Tagged:  Publishing ethics

What a new breed of journalist means for transparency and public trust in science

"...a powerful metaphor for understanding their work as science critics is to see them as cartographers and guides..." Author Declan Fahy in Columbia Journalism Review

In Elsevier’s newsroom, we are responsible for working with the media on press coverage of research and responding to various inquires pertaining to scientific or research misconduct. From this vantage point, we are observing a notable trend, and unfortunately that trend is that the growth in coverage of scientific misconduct is outpacing that of the research itself.

Traditional scientific coverage is slowing due to a fall in the number of professional science media working today. In 2009, Nature¹ chronicled the situation by noting that the number of dedicated science sections in American newspapers fell from a peak of about 95 to 34 between 1989 and 2005. Accordingly, in the same survey, 26% of global journalists reported job losses, and of the remaining journalists, 59% had less time per article available.

The Nature article appeared in the same year that more than 1.5 million articles were published, a figure that is growing by 3-4% each year². Meanwhile, research is becoming more technical, inter-disciplinary and global in nature. Consider that 25% of Elsevier’s journals fall into more than one subject collection area, and 35% of our papers include authors from different countries³.

In other words, when we need experienced traditional science media professionals most, we have fewer of them. However, the number of freelance science journalists and bloggers is increasing. In fact, as of 2009, of the 2,000 US-based National Association of Science Writers members, only 79 were full-time staff science writers for newspapers⁴. Further, remaining science reporters cited getting more story leads from science bloggers¹, which suggests science is still being covered, but by a new breed of reporter.

This shift from traditional reporters to freelancers and bloggers coincides with a greater ability to detect and report on academic misconduct. And there has been a lot of misbehavior to expose. A 2002 NIH-funded survey of several thousand scientists in the USA found that around one third admitted they had engaged in at least one sanctionable misbehavior in the prior three years⁵. We can also presume that with competition for research dollars, tenure, prestige, and patents increasing in line with our ability to detect misconduct, there will be even more.

Impact of the New Media Landscape

In a recent Columbia Journalism Review article, Skeptical of Science⁶, author Declan Fahy states, “among other new roles, journalists are becoming more critical of research.” He describes how journalists are being “undercut by the emergence of a new science media ecosystem in which scientific journals, institutions and individuals are producing original science content directly for non-specialist audiences.” The author notes that, “consequently, they need additional ways to attract readers and maintain their professional identity.”

Take Ivan Oransky, Executive Editor at Reuters Health, for example. Ivan is a seasoned health reporter who graduated from Harvard, obtained an MD from New York University, has written for The Lancet, and is a professor at NYU. Still, Ivan lived in relative obscurity until he launched his side job as a blogger at Retraction Watch, a new form of science blog with 150,000 page views per month and a mission to increase the transparency of the retraction process.

Now Ivan is himself the news. He speaks at conferences, appears on National Public Radio and Retraction Watch is routinely sourced by top-tier media. By looking into the stories behind retractions, Ivan, and his blog partner, Adam Marcus, have staked a new claim as the journalism community’s academic misconduct experts. They believe in keeping science honest and that if the research community reveals more of its own flaws, the level of trust in it will rise.

Figure 1: A blog entry on Retraction Watch.

Ivan and Adam represent the new breed of science watchdog that is able to promote the results of their own investigations quickly via the internet. Beyond them, there are scientists, both aggrieved and benevolent, who spend time identifying cracks in scientific literature and making them public. Either through Retraction Watch or their own blogs, skeptical scientists aided by the internet have helped shed new and bright lights on scientific misconduct in ways never before seen.

And Retraction Watch has no shortage of material to work with. A recent Nature article⁷ captured how an increase in withdrawn papers is highlighting weaknesses in the system for handling them; and it’s the handling of them that gets watchdogs’ attention. For example, ‘opaque retraction notices that don't explain why a paper has been withdrawn.’

As publishers, we are mindful that the dramatic increase in access to scientific research in recent years has led to an increase in the level of critical review of these articles. The good news here is that these watchdogs are able to help editors keep scientists highly accountable for their work. The bad news is that they often print inaccurate and incomplete stories, which as a result can appear one-sided against those who don’t provide them with all the information they request. And they can take up an inordinate amount of editors’ time.

Are they entitled to your time?

For editors, the new breed of journalist is completely different and can be far more frustrating to work with than the traditional science reporter. The key is to spend time thinking about what the new media world means for your journal, and then develop your own approach to responding. Your publisher and Elsevier’s corporate media staff can work through this process with you. We can also help you manage the inquiries in a professional manner, i.e., making sure only credible inquiries are addressed, taking up a minimal amount of your time, and providing only appropriate, accurate information.

Increased skepticism and critical review in science can be complicated, combative, time consuming, and political. Many allegations and requests to investigate are legitimate, many not, but it’s become very clear that everything is more transparent in this new era. We have to acknowledge that every article and decision can be questioned. Promoting science and engendering trust require a new mindset that editors should become familiar with if they want their journal viewed favorably in the press – both traditional and new media.

The key is to remember that with the internet, the politicalization of science, and the rise of ethics journalism, the conduct of science has more visibility than ever. In his Columbia Journalism Review article⁶, Fahy suggests that ”a powerful metaphor for understanding their work as science critics is to see them as cartographers and guides, mapping scientific knowledge for readers, showing them paths through vast amounts of information, evaluating and pointing out the most important stops along the way.”

The inquiries and coverage from science skeptics is not always comfortable, but in this new era of science media, it can be a positive development for retaining public trust.

Finding the silver lining - why the rise in blogging could prove good news for researchers

• There are still highly qualified experts who can decipher highly technical research articles for an audience, only now instead of working for a newspaper, they form or contribute to a blog or other form of online community. And while they may reduce an article down to a tweet, more people than ever before see those tweets, and the links to their articles within them.
• With the decline of full-time reporters, there's a vast rise in the number of freelance journalists and bloggers. Instead of sitting at a desk and accepting assignments from editors, this new breed of reporters is empowered to scout for their own stories and build new networks providing earlier insights into research projects. For scientists, freelance reporters are a lot easier to get to know than traditional reporters.
• There are a number of organizations gaining prominence as intermediaries, including Sense About Science and the Science Media Centre, both based in the UK but expanding internationally. These organizations play critical and credible roles in helping the general public make sense of science research, and how it is covered in the press. Perhaps most importantly, they also help make sense of peer review, which is often the key element to discerning what is real science, and what isn't.

What do you think about the changing make-up of the media ? You can share your thoughts by posting a comment below.

¹ Science journalism: Supplanting the old media?, Geoff Brumfiel, 2009, Nature, Vol 458
² The STM Report: An overview of scientific and scholarly journal publishing, Mark Ware and Michael Mabe, September 2009, International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers
³ Elsevier SciVerse Scopus
⁴ Science Journalism in Crisis? – from the World Conference of Science Journalists 2009, Sallie Robins, 2009, The Euroscientist
⁵ Scientists behaving badly, B C Martinson and others, 2005, Nature, Vol 43
⁶ Skeptical of Science, Declan Fahy, September 2011, Columbia Journalism Review
⁷ Science publishing: The trouble with retractions, Richard Van Noorden, 2011, Nature, Vol 478

Author Biography

Tom Reller

Tom Reller
VICE PRESIDENT AND HEAD OF GLOBAL CORPORATE RELATIONS
Tom is the primary media spokesman for Elsevier – responsible for the company’s relationships with media, analysts and other online/social media communities. He manages public relations programs and actively works with external organizations to help build Elsevier’s reputation and promote the many contributions Elsevier makes to Health and Science communities. These include partnerships developed through the Elsevier Foundation, where he is responsible for running programs benefitting the global nurse faculty profession.

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Related Links

• Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK): an online resource to support journal editors in handling publishing ethics issues
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors

A discussion of the challenges journal editors face with regards to ethical issues and plagiarism. Discover the role we play in solving them using tools and resources made available to you by Elsevier.

COPE also has an e-learning course on ethics available, aimed specifically at new editors. Learn more

How Impact Factor engineering can damage a journal’s reputation

The dawn of bibliometrics

We’ve all noticed that science has been accelerating at a very fast rate, resulting in what has been called ‘information overload’ and more recently ‘filter failure’. There are now more researchers and more papers than ever, which has led to the heightened importance of bibliometric measures. Bibliometrics as a field is a fairly new discipline, but it has seen an impressive growth in recent years due to advances in computation and data storage, which have improved the accessibility and ease of the use of bibliometric measures (for instance through interfaces such as Sciverse Scopus or SciVal). Bibliometrics are being increasingly used as a way to systematically compare diverse entities (authors, research groups, institutions, cities, countries, disciplines, articles, journals, etc.) in a variety of contexts. These include an author deciding where to publish, a librarian working on changes in their library’s holdings, a policy maker planning funding budgets, a research manager putting together a research group, a publisher or Editor benchmarking their journal to competitors, etc.

Enter the Impact Factor

In this perspective, journal metrics can play an important role for Editors and we know it’s a topic of interest because of the high attendance at our recent webinar on the subject. There are many different metrics available and we always recommend looking at a variety of indicators to yield a bibliometric picture that is as thorough as possible, providing insights on the diverse strengths and weaknesses of any given journal¹. However, we are well aware that one metric in particular seems to be considered especially important by most Editors: the Impact Factor. Opinions on the Impact Factor are divided, but it has now long been used as a prime measure in journal evaluation, and many Editors see it as part of their editorial duty to try to raise the Impact Factor of their journal².

An Editor’s dilemma

There are various techniques through which this can be attempted, some more ethical than others, and it is an Editor’s responsibility to stay within the bounds of ethical behavior in this area. It might be tempting to try to improve one’s journal’s Impact Factor ranking at all costs, but Impact Factors are only as meaningful as the data that feed into them³: if an Impact Factor is exceedingly inflated as a result of a high proportion of gratuitous self-citations, it will not take long for the community to identify this (especially in an online age of easily accessible citation data). This realisation can be damaging to the reputation of a journal and its Editors, and might lead to a loss of quality manuscript submissions to the journal, which in turn is likely to affect the journal’s future impact. The results of a recent survey⁴ draw attention to the frequency of one particularly unethical editorial activity in business journals: coercive citation requests (Editors demanding authors cite their journal as a condition of manuscript acceptance).

Elsevier’s philosophy on the Impact Factor
“Elsevier uses the Impact Factor (IF) as one of a number of performance indicators for journals. It acknowledges the many caveats associated with its use and strives to share best practice with its authors, editors, readers and other stakeholders in scholarly communication. Elsevier seeks clarity and openness in all communications relating to the IF and does not condone the practice of manipulation of the IF for its own sake.”

This issue has already received some attention from the editorial community in the form of an editorial in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology⁵. Although some Elsevier journals were highlighted in the study, our analysis of 2010 citations to 2008-2009 scholarly papers (replicating the 2010 Impact Factor window using Scopus data) showed that half of all Elsevier journals have less than 10% journal self-citations, and 80% of them have less than 20% journal self-citations. This can be attributed to the strong work ethic of the Editors who work with us, and it is demonstrated through our philosophy on the Impact Factor (see text box on the right) and policy on journal self-citations (see text box below): Elsevier has a firm position against any ‘Impact Factor engineering’ practices.

So, what is the ethically acceptable level of journal self-citations?

There are probably as many answers to this question as there are journals. Journal self-citation rates vary between scientific fields, and a highly specialised journal is likely to have a larger proportion of journal self-citations than a journal of broader scope. A new journal is also prone to a higher journal self-citation rate as it needs time to grow in awareness amongst the relevant scholarly communities.

Elsevier’s policy on journal self-citations
“An editor should never conduct any practice that obliges authors to cite his or her journal either as an implied or explicit condition of acceptance for publication. Any recommendation regarding articles to be cited in a paper should be made on the basis of direct relevance to the author’s article, with the objective of improving the final published research. Editors should direct authors to relevant literature as part of the peer review process; however, this should never extend to blanket instructions to cite individual journals. […] Part of your role as Editor is to try to increase the quality and usefulness of the journal. Attracting high quality articles from areas that are topical is likely the best approach. Review articles tend to be more highly cited than original research, and letters to the Editor and editorials can be beneficial. However, practices that ‘engineer’ citation performance for its own sake, such as forced self-citation are neither acceptable nor supported by Elsevier.”

As mentioned in a Thomson Reuters report on the subject: “A relatively high self-citation rate can be due to several factors. It may arise from a journal’s having a novel or highly specific topic for which it provides a unique publication venue. A high self-citation rate may also result from the journal having few incoming citations from other sources. Journal self-citation might also be affected by sociological factors in the practice of citation. Researchers will cite journals of which they are most aware; this is roughly the same population of journals to which they will consider sending their own papers for review and publication. It is also possible that self-citation derives from an editorial practice of the journal, resulting in a distorted view of the journal’s participation in the literature.”⁶

Take care of the journal and the Impact Factor will take care of itself

There are various ethical ways an Editor can try to improve the Impact Factor of their journal. Through your publishing contact, Elsevier can provide insights as to the relative bibliometric performance of keywords, journal issues, article types, authors, institutes, countries, etc., all of which can be used to inform editorial strategy. Journals may have the options to publish official society communications, guidelines, taxonomies, methodologies, special issues on topical subjects, invited content from leading figures in the field, interesting debates on currently relevant themes, etc., which can all help to increase the Impact Factor and other citation metrics. A high quality journal targeted at the right audience should enjoy a respectable Impact Factor in its field, which should be a sign of its value rather being an end in itself. Editors often ask me how they can raise their journal’s Impact Factor, but the truth is that as they already work towards improving the quality and relevance of their journal, they are likely to reap rewards in many areas, including an increasing Impact Factor. And this is the way it should be: a higher Impact Factor should reflect a genuine improvement in a journal, not a meaningless game that reduces the usefulness of available bibliometric measures.

References

¹ Amin, M & Mabe, M (2000), “Impact Factors: use and abuse”, Perspectives in Publishing, number 1

² Krell, FK (2010), “Should editors influence journal impact factors?”, Learned Publishing, Volume 23, issue 1, pages 59-62, DOI:10.1087/20100110

³ Reedijk, J & Moed, HF (2008), “Is the impact of journal impact factors decreasing?”, Journal of Documentation, Volume 64, issue 2, pages 183-192, DOI: 10.1108/00220410810858001

⁴ Wilhite, AW & Fong, EA, (2012) “Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing”, Science, Volume 335, issue 6068, pages 542–543, DOI: 10.1126/science.1212540

⁵ Cronin, B (2012), “Do me a favor”, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, early view, DOI: 10.1002/asi.22716

⁶ McVeigh, M (2002), "Journal Self-Citation in the Journal Citation Reports – Science Edition"

Author Biography

Sarah Huggett

Sarah Huggett
PUBLISHING INFORMATION MANAGER, RESEARCH & ACADEMIC RELATIONS
As part of the Scientometrics & Market Analysis team, Sarah provides strategic and tactical insights to colleagues and publishing partners, and strives to inform the bibliometrics debate through various internal and external discussions. Her specific interests are in communication and the use of alternative metrics such as SNIP and usage for journal evaluation. After completing an M. Phil in English Literature at the University of Grenoble (France), including one year at the University of Reading (UK) through the Erasmus programme, Sarah moved to the UK to teach French at Oxford University before joining Elsevier in 2006.

Tom Reller | Vice President of Global Corporate Relations, Elsevier

This article originally appeared in Elsevier Connect

Yesterday, Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch reported that Elsevier Editorial System (EES), our online platform for managing the submission and peer-review process, had been hacked in November. His article, “Elsevier editorial system hacked, reviews faked, 11 retractions follow,” is an accurate account of what happened and a good example of the positive role Retraction Watch can play in monitoring the scientific literature.The Retraction Notices posted by the Elsevier journals themselves provided details about the falsified reports:

A referee’s report on which the editorial decision was made was found to be falsified. The referee’s report was submitted under the name of an established scientist who was not aware of the paper or the report, via a fictitious EES account. Because of the submission of a fake, but well-written and positive referee’s report, the Editor was misled into accepting the paper based upon the positive advice of what he assumed was a well-known expert in the field. This represents a clear violation of the fundamentals of the peer-review process, our publishing policies, and publishing ethics standards. The authors of this paper have been offered the option to re-submit their paper for legitimate peer review.

What happened here is that in late October, one of the editors of Optics & Laser Technology (JOLT) alerted our EES team that reviewers for two of his assigned submissions had been invited but not by him. Our team immediately launched an investigation and discovered that someone had been able to retrieve the EES username and password information for this editor

Fake reviews are becoming an increasingly challenging issue for publishers, but one we’re prepared to confront. We participated in a story in The Chronicle of Higher Education back in September, also stemming from someone creating fake reviewer accounts. In that case, the editors noticed the reviews were coming in from emails with generic email contacts (i.e., yahoo or gmail) and not institutional emails. Here, it was clear the author himself had created the fake reviewer accounts.

What is Elsevier doing to protect EES users?

We regularly conduct an audit of EES tools and processes to determine where improvements can be made. The major recommendations from the most recent audit prompted a security change that was introduced: User Profile Consolidation. Consolidated profiles in EES are protected from the malicious use that occurred in this scenario because the registered user has total control over the personal information in the user profile. More information about the benefits of User Profile Consolidation can be found on this Profile Consolidation FAQ.

In July, we ran a pilot to make user profile consolidation in EES available to almost 1,000 “very active” users. The first pilot was successful, with 90 percent of these pilot users consolidating approximately 4,000 entitlements. Pilot users were surveyed for feedback on the process, including level of effort, provision of help and support. This pilot ran for 10 weeks, and the process itself, the supporting documentation and the communication was improved prior to introducing a second pilot on October 10. This second pilot introduced user profile consolidation for 16,500 additional users and has also proven to be very successful.

After the successful pilots, user profile consolidation became available to all users on December 3.  Elsevier encourages all EES users to complete this process as soon as possible; we’ve already seen more than100,000 unique users consolidate their accounts. In the coming weeks, we will proactively support larger numbers of frequent users through this process as necessary.

In addition to User Profile Consolidation, we have implemented other changes that were recommended by Elsevier’s internal Security and Data Protection team, not all of which would be wise for us to discuss publicly. It has also been suggested that the new ORCID program also has the potential to reduce this type of fraud.

The challenge for us is not so different from that of other companies, and that’s finding the right balance between security control and customer ease of use. One result of this is that editors may have to do more to keep their accounts safe — much like people have to do more to access their online bank accounts —though clearly, there are differences here. Another important aspect of fraud detection in academic publishing is that no matter how strong we make protocols and controls, there is always going to be a human element – a role for editors and publishers to flag when something looks out of line.

Scientific fraud and misconduct is a growing concern in the scientific community and is something Elsevier contributes a significant amount of resources to confront. That includes an information security team that is acutely aware of the risks and vulnerabilities of any online system. The reality today is that hacking and spoofing can and will occur, though here we believe we acted quickly, the impact is minimal and that we have taken the necessary steps to eliminate the threat posed, at least through this method.

We’ll be paying close attention to the discussion surrounding this incident and will try to address any questions that arise.

Hannah Foreman | Head of Researcher Relations, Elsevier

Registrations are now open for two live webinars, developed in response to feedback from our Editors. Below you can find out more about the topics on offer and click through to our registration forms.

Publishing ethics: how Elsevier can help

This webinar touches on Elsevier’s publishing ethics program for Editors, including expert advice on interpreting CrossCheck reports and the chance to pose questions to Elsevier’s General Counsel.

Questions can be pre-submitted during the registration process and there will also be a live Q&A during the webinar.

Date:   Tuesday 28 May, 2013
Time:    Amsterdam: 16.00 / London: 15.00 / New York: 10.00 / Beijing: 22.00 
Duration:  75 minutes

Find out more and register

Traditional journal bibliometrics meets newcomer altmetrics

Altmetrics is a movement that Elsevier is fully engaged with. But why is it important for your journal? What are the correlations between traditional bibliometrics vs. article altmetrics? What do you need to know when following, comparing and consuming the value of altmetrics in your field?

Questions can be pre-submitted during the registration process and there will also be a live Q&A during the webinar.

Date:   Tuesday 11 June 2013
Time:    Amsterdam: 16.00 / London: 15.00 / New York: 10.00 / Beijing: 22.00 
Duration:  60 minutes

Find out more and register