We take a look back over the year and see what implications COVID-19 has had for the COPE community and publication ethics.
View this email in your browser ([link removed])
COPE Digest
DECEMBER 2020, Vol 8
Issue 12: Year in review | top cases 2020
Welcome to the December issue of COPE Digest.
Welcome to our final Digest of 2020, that has affected us all in many different ways. In my April letter, I addressed the COVID-19 situation as we faced it at the time, and during this year we have seen how people and organisations have adapted ([link removed]) . In this letter, I will take a look back over the year and see what implications COVID-19 has had for the COPE community and publication ethics.
Speed of review has raised questions over the rigour of peer review being conducted on the many papers being fast tracked. An article in Nature Human Behaviour ([link removed]) in June analysed PubMed data and found an average of 367 COVID-19 articles published per week, with a median time from submission to acceptance of just 6 days.
To support this high speed process, a cross publisher initiative ([link removed]) , endorsed by the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), was launched to provide a single overarching reviewer pool and portable peer review system, across journals and platforms, including Hindawi, eLife, PeerJ, PLOS, Royal Society, F1000 Research, and many more.
To further adapt to this increased speed, maintain quality, and offer recognition and support during the year, a wealth of materials were published. A Wiley article highlighted four interventions ([link removed]) to help with finding reviewers and not overworking them; a statement on quality standards ([link removed]) from EASE and a Neurología article calling for consideration for the role of Editors ([link removed]) during the pandemic, among many other initiatives.
In May, arXiv, medRxiv, bioRxiv, and other preprint platforms adjusted their policies ([link removed]) to not accept computational models so that the chances of misinformation or unhelpful information being posted would be reduced; just one aspect that brought discussions on preprints to the forefront. In September, The Lancet changed their editorial processes ([link removed]) to address the surgisphere controversy, adding stages to their peer review process to incorporate more systematic dataset reviews to increase the reliability of the data.
Despite it dominating the news, the year has not been exclusively about COVID, and I’d like to recognise some other achievements...
READ MORE ([link removed]) >
COPE Chair Deborah Poff
** Top cases in 2020
------------------------------------------------------------
Three of the most read COPE cases are around authorship:
* request to change the order of authors ([link removed]) ;
* a post-publication request for a reviewer to be ([link removed]) added as an author ([link removed]) after publication;
* changing an author's name ([link removed]) after publication. Recently, the publishing and academic communities have been working to develop new guidance to ensure that authors who are transgender, non-binary, and/or gender diverse can easily update their names on articles. COPE will be issuing guidance on this in due course.
Most read case discussions published in 2020, in which we add to the discussion of the case with further analysis and useful resources:
* Withdrawal of a paper ([link removed]) at proof stage with additional COPE case examples, including: unethical withdrawal after acceptance to maximise the impact factor; increased number of casual submissions; dual submission and editor's failure to take action
* Self-plagiarism ([link removed]) and suspected salami publishing, a popular topic for discussion, including six similar cases around salami slicing, copied text passages and prior publication.
* Editing of peer review comments ([link removed]) with discussion on reviewers who write comments they don't want the author to see, and transparency of peer review.
TOP 5 CASES ([link removed]) >
In the News
** Latest publication ethics news
------------------------------------------------------------
This month the news includes articles on diversity, retractions, open access, and more.
* Young scientists in Malaysia have made research integrity training fun and relevant.
* A survey of ecologists asked whether original authors who shared their data should be included as co-authors, if others use that data.
* A study of the phenomenon of journals that disappeared between 2000-2019.
NEWS ROUNDUP ([link removed]) >
** Peer review cases: Spanish translations
------------------------------------------------------------
Following positive feedback from our peer review workshops, we are pleased to introduce Spanish translations of the peer review cases used at the workshops, with advice from the COPE Forum.
Casos de revisión por pares con asesoramiento:
* Caso 1 ([link removed]) El editor y los revisores solicitan que se cite su trabajo
* Caso 2 ([link removed]) Proceso de revisión por pares comprometido en artículos publicados
* Caso 3 ([link removed]) El autor solicita que ciertos expertos no participen en el proceso editorial
* Caso 4 ([link removed]) El autor de un artículo rechazado nombra y critica de forma pública al revisor por pares
COPE Forum
Tuesday 15 December, 2.00pm-3.30pm (GMT)
(COPE members only)
The December Forum ([link removed]) will follow the usual format
where we discuss a topic of interest to our members, followed by members' cases for discussion and advice from all those participating in the Forum.
Discussion topic: Predatory publishing, next steps and where do we go from here?
Since COPE drafted a discussion paper on the topic of predatory publishing in 2019, the dialogue has turned to more practice based solutions.
* Should COPE use its criteria for membership as an instrument to evaluate standards of scholarly publishing vehicles for the purpose of informing authors, peer reviewers, readers, scholars invited to serve on editorial boards, and universities evaluating scholarly productivity?
* Should COPE and/or other industry organisations form a global compact of signatories to commit to the practice of research and publication integrity and further to the active marginalisation of predatory publishing within the scholarly communities of universities, editors, and publishers?
* Should COPE and/or other industry organisations act as a third party retraction service for authors who have unknowingly published with a predatory publisher which will neither withdraw nor retract the articles at the request of the authors?
As part of the discussion Dr Kelly Cobey will describe the Authenticator Project, being developed by the Centre for Journalology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. The objective of the project is to develop a ‘Digital Journal Authenticator’ tool that can help stakeholders discern journal quality and transparency practices. Kelly will present the centre’s approach to educating the scholarly community about the nature of journal quality and transparency practices.
Please leave your comments, whether or not you are planning on joining the meeting. Anyone (members and non-members) can comment on the discussion topic ([link removed]) on our website before it is discussed at the Forum.
[link removed]
[link removed]
Visit our events page to read more about upcoming events which include discussions on publication ethics issues.
* A holistic view of the scientific communications environment, 26-27 January 2021
* Short course on publication ethics with Council of Science Editors, 29 January 2021
E ([link removed]) VENTS ([link removed]) >
Citation games: mocking research
Matt Hodgkinson spoke at the ISMTE European Virtual Meeting on behalf of COPE.
Matt explored the ethics of citations, looking at who subverts best practice, why they do it, how they can be countered, and what are the consequences. From self-citing authors, to coercive reviewers and editors, and citation rings, citation manipulation undermines research integrity. Can we treat all citations as equal, such as those to articles in predatory journals, retracted or corrected articles, and non-peer reviewed content?
CITATION PRESENTATION ([link removed]) >
** COPE Digest Editor:
------------------------------------------------------------
Nancy C Chescheir, MD, Editor-in-Chief, Obstetrics and Gynecology
============================================================
** facebook.com/publicationethics ([link removed])
** facebook.com/publicationethics ([link removed])
** @C0PE ([link removed])
** @C0PE ([link removed])
** LinkedIn ([link removed])
** LinkedIn ([link removed])
** Publicationethics.org ([link removed])
Copyright ©2020 COPE,
All rights reserved.
Registered charity No 1123023. Registered in England and Wales, Company No 6389120
Registered office: New Kings Court, Tollgate, Chandler's Ford, Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO53 3LG, UK
You are receiving this email because you or your journal is a member of COPE or you have subscribed to COPE emails.
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
.
