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Perspectives from a publishing ethics and research integrity team for required improvements

Sabina Alam

Sabina Alam

Publishing Ethics and Research IntegrityJournals, UK
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Alam, Sabina
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Laura Wilson

Laura Wilson

Publishing Ethics and Research IntegrityJournals, UK
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Wilson, Laura
  
Aug 25, 2023
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Article Category: Perspective
Published Online: Aug 25, 2023
Page range: 1 - 14
Received: Apr 22, 2023
Accepted: Jul 05, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jdis-2023-0018
Keywords
© 2023 Sabina Alam et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Figure 1.

Percentage of top three recurring case types handled by the Publishing Ethics and Research Integrity team at Taylor and Francis between 2017-2022. Data integrity (including image integrity) cases comprised over 26% of total cases in 2022. There has been a reduction in standard plagiarism and authorship cases escalated to the team since 2019 due to the implementation of internal ethics training and detection tools, but the cases have increased in complexity. Note, this data does not include case investigations on paper mills as a single paper mill case involves multiple types of integrity issues.
Percentage of top three recurring case types handled by the Publishing Ethics and Research Integrity team at Taylor and Francis between 2017-2022. Data integrity (including image integrity) cases comprised over 26% of total cases in 2022. There has been a reduction in standard plagiarism and authorship cases escalated to the team since 2019 due to the implementation of internal ethics training and detection tools, but the cases have increased in complexity. Note, this data does not include case investigations on paper mills as a single paper mill case involves multiple types of integrity issues.

Figure 2.

Total number of ethics cases involving articles at published or unpublished stages, handled by the Publishing Ethics and Research Integrity team at Taylor and Francis between 2017-2022. Dark blue bars show standard ethics cases involving published articles; light blue bars show standard ethics cases involving unpublished articles; dark orange bars show paper mill ethics cases involving published articles; light orange bars show paper mill ethics cases involving unpublished articles.
Total number of ethics cases involving articles at published or unpublished stages, handled by the Publishing Ethics and Research Integrity team at Taylor and Francis between 2017-2022. Dark blue bars show standard ethics cases involving published articles; light blue bars show standard ethics cases involving unpublished articles; dark orange bars show paper mill ethics cases involving published articles; light orange bars show paper mill ethics cases involving unpublished articles.

Figure 3.

Number of retractions at Taylor and Francis Group Journals (including Dove Press) between 2017 -2022. The volume of these has increased sharply since 2019 with a continued upward trend.
Number of retractions at Taylor and Francis Group Journals (including Dove Press) between 2017 -2022. The volume of these has increased sharply since 2019 with a continued upward trend.

Principles followed by the Ethics team when handling an ethics investigation_

Assessment Assess the allegation on the merit of the concerns raised- what evidence is there, how does this impact the article? Are there competing interests?
Due diligence Ensure appropriate due diligence at every step.
Objective Make no assumptions- approach any investigation with an open mind.
Care & attention Ensure that any allegation is taken seriously; any documentation or correspondence must be handled carefully.
Timeliness Ensure actions are taken in a timely way, with clear expectations about deadlines, and a process to monitor those.
Confidential Ensure any sensitive information during an investigation remains confidential and is not shared with any third parties (including complainants), as premature sharing of sensitive information can compromise the process.
Professional tone Ensure all correspondence remains professional and respectful, even when being on the receiving end of unprofessional correspondence.
Right of reply Where possible, ensure that individuals are given an appropriate amount of time to reply to any concerns.
Anonymity Where complaints are made by people who do not wish to reveal their identity, efforts must be made to keep them anonymous.Similarly, anonymity for additional reviewers (which may even be after an article has been published) must be assured, unless they consented to be identified.
Language:
English
Publication timeframe:
4 times per year
Journal Subjects:
Computer Sciences, Information Technology, Project Management, Databases and Data Mining
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