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Responsible research publication: international standards for authors Ethical Considerations in the Conduct and Reporting of Research Supercourse, July 9-13, 2012 Ainur Akilzhanova M.D., Ph.D., D.M.Sc. Slide 2 Scientific Knowledge The object of research is to extend human knowledge beyond what is already known. But an individuals knowledge enters the domain of science only after it is presented to others in such a fashion that they can independently judge its validity (NAP, On Being a Scientist 1995) Slide 3 Introduction Publication is the final stage of research and therefore a responsibility for all researchers. Scholarly publications are expected to provide a detailed and permanent record of research. Because publications form the basis for both new research and the application of findings, they can affect not only the research community but also, indirectly, society at large. Researchers therefore have a responsibility to ensure that their publications are honest, clear, accurate, complete and balanced, and should avoid misleading, selective or ambiguous reporting. Journal editors also have responsibilities for ensuring the integrity of the research literature and these are set out in companion guidelines. Slide 4 Publication Publication of results is an integral and essential component of research. The University encourages all researchers to promote their work through publishing and other forms of dissemination. Flow diagram of review and publication process for a manuscript submitted to a journal Dale J. Benos, Jorge Fabres, John Farmer, et al Ethics and scientific publication// Adv Physiol Educ 29: 5974, 2005 Slide 5 What is publishable. Journals like to publish papers that are going to be widely read and useful to the readers Papers that report original and significant findings that are likely to be of interest to a broad spectrum of its readers Papers that are well organized and well written, with clear statements regarding how the findings relate to and advance the understanding/development of the subject Papers that are concise and yet complete in their presentation of the findings Slide 6 Distribution of ethical issues in American Physiological Society publications (1996 through March 2004) Dale J. Benos, Jorge Fabres, John Farmer, et al Ethics and scientific publication// Adv Physiol Educ 29: 5974, 2005 Slide 7 Authorship and Contributorship An author is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study, and biomedical authorship continues to have important academic, social, and financial implications. Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3. Slide 8 guest authors are those who do not meet accepted authorship criteria but are listed because of their seniority, reputation or supposed influence gift authors are those who do not meet accepted authorship criteria but are listed as a personal favour or in return for payment ghost authors are those who meet authorship criteria but are not listed Authorship Slide 9 Authorship A: average number of authors per article published in the research journals of APS from 1960 2004. B: percentage of the total number of published articles in the American Journal of Physiology-Consolidated (AJP), Journal of Applied Physiology (JAP), and Journal of Neurophysiology (JN) authored by either one (OE) or two ( ) persons from 1960 2004. Dale J. Benos, Jorge Fabres, John Farmer, et al Ethics and scientific publication// Adv Physiol Educ 29: 5974, 2005 Slide 10 Contributors Listed in Acknowledgments All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section. Editors should ask corresponding authors to declare whether they had assistance with study design, data collection, data analysis, or manuscript preparation. If such assistance was available, the authors should disclose the identity of the individuals who provided this assistance and the entity that supported it in the published article. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged. Groups of persons who have contributed materially to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be listed under such headings as clinical investigators or participating investigators, and their function or contribution should be describedfor example, served as scientific advisors, critically reviewed the study proposal, collected data, or provided and cared for study patients. Because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions, these persons must give written permission to be acknowledged. Slide 11 Sample authorship description/acknowledgement Drs A, B and C designed and conducted the study, including patient recruitment, data collection, and data analysis. Dr A prepared the manuscript draft with important intellectual input from Drs B and C. All authors approved the final manuscript. [Insert name of organization] provided funding for the study, statistical support in analyzing the data with input from Drs A, B and C, and also provided funding for editorial support. Drs A, B and C had complete access to the study data. We would like to thank Dr D for her editorial support during preparation of this manuscript. Slide 12 Accountability and responsibility All authors should have read and be familiar with the reported work and should ensure that publications follow the principles set out in these guidelines. In most cases, authors will be expected to take joint responsibility for the integrity of the research and its reporting. However, if authors take responsibility only for certain aspects of the research and its reporting, this should be specified in the publication. Authors should work with the editor or publisher to correct their work promptly if errors or omissions are discovered after publication. Authors should abide by relevant conventions, requirements, and regulations to make materials, reagents, software or datasets available to other researchers who request them. Researchers, institutions, and funders should have clear policies for handling such requests. Authors must also follow relevant journal standards. While proper acknowledgement is expected, researchers should not demand authorship as a condition for sharing materials. Authors should respond appropriately to post-publication comments and published correspondence. They should attempt to answer correspondents questions and supply clarification or additional details where needed. Slide 13 Soundness and reliability The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and follow all relevant legislation. The research being reported should be sound and carefully executed. Researchers should use appropriate methods of data analysis and display (and, if needed, seek and follow specialist advice on this). Authors should take collective responsibility for their work and for the content of their publications. Researchers should check their publications carefully at all stages to ensure methods and findings are reported accurately. Authors should carefully check calculations, data presentations, typescripts/submissions and proofs. Slide 14 Useful Definitions: Scientific Misconduct Scientific misconduct means fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the scientific community for proposing, conducting or reporting research Managing Allegations of Scientific Misconduct: A Guidance Document for Editors, January 2000, Office of Research Integrity, Office of Public Health and Science, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services http://ori.dhhs.gov http://ori.dhhs.gov Slide 15 Useful Definitions: Plagiarism: using the ideas or words of another person without giving appropriate credit (Nat. Acad. Press document) Self-Plagiarism: The verbatim copying or reuse of ones own research (IEEE Policy statement) Both types of plagiarism are considered to be unacceptable practice by most scientific publications Slide 16 Honesty Researchers should present their results honestly and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. Research images (e.g. micrographs, X- rays, pictures of electrophoresis gels) should not be modified in a misleading way. Researchers should strive to describe their methods and to present their findings clearly and unambiguously. Researchers should follow applicable reporting guidelines. Publications should provide sufficient detail to permit experiments to be repeated by other researchers. Reports of research should be complete. They should not omit inconvenient, inconsistent or inexplicable findings or results that do not support the authors or sponsors hypothesis or interpretation. Research funders and sponsors should not be able to veto publication of findings that do not favour their product or position. Researchers should not enter agreements that permit the research sponsor to veto or control the publication of the findings (unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as research classified by governments because of security implications). Authors should alert the editor promptly if they discover an error in any submitted, accepted or published work. Authors should cooperate with editors in issuing corrections or retractions when required. Authors should represent the work of others accurately in citations and quotations. Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work. Slide 17 Intellectual Property Plagiarism, copyright and intellectual property A definition of plagiarism from the Office of Research Integrity: Plagiarism includes both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work. It does not include authorship or credit disputes. The theft or misappropriation of intellectual property includes the unauthorized use of ideas or unique methods obtained by a privileged communication, such as a grant or manuscript review. All Authors are required to grant editors an exclusive publishing license before their work can be published. This license also contains the warranty that the work is the authors original work. Slide 18 Original Paper Oriented Assembly of Fe3O4 Nanoparticles into Monodisperse Hollow Single-Crystal Microspheres Yu et al, J. Phys. Chem. B 2006, 110, 21667- 21671 (Figure 3) Plagiarized paper: Fabrication of Monodisperse Magnetic Fe3O4-SiO2 Nanocomposites with Core- Shell Structures Hua Fang,* Chun-yang Ma, Tai-li Wan, Mei Zhang, and Wei-hai Shi J. Phys. Chem C 2007, 111, 1065- 1070 Original paper: Ultra-large-scale syntheses of monodisperse nanocrystals, Park et al. Nature Materials, 2004, 3, 891 (Figure 3C) Slide 19 Credit Citing sources of information and ideas (also aids credibility, helps in finding out more) Avoiding excessive use of others words Recording sources when copying items or taking notes Placing in quotation marks, or indenting, items used verbatim Perhaps drafting some items while not looking at the source materials Observing copyright and obtaining needed permissions Slide 20 24 MAY 2002 VOL 296 SCIENCE, p 1376 Slide 21 Other Types of Ethical Violations Duplicate publication/submission of research findings; failure to inform the editor of related papers that the author has under consideration or in press Unrevealed conflicts of interest that could affect the interpretation of the findings Misrepresentation of research findings - use of selective or fraudulent data to support a hypothesis or claim Slide 22 Originality Not republishing the same findings (except under special circumstances, with the original source cited) Not submitting the same manuscript to two or more journals at once Not dividing one research project into many little papers (salami science) Slide 23 Balance New findings should be presented in the context of previous research. The work of others should be fairly represented. Scholarly reviews and syntheses of existing research should be complete, balanced, and should include findings regardless of whether they support the hypothesis or interpretation being proposed. Editorials or opinion pieces presenting a single viewpoint or argument should be clearly distinguished from scholarly reviews. Study limitations should be addressed in publications. Slide 24 Transparency All sources of research funding, including direct and indirect financial support, supply of equipment or materials, and other support (such as specialist statistical or writing assistance) should be disclosed. Authors should disclose the role of the research funder(s) or sponsor (if any) in the research design, execution, analysis, interpretation and reporting. Authors should disclose relevant financial and non-financial interests and relationships that might be considered likely to affect the interpretation of their findings or which editors, reviewers or readers might reasonably wish to know. This includes any relationship to the journal, for example if editors publish their own research in their own journal. In addition, authors should follow journal and institutional requirements for disclosing competing interests. Slide 25 Adherence to peer review and publication conventions Authors should follow publishers requirements that work is not submitted to more than one publication for consideration at the same time. Authors should inform the editor if they withdraw their work from review, or choose not to respond to reviewer comments after receiving a conditional acceptance. Authors should respond to reviewers comments in a professional and timely manner. Authors should respect publishers requests for press embargos and should not generally allow their findings to be reported in the press if they have been accepted for publication (but not yet published) in a scholarly publication. Authors and their institutions should liaise and cooperate with publishers to coordinate media activity (e.g. press releases and press conferences) around publication. Press releases should accurately reflect the work and should not include statements that go further than the research findings. Slide 26 Ethical principles: Research on Humans and Animals For experiments involving human subjects, the committee approving the experiments should be identified and the research conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki).Declaration of Helsinki The Authors should confirm that informed consent was obtained from all subjects. Appropriate approval, licensing or registration should be obtained before the research begins and details should be provided in the report (e.g. Institutional Review Board, Research Ethics Committee approval, national licensing authorities for the use of animals) Treatment must confirm to accepted international standards. Manuscript must document that the study was approved by an ethical review board before it was done. Note: Research on humans tends to be broadly defined, for example to include survey research. Slide 27 Ethical responsibilities of Editors and reviewers Maintain confidentiality Not to misappropriate ideas or text Emit reviews that are justifiable and without bias Transmit information to authors in a timely fashion Declare any conflict of interest Slide 28 Peer Review Unbiased, independent, critical assessment is an intrinsic part of all scholarly work, including the scientific process. Peer review is the critical assessment of manuscripts submitted to journals by experts who are not part of the editorial staff. Peer review can therefore be viewed as an important extension of the scientific process. Peer review helps editors decide which manuscripts are suitable for their journals and helps authors and editors to improve the quality of reporting. A peer-reviewed journal submits most of its published research articles for outside review. The number and kinds of manuscripts sent for review, the number of reviewers, the reviewing procedures, and the use made of the reviewers opinions may vary. Slide 29 Conflicts of Interest Editors, authors, and peer reviewers have a responsibility to disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present or review data objectively. These include relevant financial (for example patent ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, speaker's fees), personal, political, intellectual, or religious interests. Can involve Editors Peer reviewers Authors Can be Financial Ideological Other Slide 30 Summary The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation. Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others. Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere. Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work. The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals contributions to the work and its reporting. Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed. Slide 31 How Journals Detect and Handle Problem Papers Information received from reviewers or other editors Literature search for related papers by the author Withdrawal of a paper from publication Banning authors from publication in the journal for 3-5 years and informing the co-authors and editors of related journals of our action For less serious cases, placing the author on a watch list for careful examination of their submissions prior to requesting review Slide 32 International guidelines International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Includes guidelines for authorship (substantive), peer review (not substantive), conflict of interest (substantive), and redundant publications (substantive). http://www.icmje.org/http://www.icmje.org/ The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has guidelines for editors and peer reviewers (substantive) and authorship (substantive). http://publicationethics.org/http://publicationethics.org/ The Singapore Statement on Research Integrity also has guidelines on authorship, publication, and peer review. These are very general, not detailed. http://www.singaporestatement.org/statement.html http://www.singaporestatement.org/statement.html Scott-Lichter D, and the Editorial Policy Committee, Council of Science Editors. CSEs White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications. Reston, Virginia, USA: CSE; 2006. http://www.CouncilScienceEditors.orghttp://www.CouncilScienceEditors.org On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, 2nd edition (1995): From the US National Academies Largely for graduate students www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/obas/ www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/obas/ World Association of Medical Editors (WAME): http://www.wame.org/http://www.wame.org/