Journal History

The Living Lab Journal was established in 2023 by Dr Liz Lakin, Kevin Frediani and Dr Marie Beresford-Dey, who were at that time Head of Living Lab, Curator of Botanic Garden and Head of SEPALs research group respectively at the University of Dundee. The first three volumes had the subtitle an ‘Occasional Journal: Education for Sustainability, Nature Connection and outdoor learning ‘ and all authors were students or members of staff at the institution. 

Publication Frequency

The Living Lab Journal is published on an annual basis. Articles are published online throughout the year.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content, under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Authors are not charged any APCs (Article Processing Charges) or other publication fees.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons licence that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal. More information on Creative Commons licences.

b. Authors can enter separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c. Authors are NOT permitted to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.

d. Authors are required to make sure submitted content does not infringe third-party copyright. Authors must obtain permission to reproduce any third-party material for online – and print, if applicable – publication in perpetuity. It is also the authors’ responsibility to include any acknowledgements requested by copyright holders, and to mark clearly third-party material used with permission, material that has separate licensing terms, and material used under exceptions or limitations to copyright.

More information is available from the UK’s Intellectual Property Office and Creative Commons.

Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse articles published in this journal, provided that reuse is in line with the article’s Creative Commons licence and attribution to the author(s) and the published article is maintained. Please note that these terms do not extend to any material that has separate licensing terms specified or any material that is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Permission to reproduce third-party material must be obtained directly from the copyright holders concerned.

Archiving

A permanent archive of the journal will be held by the University of Dundee for purposes of preservation and restoration.

Take Down Policy

What University of Dundee will do if you believe content in this journal infringes any person’s rights, or applicable UK laws:

We make every effort to ensure that published content does not infringe any person’s rights, or applicable UK laws.

Should you discover content in this journal that you believe to be illegal, or that infringes any of your statutory rights, you may contact the University of Dundee, who will review the complaint.

On receipt of your complaint, the Living Lab Journal Editorial Team will:

1. Make an initial assessment of its validity
2. Acknowledge receipt of the complaint by email
3. For all but spurious complaints, cease access to the item that is subject to complaint pending the outcome of the investigation
4. Where appropriate, refer the complaint to the University of Dundee’s Legal Advisor for comment and advice
5. Seek to verify your identity and authority as complainant.

When the authenticity of your complaint has been verified and the Editor has been advised that it is legitimate the item will be removed from public access.

If the Legal Advisor confirms that it does not breach any law, then the item will be reinstated.

Please contact:

The Living Lab Journal Editor
University of Dundee Botanic Garden
Riverside Drive
Dundee
DD2 1QH

Email: LivingLab@dundee.ac.uk

Please note the University of Dundee is staffed 9-5pm Monday-Friday.

Publication Ethics Statement

The publication is aligned to and guided by the University of Dundee policy to govern the publication of research.

i) Journal Complaints and Appeals Process

The University of Dundee Living Lab editors will carefully consider complaints, appeals and allegations in line with guidance from the University of Dundee Ethics Committee. This applies both pre- and post-publication.

When a complaint is made to a journal, it must be passed to the journal’s Editor, who must then inform the publisher, University of Dundee, and address the issue following University of Dundee Ethics guidelines. Where necessary, allegations will be referred to the appropriate institution for further investigation. Pending the outcome of an investigation, the published record will be updated accordingly, with a post-publication notice in the form of either a Correction or a Retraction. This notice will be linked to the original article (see ii for further details). A permanent digital object identifier (DOI) and universal resource locator (URL) link between the notice and the full article enhances transparency and the integrity of the publication record; only in rare cases, where it is in the public interest, will an article be removed.

Well-evidenced appeals to editorial decisions are welcome and will be managed by the journal’s Editor in the first instance, who will assess the appeal’s validity. If valid, the journal’s editorial board and/or external peer reviewers will review the appeal. A new editorial decision will be made based on the results of this review.

To submit a complaint or raise an issue of potential misconduct to a journal, or to appeal an editorial decision:

Contact the journal’s Editor with an explanation of your complaint or appeal. If you have a complaint regarding the editors of a journal, you may, alternatively, address your complaint directly to the publisher by writing to LivingLab@dundee.ac.uk;

If the response to your complaint is not satisfactory, raise the matter with the Chief Editor, L.Lakin@dundee.ac.uk who will investigate the complaint and decide whether a further investigation is required, following University of Dundee Ethics guidelines;

Especially complex cases may be submitted directly to University of Dundee Ethics for guidance on how to proceed.

Please submit complaints or appeals by email, by visiting the journal’s ‘Contact’ page. Our aim is to acknowledge complaints or appeals within 5 days of receipt, and to keep complainants updated throughout the process.

If the resolution reached by the journal/publisher is not satisfactory to the complainant, the matter may be escalated to University of Dundee Ethics Committee or a similar, appropriate body.

ii) Journal Options for Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections

Where post-publication corrections or retractions need to be made, or if an article is to be removed, these will be accompanied by a correction or retraction notice to indicate the incorrect elements of the article and the extent of the corrections made, or the basis for the article’s retraction or removal.

Correction notices are issued to address minor errors in the article’s content or changes that have been made to the article’s metadata. To avoid multiple versions of the same article being circulated, these corrections are limited to, for example, errors of spelling and phrasing that affect meaning, data errors, or mis-citations. These changes are outlined in the corrections notice and the original article must be clearly linked to this notice. Corrections are usually made within a short time period after publication (typically within 7 – 14 working days).

Retraction notices are issued for major issues affecting the argument or substantive content of an article that a correction would otherwise not fix. When a retraction is made, following University of Dundee Living Lab Retraction Guidelines, a retraction notice will be issued, linking to the original article, which states very clearly and exactly which part(s) of the article are incorrect or unreliable, and therefore the basis for the retraction. A ‘Publisher’s Note’ will be added to the original article linking readers to the retraction notice.

Removals are only to be made in rare circumstances, where not doing so would infringe copyright or cause harm. In the case of an article’s removal, the contents of the article will be removed from circulation. It will not be downloadable as a file or displayed on the article’s webpage. A notice of retraction will be issued in the same manner as a standard retraction notice, and it will include the reason(s) for the article’s removal. The original article’s metadata will remain, linked to the retraction notice.

iii) Journal Policies on Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests

Competing interests can be financial, commercial, legal, familial, or professional. Authors must declare any conflict or competing interests that are relevant to the published article (as well as those that may be perceived to be relevant by others).

To ensure transparency, neither editors nor board members may be involved in editorial decisions about their own scholarly work. Any published article that lists editors or board members as authors must include a ‘Competing Interests’ statement following the University of Dundee The Living Lab journal guidelines.

iv) Journal Policies on Data Sharing and Reproducibility

The University of Dundee is committed to a more open research landscape and facilitating access to research by enabling reproducibility. University of Dundee Living Lab encourages authors of articles published in our journals to share their research data where relevant, including, but not limited to, raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, methods, and materials.

v) Journal Policy on Intellectual Property

Authors at The Living Lab journal retain their copyright but grant the ability for the publisher to disseminate the work under Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0 (and in rare circumstances under other CC licences). Full details are available on the ‘Copyright Notice’ section of the ‘Journal information & policies’ page.

vi) Journal Policy on Ethical Oversight

Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, an appropriate ethics committee and the authors must have approved the studies should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. Authors are expected to follow their institutional policies for research ethics. For most research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants (or their parent or guardian in the case of children under 16).

Peer reviewers are asked to comment on any ethical problems perceived within submissions.

vii) Journal Policies on Authorship and Contributorship

Articles should list names of all those who contributed to the published work, to ensure transparency and research integrity. Authors take collective responsibility for determining who should be listed as an author and the order in which they should appear. Individuals who have contributed to the article, but do not meet the full criteria for authorship, should be credited by name and affiliation in the ‘Acknowledgments’ section.

Where editors wish to incorporate the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) system to acknowledge different models of contribution, this will be permitted on a case-by-case basis, although it is not a requirement.

Author Name Changes Post-Publication

In accordance with University of Dundee’s core values of inclusivity and openness, we acknowledge that an author may change their name during their career. The Living Lab Journal will therefore support post-publication author name changes where we have the technical capacity to do so (i.e., access to PDF source files). This will be actioned without publicly announcing these changes via a correction notice. Requesting authors will not be asked to provide legal evidence or documentation, nor of the reason for a name change. However, they may be asked to provide evidence that they are the author of the article in question (for example, email correspondence relating to the submission or revisions).

Authors requesting a name change should contact the journal’s Editor by email, by going to the journal’s ‘Contact’ page.