**MISSION** The _Wine Business Journal_ (_WBJ_) is the premier journal of the Wine Business Institute at Sonoma State University. The mission of the _WBJ_ is to advance wine business theory, teaching, and practice through the generation, cumulation, and dissemination of knowledge relevant for the wine industry and with strong practical and theoretical implications. **POLICIES** **Open Access** _WBJ_ is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal published on a rolling basis by the [Wine Business Institute at Sonoma State University](http://www.sonoma.edu/sbe/wine-business-institute/wine-business-case-journal). No submission, article processing, or other fees are charged for this journal, nor is advertising accepted; the Wine Business Institute at Sonoma State University underwrites all associated costs. All content is freely available without charge to the user or her/his institution. Authors are encouraged to deposit their work in other institutional repositories of their choosing. We adhere to the Budapest Open Access Initiative’s definition of open access, guaranteeing that “users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles" without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Our platform is Scholastica, an open-source, open-access portal permitting manuscript authors to have complete copyright control over their works after publication. **Ethics** The editors adhere to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ (COPE) [Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors](http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf). _WBJ_ is a double-blind, peer-reviewed journal with an international editorial board of respected scholars and practitioners in the business of wine. Peer reviewers should adhere to COPE’s [Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers](http://publicationethics.org/files/Peer%20review%20guidelines_0.pdf). The _WBJ_ implements these ethical publication standards through a system of screening processes. Plagiarism is screened using the Turnitin software coupled by a rigorous fact-checking procedure conducted twice by two different staff members. Malpractice is screened by having all authors sign a Submission Certificate at the bottom of submitted cases. Submitted and published articles suspected of not meeting ethical standards will be addressed using [COPE’s flowchart](http://publicationethics.org/files/Full%20set%20of%20English%20flowcharts_9Nov2016.pdf) of procedures regarding communicating with authors, subtracting, and/or correcting work. Authors may retract articles for any reason up until publication. ***WBJ* Correction and Retraction Policies** These policies are based, in large part, on the guidelines and standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): see [Publication Ethics](https://publicationethics.org/files/retraction%20guidelines.pdf). *Corrections* We expect authors to inform the journal's Publication Coordinator (details on the About the Journal page) of any errors they have noticed (or have been informed of) in their article once published. Corrections are made at the journal's discretion. *WBJ* editors will consider replacing the original online article with an updated version that corrects the error and notes that the change has been made (in a correction notice at the end of the article). A correction notice will be published online separately and linked to the article. *Retractions* Retractions are considered by *WBJ* editors in the event that conclusive evidence emerges regarding unreliable data or findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication, and/or unethical research. We may issue online and to authors an expression of concern notice if an article is placed under investigation. Should the investigation uncover evidence of unreliable data or findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication, and/or unethical research, a replacement version of the article will be posted containing just the metadata (title and authors), with a retraction note replacing the original text. The PDF will be replaced with a version watermarked with "Retracted" but the original text will remain accessible. In rare instances, *WBJ* editors may have to remove the original content for legal reasons. In such cases we will retain the metadata (title and authors) but replace the text with a note saying the article has been removed for legal reasons. A retraction notice will also be published online via the journal's portal page. **ARCHIVING AND INDEXING** Issues are indexed with Google Scholar and a growing list of depositories. The journal has an ISSN identifier, and the articles are assigned a DOI for easy retrieval. We also encourage authors to use [Open Researcher and Contributor ID](https://orcid.org/) (ORCID) as a method of digitally identifying their intellectual work and to deposit their works in repositories of their choosing. Statics on metadata are available upon request. **LICENSING TERMS** _WBJ_ content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license CC-BY to promote the wide dissemination of content while ensuring author attribution. Under this license, users may share and adapt WBJ’s published articles as they choose, to “distribute, reuse, remix, tweak, and build upon” content for educational, private, or commercial purposes without permission as long as attribution is provided. As stated by [Creative Commons](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/): “You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.”

This work by Wine Business Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. **CONTACT US** Kristen Rinck Managing Editor Wine Business Journal [rinckk@sonoma.edu](mailto:rinckk@sonoma.edu)

Regional Spotlights