In this panel the audience heard from five representatives from organisations which produce tools to detect publication misconduct. Together they showed that while technology is creating new challenges for academic publishing, it can also be part of the solution.
This discussion is one of eleven sessions hosted by COPE during Publication Integrity Week 2023.
COPE does not endorse any particular tools but supports all efforts to maintain the integrity of the published record.
Artificial intelligence with human screeing
Shilpi Mehra (Head, Research Integrity & Publication Support Services at Cactus) profiled the organisation’s new Integrity Guard service, which provides a customised service that combines artificial intelligence with human screening. The tool is intended to be accurate but scaleable, and performs checks for integrity, transparency and science both post-submission and post-acceptance stages. The hope is that it will lead to the need for fewer retractions by identifying high risk papers before they get to publication.
Text analysis and plagiarism: AI a thought partner for humans
Lee Gaul spoke on behalf of Copyleaks, where he is the Head of Enterprise Sales. Copyleaks is an AI platform which performs text analysis and plagiarism detection among other functions. He stressed the potential of AI as a thought partner for humans, and the need for AI to be exposed to human writing to keep its data authentic.
Image integrity
Patrick Starke is the co-founder of ImageTwin: a tool to detect integrity problems with images. It operates both within and across publications and works best when combined with checks by human experts. The tool is used mainly in the life sciences at the moment, but more image types are being added to its portfolio.
Integrity checks on manuscripts
Othman Altalib, Chief Growth Officer at Morressier, introduced the Integrity Manager which combines a growing list of preflight and integrity checks on manuscripts, with flexibility for editorial teams to apply checks at all stages of the publishing process. Morressier presents itself as a marketplace and workflow for a range of tools which work together to prevent fraud and promote research integrity.
Paper mill checker
Joris van Rossum, Program Director at the STM Integrity Hub, stressed the importance of collaboration to ensure that all organisations can access tools and share their knowledge of publication misconduct. STM operates via working groups, task forces, and a governance Board, and their focus is on the source of integrity issues. The Paper Mill Checker tool carries out on-demand screening using eight signals of paper mill activity, including other external tools such as PubPeer and Clearskies. The Duplicate Submission Checker, which is at the pilot stage, operates as an ambient screening tool, checking all incoming manuscripts for papers that have been submitted elsewhere.
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