COPE China Seminar at the ISMTE 2017 Asian-Pacific Conference
Report from Trevor Lane and Helena Wang, COPE Council
If the world’s published research were a building in progress, then its structural integrity would balance on the three ethical pillars of research publishing—honest authorship (both attribution and behaviour), sound peer review, and prevention of plagiarism. These were the three themes of the first COPE China Seminar, which was held at the Kempinski Hotel Beijing Lufthansa Center on Sunday, 26 March 2017, in conjunction with the 2017 ISMTE Asian-Pacific Conference.
Titled “The Pillars of Publication Ethics”, the one-day event was attended by more than 120 delegates working in research, education, publishing and related services. Chris Graf, COPE Co-Vice Chair, opened the seminar by introducing COPE and its free website resources including Chinese translations. He urged the audience to “spread the word” and work together, and with COPE, to maintain the integrity of the world’s research record.
COPE Treasurer Deborah Poff and Council Member Helena Wang chaired the session on authorship. Siu-wai Leung (University of Macau, China) spoke on how the responsibility to clearly define authorship is shared by journals, editors, research institutions, national bodies, and editorial services. Mark Israel (Australasian Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services) called for putting authorship guidelines into practice and gave some practical recommendations for journals.
The session on peer review, chaired by Chris Graf and COPE Council Member Jason Hu, began with a presentation by COPE Trustee and COPE Treasurer, Deborah Poff. Citing the value of peer review in knowledge creation, she encouraged recognition of peer review as an academic activity and advocated rewarding peer reviewers. Yongmao Jiang (Publishing Group of the Chinese Medical Association) explained how his group’s journals emphasize integrity and ethics to peer reviewers, and how one journal is using a panel of editors to make final manuscript decisions.
Chaired by Helena Wang and Jason Hu, the final session was about tackling plagiarism. Helen Zhang (Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A/B & FITEE) categorized plagiarism and its countermeasures into nine types, and Tracey Bretag (International Journal for Educational Integrity and University of South Australia) pointed out that both the extent and intent of plagiarism need to be considered when deciding a response.
A copy of all of the presentations can be found on the COPE website.
Each session ended with lively Q&A participation from both local and international delegates. Audience engagement was also high in the interactive cases workshop that was chaired by Chris Graf and COPE Council Member Trevor Lane. Based on real authorship, peer review, and plagiarism cases discussed at COPE Forum and archived on the COPE website, the six case studies involved audience polls, debate on corrective and preventive actions, and a look at relevant COPE resources and decision-making guidelines.
Read cases with advice
Our inaugural COPE China Seminar was a great success and received positive and encouraging audience feedback. Special thanks go to Linda Gough, COPE Administrator, for the seminar’s smooth running, preparation and organisation, and to Jason Hu for onsite photography and setting up social media accounts. Above all, this event provided a good model for future seminars in China, where we hope to continue spreading the word about COPE and best practices in research publishing.