- Case
Data source for study of questionable integrity and provenance
…to a paper to prevent publication elsewhere is not the job of the editor, is disingenuous to the authors, and is making a judgement without due process (the data have been called into question, no more). One option might be to reject the work, probably with a strongly worded letter about the data source, urging the authors not to re-submit elsewhere until the data source has been… - Case
Submissions from members of the editorial board
…records and be very firm and not allow himself to be be pushed into making a decision. For the future, new editorial board members should be made aware that they will be treated like any other author. They will not be given special treatment. Another suggestion was to put in place a procedure stating that a paper must be re-submitted after a certain time limit if all the required documents are… - Case
Same cohort - same blood samples - multiple tests
…discuss if the first article could still be revised and re-reviewed. If the first article has been published, the second article needs to cite it and explain that the cohort is the same and what has been already previously reported, so as not to distort future meta-analyses. Even if there may be no overlap in control samples or repetition of questionnaire data, the second article should still cite the… - News
In the news: August 2018 Digest
…unfounded media attention or the converse, important articles being neglected. Now is the time to get everyone concerned talking about these problems.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05789-4 Academic press Taking back control: the new university and academic presses are re… - News
In the news: April Digest
…target="_blank">https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00893-5?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20190328 Mark Israel makes important arguments that there are benefits, and in some cases it may be appropriate circumstances in which self-plagiarism in varying journals, countries and languages may increase access to research for people who are not Anglophonic. He provides advice on considerations when you might re-use text. - Case
Conflict of interest
…Ethics (COPE). The institution audited 100 questionnaires selected by computerised randomisation. Outcome details on the original handwritten records corresponded with the project’s computerised database. The overall distribution of rapes and murders were re-analysed according to alleged perpetrators, and the results agreed with the published findings. Outcomes were then compared by political… - News
Guest editorial: Tackling paper mills
…Reviewers in the scientific community. Expanding our tools and resources in the integrity space has meant we’ve become more efficient at identifying these papers, but we continue to see paper mills evolve. We’re looking forward to seeing how collaboration across publishers, big and small, tackles this misconduct throughout the publishing industry. We acknowledge that we still have work to do… - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2020: Understanding text recycling
…ultimately, on the specific language of the publisher. I am increasingly seeing publishers make explicit allowances for the re use of thesis and dissertation materials. I also believe that in stem disciplines, such reuse is generally considered both ethical and even professionally desirable. I expect that our model guidelines will be including such explicit permission for students to recycle material… Website Terms and Conditions
…electronic communications and contents sent from your computer to us. You must use the website for lawful purposes only. You must not use the website for any of the following: Fraudulent purposes in connection with a criminal offence or otherwise unlawful activity. To send, use or re-use any material that is illegal, offensive, abusive, indecent, defamatory, obscene or menacing; or in breach…- News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: January 2019
…and plenary sessions: Plenary session on predatory publishing Symposium on Transparency 2025 A debate on preprints Focus track on responsible authorship Later in the year, we’re delighted to be joining COPE representatives in the Netherlands who will be hosting COPE’s European Seminar in the city of Leiden on 23 September 2019. We’ll give you… - Case
Profusion of copied text passages
…manuscripts for plagiarism and duplicated text using anti-plagiarism software; reject those with moderate/major overlap of text; if malicious intent is suspected, contact the author’s institution; if the authors are junior researchers, consider asking them to rewrite passages and re-submit. There is a role for the institution in these cases as they govern the behaviour of their researchers.… - News
In the news: October 2018 Digest
…that will be within the cap of Plan S. Interesting things to consider. At the October 2018 meeting of the group Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), there is an active twitter chronicle of meeting contents, much of which focused on Plan S. Obviously some other content, but if you’re interested, search for #SciELO20 on Twitter. - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: July 2018
…target="_blank">FAIR and accessible? The discussion was so good that we’re doing it again. So please, do join us for Transparency 2025 discussion at WCRI 2019 in Hong Kong (find out more here). We have a fresh set of stellar panelists for you. And together we’ll continue the conversation. COPE co-chairs - News
In the news: July 2020
…be used by appropriate committees in evaluating academic performance and promotions, among other academic milestones. text recycling not acceptable in India Peer review An interesting controversy is… Potential paper mills
…that even when we do receive a response to our queries, we can’t be assured we’re actually communicating with the authors. In addition, when we have reached out to the institutions (here it’s often not clear who to contact), we may not receive a response. In situations where we do receive a response to our requests to share the original data, we receive large numbers of files, often not…Revised principles of transparency and best practice released
…of scholarly publishing and ensuring that they remain applicable to today’s publishing context and are easy to follow,” said Dominic Mitchell, DOAJ’s Operations Manager. "After many rounds of drafts, review, and revision, we're pleased to release the fourth version of the Transparency Principles. This new version provides more detailed instructions on achieving journal transparency,…- Case
A case of scientific misconduct?
…sent a new protocol document apparently now corresponding to the study in question. This revised paper then went to re-review and the reviewers were happy. However in house journal staff were still worried about differences between the new protocol and the study reported in the paper. The new protocol did not seem to describe the conduct of a trial but rather a case-control study. There were… - Case
Suspected contact between reviewer and an author led to coauthorship of the reviewer
…reviewer being an author and the editor needs to contact the reviewer and clarify this. If the editor is satisfied that the reviewer is an author, the paper should be re-reviewed and sent out to a new reviewer. It may then be rejected on scientific grounds. The Forum did not think reporting the case to the institution was a good idea at the present time.… - Case
Should this paper be retracted?
…to thank the earlier research group. It is not clear if the data are the same or are from a re-run of tests using the previous methods. The journal could involve the earlier institution in an inquiry. The editors have asked the correct questions: 1) who owns and has the legal right to publish the data and 2) who should be an author or contributor on the paper if the data ownership can be… - News
Data and reproducibility: The role of research institutions
…href="https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples" target="_blank">FAIR Data Principles -- making research data “Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable”, it falls on funders, publishers, researchers and their institutions to establish practices and policies for the appropriate handling of research data. Research institutions -- as the home of significant research data production and management -- have a particularly critical role…