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Welcome to the December COPE Digest.
Hello one and all.
As we rapidly approach the end of 2021 and prepare to turn the corner to 2022, COPE is releasing a new discussion document on Diversity and inclusivity, primarily written by our past-Chair, Deborah Poff. This is the culmination of a number of COPE activities around diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI) this year, addressing the wide range of challenges and changes required to make scholarly publishing more diverse and inclusive. We have made a commitment to move forward on these important issues, and during 2021 we took a number of important steps.
COPE’s DEI working group will become a formal operational part of COPE when we launch the ‘Inclusivity, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA) subcommittee’ in 2022. In July 2020, COPE signed up to the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC). We look forward to participating in the ongoing conversations on diversity and inclusion in the industry, and finding ways to address issues of exclusion and inequity.
Author name changes became a focal point over the past couple of years. This issue highlights the balance between complete transparency when modifying the published record and the right to privacy and avoidance of harm to the author. To look more closely at these issues, COPE created a diverse working group of COPE Trustees and Council Members, publishers, editors, and authors to develop guidance. It is appropriate that authors want to retain credit for their past work without regard to changes in identity that may come from marriage or divorce, religious conversion, safety from abuse or harassment, or to escape social and cultural stigma.
A guest article highlighting the unique challenges and risks faced by trans-authors was published in January. This article articulates the vulnerability of this community and offers five guiding principles and best practices as possible solutions, which also brings benefits to a broader population who may need to change their names for different reasons. In August, COPE Trustee, Caroline Porter, shared her thoughts on why we should diversify our editorial boards and how to go about it.
COPE hosted several online events focused on DEI in 2021. In May, COPE hosted a webinar on diversity, equity, and inclusion. This webinar deals with the impact of discriminatory practices in our industry and outlines best practices around identity and name changes. It also looked at the issue of historical offensive content. As part of COPE’s seminar last month, we had a seminar session on driving diversity, equity, and inclusion to shape the future of publication ethics, including presentations on collecting data, diversifying editorial boards, and managing allegations of discriminatory behaviour. Both recordings are now publicly available, so feel free to follow the links and listen in. In September, the COPE Forum discussion on Bias in peer review was informed by a survey to understand more about how the community views the topic.
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Of course, COPE is not the only organisation looking more deeply at the broadening diversity.
READ MORE >
COPE Chair, Dan Kulp
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NEW: DIVERSITY & INCLUSIVITY DISCUSSION DOCUMENT
The COPE discussion document begins a process of addressing the wide range of themes, challenges and changes required to establish a more inclusive and diverse scholarly publishing community. COPE welcomes comments which add to the ongoing debate.
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Initial recommendations for the promotion of social justice and equality within scholarly publishing are around four major themes:
- Identifying subjects of discrimination.
- Representational issues in workforce discrimination and marginalisation.
- Impact of discriminatory practices in peer review and editorial decision making.
- The marginalisation of research topics through citation lexicons and algorithms.
READ MORE AND ADD YOUR COMMENTS >
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DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION SEMINAR SESSION
The webinar begins with a summary of COPE activities in the area of diversity and equity, followed by three talks with insight into: guidance and practical advice on collecting diversity data from publishing activity; creating diverse and representative editorial boards; and managing allegations of discriminatory behaviour.
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Many journals are now seeking to make improvements in this area and to play a role in overcoming systemic barriers that face scholars from historically marginalised groups. This webinar is intended to give participants an opportunity to learn about tangible actions to improve diversity and inclusion, and to explore how these actions might be implemented.
- Holly J Falk-Krzensinski, Vice President of Research Intelligence at Elsevier
- James Kigera, Editor-in-Chief, Annals of African Surgery
- Randy Townsend, Director of Publications at the American Geophysical Union
- Caroline Porter (Moderator) COPE Trustee, Executive Publisher at SAGE Publishing
WATCH SEMINAR SESSION >
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DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION IN SCHOLARLY RESEARCH AND PUBLISHING WEBINAR
COPE hosted a webinar, recorded in May 2021, which deals with the impact of discriminatory practices in editorial processes and peer review, promoting of social justice and equality in scholarly publishing, best practices around identity and name changes, including examples of implementation, and addresses historical offensive content.
WATCH WEBINAR >
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PUBLICATION ETHICS IN BOOKS SEMINAR SESSION
With publishers' perspectives, the speakers delve into the publication ethics issues around books, how they are evolving, and whether they are similar to issues seen in journals.
WATCH SEMINAR SESSION >
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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 preprints, authorship, peer review and DEI. Here are just a few:
- The efficacy of two tools in identifying journals which showed editorial bias.
- Papers with female authors seem to be cited less often, but attract more engagement from readers.
- Is the peer review system in need of repair?
READ THE NEWS >
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ITAMAR ASHKENAZI
As part of our interview series with new Council Members we meet Itamar Ashkenazi, a physician at the Rambam Health Care Campus and a teacher at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s medical school, Haifa, Israel. Itamar is associate editor of the Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal.
READ INTERVIEW >
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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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