Text recycling research project
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The document summarizes a presentation on text recycling research. It discusses four topics: 1) A survey of journal editors and academics on their beliefs about appropriate text recycling practices. 2) A text analysis study examining the prevalence of text recycling in STEM research papers. 3) Legal issues around when text recycling violates copyright or contract law. 4) Implications and future work on text recycling. Scenarios are provided to gauge attitudes on copying apparatus descriptions and diagrams between papers. Initial survey findings show views vary based on the source and structural location of the recycled text.
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Text recycling research project
- 1. David R Hansen, Duke University Cary Moskovitz, Duke University Michael Pemberton, Georgia Southern University Committee on Publication Ethics European Seminar 23 September 2019 The Text Recycling Project
- 2. Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM program (CCESTEM: NSF15528)
- 3. textrecycling.org Other collaborators on work shared in this talk: Chris Anson, North Carolina State University Ian Anson, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Susanne Hall, California Institute of Technology Agnes Gambill, Appalachian State University
- 4. 1. What do gatekeepers across academic fields believe about appropriate text recycling practice? 2. What do STEM researchers actually do in practice? 3. When is text recycling legal and when does it violate copyright or contract law? 4. Implications and future work
- 5. SCENARIO A: Dr. Wilson is a biology professor. He published a paper that included a detailed, technical description of an experimental apparatus. Dr. Wilson is now writing another paper reporting on a new study. Because this new study uses the same apparatus, he reuses the exact description of the apparatus from his prior paper. Is this appropriate? YES or NO
- 6. SCENARIO B: Sarah is a biology doctoral student doing research under Professor Wilson. Dr. Wilson has asked Sarah to write the first draft of another, related paper, for which he will be co-author. Since the same apparatus was used for this investigation, Dr. Wilson suggests that Sarah copy and paste the diagram of the apparatus from the prior paper. Is this appropriate? YES or NO
- 7. SCENARIO A: Dr. Wilson is a biology professor. He published a paper that included a detailed, technical description of an experimental apparatus. Dr. Wilson is now writing another paper reporting on a new study. Because this new study uses the same apparatus, he reuses the exact description of the apparatus from his prior paper. SCENARIO B: Sarah is a biology doctoral student doing research under Professor Wilson. Dr. Wilson has asked Sarah to write the first draft of another, related paper, for which he will be co-author. Since the same apparatus was used for this investigation, Dr. Wilson suggests that Sarah copy and paste the diagram of the apparatus from the prior paper.
- 8. Science, Gneezy et al., 2010: We conducted a field study at a large amusement park (8). Participants (N = 113,047) rode a roller coaster-like attraction, were photographed during the ride, and later chose whether to purchase a print of the photo. Proceedings of the Nat Acad of Sciences, Gneezy et al., 2012: We conducted a field study at a large amusement park. Participants rode a rollercoaster-like attraction, were photographed during the ride, and later chose whether or not to purchase a print of the photo.
- 9. COPE Definition “Text recycling…occurs when sections of the same text appear (usually un-attributed) in more than one of an author’s own publications.” --Text recycling guidelines for editors, COPE https://publicationethics.org/files/Web_A29298_COPE_Text_Recycling.pdf
- 10. COPE Definition “Text recycling…occurs when sections of the same text appear (usually un-attributed) in more than one of an author’s own publications."
- 11. Our definition Text recycling is the reuse of textual material (prose, visuals, or equations) from one document in a new document where: 1. the material in the new document is identical to that of the source or substantively equivalent in both form and content; 2. the material serves the same rhetorical function in both documents; and 3. at least one author of the new document is also an author of the prior document.
- 12. “… Use of similar or identical phrases in methods sections where there are limited ways to describe a method is not unusual; in fact text recycling may be unavoidable when using a technique that the author has described before and it may actually be of value when a technique that is common to a number of papers is described… “ —COPE, “How to deal with text recycling” http://media.biomedcentral.com/content/editorial/BMC-text-recycling-editorial_guidelines.pdf
- 15. 1. What do gatekeepers across academic fields believe about appropriate text recycling practice?
- 16. SURVEY OF “GATEKEEPERS” ACROSS ACADEMIA • Survey of journal editors and editorial board members • Top-ranked 5 journals from each of below fields, plus 10 from writing studies From Hall, S., Moskovitz, C., and Pemberton, M. (2018) . “Attitudes Toward Text Recycling in Academic Writing Across Disciplines” Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance 25(3): 142-169.
- 18. “IS TEXT RECYCLING ALWAYS UNACCEPTABLE?”
- 19. SOURCE OF RECYCLED TEXT 190 185 173 149 117 22 72 75 86 106 117 161 112 9 11 30 85 153 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Conference poster Grant proposal Conference paper Grant report: INTERNAL Grant report: EXTERNAL Conference proceedings Journal article WITHOUT LIMITS WITH SOME LIMITATIONS SHOULD NOT
- 21. AUTHORSHIP: IS TEXT RECYCLING STILL ACCEPTABLE UNDER THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS? 181 154 20 79 17 11 29 168 65 163 23 32 27 70 34 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Source and new text have identical authors Source and new text share at least 1 author and any others GAVE permission AS ABOVE, but any others HAVE NOT given permission All authors of new text work with "lab" or long-term research project that produced… AS ABOVE, but NONE were authors of the earlier text. YES NO I DON'T KNOW
- 22. Interviews with Journal Editors across Academia
- 23. Interviewee Demographics 21 Editors and Editors in Chief: 7 STEM 7 HUMANITIES 7 SOCIAL SCIENCE Editing Experience (years) # subjects 2 2 3-4 2 5-10 7 11-20 3 20+ 7 Interview Protocol 0: Definition of TR 1: Personal experiences (as writers and authors) with TR 2: Editorial experiences with TR 3: Exploring TR variables in the context of journal editing/reviewing 4: Final questions about beliefs about TR 5: Demographic information
- 26. Initial Findings Originality Critically important, but diverse definitions and guidelines Rewriting Text Mixed reasons, mixed perceptions of value Circulation/Accessibility Varying perceptions of what is "unpublished" and "accessible" Copyright Very concerned, but not fully knowledgeable Beliefs vs. Practices Practices as editors/teachers sometimes conflict with their beliefs Pemberton, M. et al. (forthcoming 2019). North American journal editors' views of text recycling: An interview-based study. Learned Publishing
- 27. 2. What do STEM researchers actually do in practice?
- 28. Text Analysis: research objectives How common is TR (between published papers) in STEM? What patterns of TR are most common? How does TR practice vary across STEM disciplines?
- 29. NSF Fields (Directorates) in corpus Biological Sciences (BIO) Engineering (ENG) Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Corpus 4 fields X 20 grants /field X 5 papers per grant Ian Anson, Cary Moskovitz & Chris Anson. A Text-Analytic Method for Identifying Text Recycling in STEM Research Reports. Writing Analytics, 2019 (forthcoming)
- 30. Paper A Paper B Although adolescents on average reported fairly high scores on the four indicators of family belonging moderate variation existed in this measure Although adolescents on average reported fairly high scores on the four indicators of family belonging moderate variation existed in this measure In the deadband mode no reheating is performed ie TSA TCA and supply air flow rate is set to the minimum allowed value In the deadband mode no reheating is performed ie TSA TCA and supply air flow rate is set to the minimum allowed value The entire element is taken to vanish when three of the eight integration points in the element have reached this stage The entire element is taken to vanish when three of the eight integration points in the element have reached this stage
- 31. Paper A Paper B In the showup conditions participants viewed single photograph and were instructed to indicate if the perpetrator was present or absent In the showup condition participants viewed single photograph and were asked to indicate whether the perpetrator was present or absent The experiments also employed platinum wire counter electrode and nonaqueous AgAgCl pseudoreference electrode that was separated from the solution by frit The experiments also employed nonaqueous AgAgCl pseudoreference electrode which was separated from the solution by frit and platinumwire counter electrode Mother child and stepfather child relationship quality was defined in this study as adolescents perceptions of closeness and engagement with each parent in activities and communication Mother child and father child relationship quality are defined in this study as adolescents perceptions of the affective qualities of the parent child relationship which include closeness warmth and satisfaction with each relationship
- 32. Paper A Paper B The NMR spectrum of in CD consists of very broad resonance at ppm assignable to the tertbutyl groups of the ketimide ligand while broad resonance at ppm is assignable to the methyl groups of the acac ligand Its NMR spectrum in CDCl reveals the presence of single broad resonance at ppm assignable to the methyl protons of the TEMPO moiety Here we describe how DCPM can be applied to measure colloidal interactions with the surface of live cells We have expanded this capability to simultaneously track particles and cells which we implemented in conjunction with new analytical and interpretative methods to demonstrate proofofprinciple capabilities of DCPM to measure colloidal interactions at the surface of live cells
- 33. # SENTENCES WITH TR PER GRANT >5% of All Paper Content Recycled
- 34. # SENTENCES WITH TR PER GRANT—BY FIELD
- 35. 3. When is text recycling legal and when does it violate copyright or contract law?
- 37. US: Sec. 201: Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work EU: Art. 2-4 of the InfoSoc directive: provide authors rights… Int’l/Berne Convention, preamble: rights of authors in their literary and artistic works Copyright Ownership of Articles
- 38. I hereby assign to the Copyright Owner the copyright in the manuscript identified . . . and any tables, illustrations or other material submitted for publication as part of the manuscript (the “Article”). This assignment of rights means that I have granted to the Copyright Owner the exclusive right to publish and reproduce the Article, or any part of the Article, in print, electronic and all other media (whether now known or later developed), in any form, in all languages, throughout the world, for the full term of copyright, and the right to license others to do the same, effective when the Article is accepted for publication. Typical Contract Terms (Elsevier)
- 39. • Factor 1: Purpose and Character of the Use • Factor 2: Nature of the Work • Factor 3: Amount and Substantiality • Factor 4: Effect on the Market for the Original Fair Use
- 41. Publisher contracts tend to vary widely in what kind of information they provide, where that information is located, and what they allow.
- 42. New England Journal of Medicine Editorial Policies (recycling from) . ) Copyrights/Permissions Material published in the New England Journal of Medicine…is covered by copyright… Authors may not use or authorize use of the contribution without the Society’s written consent, except as may be allowed by U.S. fair-use law. Additional information is available on the NEJM copyrights page. NEJM, does, however, grant many reuse permissions to authors. See Author Permissions for complete details. From Editorial Policies (https://www.nejm.org/about-nejm/editorial-policies)
- 43. American Chemical Society Journal Publishing Agreement (recycling from) . ) . Reuse of Figures, Tables, Artwork, and Text Extracts in Future Works: Authors may reuse figures, tables, artwork, illustrations, text extracts of up to 400 words, and data from the Author’s Submitted, Accepted, or Published Work in which the ACS holds copyright for teaching or training purposes, in presentations at conferences and seminars, in subsequent scholarly publications of which they are an Author … provided the following conditions are met… (http://pubs.acs.org/paragonplus/copyright/jpa_form_a.pdf)
- 44. American Chemical Society Journal Publishing Agreement (recycling to) . ) If the Submitted Work includes material that was published previously in a non-ACS journal, whether or not the Author(s) participated in the earlier publication, the copyright holder’s permission must be obtained to republish such material in print and online with ACS. It is the Author’s obligation to obtain any necessary permissions to use prior publication material in any of the ways described in Section II: Permitted Uses by Author(s). No such permission is required if the ACS is the copyright holder.
- 45. 4. Implications and future work
- 46. Phase 2 • Model guidelines and policy statements • Educational materials
- 47. Existing guidelines (e.g., COPE) are a good first step, but authors or editors would benefit from more explicit guidance.
- 48. Authors and editors would benefit from a standardized approach to TR—both in substance and in how/where information on TR is provided to authors.
- 49. Ithenticate and similar software were not developed to handle TR. We should be careful to set thoughtful policies about how these are used in practice. The code should not determine policy.
- 50. Attempts by publishers to protect themselves by requiring authors to obtain permissions for any recycled material deprives authors of ability to practice under fair use and may erode fair use application.
- 51. Find us at textrecycling.org If you are interested in collaborating with us for Phase 2, contact Cary at cmosk@duke.edu The Text Recycling Project
- 52. SCENARIO A: Dr. Wilson is a biology professor. He published a paper that included a detailed, technical description of an experimental apparatus. Dr. Wilson is now writing another paper reporting on a new study. Because this new study uses the same apparatus, he reuses the exact description of the apparatus which he wrote from his prior paper. SCENARIO B: Sarah is a biology doctoral student doing research under Professor Wilson. Dr. Wilson has asked Sarah to write the first draft of another, related paper, for which he will be co-author. Since the same apparatus was used for this investigation, Dr. Wilson suggests that Sarah copy and paste the diagram of the apparatus from the prior paper.
Editor's Notes
- CM
- Our talk > outline… But first: some introduction on text recycling
- To begin, I’d like you to think about two scenarios involving TR. Here is the first. Please write down your answer (1 minute) [NO DISCUSSION!]
- Here is the 2nd. Write down your choice.
- SCEN A: Show of hands: [be honest!] Yes? No? SCEN B: Show of hands: Please take a moment to write down your thoughts and questions about these 2 scenarios. We’ll come back to these and discuss them later in our session. This raises complex issues about authorship, co-authorship; use of non-text materials, and more.
- Here is what we see as a typical example of TR -- from two of the most highly respected scientific journals—Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences. Formally defining TR turns out to be rather challenging. Let us consider, for example, COPE’s definition…
- [Walk through: each colored terms]
- Here is our current working definition.
- If TR, like falsifying data, was a universally condemned practice, we would not be here today. However, this is not the case. Before proceeding with our talk, it is critical that we establish this point. To illustrate this point, we show here a passage from COPE’s own guidelines on TR. Our point is NOT that TR is always acceptable or ethical. The point is that TR may be acceptable, or not – depending on the specifics of the instance and the context.
- “Addressing Author Misconduct: The Role of Researchers, Journals, and Institutions” Columbia U 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAbgBc4hL2w
- We also want to explain why we shoose the term TR rather than SP. [Explain] >Note that COPE uses TR.
- MP B&A: Surveys, Interviews
- With Susanne Hall, CalTech; Michael Pemberton, Georgia Southern Context: When writing a journal article in your field…
- When writing a journal article… Slightly higher percentages in Humanities and Quantitative Social Sciences, but across all areas, 80-90% believe TR is acceptable in at least some contexts.
- When writing a journal article… In general, the degree to which a text is considered “published” or “accessible” impacts the extent of acceptability. WIPs and small audiences seem to make TR more acceptable. Note: Even for source = article: nearly half OK with limited TR
- CM In many fields (STEM and some SS), scholarly writing is typically organized into standard, named sections (IMRaD); in others (humanities, some SS), structure is flexible and only implicitly suggested. Such differences made it challenging to design questions about structure for the diverse population we studied. Nevertheless, we asked whether it was acceptable to recycle material from various sections of a journal article, allowing for a “not applicable” response. Not surprisingly, respondents were most accepting of recycling for Methods sections (middle bar). This aligns with other studies as well as with major published guidelines. Only about 20% of respondents felt recycling for Methods sections was inherently unacceptable. Recycling from Introductions was also fairly accepted—again, in alignment with existing discourse on the topic. And while responses were more restrictive regarding Results and Discussion sections, more than one third of respondents were OK with some amount of recycling even there.
- CM The last of the factors to be discussed here is authorship—which is a frustratingly complex matter when it comes to text recycling as we suggested in one of our opening scenarios. There are a number of factors that could matter to scholars in deciding whether any specific instance of TR would be acceptable: Number of authors whether some or all authors of the “new” text were also authors of the source text, Whether permissions had been granted Whether both the source and new texts were the output of a formal research group Because these factors are not mutually exclusive, investigating them thoroughly would require an extensive matrix of questions on this issue alone. Nevertheless, since this issue had not yet been empirically studied at all (to our knowledge), we asked about a number of these factors—knowing that our results could, at best, give us a sense of how much these factors might matter. CHART: Top: essentially same as solo authored work >> nearly all OK with TR, small % didn’t know …walk through Interesting contrast between 3 & 4. In #3, a significant majority seem to indicate that all authors of a source text must give permission for that text to be recycled in a new work. OTOH, when a research group works on a single project with multiple facets and produces publications that can have overlapping but not necessarily identical authors, respondents were more or less equally divided among those who said it was acceptable, unacceptable, or just didn’t know. Bottom bar: at this point, in which no authors of the new text were authors of the source--the context becomes difficult to conceptually distinguish from plagiarism. Not surprisingly, the strong majority do not find TR acceptable.
- editors-in-chief of 21 academic journals across a range of disciplines
- Created transcript summaries to identify key opinions, rationales, and tensions/contradictions. Used these points to create a basic framework for analysis, developing a more detailed and nuanced coding scheme as we worked through individual transcripts. 1866 coded transcript sections across 198 categories/subcategories; many passages contained multiple codes.
- Portion of a word cloud indicating the frequency with which individual codes appeared in the transcripts. (This is not always an indication of the number of editors who commented on these matters. With both the topic of “Originality/New contribution” and the principle of “Citation: All TR should be cited and/or quoted,” some interviewees came back to these points multiple times in the discussion.
- Originality: sometimes defined to mean that the work must, overall, make an original contribution to disciplinary knowledge; sometimes interpreted to mean that every sentence in a published text must be original to that text; sometimes make a distinction between sections that are the “functional apparatus” of a text (intro, lit review, methods) and sections that present “original findings.” Rewriting text: Positive spin: Generative function, make the work “fresh” for the author. Less-positive spin: Avoid perception of recycling work, professional reputation, reputation of the journal, avoid accusations of self-plagiarism, avoid getting flagged by iThenticate, avoid copyright violations and other legal complications. Circ/Access: Some clear-cut cases with books, chapters, and journal articles – others like presentations, proceedings, blog posts, posters, and grant materials are less certain. Few people had problems with recycling text for internal (institutional) documents from year to year. In part, that’s because they have limited accessibility, but many respondents indicated that the documents themselves were a waste of time and TR becomes an implicit expression of how little they’re valued by the authors. Copyright: Many expressed fear of violating copyright, but did not appear well versed in copyright law or the extent to which Fair Use might impact TR Beliefs/Practices: Several recounted stories of asking colleagues why self-plagiarism was unethical and not getting satisfactory answers. Discussed how they had engaged in TR in their own writing but are stricter as editors than they think is really merited or necessary. Observed that they sometimes give advice to graduate students to avoid TR that they don’t fully believe in themselves.
- CM Corpus analysis of published papers >>Big data –> 80 NSF grants across directorates
- BASICALLY: What does TR look like in practice in typical STEM research writing? Describe coding > analytical method [
- *Choice of fields: [why these?]: Diversity of disciplines Avoid texts likely to be primarily non-prose (equations, coding) > avoided mathematical and computer science fields >20 grants (2015 end date) from each of the 4 areas . >>80 grants =80 sets of 5 papers >> pairwise comparison of 5 papers for each grant (10 comparisons per grant) REFERENCE: forthcoming
- In order to test whether the passages our code identified as TR matched our understanding and definition of TR. > Random sample of 20 TR sentences from data. Most were like this: verbatim recycled passages. These seem clearly like TR rather than commonplaces.
- Other passages from this sample: [Walk through] Some alterations from the original may be intended to avoid recycling (or the appearance of recycling), while others may be revisions accommodating differences in the research. We pass no judgement here on author motivation. We only observe that such patterns exist
- Just a few looked more like this: >> at the boundary of what might be TR. Our code scored these passages just higher than our cut-off score. Based on our preliminary analysis, the code seems to be doing a good job in identifying TR.
- Some preliminary results: Results for one field: BIO (n=20 grants) > Each bar =one grant w/ 5 papers ~25% (5 of 20 grants): TR >= 5%
- Here are our preliminary results for our 4 fields [RED=bio; GRN=Engineering; BLUE = Math & Phys Sciences; PURPLE = Social, Behav & Econ Sciences NOTE: differences in magnitude but similar pattern for each field
- DH Copyright and contract are the two main things; elephant in the room. Copyright is a big part, contracts also. There are other legal regimes that vary by country, and even within countries. E.g., EU funder regulations;
- Our work is currently focused on U.S. law. However, because academic publishing is highly international (co-authorships, international publishing conglomerates) we will also need to address international issue. We’re really just talking about copyright law. There are other legal regimes that may come into play, though in most Briefly: Each country (and EU, etc) has its own copyright laws. Two main international copyright agreements: Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights(TRIPS) of WTO Countries Berne Convention Moral Rights > includes “Right of paternity” > author the right to have their name on their work > attribution. U.S. does not. “fair dealing” – similar to but different from U.S. “fair use” exemption
- PLoS and Elsevier
- Note: fair use is not the same as “fair dealing” and other specific exceptions -even in the US, fair use doesn’t resolve all the issues because contracts can override Fair Use
- For example: Directionality: TO vs FROM
- Two examples…
- NEJM: includes both restriction (“authors may not…” )and permission (“except as may be allowed//” components. Permission = U.S. fair use. This is unique to US. Normally (per Berne Convention), specific copyright laws only apply in the country … This seems to extend “fair use” to other countries. We know from our research that the vast majority of editors and authors will not understand how fair use would apply (green text). Some other contracts have restrictions allowing less than fair use. It seems these contracts trump fair-use copyright law.
- As detailed as this is: Only 1 excerpt < 400 words, or multiple? How many graphs or tables are allowed? Unlimited?
- Blue: this applies for TR and for reusing work of others States that authors must get permission if from other publishers. Does this supersede fair use (i.e., does this contract require that authors get permission even if the case would fall under fair use, or only for TR beyond fair use? Last word on contracts is that most major publishing agreements just don’t address it at all, or do so by reference to other materials (including COPE, which isn’t really a guideline for authors at all) that are then made binding on authors.
- DH Copyright and contract are the two main things; elephant in the room. Copyright is a big part, contracts also. There are other legal regimes that vary by country, and even within countries. E.g., EU funder regulations;
- CM Starting in fall 2020. Journals and Professional societies: guidelines Author-publisher agreement language RCR materials
- Discussion