The following checking procedures and quality assurance measures must be ensured by the publishers or the persons responsible at the publication venue:

1. Procedure for checking the quality and quality assurance of the publication at the methodological level in terms of content (e.g. correctness of citations, data production in the sciences, etc.)
2. Quality assurance with regard to identification and ensuring the content can be interpreted (e.g. compliance with FAIR principles(externer Link) (Wilkinson et al., 2016), metadata incl. information on funding of research and publication, rights management for access where applicable, CC licensing of content, indication of the peer-reviewed status of a publication)
3. Check that contributions by all authors/contributors are adequately acknowledged, including a classification of their roles (Holcombe, 2019) according to FAIR principles (Wilkinson et al., 2016)
4. Facilitation of content evaluation (e.g. expert opinions are obtained before or after publication, e.g. by means of peer review, open peer review or community peer review, or based on post-publication review, in scientific discourse via blogs, further articles, etc.)

Steps 1 to 3 must be ensured prior to initial publication, while step 4 can take place after publication.

For each publication, it must be clear which stage it is at (i.e. version, indication of status with reference to the review process or type of review process, link to other publications of similar content or underlying research data, date of initial publication, etc.).

Meanwhile, a publication venue must fulfil the minimum criteria for guaranteeing aspects 1 to 3 in terms of quality assurance as listed above so that the publications issued there can be cited in proposals, for example. In addition, it is imperative that the publication venue shows all processes associated with the publication in a transparent and correct manner. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)(externer Link) contains the “Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing(externer Link)” – a list of a journal’s criteria that are to be disclosed according to best practice.

DFG statement on the importance of scientific quality standards for publications (available in German only)(externer Link)