Tag Archives: Support for Authors

Publication Integrity Checking – Is it necessary?

Posted on by

A topic being discussed with increasing regularity in the scientific literature is whether scholarly authors need to start personally assessing the publication integrity of the papers that they cite in their research, similarly to how they currently take steps to assess the risk of bias of individual studies being considered for inclusion in their research syntheses.

A team from New Zealand and the United Kingdom have been researching this issue for a while now, with their latest commentary piece appearing in the August 2024 issue of Nature:

  • Grey A, Avenell A, Klein AA, Byrne JA, Wilmshurst P, Bolland MJ. Stop just paying lip service on publication integrity. Nature. 2024 Aug;632(8023):26-28. doi: 10.1038/d41586-024-02449-8. PMID: 39075213.
  • Bolland, M. J., Avenell, A., & Grey, A. (2024). Publication integrity: what is it, why does it matter, how it is safeguarded and how could we do better? Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/03036758.2024.2325004
  • Avenell, A., Bolland, M. J., Gamble, G. D., & Grey, A. (2022). A randomized trial alerting authors, with or without coauthors or editors, that research they cited in systematic reviews and guidelines has been retracted. Accountability in Research, 31(1), 14–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2022.2082290
  • Bolland MJ, Grey A, Avenell A, Klein AA. Correcting the scientific record – A broken system? Account Res. 2021 Jul;28(5):265-279. doi: 10.1080/08989621.2020.1852938. Epub 2020 Dec 8. PMID: 33205666.

This group clearly thinks publication integrity checking is necessary, even introducing “The ‘REAPPRAISED’ checklist for evaluation of publication integrity” in an earlier Nature comment, see:

  • Grey A, Bolland MJ, Avenell A, Klein AA, Gunsalus CK. Check for publication integrity before misconduct. Nature. 2020 Jan;577(7789):167-169. doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-03959-6. PMID: 31911697.

    Tip: A PDF version of THE ‘REAPPRAISED’ CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATION OF PUBLICATION INTEGRITY is available for download.

As there is of yet no consensus on which checklist tool is best, other groups have made similar attempts to create a research publication integrity assessment tool, for example:

See details of their RIA tool in:

  •  Figure 1 – PMC (nih.gov) – Hierarchical work flow and decision tree of the Research Integrity Assessment (RIA) tool.
  • Table 1 – PMC (nih.gov) – Critical and important criteria for a Research Integrity Assessment (RIA) of RCTs investigating IMPs for evidence syntheses.

Questions? Be sure to Ask Us at the MSK Library!

Papermill Detection Software

Posted on by

It is not at all surprising in this era of “fake” everything, that there would suddenly be a business need for “fake paper” detection tools. Along with “plagiarism detection” and “image duplication or image manipulation detection”, another potential risk to the integrity of the scientific record that many publishers are now proactively on the lookout for during the manuscript submission process is “papermill detection”.  

According to this COPE blog post on “Potential paper mills“:

“This term describes the process by which manufactured manuscripts are submitted to a journal for a fee on behalf of researchers with the purpose of providing an easy publication for them, or to offer authorship for sale. The concerns with these submissions include faked or manipulated data/images, the use of stock images, substantial authorship changes, and plagiarism, which is not detected because it comes from a translated version of another article.” 

Publishers are already starting to incorporate these tools into their workflows. For example, a year ago, in April 2023, the STM Scientific Integrity hub (that provides tools/services for publishers in a cloud-based environment) launched their papermill detection tool as a:

“stand-alone application that allows publishers to automatically screen uploaded papers against key indicators that suggest that the manuscript has or may have originated from a paper mill”.

This year, in March 2024, Wiley announced that its journals will soon be piloting an “AI-powered Papermill Detection Service” integrated in their manuscript submission system.

Tools like “Papermill Alarm” have been reported on in the literature as far back as 2022:

Else H. ‘Papermill alarm’ software flags potentially fake papers. Nature. 2022 Sep 23. doi: 10.1038/d41586-022-02997-x. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36151206. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02997-x

Although this type of detection is not something that individual authors would need to use pre-emptively, other tools  – like iThenticate, a plagiarism detection tool – are now being subscribed to and made available to all potential authors in the MSK community via the MSK Library.

Questions? Be sure to Ask Us at the MSK Library!

More on Avoiding Plagiarism

Posted on by

As plagiarism continues to be on peoples’ minds, it is probably a good time to take a moment to review the module on ethical writing provided on the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

As per the ORI website – https://ori.hhs.gov/avoiding-plagiarism-self-plagiarism-and-other-questionable-writing-practices-guide-ethical-writing:

“Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: A Guide to Ethical Writing

The purpose of this module is to help students, as well as professionals, identify and prevent questionable practices and to develop an awareness of ethical writing. This guide was written by Miguel Roig, PhD, from St. Johns University with funding from ORI.

This module was originally created in 2003 and revised in 2006 and 2015.”

In addition to the HTML version, there is also a downloadable 71-page PDF version, as well as an abridged HTML version entitled 28 Guidelines at a Glance on Avoiding Plagiarism.

Questions related to citing references that often are asked of librarians are nicely addressed in these four items in particular that have been highlighted below:

From https://ori.hhs.gov/28-guidelines-glance-avoiding-plagiarism:

“Guideline 15: Authors are strongly urged to double-check their citations. Specifically, authors should always ensure that each reference notation appearing in the body of the manuscript corresponds to the correct citation listed in the reference section and vice versa and that each source listed in the reference section has been cited at some point in the manuscript. In addition, authors should also ensure that all elements of a citation (e.g., spelling of authors’ names, volume number of journal, pagination) are derived directly from the original paper, rather than from a citation that appears on a secondary source. Finally, when appropriate, authors should ensure that credit is given to those authors who first reported the phenomenon being studied.

Guideline 16: The references used in a paper should only be those that are directly related to its contents. The intentional inclusion of references of questionable relevance for purposes such as manipulating a journal’s or a paper’s impact factor or a paper’s chances of acceptance, is an unacceptable practice.

Guideline 17: Always cite the actual work that is consulted. When the published paper cannot be obtained, cite the specific version of the material being used whether it is conference presentation, abstract, or an unpublished manuscript. Ensure that the cited work has not been subsequently corrected or retracted.

Guideline 18: Generally, when describing others’ work, do not cite an original paper if you are only relying on a secondary summary of that paper. Doing so is a deceptive practice, reflects poor scholarly standards, and can lead to a flawed description of the work described.”

Questions? Ask Us at the MSK Library.