COPE has funded the following projects:
June 2010
What instructions and guidance do journals provide to their reviewers to assess submitted manuscripts? : A survey with particular emphasis on the use of reporting guidelines
The project aims to survey journals’ instructions to reviewers of submitted manuscripts. The study will summarise if and how journals use reporting guidelines in the peer review process, and will explore how effective the editors have found reporting guidelines in improving manuscript quality.
The survey will provide an indication of the degree to which reporting guidelines are currently formally used in the peer review process. The study also hopes to identify examples of good practice which may inform recommendations for consideration by other journals. If simple processes which journals have found to be helpful can be identified, more journals may consider using them which may help to improve the quality of submissions to journals and, ultimately, ease the role of peer reviewers.
This project will be undertaken by Allison Hirst, Research Fellow at the EQUATOR Network, with EQUATOR Steering Group colleagues Professor Doug Altman, Dr Iveta Simera, Dr David Moher, Dr John Hoey and Dr Kenneth F. Schulz. The EQUATOR Network is an international initiative set up to advance high quality reporting of health research studies; it promotes good reporting practices including the wider implementation of reporting guidelines.
January 2010
Prevalence and attitudes towards plagiarism in biomedical publishing
Plagiarism is a growing issue in scientific publishing domain. Information technology has immensely increased the accessibility of source literature, simultaneously making plagiarism easier then ever, but it has also enabled the development of plagiarism detection software tools. In order to detect and prevent plagiarism, we designed a research project to investigate two issues: the prevalence of plagiarism and attitudes towards plagiarism in the scientific community.
The prevalence of plagiarism in a biomedical journal will be measured using CrossCheck, eTBLAST, and WCopyFind plagiarism detection software. All papers submitted to the Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ, an international peer-reviewed open-access journal; http://www.cmj.hr) in 2009 and 2010 will be checked using plagiarism detection software, which will also search for possible sources and compare them with previously published papers and texts available in e-form on the Internet. All suspicious papers will be carefully analyzed to determine the extent and type of possible plagiarism.
The questionnaire measuring attitudes towards plagiarism will be developed and validated. Attitudes will be measured on two cohorts: corresponding authors of papers submitted to the CMJ in 2009 (approx. 300 authors) and research fellows in biomedical sciences in Croatia (approx. 500 research fellows). By correlating the prevalence of plagiarism with attitudes towards plagiarism in the two study groups, we will attempt to identify cross cultural differences and reasoning behind such a behavior. Better understanding of plagiarism will contribute to the prevention and discouragement of such practice among authors. The obtained results will be used for creating guidelines for editors on using available software to detect plagiarism in manuscripts before publication.
This is a research project proposed by Lidija Bilic-Zulle and collaborators from the Croatian Medical Journal and Department of Medical Informatics from the Rijeka University School of Medicine in Croatia.
June 2009
Authors’ awareness of publication ethics: An international survey
This is a collaborative project between Sara Schroter, Gary Bryan, Elizabeth Loder (BMJ); Jason Roberts (International Society of Managing and Technical Editors), Tim Houle (Wake Forest University, North Carolina), and Don Penzien (University of Mississippi, Jackson, MS).
Considerable time is expended by journals investigating ethical transgressions and misconduct that may be caused by ignorance rather than wilful deceit. Publication ethics are rarely taught. We are conducting an international survey to measure the level of awareness of key ethical issues in publishing amongst a large sample of currently active researchers submitting articles to several BMJ journals. We intend this study to be one of the largest undertaken involving a variety of ethical issues on authorship, conflicts of interest, access to data, redundant publication, non-publication, dual submission, salami publishing, plagiarism, image manipulation, informed consent, fabrication, and falsification. We will use short vignettes rather than posing direct questions about awareness to avoid leading questions. To reduce respondent burden but at the same time including vignettes to cover all the important issues, we will randomise authors to one of a series of groups and this will determine which subset of vignettes they will receive. We will use the results generated by the survey to help inform the content of a comprehensive and readily accessible resource for all authors offering guidance on all aspects of the submission process.
January 2009
Authorship research project
Although there is no universally agreed definition of authorship, authorship of research publications is a major requirement for academic advancement and a common cause of disputes among colleagues. Most research on authorship issues comes from biomedicine, where the authorship criteria are those of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. In order to make informed guidelines on authorship and set directions for future research, it is important to analyze authorship requirements across different research fields, as well as the current state of research into authorship. We are therefore conducting a systematic review of literature in major bibliographical databases from different scientific disciplines. We are also examining the definition of authorship and requirements for contribution disclosure in a sample of journals from different scientific disciplines. Finally, we plan to survey editors on their concepts of authorship across scientific disciplines, and use these findings as a tool for the analysis of policy issues around authorship. This project is the research effort of Ana Marusic and her collaborators from the Croatian Medical Journal and the Croatian Centre for Public Health, University of Split School of Medicine, Split, Croatia.
Update
Literature appraisal for the systematic review of research on authorship is completed and we are currently working on the results synthesis and manuscript preparation. We also collected data on authorship policies in journals from different disciplines, as well as definitions and policies of different professional, academic or research organizations or associations. These results are now being written up in a second manuscript.
The results of this part of the research will be presented at the Second World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore, 21-24 July 2010, where we plan to start the Delphi process for discussing the definitions of authorship across scientific disciplines.
Research on the authorship/publication practices of editors in their own journal has been completed and the manuscript has been accepted for publication. Details of the published article will follow.
June 2008
One application received and rejected.
January 2008
Retractions research project
The COPE Code of Conduct states that editors have a responsibility to ensure the reliability of the scientific record, implying that it will sometimes be necessary to retract an article, but it has never attempted to develop detailed guidance about this. Anecdotal evidence suggests that editors may be reluctant to retract articles because of concerns about litigation or uncertainty about the correct procedures. We are therefore examining retractions to understand journals’ current practices and any difficulties faced by editors. We are examining all retractions published on Medline in the last 10 years and categorising them according to the reasons for the retraction, who issued the retraction, etc. We are also doing qualitative research (using a semi-structured interview with journal editors) to learn about their experience of retracting articles, to discover what prompted the action, how editors decided what to do, and any barriers they faced in implementing their plans. We also plan to survey journal editors to gather further information about the retraction process. We plan to use these findings as the basis for developing practical guidelines about when articles should be retracted and how this should be carried out. This project is a collaboration between Liz Wager (freelance publication consultant) and Peter Williams of University College, London.
Update
A report on this project will be published shortly. The abstract is available now (Download pdf 17 kb) (uploaded 13 May 2010).