Policy on publication ethics

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) proceedings’ policy on publication ethics

Approved by the HPSG Standing Committee  2024-10-12

 

[Note: largely based on the ACL Publications Ethics Policy]

The goal of this policy is to provide a fair publication process. Subsections below provide Definitions, outline the Scope, define the Policies, and provide references for other issues.

Francis Bond

Joanna Ut-Seong Sio 

(Authors listed in order of surname, alphabetical)

 

1. Definitions

Reviewer

Reviewer refers to people writing peer reviews of manuscripts submitted for consideration to the HPSG conference.

Editor

Editor refers to people involved in making a decision about a submitted manuscript’s rejection, acceptance, scheduling, or format, but not writing direct (i.e. non-meta) reviews. In normal circumstances the programme chair is the editor. 

Convener

The local organizer(s).

Author

Any person named in the “Authors” field of a submission.

Works

Author-created material submitted for review or created for presentation. This includes manuscripts as well as appendices, presentations, code, datasets, videos, images, etc.

Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest is anything that may cause a reviewer to have an unreasonable bias for or against a paper.

Generative tools

Here we include text and image generation tools, commonly referred to as generative AI tools, trained on massive datasets to generate multimedia outputs. These can be privacy-preserving or non-privacy preserving. An example of a non-privacy preserving tool is a text or image generation tool, that stores input data for a commercial purpose, and is typically hosted on remote servers managed by third-party companies. An example of a privacy-preserving tool is a text and image generation tool that doesn’t store input data.

HPSG

Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) is a highly lexicalized, constraint-based grammar.  In this paper we also use it to refer to the loose HPSG organisation, which runs the yearly conference.

2. Scope

This policy applies to works submitted to, reviewed by, published at, and presented at the HPSG conference and associated workshops.

3. Policies

3.1. Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must confidentially disclose all relevant affiliations and relationships that may constitute conflicts of interest at the time of submission. We will follow the ACL Conference Conflict-of-interest policy.

 

3.2. Authorship

Following the Vancouver Convention on Authorship, authorship of HPSG papers must be based on the following four criteria:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who meet some but not all of the four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve authorship status for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criteria (2) or (3). 

Persons who have contributed to one point must be invited to participate in the others; for example, someone who comes up with or conducts experiments must be invited to draft/revise and approve the final document. All authors are responsible for any article submitted to, reviewed at, published, or presented at the HPSG conference.

3.2.1. Guidelines for generative assistance in authorship

Authors are responsible for all content submitted. 

Generative AI tools and technologies may not be listed as authors of a submission, and any use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content should instead be fully disclosed in the Acknowledgements section - for instance, “Section 3 was written with inputs from ChatGPT.”

 

If and when required to use LLMs to support their research, authors are encouraged to use ethically-sourced and open models. Guidelines for appropriate use of generative assistance follow.

  1. Assistance purely with the language of the paper. This covers models used for paraphrasing or polishing the author’s original content, rather than for suggesting new content—similar to tools like grammar checkers, spell checkers, dictionaries, and synonym tools. The use of tools that only assist with proofreading, like grammar or spell checkers, does not need to be disclosed.
  2. Short-form input assistance. This covers predictive keyboards or tools that offer suggestions during typing, that might be powered by generative language models. The use of such tools does not need to be disclosed.
  3. Literature search. This covers search assistants, e.g., to identify relevant literature. The usual requirements for citation accuracy and thoroughness of literature reviews apply.
  4. Low-novelty text. This covers the automatic generation of text about pre-existing ideas.  Authors should specify where such automatically generated text was used, and convince the reviewers that the generation was checked to be accurate and is accompanied by relevant and appropriate citations. If the generation copies text from existing work, the publication ethics policy applies to that text. Authors need (for example) to acknowledge all relevant citations: both the source of the text used and the source of the idea(s).
  5. New ideas. This covers when generative model output reads to the authors as new research ideas that would deserve co-authorship or acknowledgment from a human colleague (e.g., topics to discuss, framing of the problem), which the authors then develop themselves. As with all new ideas, the authors should conduct a literature search to determine relevant prior work and cite to ensure proper credit. The authors should disclose if models were used in this manner.
  6. New ideas + new text: the HPSG Proceedings does not consider a generative model to be an entity that can fulfil the requirements of co-authorship.

3.2.2. Prior publication

These guidelines recognize that it is common in technical publishing for material to be presented at various stages of its evolution. As one example, this can take the form of publishing early ideas in a workshop, more developed work in a conference, and fully developed contributions as journal articles. This publication process is an important means of scientific communication. The editor of a publication may choose to re-publish existing material for a variety of reasons, including promoting wider distribution and serving readers by aggregating special material in a single publication. This practice continues to be recognized and accepted by the HPSG Proceedings. At the same time, the HPSG Proceedings requires that this evolutionary process be fully referenced by the author. Authors submitting articles must disclose whether there are prior publications, e.g., workshop presentations, by the authors that are similar, whether published or submitted. They must also include information that very clearly states how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s). Such articles should be cited in the submitted article in a manner that maintains author anonymity.

 

Note the point below on Text Re-use, where there is a limit to how much material may be re-used across papers.

3.2.3. Consent of content holders

The HPSG Proceedings assumes that material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination for the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the HPSG Proceedings, to determine if disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties. If prior consent is required, authors must obtain permission before article submission.

3.2.4. Plagiarism

The HPSG Proceedings defines plagiarism as using someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and considered a serious breach of professional conduct.

 

Plagiarism manifests itself in a variety of forms, including:

  1. verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying (including translation), or intentionally paraphrasing substantive portions of prior or under-review work without proper attribution
  2. using automated tools that rephrase existing work as one's own text without proper attribution to the original author(s) 
  3. self-plagiarism, or copying elements of another prior or under-review work, such as equations, tables, charts, illustrations, presentations, or photographs that are not common knowledge, or copying or intentionally paraphrasing sentences without proper or complete source citation, even if the works have a common author
  4. verbatim copying of portions of another's work with incorrect source citation

 

Whether a prior article has been formally published is not a factor in determining

plagiarism—work not formally published may still be plagiarized. This includes content provided online in preprints, tutorials, manuals, and essays, as well as offline content in any form. The representation of any other person's material as one's own work is plagiarism.

3.2.5. Text re-use

An article submitted for publication to the HPSG Proceedings should be primarily original work submitted only to the conference. Recycling of material in a new document happens when the material in the new document is identical, or substantially equivalent in both form and content, to that of the source. At times, it may be necessary for authors to recycle portions of their own previously published work or to include another author’s material.  It is fine to include material that has been presented but not published. 

 

When an author recycles text, charts, photographs, or other graphics from his/her own previously published material, the author shall:

  1. Adhere to all copyright policies, clearly indicate all recycled material and provide a full reference to the original publication of the material (anonymized if necessary).
  2. If the previously published or submitted material is used as a basis for a new submission, clearly indicate how the new submission differs from the previously published work(s).

3.2.6. Dual submission

Articles submitted for consideration should not have been published previously and should not be concurrently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must disclose all prior publication(s) and current submissions when submitting an article. At the convener’s discretion, some forms of submission articles may be exempted from this rule.

3.2.7. Author conduct

Authors should follow the following anti-harassment policy during the review and publication process. Attempts by authors to deanonymize reviewers, editors, or any works, or otherwise compromise the fairness of the review process are not permitted. 

Harassment and hostile behavior are unwelcome at any HPSG conference or associated event. This includes: speech or behavior that intimidates, creates discomfort, or interferes with a person's participation or opportunity for participation in a conference or an event. We aim for HPSG-related activities to be an environment where harassment in any form does not happen, including but not limited to: harassment based on race, gender, religion, age, color, appearance, national origin, ancestry, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Harassment includes degrading verbal comments, deliberate intimidation, stalking, harassing photography or recording, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention. The policy is not intended to inhibit challenging scientific debate, but rather to promote it through ensuring that all are welcome to participate in the shared spirit of scientific inquiry. Vexatious complaints and willful misuse of this procedure will render the complainant subject to the same sanctions as a violation of the anti-harassment policy.

If anyone has a complaint, they can contact any current member of the HPSG Standing Committee (listed at: https://proceedings.hpsg.xyz/StandingCommittee). Members of the standing committee will be instructed to keep any such contact in strict confidence, and those who approach the committee will be consulted before any actions are taken.  

 

3.3. Content of submitted, published, or presented material

This subsection applies to all HPSG works and serves as guidelines for relevant decisions made by the person responsible for the publication.

3.3.1. Content guidelines

The technical discussion of linguistic matters will continue to be the primary function of the HPSG  Proceedings. The following guidelines clarify the characteristics of allowable content in HPSG works:

  1. Technical, i.e. empirical and theoretical, articles accepted for inclusion in HPSG publications shall comprise scientific content.
  2. Any nontechnical content or material in an article accepted for publication is expected to be essential to the technical content of that article (for example, content that extends, supports, or provides relevant background). Author(s) shall state how the nontechnical content or material contributes to the article.
  3. Acknowledgments of data consent and approval by stakeholders or subjects is allowed. Acknowledgments of contributors who are not authors of the article, such as in a footnote or an acknowledgments section, shall be limited to statements relative to funding sources, as well as technical or material contributions from individuals or organizations. Acknowledgments for technical or material contributions (such as developing instrumentation for collecting data) should briefly explain how such contributions are essential to the article's technical content.
  4. If any political opinions are expressed which also follow this policy and this set of guidelines, an Acknowledgments section must clarify that these are the opinions of the author(s), and no endorsement by the HPSG Standing Committee is implied. 
  5. For political opinions beyond these guidelines, see (2) above.
  6. Automatically generated text follows the policy given in the Authorship section above.
  7. For content about broader impact, see below.
  8. Examples of unallowable content include changes to the content of the paper during review or after acceptance that deviate from the original scope of the paper or constitute unacceptable content; conjecture, unless relevant to the presented research supported by citations; illegal content; potentially harmful content, unless preceded by a warning and gap (see policy on harmful content, below); toxic content/inflammatory writing/hate speech unless it is a necessary scientific example.

3.3.2. Harmful content

The term ‘harmful’ refers to content that creates a risk of harm (e.g., hate speech as a cause of harm). In practice, whether a form of content presents a hazard depends on a range of

intersecting factors, including the nature of the content; the immediate and broader context; the historical setting; where it comes from; who it is directed at; and who encounters it. Small

differences in these factors can make a substantial difference, and not all content that presents a risk of harm will actually inflict harm in every case. We adopt the position that harmful content both constitutes harm in-of-itself (i.e., it is harmful because of its intrinsic features) and causes harm because of the substantial risk of detrimental effects on individuals, groups, or societies (Kirk et al. 2022).

Examples of harmful material include hate speech, misinformation, depictions of crime and violence, and accounts of trauma.

Harmful material may only be included in works if:

  1. It is relevant to the technical content of the submission
  2. Doing so enhances the exposition of the content
  3. Inclusion follows guidelines for handling and presenting harmful content (see Kirk et al., 2022)
  4. It is preceded by a warning and consumers are provided sufficient opportunities to avoid the harmful content.

3.4. Reviewing

Peer review assists editors in selecting presentations for the conference and making publication decisions for the proceedings.  In addition, through the communications with the author, it should assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. 

3.4.1. Reviewer conduct

  1. Reviewers and editors are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of any paper and additional materials submitted as part of the review process.
  2. Any reviewer or editor who identifies a conflict of interest should notify the venue chairs and decline to review the manuscript.
  3. Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and decline to participate in the review process.
  4. Collusion, where the reviewer or editor might deliberately collude with authors or others to manipulate the review process unfairly, is forbidden.
  5. Reviewers and editors must not attempt to manipulate citations, which includes asking authors to cite the reviewer’s or editor’s work (or that of their associates) unnecessarily.
  6. Reviewers and editors must never disclose or reveal any personal information aboutauthors with the intention to target them (doxxing), which could undermine the anonymity and integrity of the review process.
  7. Reviewers and editors must not participate in any form of bullying, harassment, discrimination, or retaliation towards authors or other participants in the review process.
  8. Reviewers and editors must not use confidential information from a reviewed manuscript for personal advantage before the information is publicly available, including leveraging research ideas or data.
  9. Secondary reviewers, must be fully acknowledged, and they must similarly treat themanuscript as a confidential document.
  10. Reviewers and editors must report observed discrepancies or signs of potential author, reviewer, or editor misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, data misuse, or duplicate submission to the designated channels.
  11. Reviewers should follow the anti-harassment guidelines (above) during the review and publication process.

3.4.2. Guidelines for generative assistance in peer review

The reviewer has to read the paper fully and write the content and argument of the review by themselves, subject to the secondary reviewer policy described above, and it is not permitted to use generative assistance to create the first draft. This requirement extends to the meta-review, and the reviewer has to write any meaningful argumentation in the meta-review by themselves.

Generative assistance should be used responsibly. For instance, it is reasonable to use writing assistance to paraphrase the review, e.g. to help reviewers who are not native speakers of English. It is also reasonable to use tools that help to check proofs.

Neither reviewers nor editors should upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a non-privacy preserving generative tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and intellectual property rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, neither reviewers nor editors may upload their peer review report into a non-privacy preserving generative tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

 

4. Acknowledgement

This text is largely copied from the ACL Policy on Publication Ethics, the version approved by the ACL Exec on  2024-06-15.  This was written by Aoife Cahill, Leon Derczynski, Kokil Jaidka (ACL Publication Ethics Committee co-chairs, June 2024).   The ACL Policy has a good list of references if people are interested.

We deleted some sections not relevant to HPSG, and reworded many other sections.The HPSG standing committee also made many suggestions for improvement when they approved it, and we thank them.