George Washington University guest lecture 2021, Dan Kulp

1. Publication Ethics
George Washington University
September 13, 2021
Dr. Daniel T. Kulp. COPE Chair
Senior Director, Editorial Development
American Chemical Society

2. Trends and Issues in Publication Ethics
Agenda
• Background on me
• COPE: Who we are
• Current Trends
• Case Studies

3. Born 1964
Ph.D. from UPenn
1992
B.S. from MIT
1986
Joined APS
1996
Editorial Director
2007
Joined ACS
2020
COPE Chair
2021

4. COPE TRUSTEES AND COUNCIL MEMBERS

5. COPE CORE PRACTICES
Policies and core practices required to reach the highest standards in publication ethics:
Ethical
oversight
Intellectual
property
Journal
management
Peer review
processes
Allegations
of misconduct
Authorship and
contributorship
Complaints
and appeals
Conflicts of interest/
Competing interests
Data and
reproducibility
Post-publication
discussions and
corrections

6. COPE RESOURCES

7. COPE RESOURCES
Peer review
• Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers
• What to consider when asked to
peer review a manuscript
• What to do if you suspect peer review manipulation

8. COPE RESOURCES
Image manipulation
• Image manipulation flowchart.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
• AI in decision making discussion document
coming soon.
• 'Trustworthy AI for the future of publishing'
COPE seminar session. Recording
available after the event.

9. COPE RESOURCES
Preprints
• Preprints discussion document
We are working on an update to this
guidance which will be published soon.
• Preprints and their place in the
publication ethics landscape,
WCRI panel discussion.

10. COPE RESOURCES
Translated resources
• COPE is working towards
translating more resources
to allow communication
with a wider audience.

11. Who’s responsible?
Institutions
Funders
Researchers
Journals
Publishers
Institutional
Repository

12. COPE Seminar 2021
• Trustworthy AI for the future of publishing
• Ethical practice in research data publication – challenges,
lessons, and opportunities
• Authorship for sale – how do we deal with the growing
problem of paper mills
• Ethical authorship versus fraudulent authorship
• Reducing the inadvertent spread of retracted science:
taxonomy considerations
• Driving diversity, equity, and inclusion to shape the future
of publication ethics
• How do publication ethics practices for journals apply to
book publishing

13. Paper Mill

14. Definition of systematic
manipulation of the
publication process

15. Case Study
• DOI (Digital Object Identifier) - "DOI...is related to a single resource."
• Paper submitted to a preprint server and received a DOI.
• Paper accepted by Journal X. Can a new DOI be assigned?
Can two DOI’s be assigned to the same manuscript?

16. Case Study
Possible Plagiarism
• Whistleblower complaint that two chapters in a book, by the same authors, have significant plagiarism.
• Publisher determined that unattributed text were present in both chapters.
• Some text was from the authors’ own work and some from third parties.
• Correction or Retraction?
• What if the whistleblower is not satisfied by the correction?

17. Case Study
Is approval needed for a social media survey?
• An author wants to collect information from a survey on a topic of significant interest to the community.
• No patient information will be collected.
• The survey is not derived from an institution, rather out of the personal interest of the authors.
• Does the author need institutional review board approval?
• The institution initially indicated that because the study did not involve an intervention on a patient, they
were not responsible for oversight of the study.

18. Case Study
Unresponsive authors delaying publication
• A manuscript is submitted and after peer review, accepted for publication.
• Author accepted version is posted and published in PubMed as an advance article.
• Production edits and sends out proofs to the authors.
• The authors do not respond to multiple reminders to okay the proofs.
• Final deadlines given, but still no response.

19. Case Study
Paper published without permission or acknowledgement from institution
• An author, affiliated with a research institution, had a paper published in a journal.
• After publication, the institution reached out to the journal indicating that they had carried out an
investigation on the author and asked the journal to publish an Erratum.
• Author failed to properly acknowledge the contributions of other members of his teamor the funding
source.
• The author disagreed with the text and suggested a modified Erratum.
• The institution disagreed stating that the author was trying to downplay the results of the
investigation and the contribution by others.

20. THANK YOU
Daniel Kulp: d_kulp@acs.org

21. Registered charity No 1123023
Registered in England and Wales, Company No 6389120
Registered office: COPE New Kings Court, Tollgate, Chandler's Ford,
Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO53 3LG, United Kingdom
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