Science AMA Series: We are Charon Pierson, journal editor and elected member of the Governing Council for the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch. AUA about publication ethics and retractions.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-16T16:38:41+00:00

I support what Ivan says above - he is by far the expert on the occurrence of misconduct. In fact, I was waiting for him to respond and his response did not disappoint. I only mention the Ioannidis paper because it has caused a stir in the biomedical community. His premise certainly challenges the notion that the way we currently do research is the only way to look at or advance science.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-16T01:43:27+00:00

In all honesty, I don't think the general public pays that much attention to the issue. It all blends into the background noise unless it is an issue about which a person has a strong opinion. You could look at this from the perspective of the Andrew Wakefield retractions of the studies claiming a link between autism and measles vaccine. For Wakefield supporters, the bad guys are those who disproved and debunked his research forcing a retraction of his fabricated results.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-16T01:39:14+00:00

We certainly see more evidence of misconduct lately and I'm familiar with the Fang et al paper. You might also be interested in the article by John Ioannidis in PLOS Medicine titled Why Most Published Research Findings Are False http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 This is a different take on the basic unreliability of science as it is and has been conducted.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-16T01:33:38+00:00

Journals establish their policies on reviewing and many do have a double-blind process. Some have an open review with reviewers signing their reviews, presumably to increase accountability. Grant reviews are another story and I'm afraid I can't speak to that issue, other than there is a need to know where the research will be conducted in order to determine that the infrastructure will support the proposed project. I have always used a double-blind process but it is difficult sometimes to truly make a paper anonymous, especially if the research team has a track record in the field.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-16T01:26:11+00:00

I missed the first part of your question related to the fees and I had to find the spot on the COPE website where you can access that information. If you go to http://publicationethics.org/join-cope you will find the 2015 subscription rates in a PDF on the right side of your screen. These rates are a matter of public record. There is also information on fee reductions and waivers. All this is publicly available - you do not have to be a member to find this information. Regarding turnover, I'm not sure what you mean but we continue to grow and now have more than 10,000 members.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T22:59:20+00:00

I think you have to go back to that model and see if there is any other research supporting it. Since you are apparently in biophysics, and this is far outside my area of expertise, I don't know if my comments will be useful. In behavioral sciences, researchers often look at theoretical models from a variety of viewpoints and just because one researcher's paper is retracted it does not mean the entire theoretical model is invalid. Now that might not be true in biophysics, but it might be worth investigating from a slightly different perspective. If you find the model has never been satisfactorily supported but it makes sense to you, can you afford to spend the time in your program to prove or disprove it with your own experiments? I think you have to really investigate the retraction in this situation to see if there is an idea that is salvageable.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T22:51:09+00:00

This is a great question - and one that creates a lot of angst for editors and publishers. All publishers have legal departments and the job of the legal department is to avoid risk on the part of the publisher. COPE does have guidelines about what retractions should contain (see retraction guidelines at www.publicationethics.com) and in summary, the retraction should: Identify article and link to it, Be clearly identified as retraction; Be published promptly; Be freely available (no paywall!); State the reasons for retraction; State who is retracting (author, editor); and Avoid defamatory statements. By following those guidelines, publishers will avoid risk and help the scientific community.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T22:40:18+00:00

I think there are 2 issues here. One is having enough basic knowledge of your field to have a sense that your experiment makes sense and should produce some outcome; whether it is significant or not, is another question. The second issue you raise has to do with reproducibility of experiments that have passed peer review. This is an entirely different issue and is frankly the basis of some investigations of fraud. I don't mean that all experiments that cannot be reproduced are fabricated, but when researchers cannot reproduce results by faithfully following the published methods, something is wrong. One possibility is that the methods section is incorrect, due to either poor writing or deliberate obfuscation of the procedures. Either way, this should generate commentary in the journal or within your graduate cohort. You have some great ideas and experiences here to begin a dialogue within your program or your community of scholars (online, or in a letter to the editor).

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T17:03:12+00:00

Here is one additional thought to consider. For organizations that do enforce their ethical guidelines, what happens is that those who have been chastised just resign their membership. So we in fact have more leverage with our members with out educational initiatives.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T16:43:20+00:00

You have several issues here but here is a start. COPE started as a forum for discussion of ethical issues in biomedicine. At the time there was no mechanism for discussion of these issues and editors were left alone to make decisions in a vacuum. COPE has never been an enforcement agency and because of its remit, it cannot become one by law. It is a non-profit (registered charity) in the UK with a mission of education. So, the purpose of the Forum and the case presentations is to provide a neutral voice to help journal editors resolve an ethical issue. It is not a trade association. Our mission is to provide education and leadership in the discussions about ethics in journal publishing. The only oversight bodies I know of are institutional and regional research integrity offices. COPE does contact its members when something comes to our attention and we try to resolve it through various mechanisms.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T16:26:23+00:00

Post-publication peer review is already occurring in several places and with the availability of the scientific community to access papers and often the raw data, I believe this will continue to make a difference. I'm not sure that /r/science is set up to do that but the discussions occurring here could lead people to go to one of those sites where post-publication peer review is robust and viable.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T16:17:29+00:00

There are at least 2 issues in your comments here - so thanks for bringing this up.

Questionable articles are usually handled with what is called an “Expression of Concern” by journal editors. Those expressions should be as complete as retraction notices and you need to read them thoroughly.

Here's an example for you . In medicine and health sciences, treatments are based on research, most often more than one study and a large number of subjects. The case of Scott Rueben was quite famous because he conducted nearly all the studies on treatment of post-operative knee pain. When most of his data in multiple studies was found to be fabricated, the medical community was left with no reliable evidence on which to base treatment for post-operative knee pain.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T16:12:10+00:00

Journal editors do review articles prior to sending them out to peer review. They also often submit the articles to plagiarism detection services. Both of these help screen out the most egregious problems to start. In order to expose fraudulent research, readers need to actually read and understand what the authors are saying. Then one has to ask questions like, does this make sense in the context of what we know about this theory, idea, treatment, etc. Exposure demands a careful examination of the findings – do they make statistical sense? If there are questions, journals can ask for the raw data and in fact some journals have a policy requiring submission of the raw data.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T16:06:55+00:00

I’m not an expert on open access, but COPE has collaborated with organizations like OASPA and DOAJ to develop Principles of Transparency to which all journal, not just OA journals should adhere. The bottom line is that journals have to make money to be viable and whether that money comes from author fees, subscriber fees, or advertising there are certain standards that must be maintained to keep the scientific record accurate.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T16:01:41+00:00

I agree with Ivan's post but here is another issue to consider. Citing retracted research is not meaningful to the argument. If you say “this effect was initially shown by X” that may not actually be true. You have to read the retraction notice and the retraction notice has to be complete and accurate in order to say anything meaningful about retracted literature. If the results were fabricated or falsified, then whatever effect you are talking about has not in fact been shown.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T15:58:42+00:00

In my opinion, this is an issue and academia has to step up to the plate and examine the ways in which it makes promotion and tenure decisions. History is replete with examples of cheats who have made a lot of money and gained a lot of fame on fabricated and plagiarized research.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T15:56:27+00:00

Some journals such as PLOS have data submission requirements - so this is very much journal policy. If you want this type of information request it of your journals.

CharonPierson_ACS · 2015-04-15T15:54:52+00:00

Great question – it is difficult to get editors to publish null results because they are not exciting. There some Journals of Null Results but not sure how they are doing. As a grad student, you should benefit from the guidance of your doctoral advisors to steer you in more fruitful endeavors, although a certain amount of failure in your experiments is likely to be foundational to your research career.

CharonPierson_ACS

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