain an original copy of the article to ensure that changes have been made accurately and to be able to demonstrate which versions of the article have been published at any given time, if necessary (for example, for legal purposes). The original version will not be made public.

In addition to correcting previous publications, our editorial team will work with authors to ensure that name changes are reflected in all African Cities Journal systems, upon request.

To request an author name change, please contact the ACJ editorial team. Details can be found on the Contacts page of the journal's website.