EASE

Tag: research ethics

  • REWARD | EQUATOR Conference 2020

    Abstract submission for the REWARD | EQUATOR Conference 2020 being held in Berlin, Germany 20-22 February 2020, is now open.

    The conference will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement from the perspective of ethics committees, regulators, publishers, institutions, researchers, and funders; with the emphasis on new methods for measuring and testing interventions and possible solutions. More information about the programme, themes and speakers is available here.

    The deadline for abstract submission is the 15th September. All submissions will be reviewed by the programme committee and two independent reviewers. Work should address novel solutions to research waste, or methodological advances in measurement of research outputs or evaluation of strategies to improve research. Priority will be given to research which was planned on the basis of a systematic review; which is pre-registered; and for which full study datasets are available in the public domain.

    Click here to jump to the abstract submissions page.

  • The 2nd PEERE International Conference on Peer Review 2020

    Following the success of their first peer review conference in 2018, the PEERE COST Action follow-up community organises the second edition of the PEERE International Conference on Peer Review, to be held in Valencia on 11-13 March, 2020.

    The conference aims to provide a forum for scholars, practitioners and science stakeholders to share research, models, tools and experience on peer review in different fields, e.g., medicine, computer science, social sciences and humanities. It aims to stimulate the use of evidence-based research in the design and implementation of peer review in a variety of fields and encourage more systematic research.

    The conference welcomes any contribution (e.g., original research, position papers, literature reviews) that uses any method (e.g., quantitative, experimental or qualitative) to investigate peer review in a variety of scientific domains (e.g., scholarly journals, funding agencies, research assessment). Interdisciplinary research is especially welcome.

    Important dates
    15 November 2019: Abstract & paper submission deadline
    10 January 2020: Notification to authors
    11-13 March 2020: Conference in Valencia

    Conference website: http://www.peere.org/conference/

    Main topics of interest
    The topics of interest to the conference include, but are not limited to:
    • Quantitative and qualitative analysis of peer review in scholarly journals, funding agencies and research assessment
    • Estimating editorial and reviewer bias
    • The impact of different peer review models (single vs. double blind, confidential vs. open etc.) on reviewer attitudes and editorial decisions
    • Incentives, motivation and recognition in peer review
    • Social network analysis of peer review and editorial policy
    • Models and theories of peer review: principles, functions and management
    • Computer simulation studies of peer review dynamics and outcomes
    • Applications of bibliometrics, altmetrics and scientometrics to peer review
    • Perspectives from policy makers, grant funding agencies, libraries and publishers
    • Peer review outside academia (e.g., private companies, public sector, online communities)

    Submission
    We encourage two types of submissions: full papers, 10 to 12 pages, single column, max 8000 words or extended abstracts,3 to 4 pages, single column. Submissions should include title, author(s), including affiliations and corresponding author address, abstracts (in case of full papers), keywords, text (including tables and figures) and references.

    Submissions will be judged on their originality, significance, clarity, relevance, and technical correctness. Each submission will be peer -reviewed by at least two programme committee members.

    External reviewers will be used in case of lack of expertise of the programme committee members.

    The peer review process will follow a single-blind procedure.

    To manage submissions, we use Easychair. To submit, please click on this link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=peerewic2020.

    The submission deadline is 15 November 2019 and the deadline for acceptance notification is 10 January 2020.

    For any information, please, contact us here.

    Program committee chairs
    Francisco Grimaldo (University of Valencia, Spain)
    Flaminio Squazzoni (University of Milan, Italy)
    Ana Marusic (University of Split School of Medicine, Croatia)

  • How deep does the misreporting rabbit-hole go?

    A new paper from Ben Goldacre and nine colleagues has been published in BMC journal Trials, examining discrepancies between pre-specified and reported outcomes.

    The paper, titled COMPare: a prospective cohort study correcting and monitoring 58 misreported trials in real time documents the extent to which misreporting occurs in published papers in five journals endorsing Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT): New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, and Annals of Internal Medicine)

    The study assessed all trials over a six-week period to identify every correctly and incorrectly reported outcome. The group attempted to determine whether correction letters could be published for every misreported trial and tracked the responses from journal editors to understand why outcome misreporting persists despite public commitments to address it.

    The authors declare this “the first empirical study of major academic journals’ willingness to publish a cohort of comparable and objective correction letters on misreported high-impact studies.”

    The paper suggests interventions to improve the effectiveness of dealing with misreporting, such as; changes to correspondence processes, post-publication peer review, changes to CONSORT’s mechanisms for enforcement, and strategies for research on methods and reporting.

    The implication here is that such a severe problem in the top medical journals may indicate a much worse problem in others that don’t have the resources of these titles.

    Goldacre et al. COMPare: a prospective cohort study correcting and monitoring 58 misreported trials in real time. Trials (2019) 20:118
    https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3173-2

  • 6th World Conference on Research Integrity programme details

    The WCRI is the largest and most significant international conference on research integrity. Since the first conference in Lisbon in 2007 it has given researchers, teachers, funding agencies, government officials, journal editors, senior administrators, and research students opportunities to share experiences and to discuss and promote integrity in research.

    The 6th World Conference on Research Integrity will be held on June 2-5, 2019 in Hong Kong.

    The programme of plenary sessions and symposia for the event is taking shape, with the current list of topics listed on the website as follows:

    Plenary Sessions

  • Asia in focus: Recent advances in fostering research integrity
  • Assessment of research and researchers
  • Diversity and inclusion are research integrity challenges
  • Integrity in innovation and impact
  • Predatory journals and open data
  • Solutions that make a difference
  • The roles of funding agencies in shaping responsible research practices

    • Focus Tracks

  • How can we improve organizational assessment of researchers?
  • Ensuring integrity in innovation and impact

    • Symposia 

  • Are preprints beneficial or harmful for research integrity and publication ethics?
  • Essential areas for better peer review
  • Fostering research integrity and social relevance of research findings
  • Institutional challenges in integrity education
  • Misdirected allegations of breaches of research integrity
  • New ideas to promote transparency in research
  • Sharing industry data

    • Many of these sessions have speaker details and abstracts available, including the ‘Solutions that make a difference’ plenary session, which will feature EASE ex-President Ana Marušić speaking about the Embassy of Good Science, an internet platform for sharing knowledge and experiences in research integrity.

    Among many of the speakers confirmed, Michael Willis and Elizabeth Moylan (Wiley) will explore five essential areas to improve practice in research peer review: integrity, ethics, fairness, usefulness and timeliness; Robert-Jan Smits Open Access Envoy of the European Commission, who has played a senior role in the development of PlanS, will sit on a panel to discuss predatory publishing with Bhushan Patwardhan, Vice-Chairman of the University Grants Commission in New Delhi, and Deborah Poff, of COPE; David Moher (University of Ottowa) and Frank Miedema (UMC Utrecht) will be discussing the institutional assessment of researchers, academic leadership and the transition to open science; and Michele Garfinkel of EMBO will chair a panel addressing researcher and institutional roles in resolving (and accepting) diverse views of responsible conduct of research.

    There are many more details of the event available on the WCRI website, and registration is now open with reduced fees on offer until 1st March 2019.

    http://wcri2019.org/

  • Most popular ESE articles in August

    A look at the top five most read papers from our journal European Science Editing in the month of August.

    A peer review card exchange gameRužica Tokalić & Ana Marušic
    Issue 44(3) August 2018. Original Article
    http://europeanscienceediting.eu/articles/a-peer-review-card-exchange-game/
    Introduction: Peer review aims to ensure the quality of research and help journal editors in the publication process. COST action PEERE, which explores peer review, including its efficiency, transparency and accountability, organised a peer review school endorsed by EASE. We developed a card exchange game based on responsibility and integrity in peer review for a hands-on training session.
    Methods: We used the approach for the development of training materials about responsible research and innovation developed by the HEIRRI project, and the principles of the card game for the popularisation of the philosophy of science.
    Results: We created 32 card statements about peer review, distributed across 6 domains: Responsiveness, Competence, Impartiality, Confidentiality, Constructive criticism and Responsibility to science. We adapted the instructions for the game and tested the game during the peer review school at the University of Split School of Medicine, Croatia, May 2018. The feedback by the participants was very positive.
    Conclusions: The Peer Review Card Exchange Game could be used as an introductory activity for teaching integrity and ethics in peer review training.

    “How did researchers get it so wrong?” The acute problem of plagiarism in Vietnamese social sciences and humanities
    Quan-Hoang Vuong
    Issue: 44(3) August 2018. Essays
    http://europeanscienceediting.eu/articles/how-did-researchers-get-it-so-wrong-the-acute-problem-of-plagiarism-in-vietnamese-social-sciences-and-humanities/
    This paper presents three cases of research ethics violations in the social sciences and humanities that involved major educational institutions in Vietnam. The violations share two common points: the use of sophistry by the accused perpetrators and their sympathisers, and the relative ease with which they succeeded unpunished. The strategies the violators used to avoid punishment could be summarised as: (i) relying on people not paying enough attention when asked to do something relatively quickly, (ii) asking for the benefit of the doubt, (iii) redefining the meaning of ethics, and (iv) defaming the whistleblowers and showing how fighting ethics violations is too costly, slow and, in the end, worthless. We offer suggestions to improve transparency: investment in translation and education about codes of conduct in Vietnam; investment in research ethics and integrity; the use of open online resources and platforms; and educating Vietnamese researchers about international standards.

    3D or 3-D: a study of terminology, usage and style
    Andrew J. Woods
    Issue: 39(3) August 2013.Original articles
    http://europeanscienceediting.eu/articles/3d-or-3-d-a-study-of-terminology-usage-and-style/
    The terms “3D” and “3-D” are two alternative acronyms for the term “three-dimensional”. In the published literature both variants are commonly used but what is the derivation of the two forms and what are the drivers of usage? This paper surveys the published stereoscopic literature and examines publication-style policies to understand forces and trends

    My life as an editor – John Loadsman
    Ksenija Baždarić
    Issue: 44(3) August 2018.My Life as an Editor
    http://europeanscienceediting.eu/articles/my-life-as-an-editor-john-loadsman/
    No abstract

    How do authors feel when they receive negative peer reviewer comments? An experience from Chinese biomedical researchers
    Kakoli Majumder
    Issue: 42(2) May 2016. Original articles
    http://europeanscienceediting.eu/articles/how-do-authors-feel-when-they-receive-negative-peer-reviewer-comments-an-experience-from-chinese-biomedical-researchers/
    Background: Peer review is at the heart of academic publishing and has long been instrumental in bringing good science to the forefront. Peer reviewer comments provide authors with valuable suggestions to improve their manuscript; thus, even a rejected manuscript with constructive reviewer comments is highly valuable. However, peer reviewer comments can sometimes be negative, rather than constructive, damaging authors’ motivation and confidence levels.
    Objective: This study aims to make editors and peer reviewers aware of how negative reviewer comments can affect authors, and suggests ways to ensure that peer review is constructive.
    Methods: Through a discussion on DXY, an online community for biomedical researchers in China, authors were asked to share their experiences with negative reviewer comments; 99 participants responded. Separately, similar questions were posted on two other online communities, Academia Stack Exchange and Quora, yielding 11 responses. These responses were analyzed on the basis of their underlying emotion or message.
    Results: The authors’ responses indicate that they appreciate receiving constructive reviewer comments and benefit from such comments. However, authors are often demoralized when they receive comments that are superficial, harsh, or overcritical, and do not provide constructive suggestions for improvement.
    Conclusion: While it is true that peer review work claims a lot of time and energy from busy scientists, the purpose is lost when reviewer comments are purely negative. If peer reviewers could keep in mind the feelings of authors while drawing up their reports, peer review would become more effective and a more positive experience for authors.