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Research Ethics and Integrity: How COPE can help
Deborah Kahn, COPE Council Member & Trustee, Global
Publishing Director, Taylor & Francis
Disclosure: Deborah Kahn receives no form of
compensation from COPE for her voluntary role with
COPE. Deborah Kahn is employed full time by Taylor &
Francis Ltd
30 October 2019 publicationethics.org
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publicationethics.org
• About COPE
• COPE activities in China
• Aspects of publishing ethics
– Authorship and contributorship
– Allegations of misconduct
– Plagiarism and copyright infringement
– Conflicts of interest
– Complaints and appeals
• Questions and answers
What I will cover
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COPE Council
COPE理事会
• 40 Council members from 13 countries
and a range of disciplines;
• academic scholars, editors, professionals
in publishing and editorships
• Voluntary role
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How COPE responds and stays true
• We deliver resources that support, inform and educate on
publication ethics.
• We lead thinking and advance understanding in publication
ethics.
• We bring a calm, neutral, and professional voice to current
debates about publication ethics.
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COPE assists editors of scholarly journals and publishers - as well as other parties, such as
institutions - in their work to preserve and promote the integrity of the scholarly record through
policies and practices. COPE describes these in 10 “Core Practices”. COPE's Core Practices
should be considered alongside specific national and international codes of conduct for
research.
COPE’s Core Practices
https://publicationethics.org/core-practices
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publicationethics.org
1. Allegations of misconduct
Journals should have a clearly described process for handling
allegations, however they are brought to the journal's or publisher’s
attention. Journals must take seriously allegations of misconduct
pre-publication and post-publication. Policies should include how to
handle allegations from whistleblowers.
2. Authorship and contributorship
Clear policies (that allow for transparency around who contributed to
the work and in what capacity) should be in place for requirements
for authorship and contributorship as well as processes for
managing potential disputes.
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3. Complaints and appeals
Journals should have a clearly described process for handling
complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher.
4. Conflicts of interest
There must be clear definitions of conflicts of interest and processes
for handling conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors,
journals and publishers, whether identified before or after
publication.
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5. Data and reproducibility
Journals should include policies on data availability and encourage
the use of reporting guidelines and registration of clinical trials and
other study designs according to standard practice in their discipline.
6. Ethical oversight
Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on
consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical
conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using
human subjects, handling confidential data and of
business/marketing practices.
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7. Intellectual property
All policies on intellectual property, including copyright and
publishing licenses, should be clearly described. In addition, any
costs associated with publishing should be obvious to authors and
readers. Policies should be clear on what counts as prepublication
that will preclude consideration. What constitutes plagiarism and
redundant/overlapping publication should be specified.
8. Journal management
A well-described and implemented infrastructure is essential,
including the business model, policies, processes and software for
efficient running of an editorially independent journal, as well as the
efficient management and training of editorial boards and editorial
and publishing staff.
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9. Peer review processes
All peer review processes must be transparently described and well
managed. Journals should provide training for editors and reviewers and
have policies on diverse aspects of peer review, especially with respect
to adoption of appropriate models of review and processes for handling
conflicts of interest, appeals and disputes that may arise in peer review.
10. Post-publication
discussions, corrections
Journals must allow debate post publication either on their site,
through letters to the editor, or on an external moderated site, such
as PubPeer. They must have mechanisms for correcting, revising or
retracting articles after publication.
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publicationethics.org
https://publicationethics.org/resources
10 core practices
• Flowcharts for handling
cases of alleged misconduct
– all translated into Chinese
https://publicationethics.org
/resources/flowcharts/chine
se-all-flowcharts
• Infographics
• Best practice guidelines
• Discussion documents
• Newsletter, presentation
archives
• COPE Forum cases
For members:
• E-Learning modules
• Letter templates, Self-audit
tool for journals
• Seminars/workshops and
webinars
• COPE Forum
Resources
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New Regulations in China
• 《关于进一步加强科研诚信建设的若干意见》 Opinions on Further
Strengthening the construction of scientific research integrity issued by
General Office of the CPC Central Committee and General Office of the
State Council, PRC. on 30th May 2018
• 《哲学社会科学科研诚信建设实施办法》 Measures for the
implementation of the construction of scientific research integrity in
philosophy and Social Sciences Jointly issued by 7 ministries on 16th
May 2019
• 《 科技期刊出版伦理规范 》Code of ethics for publication of scientific
and Technological Journals issued by CAST September 2019
• 《科研诚信案件调查处理规则(试行)》 Rules for investigation and
handling of integrity cases in scientific research (Trial) jointly issued by
20 Ministries on 11th October 2019
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Authorship and Contributorship
Clear policies (that allow for transparency around who contributed to the
work and in what capacity) should be in place for requirements for
authorship and contributorship as well as processes for managing potential
disputes
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Authorship case for discussion
Case text
• A journal published a paper that is now under
investigation by the host institution for misconduct. All
authors signed that they agreed authorship and took
responsibility for the content of the paper. After the
investigations started, an author asked to be removed
from authorship.
Question
• What should the journal do in this situation?
• Should the journal permit the author to withdraw, or does
agreement to authorship have irrevocable responsibilities?
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Advice from the Forum
• Consider publishing an expression of concern stating
that an investigation on the paper is being conducted
but not stating that there is an authorship dispute.
• Await the outcome of the investigation before making
any changes to the paper.
• The author signed the agreement which means he
consented to publication. This means he has a duty to
help with the investigation
• The Forum thought that the editor should not allow
removal, but that he could give the dissenting author
the option of publishing a comment on the published
paper.
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Allegations of misconduct
Journals should have a clearly described process for handling allegations,
however they are brought to the journal's or publisher’s attention. Journals
must take seriously allegations of misconduct pre-publication and post-
publication. Policies should include how to handle allegations from
whistleblowers.
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Possible areas of Misconduct
Research Misconduct
• Informed Consent
• Clinical Trial Registration
• Animal and field studies
• Standards of reporting
• Fabrication
• Falsification
• Wrong ethical approval
• Data plagiarism
Publication Misconduct
• Plagiarism and Text recycling
• Image Manipulation
• Authorship Issues
• Duplicate submission and
publication
• Conflict of Interest
• Fake Peer Review
• Salami slicing
• Declaration of Helsinki
• Institutional Ethical
Committee/Institutional Review
Board
• Local laws and regulations
• International Committee of Medical
Journal Editors(ICMJE)
• Committee on Publication Ethics(COPE)
• Journal editorial policies
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Types of plagiarism
https://publicationethics.org/resources/discussion-documents/how-should-editors-
respond-plagiarism-april-2011
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Case discussion
• The reviewer of a paper contacts the journal to point out that a large part of a review paper was
almost an exact copy of a longer review in a different journal.
• The editor confirmed this. Although the previous publication was referenced it did not indicate
the reproduction of sections of the paper.
• The corresponding author is a top researcher at a top institution. The first author is on a
research scholarship to the institution. It is likely that the co-authors are unaware of the
plagiarism
• The editor of Journal A wrote to the corresponding author to point out the apparent plagiarism
and to ask for an explanation.
• The corresponding author replied, apologising for the error and saying that he would withdraw
the paper. He explained that the whole group was at fault for not checking the paper more
thoroughly. The author may have found that the language barrier made summarising findings
from other papers into his/her own words difficult. There was probably no deliberate intent to
copy chunks of the text without acknowledgement as indeed reference was made to the
source. The corresponding author would take action regarding present and future submissions
from this author. New procedures would also be put into place to prevent a recurrence of this
unfortunate event.
• The corresponding author felt that a positive aspect of this incident was that it demonstrated
the high calibre of the reviewers, and thanked them for doing such an excellent job. The editor
was also thanked for seeking the corresponding author’s views on the matter.
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Discussion/decision
• Plagiarism can be accidental
• This case again demonstrates that all authors/contributors should
take responsibility for the work.
Decision
The editor accepted the author’s reply as a satisfactory response and
decided that no further action should be taken.
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Conflicts of interest
“A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or
organization is involved in multiple interests, financial
interest, or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt the
motivation of the individual or organization. The presence of a
conflict of interest is independent of the occurrence of
impropriety.”
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Complaints
• May arise over the conduct of editors and/or peer reviewers;
• Include breaches of confidentiality, undisclosed COI, misuse of
information, disputes about decisions, irregularities in editorial
processes
• Resources include archive of cases, flowcharts and e-learning
modules
• Principles include
• importance of handling cases promptly, transparently, fairly and objectively;
• adhering to the Journal’s stated policy;
• informing all parties of the process that will be followed and keeping them
updated.
• use of neutral and professional language and avoiding COI in the
investigation process
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Acknowledgements
This presentation is based on
previous presentations by COPE
council members.
Presented by:
Deborah Kahn
COPE Council Member
COPE Trustee
COPE China 微信群
因人数已达自动入群限制
请先加Jason Hu好友,
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他会邀请您入群。
For membership enquiries please contact:
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Editor's Notes
We’ve loved working with the elected and co-opted volunteers who give their expertise and time as the 31 members of COPE Council. We have equally loved working with the small and awesome team of staff at COPE. Council members (and COPE’s membership in general) are the people who inspire and lead the work of COPE, and for everyone’s work we’re extremely grateful. Sometimes it is a challenge to find consensus among such diverse groups of people. Where there is no consensus we’re happy to report the differences. Such is the complexity of the publishing ethics world. Preprints, for example, can be divisive. People in some disciplines happily and comfortably embrace preprinting. For others, the risks of preprints are real and outweigh the benefits. Either way, the world still needs guidance on things like preprints from COPE, and we can benefit from exploring the very real differences of opinion (by the way, our Preprints Discussion Document is being revised and will be out soon). Journal teams are another place where we champion diversity. Working with people from across cultures is what we need to address new and complex problems in publishing ethics and research integrity. Like we say above, it’s all always about people.
This landscape, for all of us in research and research publishing, is one through which we must travel. The question for COPE becomes how does COPE act, and change, to stay true to its mission in publication ethics, and to continue to help the communities and members we serve? For example, what do we think and do about preprints? What do practices like versioning, code sharing, and data sharing mean for the relatively static “version of record” that journals create for researchers? How do stresses and strains on researchers, whether as authors or as peer reviewers, play out and what do we do about the consequences? What new opportunities do we need to embrace?
Three things feel like relative constants for COPE. Each is a part of our mission, and each is baked into COPE’s mindset. We deliver resources that support, inform and educate on publication ethics. We lead thinking and advance understanding in publication ethics. We bring a calm, neutral, and professional voice to current debates about publication ethics.
So we’ll use these “constants” as we travel this landscape. For our “P” we’ll respond to references to COPE made in the Plan S guidance on implementation with our neutral and professional voice. For our “E” we’ll recognise the new preprint practices that an increasing number of research communities are adopting by completing our guidance on preprints (started in our preprint discussion document). By doing that we’ll promote recognition of more than peer reviewed journal articles as potential research outputs, and perhaps relieve some of the pressure to publish that researchers face. We’ll address concerns about “predatory” practices, building on the discussions we already started at COPE Forum, and leading to presentation at the Sixth World Conference on Research Integrity in June 2019. For our “S” we’ll continue to encourage operational transparency from our members, working with organisations like OASPA, DOAJ, and WAME and with campaigns like Think.Check.Submit. And for our “T” we’ll keep an eye on how technology developments enable open research and open science and what this means for new resources from COPE so we continue support integrity and ethics in research publishing. We’ll keep on moving.
Changes in authorship (a) Corresponding author requests addition of extra author before publicatio
Corresponding author requests removal of author before publication
Request for addition of extra author after publication
(d) Request for removal of author after publication
What to do if you suspect ghost, guest or gift authorship (see also flowcharts on Changes in authorship, as such requests may indicate the presence of a ghost or gift author
Editors cannot police author or contributor listing for every submission but may sometimes have suspicions that an author list is incomplete or includes undeserving (guest or gift) authors. The COPE flowchart on ‘What to do if you suspect ghost, guest or gift authorship’ suggests actions for these situations. The following points are designed to help editors be alert for inappropriate authorship and spot warning signs which may indicate problems.
Signs that might indicate authorship problems
• Corresponding author seems unable to respond to reviewers’ comments
• Changes are made by somebody not on the author list (check Word document properties to see who made the changes but bear in mind there may be an innocent explanation for this, e.g. using a shared computer, or a secretary making changes)
• Document properties show the manuscript was drafted by someone not on the author list or properly acknowledged (but see above)
• Impossibly prolific author e.g. of review articles/opinion pieces (check also for redundant/overlapping publication) (this may be detected by a Medline or Google search using the author’s name)
• Several similar review articles/editorials/opinion pieces have been published under different author names (this may be detected by a Medline or Google search using the article title or key words)
• Role missing from list of contributors (e.g. it appears that none of the named authors were responsible for analysing the data or drafting the paper) • Unfeasibly long or short author list (e.g. a simple case report with a dozen authors or a randomised trial with a single author)
• Industry-funded study with no authors from sponsor company (this may be legitimate, but may also mean deserving authors have been omitted; reviewing the protocol may help determine the role of employees – see Gotzsche et al. and commentary by Wager)
COPE has an Wechat group called COPE China, however it only allow first 100 members to join by scanning QR code, later members have to be invited into the group.
if you have interest to join this group, please connect with Jason Hu, COPE’s immediate past Council member. He will invite you into the COPE group manually.