ELSEVIER Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics Instructions

ELSEVIER Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics

Specifications

• Product Name: Research Integrity & Publishing Ethics Guide
• Author: Dr. Olivia Nippe
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Publication Date: March 2023

Product Usage Instructions

• Authorship in research publications should adhere to the following criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE):
• Contribute substantially to conception, design, data acquisition, analysis, or interpretation
• Draft or critically revise the article for important intellectual content
• Approve the final version for publication
• Be accountable for all aspects of the work and research integrity
• Decisions on authorship and author order should be made upfront before starting to write the research.
• In case of authorship disputes, editors will require a written and signed agreement from all authors with justification.
• Potential outcomes may include delayed publication, rejection, or issuance of a corrigendum.
• Authors should comply with Elsevier’s policy on Generative AI, available on their Publishing Ethics page.
• Adjustments like brightness, contrast, and color balance are acceptable if they do not obscure original information.
• However, specific feature manipulation is not allowed. Manipulating images for clarity is fine, but other purposes may result in ethical issues.
• Forensic tools may be used to detect image irregularities in submissions.

FAQ

• Q: What are the consequences of a gift or purchase of authorship?
• A: Consequences may include retraction of the paper, notification to institutes/funding bodies, ineligibility for editorial boards, and inability to submit to the journal again.

Top 7 Ethics Pitfalls of Well-Intentioned Researchers

1. Matters of authorship
2. Non-compliance with Generative AI policies
3. Image Manipulation
4. Plagiarism & textual overlap
5. Citation manipulation
6. Duplicate submissions
7. Involvement with predatory journals

Authorship: Qualifications, Disputes, & Changes

Who is listed as an Author?

• A researcher completes her paper.

Author

• She consulted her advisor for guidance on the experiment, the data analysis, and writing and revising the final article.
• A professor at a different institution assisted her in analyzing the data only.

Acknowledgments

• A lab assistant helped her prepare the experimental design and maintained and operated the equipment.
• Two fellow grad students read her paper and edited it, though they had no hand in the experiment.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends authorship based on meeting all 4 criteria below:

1. Substantially contribute to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data
2. Draft the article or revise it critically for important intellectual content
3. Give their approval of the final version to be published
4. Agree to be held accountable for all aspects of the work to ensure all research integrity questions are investigated and resolved

First Authors (typically)

• Conducts and/or supervises data analysis and proper presentation and interpretation of results
• Puts paper together and submits

Co-Author(s)

• Makes intellectual contributions to data analysis and interpretation
• Review each paper draft
• Must be able to present the results, defend the implication, and discuss limitations

Decisions about who will be an author and the order of authors should be made before starting to write up your research.

Authorship Disputes

(including Ghost Authorship and author changes)

• Must be resolved by the Authors
• Editors cannot adjudicate or act as judge
• The editor may require a copy of internal investigations (e.g. from Institute officials)
• Editors will require written and signed agreement from all Authors with justification

Potential Outcomes

• Delayed Publication / Rejection
• Unresolved disputes are likely NOT retracted; rather Expressions of Concern
• Corrigendum issued pending Editor approval

Gift and purchase of Authorship may result in one or more of the following consequences

• Retraction of the paper
• Notification to institute and/or funding bodies
• Ineligibility to serve on Editorial Boards
• Inability to submit to the journal again

Compliance with Generative AI policies

Elsevier’s policy states that authors should

• Only use Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies to improve the readability and language of the work.
• Apply the technology with human oversight and control, as it can generate authoritative-sounding text that may be biased, incorrect, or incomplete.
• Disclose in their manuscript the use of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies.
• Not list Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author or cite AI as an author.

Policies are published on Elsevier’s Publishing Ethics page: https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/publishing-ethics. Further guidance can be found in the RELX Responsible AI Principles.

Image Manipulation

• Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original.
• It is not acceptable to enhance, obscure, move, remove, or introduce a specific feature within an image.
• Manipulating images for improved clarity is accepted, but manipulation for other purposes could be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly.

Image forensics tools/specialized software might be applied to submitted manuscripts to identify suspected image irregularities.

Plagiarism & Textual Overlap

Using another work (typically the work of another author) without permission, credit, or acknowledgment.

Outright plagiarism (verbatim plagiarism)

• Reproducing a work word for word, in whole or in part, without permission and acknowledgment of the original source.

Text recycling (self-plagiarism)

• Overlapping sections of text with an author’s own previously published work, often without attribution.

Paraphrasing

• Rephrasing text in your own words, without citing sources drawn upon.
• Copying phrases, passages, or ideas and then using synonyms to slightly modify before stitching them together to create new text is referred to as mosaic plagiarism.

Duplicate vs. Simultaneous Submissions

Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publications

• Manuscripts that describe essentially the same research and are published in more than one journal.
• Duplication of the same paper in multiple journals of different languages.
• “Salami Slicing”, or creating several publications from the same research.

To save time, can I submit my paper to more than one journal in parallel?

• No. Simultaneous submissions to more than one journal violate ethics policies.

What if I have shared my paper on a preprint server, would that be considered a duplicate publication?

• No. Elsevier allows responsible sharing on pre-print servers.

Citation Manipulation

• How many red flags do you see in this revision decision letter?
• Are you required to add in these references?
• No. As COPE recommends: “…any suggested citations…must advance the argument within the article.”
• “There can be circumstances…which may improve the quality of the paper, but these should not be a condition of acceptance.”

https://publicationethics.org/case/editor-and-reviewersrequiring-authors- cite-their-own-work.

Involvement with predatory journals

“Predatory publishing…refers to the systematic for-profit publication of purportedly scholarly content… deceptively or fraudulently and without any regard for quality assurance.”1

Commonly co-occurring features1

• Hidden or unclear author fees;
• The lack of quality peer review of articles by experts in the field;
• The guarantee of acceptance and/or very fast publication times (e.g. within one week or 48 hours).

Check the following for warning signs of “fake” journals

• Website
• Journal Name
• Peer Review Process
• Ownership & Management
• Editorial team/contact information
• Author fees
• Process for resolution of research misconduct
• Direct marketing

Questions?

Resources

• Equator Network Reporting Guidelines
• ICMJE Authorship
• Elsevier Declaration Tool (video)
• Elsevier Policy: Conflict of Interest, Declarations, etc.
• Competing Interests Factsheet
• Elsevier Policy: Generative AI use (Authors, Editors, Reviewers)
• RELX Responsible AI Principles
• STM Working Group on Image Alterations and Duplications: video training modules and resources
• COPE: Text Recycling

References

• Editor and reviewers requiring authors to cite their own work | COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics
• Video Guide: Using the Declaration Tool in Editorial Manager - Journal Article Publishing Support Center
• ICMJE | Recommendations | Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors

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