Publication Ethics and Research Integrity

Dear Colleagues,

Traditionally, academic publishing has been the established means of disseminating academic research and scholarship.  In addition, it fulfils an essential role in validating academic careers.  Despite advances in digital communications technologies providing the means for academics potentially to engage directly with global scholarly communication, academic publishers have remained central to the production of scientific knowledge.  Indeed, the professionalisation of academia that took place in the early twentieth century has led to publishing becoming a key driver of career progression.  Academic recognition and reward are contingent on publication in the traditional forms of academic publishing [1]. 

However, questions have been raised about the effectiveness and legitimacy of this system.  Peer review, an essential part of assessing the quality of academic outputs, has been shown to be an unreliable judge of excellence.  Statistics show that the majority of initially rejected manuscripts will ultimately be published, most of them in a journal of similar status, and some with little or no revision [2].

In addition, there is evidence that the perceived pressure to publish experienced by academics could lead them to be tempted to cut corners, or to manipulate the publication process to maximise their publications.  Questionable research practices (QRPs) such as ‘rushing to print’, ‘salami-slicing’ research into multiple publications, and failure to disclose negative results all have a detrimental effect on research integrity [3–5].  These kinds of QRPs are thought to be becoming more common [6], and could be more damaging to the research enterprise than high profile cases of research fraud [7].  However, QRPs can serve to make research results ‘more exciting, more positive and more statistically significant’ which make them more likely to be accepted for publication in a high impact journal, thus advancing the career of the academic [8] (p2).  Current methods of researcher assessment employed by universities and research institutions, combined with publication practices that prioritise these kinds of results, create perverse incentives that are damaging to the research record [9].

As observed by Ekmekci [10], ‘published literature is both the academic end product and the starting point of scientific research’ and is crucial for ensuring evidence-based policy and practice (p171).  However, despite the proliferation of associated ethical guidance documents and codes, identifying the exact practices that will lead to ethical publication can be complex [11].

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)^[1] provides practical resources to assist editors and publishers to achieve best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing, but challenges remain.  Research culture, and the role of academic publishing within it, has come under scrutiny in recent years, becoming the subject of an inquiry by the UK Government Science and Technology Committee^[2], and reports by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics^[3], The Royal Society^[4], and Wellcome^[5].

The aim of this Special Issue is to investigate publication ethics in light of the increasing focus on its importance to research culture.  Here, we welcome contributions that critically examine these issues.  Our intention is to increase the critical discourse surrounding the effect of publication ethics on research integrity, and we encourage submissions from the global research community.

This Special Issue especially welcomes contributions that address the following:

• international differences in perception of research and publication ethics;
• the role of metrics in assessment of research;
• alternative methods to assess research excellence;
• positive publication bias;
• prepublication;
• peer review and conflicts of interest;
• authorship;
• publication of supporting data;
• pre-registration; and
• effectiveness of educational or policy interventions in publication ethics.

[2] https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/inquiries/parliament-2017/research-integrity-17-19/ (accessed 29 February 20)

[3] https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/publications/the-culture-of-scientific-research (accessed 29 February 20)

[4] https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/research-culture/ (accessed 29 February 20)

[5] https://wellcome.ac.uk/reports/what-researchers-think-about-research-culture (accessed 29 February 20)

References

1. Fyfe, A.; Coate, K.; Curry, S.; Lawson, S.; Moxham, N.; Mork Rostvik, C. Untangling Academic Publishing: a history of the relationship between commercial interests. Acad. Prestig. Circ. Res. 2017. doi:10.5281/zenodo.546100
2. Moore, S.; Neylon, C.; Eve, M.P.; O’Donnell, D.P.; Pattinson, D. “Excellence R Us”: University research and the fetishasation of excellence. Palgrave Communications, 2017, 3, doi:10.1057/palcomms.2016.105
3. Biagioli, M., Lippman, A. Eds. Gaming the Metrics: Misconduct and Manipulation in Academic Research. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA; London, UK, 2020.
4. Wallace, M.B.; Bowman, D.; Hamilton-Gibbs, H.; Siersema, P.D. Ethics in publication, part 2: Duplicate publishing, salami slicing, and large retrospective multicentre case series. Endoscopy 2018, 50, pp.463–465, doi:10.1055/s-00000012
5. Haven, T.L.; Bouter, L.M.; Smulders, Y.M.; Tijdink, J.K. Perceived publication pressure in Amsterdam: Survey of all disciplinary fields and academic ranks. PLoS ONE 2019, 14, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0217931
6. Fanelli, D. How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data. PLoS ONE 2009, 4, pp.1–11. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005738
7. John, L.K.; Lowenstein, G.; Prelec, D. Measuring the prevalence of questionable research practices with incentives for truth telling. Sci. 2012, 23, pp.524–532, doi:10.1177/0956797611430953
8. Bouter, L. What research institutions can do to foster research integrity, Eng. Ethics 2020. doi:10.1007/s11948-020-00178-5
9. Edwards, M.A.; Roy, S. Academic research in the 21^st Century: Maintaining scientific integrity in a climate of perverse incentives and hypercompetition. Eng. Sci. 2017, 34, pp.51–67. doi:10.1089/ees.2016.0223
10. Ekmekci, P.E. An increasing problem in publication ethics: Publication bias and editors’ role in avoiding it. Health Care Philos. 2017, 20, pp.171–178, doi:10.1007/s11019-017-9767-0
11. DeTora, L.; Foster, C.; Nori, M.; Simcoe, D.; Skobe, C.; Toroser, D. Publication ethics from the ground up. J. Clin. Pract. 2018, 72, e13063. doi:10.1111/ijcp.13063

Ms. Nicole Palmer
Guest Editor

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• Publication ethics
• Research integrity
• Research culture
• Meta-research
• Journalology/publication science