Report from COPE council member Elizabeth Moylan
A COPE seminar providing an introduction into publication ethics was held at the Wiley Offices in Oxford on 13 May. There were more than 40 attendees.
Chris Graf, Co-Vice-Chair for COPE, introduced the day with a lively talk on topical issues within publication ethics and the support COPE can provide. The rest of the day was spent discussing two overarching themes which account for a high proportion of cases brought to COPE: plagiarism and authorship.
The topic of plagiarism was introduced by Maria Kowalczuk, Biology Editor within the Research Integrity Group at BioMed Central. She cautioned against over reliance on percentage similarity provided by plagiarism detection software and recommended that editors look at degree of overlap and where in the manuscript it occurred.
Issues regarding authorship were discussed by Zoë Mullan, COPE Council Member and Founding Editor of The Lancet Global Health. She talked about the meaning of authorship for different research fields, the common problems that arise and how editors can avoid them. For more on this topic see COPE’s discussion document.
We also heard the legal perspective on publication ethics from Tamsin Harwood, Associate Legal Counsel for John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
The debate around plagiarism and authorship continued in workshop discussions of particular cases and provided an opportunity to share stories and insights.
To sum up in the words of one of the participants: “The day provided a great opportunity to discuss cases, change views, and appreciate that trust and transparency is key—in communications, in relations, in publications”.
COPE Vice-Chair, Chris Graf, opening the 'Introduction to Publication Ethics' seminar
Maria Kowalczuk, Biology Editor, Research Integrity Group, BioMed Central, gave a talk on 'How to deal with plagiarism'
Tamsin Harwood, Associate Legal Counsel, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, presented a legal perspective on publication ethics