The changing face and future of publication ethics
The COPE 2017 European Seminar was held on 25 May in London. We covered a wide range of topics, including during our ‘Ask Me Anything’ COPE panel. We focused on journals and researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences and how they have different approaches and needs from researchers in scientific, technical, and medical fields. COPE will continue to work on supporting those needs. We talked about minimum publishable units (also referred to as “salami slicing”) and text recycling. We also discussed metadata, ways to correct the literature, preprints, data management and data sharing, as well as institutions and their approaches to publication and research integrity.
As is expected and celebrated at COPE, there were differences of opinion. This is only fitting: the seminar was a celebration of COPE’s 20th anniversary. Discussion (and collegial, constructive disagreement) has always been and remains central to COPE’s values.
Delegates expressed a particular interest in publishers and journals that do not follow good practices, and the potential this causes for confusion amongst researchers when choosing journals to review and, hopefully, to publish their work. Discussion was lengthy and opinion in the room remained divided specifically on the role of blacklists/watchlists (or whitelists/safelists). However, it was clear that delegates did want to know COPE’s position on blacklists. Here it is.
COPE encourages journals to address 16 principles in their editorial practices (the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing). Researchers and others can also use these 16 principles to make decisions when choosing journals in which to publish (and to read and review for). COPE uses these 16 principles as part of its process to assess membership applications. Some delegates suggested, rightly, that COPE could do a better job of putting the 16 principles into a format that would make them easier to apply, for researchers in particular. To address that, COPE will continue to support Think.Check.Submit and campaigns like it, which reflect the values we share. Think.Check.Submit is not a COPE resource, although we are a contributing organization and will assist to further develop and promote its checklist. This is a good example of how the values shared by the communities we serve can be translated into a checklist that researchers can use to choose journals without using a blacklist or whitelist.
COPE’s aim is to support all those who have a genuine ambition to promote integrity in research and its publication. We do this by working with our members and communities to write, publish, and then update guidelines like our 16 principles and our flowcharts (18 of them, in 10 languages), records like our database of 550+ cases, our eLearning course of 10 modules on ethical issues such as authorship, fabrication and plagiarism, and the many other resources freely available on our website. We do this so that COPE members and others in the communities we serve have what they need to meet good standards. This applies whether the journals concerned are long-established, or newer and perhaps less experienced. COPE is equally interested in supporting both old and new journals.
These are all, we think, positive ways to promote integrity in research and its publication. COPE’s role is not to create a blacklist. Instead, COPE will continue its mission by supporting editors, journals, and – in the future we hope – by working with institutions to better support researchers.
A good question to ask, though, might be why some researchers are choosing to publish in journals that do not share their values and the values of their communities. Answering that question would be useful. And it is important to note that institutions have a primary role to support researchers so they are able to make informed decisions about where to publish.
Two presentations from an institutional perspective generated questions focused on authorship, peer review, and publishing practices, and how responsibility is split and shared between institutions and journals. Helping researchers understand ethical publishing practice, and helping them to decide where to publish, is an institution’s responsibility (although journals can help), whereas managing peer review is a journal’s responsibility. The recent RePAIR and CLUE guidelines address more of the questions that arise when thinking about the practical implications of this balance in responsibilities.
On other topics delegates expressed differing opinions, for example on preprints, and whether or not journals would (or should) publish articles that have been previously posted to preprint servers. Opinions varied by discipline and topic. It seems clear that some journals will continue to want to publish “new news” (and are therefore unlikely to be enthusiastic about considering articles previously posted to preprint servers), whereas others will be comfortable allowing researchers to use preprint servers to test and refine their work before submitting it for peer review to a journal. Questions were also asked about citing preprints, versioning, and retractions of preprints. It was agreed by all that, as for other types of publication, proper tagging of preprints with the right metadata is crucial.
Diversity was an important theme throughout the day. Diversity of viewpoints was expressed by our delegates, our speakers, and COPE Council members. Diversity of discipline and COPE’s need to not only reframe its guidelines so they are more specific and applicable to the arts, humanities, and social sciences, but also to provide resources written specifically for and with that audience. Diversity of geographies and cultures was also apparent, as was how cultural issues do influence some areas (such as authorship practices and persistent focus on impact factor).
In summary, the 20th anniversary COPE seminar represented the spirit of the organization: an intellectually stimulating but practically focused gathering of individuals, who are committed to publication ethics and research integrity, and who – by the end of the day – generated more questions than answers. We discussed a myriad of issues, each of which will continue to be debated as COPE continues to change during the next 20 years.
Speakers, panelists and chairs of COPE European Seminar 2017
Written 27 May 2017 by COPE
All presentations made during COPE European Seminar 2017 are now available on our website.
European Seminar presentations.