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Welcome to the November issue of COPE Digest.
Hello one and all.
It has been another busy couple of months for COPE. As we approach the end of the year, we are not only reviewing what we have achieved during 2021, but are also looking forward to our activities for the new year.
Earlier this month, COPE held its annual ‘retreat’. This is an opportunity for the organisation and, in particular, COPE subcommittees, to review what they have accomplished over the past year and realign their focus on our priorities for 2022. As we approach 2022, membership for universities and research institutes remains a key priority and we hope to make great strides over the first half of the new year. Other priorities include a more focused look at ethical practices for book and proceeding publications, responding to concerns around paper mills, an expanded effort in growing membership in underrepresented geographical regions, broader outreach efforts, and a major upgrade to our website. As you can see, after adding our usual activities, we have the makings of a very busy year.
For those of you who were able to attend COPE's first virtual seminar, I hope you enjoyed the sessions. We are currently editing the webinar videos so anyone who missed the sessions can watch them, and for those that attended live, you have the opportunity to refresh your memories. We are happy to announce that the videos for the sessions on Ethical practice in research data publication – challenges, lessons, and opportunities, and Ethical authorship versus fraudulent authorship are now available on our website. At the seminar, we also released a new discussion document on Artificial intelligence in decision making. This guidance focuses on the key ethical issues around accountability, responsibility, and transparency in the adoption of AI into the publication process.
Since the last Digest, COPE has launched the new Editorial board participation guidelines. These new COPE guidelines provide an overview of editorial board appointment and engagement, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the board. This launch was accompanied by a thoughtful essay on Diversifying editorial boards by Caroline Porter, a COPE Trustee. Certainly worth a read. We have also published the discussion from our Forum in October, on Bias in peer review. Please take a read and add your thoughts and perspectives to the commentary.
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Before I finish, I want to take a moment to welcome our newest Council members from India, China, Israel, USA, and UK...
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COPE Chair, Dan Kulp
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LATEST PUBLICATION ETHICS NEWS
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on authorship and contributorship, data and reproducibility, peer review, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Here are just a few:
- What, or where is the 'Global South'? A social science perspective.
- Duplicate peer review in the age of preprint servers; do we need to rethink our position on it?
- In a recent study of over 5,500 scientists more than half had experienced author disagreements.
READ THE NEWS >
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NEW: AI IN DECISION MAKING
The COPE "Artificial intelligence (AI) in decision making" discussion document introduces issues to be considered alongside the opportunities AI solutions offer in the publication process, with recommendations on best practices.
READ MORE >
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ETHICAL AUTHORSHIP VERSUS FRAUDULENT AUTHORSHIP
This webinar, one of nine as part of the recent COPE Seminar, covers ways of promoting ethical authorship and preventing fraudulent authorship. The speakers discuss their use of the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) system, authorship definitions and policies, and relevant operating procedures and education.
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We hear perspectives on ethical authorship from:
- Trevor Lane, a publishing and education consultant based in Hong Kong and COPE Council member
- Sam Oakley, Researcher Development and Integrity Specialist at the University of Glasgow
- Evan D Kharasch, Professor of Anesthesiology at Duke University, and the editor in chief of Anesthesiology.
WATCH WEBINAR >
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ETHICAL PRACTICE IN RESEARCH DATA PUBLICATION
Over the past decade, we've seen a marked increase in the publication of research data, driven by journal, funder, and institutional policies. This has brought ethical challenges specific to datasets, which can affect the journal publication.
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To respond to these emerging challenges, the FORCE11 Research Data Publishing Ethics Working Group, in collaboration with COPE, is developing guidelines and resources to support journal editors, data repositories, and institutions in the handling of ethics cases related to research data.
Our guest speakers tackle the challenges from different angles:
- Iratxe Puebla, Associate Director for ASAPbio
- Daniella Lowenberg, data repository perspective
- Joerg Heber, research institution perspective
- Scott Edmunds, data journal editor perspective
WATCH WEBINAR >
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BIAS IN PEER REVIEW FORUM
At October's COPE Forum discussion on "Bias in peer review" we asked questions to understand what practical steps COPE members are taking to reduce bias:
- How does your publication/organisation attempt to manage the effects of bias in peer review?
- How is your publication/organisation working to invite a more diverse range of editors and peer reviewers?
- Does your publication/organisation ask peer reviewers to ensure not only that the correct references are cited but also that the references reflect a diverse range of authors?
Key points raised were around benchmarking and measuring DEI progress, what do to in the absence of data, and challenging unconscious bias.
READ MORE AND COMMENT >
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Members brought four new cases to the October COPE Forum for discussion and advice and four cases previously brought to Forum with updates.
NEW CASES
UPDATES TO CASES
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Daniel Kulp, COPE Chair, presented to the Academic Divisions of the Chinese Academy of Sciences publishing seminar.
The title of the talk 'Trends and issues in publication ethics' covers issues such as retractions, text recycling (or self-plagiarism), citation manipulation, peer review, and paper mills.
WATCH VIDEO >
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COPE Digest Editors:
Nancy C Chescheir, MD, Editor-in-Chief, Reproductive, Female and Child Health
Deborah Kahn, COPE Trustee
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