Author X raised concerns that confidential information obtained during the peer review of their submission with Journal Y had been misappropriated by one of the reviewers of their submission (reviewer Z). Author X believed that reviewer Z had used this confidential information in order to silently alter code published by reviewer Z with repository R, which contained errors that were highlighted in Author X’s submission to Journal Y. Author X’s article is now on hold.
Reviewer Z was asked to provide an explanation for these concerns. Reviewer Z subsequently confirmed that they had misappropriated confidential information obtained during peer review of Author X’s submission with Journal Y and had used this information in order to silently alter code published by them with repository R. They suggested rectifying this issue by publishing a correction of their own article (which had been published in a different journal) and publishing the original code and accompanying text on repository R in order to acknowledge the contribution of Author X to the discovery of the issue with their code.
Questions for the Forum
- Even if reviewer Z’s own article is corrected and repository R contains the original code and accompanying text, should Journal Y still consider Author X’s article for publication if the main focus of the article was on code errors that have since been corrected?
- Moreover, if they can consider the article, should they wait until after reviewer Z’s article and the repository have been corrected? An internal suggestion is to consider Article X based on the old code, and if accepted, accompany it with an explanatory note or short article to explain the issue.
The Forum felt that the published record should reflect the issues surrounding the amended code even if it has now been corrected. To that end Author X’s paper should still be published since it pointed out the errors and how they were identified. Another possibility is that Author X’s paper could be revised to explain what happened. It would be prudent for Journal Y to wait for confirmation that the repository has (or will be) updated but this should be limited to what can be considered a reasonable length of time.
There is further discussion on these points in Lonni Besançon, Elisabeth Bik, James Heathers and Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Correction of scientific literature: too little, too late! PLOS Biology, version 2, March 2022
Another consideration is Reviewer Z’s behaviour. The journal could consider contacting Reviewer Z’s institution to report the unethical practice, especially since it could be part of a pattern of questionable behaviour. Reviewer Z should arguably have recused themselves from reviewing Author X’s paper in the first place because of a conflict of interest. The Forum heard that this latter point is under investigation.
Author X's paper has now been published with Journal Y, and the paper includes a neutrally worded note that links to a correction that Reviewer Z issued for their article (published with another journal) and the updated repository. Both correction and updated repository acknowledge the contribution of Author X's paper.
Journal Y hasn't yet contacted Reviewer Z's institution to report their behaviour and we are currently finalising our intended actions on that specific point.