If you were Jo, how would your story continue?
We’d like to invite you to play a game with us. Imagine you’re Jo, a fictional new research integrity officer (RIO) at a large and also fictional public university (that might be a stretch for you if you’re an editor or a publisher, but please… have some fun and give it a shot!). As a new RIO, Jo is immediately challenged with a dispute between authors.
And our question for Jo is: How would the story continue?
Please, share your ideas with us below. We’d love to know what you think Jo will get up to. And, if you share something and are up for it, we’ll publish the most inspiring and insightful replies. (The newest update on COPE’s pilot with universities is in December Digest).
In January…
As a new RIO, Jo is faced with a dispute between authors. A senior member in the office, who is aware of COPE and the institution’s COPE membership, directs Jo to the COPE website to find out how this type of issue would be handled by journals. Jo reads the COPE guidelines How to Handle Authorship Disputes, A Guide for New Researchers and the flowchart How to Spot Authorship Problems. Jo now has some background and can help others at the university, such as the Dean who might be the person to resolve an authorship dispute, work out their part in resolving the issue with the authors and the journal.
In February…
The university is revising its Data Management Policy and Jo’s boss is aware of a COPE webinar on data research policies that they are keen for Jo to attend to gather information on the latest developments and issues around data management.
Jo signs up for and attends the webinar, free as the university is a COPE member (60 minutes on ‘Creating and Implementing Data Research Policies’). This is a new area of interest for Jo, and she appreciates that data management and data sharing are areas of increasing importance for research integrity and publishing. The COPE members presenting on the webinar wrap up by sharing information about the COPE North American Seminar in Philadelphia in May, a few months ahead.
In a meeting with a Responsible Conduct of Research trainer, Sam, at the university, Jo realises that research integrity issues for the humanities and social science are often different than those issues in biomedical research. Jo tells the Sam about the COPE Seminar in Philadelphia.
Sam registers for the Seminar which is free as the university is a member of COPE. The theme of the seminar is ‘Challenges and Solutions: Issues of Inclusivity and Diversity in the Humanities and Social Sciences’ and Sam looks forward to gaining appreciation for ethical aspects of research communication in the humanities disciplines (for which the research integrity office are receiving a steady number of queries).
Sam also anticipates connecting with peers within the research integrity and ethical research publishing community at the seminar and expects that the network of journal editors and publishers as well as other research integrity officers, will be useful when it comes to dealing with difficult cases.
In March…
Jo’s team receives an anonymous complaint about duplicated Western Blots published in a single paper by a researcher from her university in a peer reviewed journal. The whistleblower’s email is polite and links to what looks like extensive forensic examination posted by the whistleblower and other researchers on the PubPeer website. Jo follows the universities policies and starts to work out what to do with her colleagues.
In April…
After a reasonably rapid process at the university (albeit things were at times quite tense, particularly when they considered retraction), Jo and the researchers, who had managed their data carefully, realise that there has been a mix up in the figure panels, and that correction is the right approach. COPE Retraction Guidelines confirm their diagnosis. The corresponding author, a researcher called Harry, emails the journal, and waits for a reply. Jo spots below the roundup of research publication ethics news in the COPE Digest newsletter, that the next COPE Forum is in August, and that COPE is calling for cases like those shared in the COPE Cases database to be discussed, anonymously. She registers to attend the 90 minute webinar.
In May…
Sam heads to the 1-day COPE Seminar. She learns more about what makes humanities scholarship different from the natural sciences, and gains better appreciation that different research communities approach authorship and attribution significantly differently. She meets journal publishers, including Nick from a large research publisher and shares Jo’s details with Nick and vice versa.
Jo notices an email from the whistleblower in her inbox. It is still polite, and points out it has been 2 months. It’s the last week of May. Jo asks Harry for an update, Harry says the journal didn’t reply.
In June…
In the first week of June, Jo looks up the journal that hasn’t replied to Harry. She notes that it is published by the large research publisher that Nick works at, and so she drops Nick a line. Nick replies quickly, and volunteers to notify the journal and ask the journal to get in touch. Harry gets an email from the journal the next day, and they begin the process to correct the article. Later that month, Jo’s university concludes a long investigation. The recommended outcomes include retraction of three journal articles published in three different journals. COPE Retraction Guidelines again confirm the diagnosis. The researchers involved are not responding, and so it falls to Jo to sort things out.
And that’s where we’ll leave Jo… but what happens next?
Please, share your ideas for how the first year for Jo in her new job pans out. What happens with Jo and the whistleblower? What does Jo do to sort out the outcomes from the long investigation? What does Jo think about the COPE Forum she attends in August? How does Jo wrap up her first year, in December?
If you like that idea, then add your comments below.
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Comments
Posted on behalf of Rhys Morgan, Research Governance and Integrity Officer. University of Cambridge:
in July….
The authors of the papers that have been recommended for retraction have still not responded to Jo’s emails or calls. Jo realises that, as required by University policy and set out in COPE’s guidance on ‘Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity cases’, it is essential to ensure that the research record is properly corrected without undue delay. As such, after seeking advice from senior colleagues, she informs the authors and their Head of Department that if they do not respond by the end of the month, she will inform the relevant editors of the recommendation directly. The corresponding author, Sarah, responds quickly, saying that she is willing to request the retractions, but that one of her co-authors (the individual whom the investigation found responsible for the misconduct that led to the retraction) is refusing to support this decision. Jo helps Sarah prepare correspondence for the journals, informing them of the situation.
Posted on behalf of Kathryn Dally, Head of Research Ethics & Integrity team and Senior Assistant Registrar, University of Oxford:
in August...
Jo sends an email to the Head of Department (explaining that one of the co-authors is unwilling to co-operate with seeking the retractions, despite the University investigation’s conclusions of research misconduct). She also encloses suggested draft correspondence that could be sent to each of the three journals requesting the retractions, and specifically seeks his assistance with moving this forward. The Head of Department calls her, concerned at how long this is taking to resolve, and agrees that, with some modifications, the correspondence to the journals will be sent in his name and that this will list all the authors in question, given that they are all based within his department. The correspondence will specifically request the three retractions and the reasons for these (and will also be copied to the relevant co-authors on each paper). It will also ask for a response within a month.
Posted on behalf of Dr Katrina Bramstedt, SecretaryGeneral, Luxembourg Agency for Research Integrity (LARI)
in September...
Jo has waited a month for the researchers to respond to requests for a meeting but so far, there has been silence from them, even when the Department Chair has been copied on each letter. Jo decides to make a personal visit to the corresponding authors of the three articles posed for retraction (two researchers). She plans her day so that she can do both meetings back-to-back in case one researcher tips off the other researcher (fortunately their labs are in the same building, a short walk from each other). Upon arrival she greats the researchers with a friendly smile and asks if they had received her letters – yes, they had! Framing the rest of the conversation as “How can I help you?” gets each meeting to go well and she learns from each researcher that they were both afraid and thought ignoring the letters was easier than dealing with them.
Jo arranges a second, joint meeting with both researchers, herself, and a bioethicist, to help the researchers understand the root cause of the ethical problem, including personal coaching to prevent future related dilemmas. Jo brings some coffee and chocolate to boost the mood. Indeed, the decision of retraction is made by the publisher, not the author, but it is important for authors to understand their errors and their potential impact on science and society. While not happy about the retraction decision, both authors were pleased to have the personal attention of Jo and the bioethicist.
While walking back to her office Jo sees a call for abstracts appear on her smartphone for the upcoming WCRI conference. Jo decides to write an abstract which describes the use of ethicists in research integrity cases as she has involved them several times with great success. She decides to explore the RIO case registry specifically on this topic and create an abstract which reflects which types of cases the ethicists were consulted for and the skills and benefits they brought to the process. If accepted, the abstract would be a great asset to her annual performance review, not to mention, Jo loves research and writing!
Posted on behalf of Matthew Billington, Senior Research Ethics and Integrity Officer, University of Liverpool:
...in October
Now that the retraction issue has been resolved, Jo tries to catch up on her emails. Jo has received a request from a research associate to meet to discuss some queries which have arisen following the release of Jo’s new web pages on authorship. Meeting with students and colleagues is Jo’s favourite aspect of the research integrity officer role.
During the meeting, the research associate asks questions relating to the ordering of the authors. When the research associate describes the data collection and write up of the paper, Jo has serious concerns about both the Principal Investigator’s listing as the first author, and the potential conflicts of interest which appear to exist. As the research associate does not raise these as issues, Jo does not verbalise her concerns.
That week, Jo is under pressure to complete a set of Committee papers which include a policy on authorship that needs to be ratified at the forthcoming Committee meeting.
Jo has scheduled a phone call with colleagues at COPE to discuss the draft policy on authorship. Jo gains valuable learning points during the conversation; but the policy discussion with colleagues at COPE brings Jo’s thoughts back to the meeting with the research associate.