Publication ethics and scientific misconduct.ppt

PUBLICATION ETHICS
AND SCIENTIFIC
MISCONDUCT

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND
SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT
1. Good Scientific Conduct
2. Redundant Publications
3. Ethics of Editors and reviewers

Content
• Scientific publications:
• Misconduct types and definitions
• How to Prevent Manipulation
• Duplicate publication ( definition , impact , risk, criteria ..)
• Pattern of double publication, Decision Tree and
Duplication Patterns
• Ethics of Editors
• Ethics of reviewers

Learning objectives
• Express ethical commitment, positive values towards his
research work and towards others
• Interpret the conflict of interest that might occur in
Publication of research and to distinguish between better
and worse choices.
• Appraise the research critically and modulate to cope with
ethics demands
• Determine ethical challenges (marketing and the efficient
utilization of health care resources)
• Determine conditions of scientific misconduct.
• Avoid the consequences of double publications

• Research is a human endeavor,
to make a distinction between facts and hypotheses.

The scientific method
• Hypotheses are formulated from observations
• Theories develop from these hypotheses
• Hypotheses and theories are generally based on objective
inferences
• Proof of the hypothesis through a proper study

Publication
• Acceptance in the scientific community
• to disseminate scientific publications in accordance with the
accepted rules and standards of the discipline
• Findings must be published (undergoing the process of
peer review) to separate the good science from the bad
science.

Replication is vital to good science
• For the research community to accept a finding, other
researchers must be able to follow the same methods and
get the same results.

SCIENTISTS ARE ALL HUMANS,
WITH THE TYPICAL FAULTS
THAT HUMANS HAVE.

Scientific publications:
• Publication is one of the cornerstones of the research
cycle.

• New findings are published, to describe these findings
and the applied methods completely and comprehensibly
as well as account for one's own and others' preliminary
work exhaustively and correctly.

• Authorship:
• only those who significantly contributed to the conceptual design,
formulation, analysis and interpretation of the data or findings, and
the drafting of the manuscript, and have consented to its
publication can be named as co-authors

•'honorary authorship' is not
permissible
•third-party support is to be listed under
acknowledgements.

Scientific misconduct
• The misrepresentation of facts in a scientific context
• either consciously or due to gross negligence, infringement of
intellectual property of others, or any other encroachment upon
others' research activities.

• The final legal definition of scientific misconduct was published in
the Federal Register on December 6, 2000 ,although proposed
changes to this definition are being considered .These proposed
changes include :
• 1) changing the terminology, i.e., “scientific” misconduct would
become “research” misconduct;
• 2) expanding misconduct to include both grant and contract
research;
• 3) expanding the scope of plagiarism to encompass activities related
to funding requests and scientific publications;
• 4) use the term “performing” instead of “conducting” research, which
would expand misconduct to encompass reviewing of research;
• 5) replacing the term “serious deviation” from accepted practices to
“significant departure”;
• 6) dropping the phrase “other practices.”

Examples of scientific misconduct
Misrepresentation of contents such as :
•forging (fabrication) :or distorting data
•(falsification)selecting and rejecting undesirable results
without declaring them
•Manipulating illustrations or images
•Plagiarism: which is using someone else’s words, ideas,
or results without attribution. In order for an action to be
considered misconduct, it must be a “…serious deviation
from accepted practices…” of the relevant research
community, have been “…committed intentionally, or
knowingly, or recklessly…”, and it must be “…proven by a
preponderance of evidence…”

Examples of scientific misconduct
• Infringement of intellectual property concerning
copyrighted work by others or significant scientific
findings, hypotheses, teachings, or research
approaches by others such as
• unauthorised utilisation by presumption of authorship (plagiarism)
• claiming authorship or co-authorship of others without their
consent.

Data falsification is problematic for
many reasons.
• 1- it dilutes the integrity of other scientific research, both
from that author(s) and from others in the field.
• 2- if left undiscovered, it could waste other researcher’s
time and energies attempting to replicate or build on the
data presented in a falsified paper.
• 3-it jeopardizes the public trust in the scientific enterprise.
• 4- it may have adverse consequences for patients in clinical
research and clinical practice.” (If an investigator were to
falsify findings on a potentially new clinical therapy or a
paradigm-shifting disease management program, the
impact on a patient could be life threatening at the worst or,
at a minimum, psychologically devastating).

Authorship
• The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
guidelines define an author as “someone who has made
substantive intellectual contributions to a published study.”
www.icmje.org

Misconduct
• exploitation of research approaches and ideas, in
particular as a peer reviewer (theft of ideas)
• unauthorized publication and unauthorized granting of
access to third parties prior to the publication of the work,
the findings, the hypothesis, the teaching, or the research
approach;

Misconduct
• a shared responsibility for the misconduct of others
• active participation or joint knowledge of misrepresentations
• co-authorship of falsified publications
• gross negligence of supervisory responsibilities

Risk factors for scientific misconduct
• "In all the cases, the perpetrators
• were under career pressure,
• knew, or thought they knew, what the result would be
if they went to all the trouble of doing the work
properly, and
• were in a field in which individual experiments are
not expected to be precisely reproducible."
Goodstein D. Scientific Misconduct. ACADEME 2002; 88: 28-31

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
HAS MADE SCIENTIFIC
LITERATURE MORE
ACCESSIBLE
This facilitated some aspects of publication
misconduct and has facilitated the detection
of misconduct

Retractions due to misconduct
PLOS ONE 2012; 7(10) e44118: 1-15

Retractions by scholarly field
PLOS ONE 2012; 7(10) e44118: 1-15

Justification for retraction
PLOS ONE 2012; 7(10) e44118: 1-15

"WHAT CAN WE DO TO
IMPROVE DETECTION OF
(SCIENTIFIC) FRAUD?

THE FIRST STEP IS TO
ACKNOWLEDGE THAT
THERE IS A THREAT
Moore RA, Derry S,. McQuay HJ, Ed. Fraud or ﬂawed: adverse impact of
fabricated or poor quality research. Anaesthesia, 2010, 65, pages 325–330

• There are two signs to be aware of, as reviewers, editors
or readers:
• the biology makes little sense
• a small number of investigators producing the bulk of the data"
Moore RA, Derry S,. McQuay HJ, Ed. Fraud or ﬂawed: adverse impact of fabricated
or poor quality research. Anaesthesia, 2010, 65, pages 325–330

Selective reporting:
• "many publications ignored the results of intention
to treat analyses and reported the more
favourable per protocol analyses only."
• "… any attempt to recommend a specific
…………… from the publicly available data only
is likely to be based on biased evidence."
Melander H, Ahlqvist-Rastad J, Meijer G, Beermann B. Evidence b(i)ased medicine—selective
reporting from studies sponsored by pharmaceutical industry: review of studies in new drug
applications BMJ VOLUME 2003; 326: 1171 - 3

How to Prevent?
• Manipulating data
• Never tamper with or change data
• Keep meticulous records of your data
• Records of raw data should be accessible in case an editor asks
for them-even after your paper has been published
• Understand the publisher's policies on data before you submit a
paper
ethics.elsevier.com

How to Prevent?
• Manipulating images
• If you need to adjust an image to enhance clarity, make
sure you know what is considered acceptable before
submitting your paper
• Even if the image manipulations are considered
acceptable, report it to the publication prior to submitting
your paper
• Review any data images used to support your paper
against the original image data to make sure nothing
has been altered
ethics.elsevier.com

Duplicate publication
"Simultaneous or successive publishing of identical or near-
identical material in two or more different sources without
acknowledgment."
www.reference.md

• It differs from:
• REPRINTED PUBLICATION: a reprint cites sources.
• PLAGIARISM: duplicate publication is the product of the same
authorship while plagiarism publishes a work or parts of a work of
another as one's own.
www.reference.md

• "Duplicate publication involves publishing the same data
more than once. It involves dividing the report of a
research project into multiple articles. Duplicate
publications are misleading if they appear to represent
independent instances. They can distort the scientific
literature, especially in reviews or meta-analyses."
Open Letter to Authors for APA Journals

• Other synonyms:
• Salami publication
• Dual publication
• Repetitive publication
• Disaggregated
publication
• Redundant publication
• Recycling fraud
• Fragmented
publication
• Piecemeal
publication
• Self-plagiarism
• Self-Stealer

Impact of duplicate publication
• "By searching systematically we found 17% of
published full reports of randomised trials and
28% of the patient data were duplicated. Trials
reporting greater treatment effect were
significantly more likely to be duplicated. Inclusion
of duplicated data in meta
analysis led to a 23%
overestimation of ondansetron's antiemetic
efficacy."
Tramèr MR, Reynolds DJM, Moore RA, McQuay HJ.
Impact of covert duplicate publication on meta
analysis: a case study.
BMJ 1997; 315: 635 - 640

Network of duplicate publications, by
subfield, 1980-2007
Lariviere V, Gingras Y. On the prevalence and scientific impact of
duplicate publications in different scientific fields (1980-2007). Journal of
Documentation 2010; 66: 179-190

Criteria indicating duplicate publication:
• The hypothesis is similar for each paper.
• There are similar numbers and sample sizes.
• The methodology is the same or nearly identical.
• The results are similar.
• At least one author is the same on each paper.
• Little or no new information is provided.
Cho BK, Rosenfeldt F, Turina MI, et al. Joint statement on redundant (duplicate) publication by
the editors of the undersigned cardiothoracic journals. Ann Thorac Surg 2000; 69:663

Why are redundant publications
unethical?
• Cost-ineffective use of resources:
• "Inflation" of the available peer-reviewed literature and
waste of readers' time.
• Increased workload for editors and reviewers and waste
of journal space, leading to a delays in the publication
process.
• Distortion of the purpose of biomedical journals as the
source of new information.
Stahel PF, Clavien PA, Smith WR, Moore EE, ed. Redundant publications
in surgery: a threat to patient safety? Patient Safety in Surgery 2008, 2:6
doi:10.1186/1754-9493-2-6

Why are redundant publications
unethical?
• Skewing of evidence-based medicine
• Assuming reports to be from independent studies
• Overestimation of a therapeutic effect in systematic
meta-analyses.
• Potential infringement of international copyright
law.
Stahel PF, Clavien PA, Smith WR, Moore EE, ed. Redundant publications
in surgery: a threat to patient safety? Patient Safety in Surgery 2008, 2:6
doi:10.1186/1754-9493-2-6

Patterns of Duplicate Publication
• Pattern 1A:
• Reproduction of an already published article using an
identical sample and outcomes.
• Most 1A duplicates (76%) had no cross-reference to the
main article.
• Almost one third (29%) were translations; only 1 had a
cross-reference.
von Elm E, Poglia G, Walder B, Tramèr MR. Different Patterns of
Duplicate Publication: An Analysis of Articles Used in Systematic
Reviews. JAMA 2004; 291: 974 – 80.

• Pattern 1B:
• 2 or more main articles were assembled to produce yet
another article.
• Pattern 1B duplicates had the highest proportion of
pharmaceutical sponsorship (81%)—63% were
published in supplements and had pharmaceutical
sponsorship.
Reviews. JAMA 2004; 291: 974 – 80.

• Pattern 1B:
• Pattern 1B had the highest number of duplicated
subjects (median, 169), and their delay in publication
was shortest (median, 0.5 years).
• There was the smallest number of authors (median, 1),
and the highest proportion of articles with non-matching
authorship (31%).
Reviews. JAMA 2004; 291: 974 – 80.

• Pattern 2:
• Duplicates originated from 1 study sample but reported
on different outcomes
• Pattern 2 duplicates had the highest proportion of
unclear cross-references (25%), a high proportion of
non-pharmaceutical sponsorship (38%), and the lowest
annual citation rate (median, 1.1).
Reviews. JAMA 2004; 291: 974 – 80.

• Pattern 3A:
• Expanded articles that were written when new data
were added to a preliminary article.
• These articles had the longest delay in publication
(median, 2 years), the highest annual citation rate
(median, 3.2), and were published in journals with the
highest impact factors (median, 2.7).
Reviews. JAMA 2004; 291: 974 – 80.

• Pattern 3B:
• Articles that documented parts of a large trial and
reported identical outcomes
• None of these duplicates had a clear cross-reference,
55%declared pharmaceutical sponsorship, 45% were
translations (none of which had a cross-reference), and
the number of duplicated subjects was high (median,
105)
Reviews. JAMA 2004; 291: 974 – 80.

• Pattern 4:
• Both samples and outcomes were different from the
main article.
• Confirmation of duplication was only possible through
contact with the original authors.
• A high proportion of nonpharmaceutical sponsorship
(55%) and incomplete matching of authors (75%).
Reviews. JAMA 2004; 291: 974 – 80.

Decision Tree and Duplication Patterns
Reviews. JAMA 2004; 291: 974 – 80.

The ICMJE criteria for acceptable
duplicate publication:
• Authors may receive approval from both journals; the
editor concerned with the secondary publication must
have a copy of the primary version.
• The paper for the secondary journal is for a different
group of readers.
• The secondary version reflects faithfully the data and
interpretations of the primary version.
• A footnote on the title page of the secondary version
informs readers, peers, and documenting agencies that
the paper has been published in part or in whole and
states the primary reference.
www.icjme.org

Deja Vu: a Database of Highly Similar
Citations
• This is a database of highly similar or duplicate
publications.
• This database with eTBLAST tool help detect
instances of duplication.
• Before submitting a manuscript for publication,
use a similarity detection tool as eTBLAST or
iThenticate, to make sure that the manuscript is
not later stigmatized as double publication or
plagiarism.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU SUSPECT
REDUNDANT (DUPLICATE)
PUBLICATION
http://publicationethics.org

• Case number: 06-02
• "An email was received from a reader indicating a possible
duplicate publication of an article that appeared in the journal in
2004, and a similar publication that appeared in another journal in
2003.

• The Editor immediately wrote to the author, and to the editor of the
other journal, expressing his concerns. The author responded five
days later saying that he did not believe that the papers were
duplicates.

• The articles were sent to the COPE Chair (HM), who felt that the
subsequent article, published in 2004, falls within the definition of
duplicate publication, as the database, methods, and conclusion
were the same in both papers. Moreover the authors did not refer
to their previous paper when submitting the article.

DUPLICATE
PUBLICATION
What should the Editor do now?

• Advice:
• It was suggested that the editor might like to first consult
with members of the editorial board before making any
final decision, but it was felt that ultimately he had no
other choice than to retract the paper that appeared in
his journal in 2004. It was also suggested that he should
contact the editor of the other journal, as there may be
copyright issues to resolve, and to also contact author’s
institution informing them of the decision.

• Authors A submitted paper A to a journal in April 2012. One of the
reviewers pointed out that a very similar paper, paper B, had
already been published in another journal based in the authors'
home country and covering a different field, in August 2012. The
title is almost the same, except for a few words switched around.

• The authors were asked to comment on this and were
told that the database and analysis were different, with
the main difference being data collected along the coast
versus data collected inland. The data and analysis are
indeed slightly different, but in our opinion not enough to
be treated as two separate publications. we The authors
were asked why they did not cite paper B in paper A.

• They answered that because they did not receive a
review for paper A for 4 months, they submitted paper B
somewhere else with a slightly different scope. This
paper was seemingly immediately published online by
the end of the month and printed in October 2012. The
authors stated that they had no chance to cite paper B
in paper A, and were not apologetic in the least.
Instead, they chose to blame the journal's turnaround
time.

• Paper A has been rejected.

DUPLICATE
PUBLICATION
How to deal with these authors in the future?

• Advice:
• To prevent a similar situation, in the instructions to authors and on
the journal website, the editor should add a statement asking if the
authors have any related paper under submission or in press
elsewhere and, if so, to send details of that paper along with the
current paper they are submitting.

• An author published a paper on the same subject in his country’s
specialty journal. The first report was short and the product of the
author’s graduate work. The publication was in their country’s
language. (Recently, the journal has been translating the abstracts
of their previous publications into English, but the body of the text
is still in their language.)

• Subsequently, the author submitted to a second journal a more
extensive article on the same subject, which included more data.
This went through peer review process and was published.

• The editor-in-chief of the original journal feels that it is a double
publication and should be withdrawn. The President of their
country’s specialty organization thinks that this is a new publication
and the author has done nothing wrong.

• The author has been contacted and feels his more extensive
publication should stand. He feels that the original publication is a
more abbreviated version and received only regional exposure.

DUPLICATE
PUBLICATION
Case number: 12-21
Which opinion is more plausible?

• Advice:
• It is acceptable to publish a longer version of a paper that was
published previously as an abstract, as long as the original abstract
is cited.
• If there are significant new data, then duplicate publication may not
be an issue, but the original material must be cited.

• Advice:
• Hence, in principal, this is not duplicate publication but
the problem here is the transparency issue and the lack
of disclosure by the author.
• There may also be a copyright issue, which the editor
needs to discuss with the editor of the first journal. A
suggestion was that if the editor is confident that this is
not duplicate publication, he could publish a correction.

ETHICS OF EDITORS
AND REVIEWERS

Ethics of Editors
• Publication decision
• The editor should ensure a good quality of review to provide the
readers with the best quality evidence.
• The editor should ensure the commitment of the reviewers to the
guidelines of good reviewing practice.
• The editor should take a decision on the submitted manuscript,
based on objective consideration. Subjectivity, with or against the
manuscript or its authors, should have no place.
http://www.elsevier.com
http://www.wame.org

Ethics of Editors
•Fairness
• "An editor has a role similar to that of a
judge.
Like a judge, an editor should be fair."
http://www.wame.org

Ethics of Editors
• Confidentiality
• The submitted manuscript is the product of the authors'
effort and the editor should keep the confidentiality of
any new information included in the manuscript, until
publication. Any part of the manuscript under
consideration should not be used by the editor or the
reviewers, prior to publication.
• Any breach of confidentiality by any party deserves a
disciplinary action by the editor, according to COPE
guidelines.
http://www.wame.org

Ethics of Editors
• Disclosure and Conflicts of interest
• If the editor has any conflict of interest, this should be disclosed
openly and the editorial role should be passed to another editor.
http://www.wame.org

Ethics of Editors
• Involvement and cooperation in investigations
• The editor has a pivotal role to investigate any
publication misconduct, raised internally (reviewers) or
externally (readers or publishers).
• If the editor receives a query raising the suspicion of
misconduct from an external body, the editor has the
moral obligation to cooperate in the investigation and
settle down any dispute according to the best ethical
standards.
http://www.wame.org

Ethics of Reviewers
Reviewers are professionals selected
by the editor to critically evaluate
submitted manuscripts to enable the
editor select the best material for the
journal.
http://www.wame.org

Ethics of Reviewers
Reviewers should be:
• Knowledgeable in the scientific field of the articles they review
• Objective
• professional, honest, courteous, prompt, and constructive
• free from conflict of interest
http://www.wame.org

Ethics of Reviewers
Reviewer's should:
• Comment on major strengths and weaknesses of study design and
methodology
• Comment accurately and constructively upon the quality of the
author's interpretation of the data, including acknowledgment of its
limitations.
http://www.wame.org

Ethics of Reviewers
Reviewer's should:
• Comment on any ethical concerns raised by the study, or any
possible evidence of low standards of scientific conduct.
• Provide the author with useful suggestions for improvement of the
manuscript.
• Be constructive and professional in his comments
http://www.wame.org

Ethics of Reviewers
Reviewer's should:
• Provide the editor the proper context and perspective to make a
decision on acceptance (and/or revision) of the manuscript.
• Be prompt in providing his comments.
• Respect confidentiality of the reviewed manuscript
http://www.wame.org

Questions to guide the reviewer in
assessment of the paper:
• Topic and content:
• Is the topic relevant for the journal?
• Is the content important to the field?
• Is the work original? (If not, please give references)
http://www.ajol.info

• Title:
• Does the title reflect the contents of the article?
• Abstract:
• To what extent does the abstract reflect aspects of the study:
background, objectives, methods, results and conclusions?

• Introduction / Background:
• Is the study rationale adequately described?
• Objectives:
• Are the study objectives clearly stated and defined?

• Methodology:
• To what extent is the study design appropriate and adequate for
the objectives?
• Is the sample size appropriate and adequately justified?
• Is the sampling technique appropriate and adequately described?

• Methodology:
• How well are the methods and instruments of data collection
described?
• How well are techniques to minimize bias/errors documented?

• Ethical Consideration:
• If there are issues related to ethics, are they adequately described?
(For human studies, has ethical approval been obtained?)

• Analysis and results:
• Are the methods adequately described?
• Are the methods of data analysis appropriate?
• Do the results answer the research question?
• Are the results credible?
• Is statistical significance well documented (e.g. as
confidence intervals or P-value)?
• Are the findings presented logically with appropriate
displays and explanations?

• Discussion:
• How well are the key findings stated?
• To what extent have differences or similarities with other studies
been discussed and reasons for these given?
• Are the findings discussed in the light of previous evidence?
• Are the implications of these findings clearly explained?
• Is the interpretation warranted by and sufficiently derived from and
focused on the data and results?

• Conclusion(s):
• Do the results justify the conclusion(s)?

• References:
• Are the references appropriate and relevant?
• Are they up to date?
• Are there any obvious, important references that should
have been included and have not been?
• Do the references follow the recommended style?
• Are there any errors?

• Writing:
• Is the paper clearly written?
• Is the paper presented logically (e.g. correct information in each
section, logical flow of arguments)?
• Are there problems with the grammar / spelling / punctuation /
language?
• http://www.ajol.info

Questions
• Criteria indicating duplicate publication are all except :
A.• The hypothesis is similar for each paper.
B.• There are different numbers and sample sizes.
C.• The methodology is the same or nearly identical.
D.• The results are similar.
E.• At least one author is the same on each paper.
F.• Little or no new information is provided.

References
• Goodstein D. Scientific Misconduct. ACADEME 2002; 88:
28-31
• PLOS ONE 2012; 7(10) e44118: 1-15
• Retractions by scholarly field
• PLOS ONE 2012; 7(10) e44118: 1-15
• Justification for retraction
• PLOS ONE 2012; 7(10) e44118: 1-15

References
• Moore RA, Derry S,. McQuay HJ, Ed. Fraud or ﬂawed:
adverse impact of fabricated or poor quality research.
Anaesthesia, 2010, 65, pages 325–330
• Moore RA, Derry S,. McQuay HJ, Ed. Fraud or ﬂawed:
adverse impact of fabricated or poor quality research.
Anaesthesia, 2010, 65, pages 325–330
• Melander H, Ahlqvist-Rastad J, Meijer G, Beermann B.
Evidence b(i)ased medicine—selective reporting from
studies sponsored by pharmaceutical industry: review of
studies in new drug applications BMJ VOLUME 2003;
326: 1171 – 3
• ethics.elsevier.com

References
• www.reference.md
• Open Letter to Authors for APA Journals
• Tramèr MR, Reynolds DJM, Moore RA, McQuay HJ.
• Impact of covert duplicate publication on meta
analysis: a
case study.
• BMJ 1997; 315: 635 - 640
• Network of duplicate publications, by subfield, 1980-2007
• Lariviere V, Gingras Y. On the prevalence and scientific
impact of duplicate publications in different scientific fields
(1980-2007). Journal of Documentation 2010; 66: 179-190

References
• Cho BK, Rosenfeldt F, Turina MI, et al. Joint statement on
redundant (duplicate) publication by the editors of the
undersigned cardiothoracic journals. Ann Thorac Surg
2000; 69:663
• Stahel PF, Clavien PA, Smith WR, Moore EE, ed.
Redundant publications in surgery: a threat to patient
safety? Patient Safety in Surgery 2008, 2:6
doi:10.1186/1754-9493-2-6
• von Elm E, Poglia G, Walder B, Tramèr MR. Different
Patterns of Duplicate Publication: An Analysis of Articles
Used in Systematic Reviews. JAMA 2004; 291: 974 – 80
• . www.icjme.org

• www.alexmed.edu.eg
• http://publicationethics.org
• http://www.elsevier.com
• http://www.wame.org
• http://www.ajol.info

Contact information
• Prof . Salah Abdelmoneim
salah.elmoneim@alexmed.edu.eg
Professor of Clinical Oncology
Alexandria Faculty of Medicine

Publication ethics and scientific misconduct.ppt

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