Minor, substantial or wholesale amendments: it’s time to rethink changes to published articles and avoid unnecessary stigma

The present system of labelling changes made to published articles is confusing, inconsistently applied, and out of step with digital publishing. It carries negative connotations for authors, editors, and publishers. Is there a way to efficiently and neutrally flag a change to a published article in a way that says what happened that is separated from why it happened? Virginia Barbour, Theodora Bloom, Jennifer Lin and Elizabeth Moylan propose a new system for dealing with post-publication changes that focuses on moving away from the current, confusing, stigmatising terms, differentiating the scale of changes, and differentiating versions of articles. While some hold the view that post-publication corrections must be tied to punishment of “offenders”, the role of journals is to be neutral, to maintain the integrity of the literature and not to punish researchers

Conflict of Interest in Science Communication: More than a Financial Issue Report from Esteve Foundation Discussion Group, April 2009

A systematic review and meta-analysis suggests that around 2% of scientists admit to have falsified research at least once (1). Up to 33% admit other questionable practices such as plagiarism, duplicate publication, undisclosed changes in pre-research protocols or dubious ethical behavior (1). There can be no doubt that discovered cases of research and publication misconduct represent a tip of an iceberg and many cases go unreported (2). Experienced biomedical journal editors are aware of a “rogues’ gallery” of major fraudsters, such as Schoen, Hwang, Sudbo, Poehlman, Singh, and Chandra (3-8). Much more common are the less dramatic, because more subtle but probably more dangerous, examples; these are more dangerous because they remain undiscovered so may feed into meta-analyses and guidelines. A seminar organized by the Esteve Foundation, held in Sitges in April 2009, concentrated on conflicts of interest (COI, sometimes also referred to as Competing Interests, CI), which underlie so much research and publication misconduct. All attendants of the meeting agreed that there were many sources of COI in the general process of scientific communication (Figure 1). The meeting was mainly focused on non-financial COI. Three introductory presentations highlighted some of the topics related to COI in the contemporary scientific publishing enterprise

Conflict of interest in science communication: more than a financial issue. Report from Esteve Foundation discussion group, April 2009

A systematic review and meta-analysis suggests that around 2% of scientists admit to have falsified research at least once. Up to 33% admit other questionable practices such as plagiarism, duplicate publication, undisclosed changes in pre-research protocols or dubious ethical behavior. There can be no doubt that discovered cases of research and publication misconduct represent a tip of an iceberg and many cases go unreported

Better reporting of interventions : template for intervention description and replication (TIDieR) checklist and guide

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Hong Kong Principles for assessing researchers: Fostering research integrity

For knowledge to benefit research and society, it must be trustworthy. Trustworthy research is robust, rigorous, and transparent at all stages of design, execution, and reporting. Assessment of researchers still rarely includes considerations related to trustworthiness, rigor, and transparency. We have developed the Hong Kong Principles (HKPs) as part of the 6th World Conference on Research Integrity with a specific focus on the need to drive research improvement through ensuring that researchers are explicitly recognized and rewarded for behaviors that strengthen research integrity. We present five principles: responsible research practices; transparent reporting; open science (open research); valuing a diversity of types of research; and recognizing all contributions to research and scholarly activity. For each principle, we provide a rationale for its inclusion and provide examples where these principles are already being adopted.</p

Fair, Affordable and Open Access to Knowledge: The Caul Collection and Reporting of APC Information Project

Article processing charges (APCs) are fundamental to the business models of many Hybrid and Gold open access (OA) journals. The need to quantify the volume of APC payments paid on behalf of institutional researchers has therefore never been greater. New publishing models will have profound implications for future institutional budgets, and libraries urgently require better information about potential costs and savings. In 2018, the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) commissioned a project to examine the financial impact of APC payments on universities in Australia and New Zealand. The project aims to develop a methodology for the estimation of APC payments based on data from sources such as Scopus, Web of Science and Unpaywall. In order to test this methodology, the Working Group began a pilot project in February 2019. As part of this pilot, data on publications produced by researchers at six local universities in 2017 were collated and analysed. This paper will explain the rationale behind the project methodology. It will present the preliminary findings of the pilot, and flag some of the lessons learnt to date. In addition, the paper will identify future changes. It will be of interest to any librarian concerned with the potential impact of changing publishing models on institutional budgets

An international survey and modified Delphi process revealed editors' perceptions, training needs, and ratings of competency-related statements for the development of core competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals

Background: Scientific editors (i.e., those who make decisions on the content and policies of a journal) have a central role in the editorial process at biomedical journals. However, very little is known about the training needs of these editors or what competencies are required to perform effectively in this role. Methods: We conducted a survey of perceptions and training needs among scientific editors from major editorial organizations around the world, followed by a modified Delphi process in which we invited the same scientific editors to rate the importance of competency-related statements obtained from a previous scoping review. Results: A total of 148 participants completed the survey of perceptions and training needs. At least 80% of participants agreed on six of the 38 skill and expertise-related statements presented to them as being important or very important to their role as scientific editors. At least 80% agreed on three of the 38 statements as necessary skills they perceived themselves as possessing (well or very well). The top five items on participants&rsquo; list of top training needs were training in statistics, research methods, publication ethics, recruiting and dealing with peer reviewers, and indexing of journals. The three rounds of the Delphi were completed by 83, 83, and 73 participants, respectively, which ultimately produced a list of 23 &ldquo;highly rated&rdquo; competency-related statements and another 86 &ldquo;included&rdquo; items. Conclusion: Both the survey and the modified Delphi process will be critical for understanding knowledge and training gaps among scientific editors when designing curriculum around core competencies in the future