Role of the journal editor in sustaining integrity in research.

Editors have important but indirect roles in sustaining integrity in research, and they have major and highly visible roles in maintaining the integrity of science literature. They must publish the policies and the standards to which they will hold authors and reviewers, and then must enforce those policies. Editors cannot be responsible for the accuracy of what they publish, but they must respond thoroughly and consistently to allegations of misconduct concerning papers under consideration or already published. They must conduct appropriate inquiries and notify authors' or reviewers' institutions about possible misconduct found by those inquiries. Further, to maintain the integrity of the literature, editors must publish corrections, retractions, and notices of duplicate publication according to the standards set down by the National Library of Medicine.