Earlier this month, Nature published a well-received comment piece by an international group of authors entitled ‘Check for publication integrity before misconduct’ (Grey et al, 2020). The authors wanted to create a tool to enable researchers to spot potential problems with articles before they got too invested in the research, citing a number of recent examples of misconduct. The tool they came up with is a checklist called REAPPRAISED, which uses each letter to identify an area – such as plagiarism or statistics and data – that researchers should check as part of their workflow.
As a general rule for researchers, and as a handy mnemonic, the tool seems to work well, and undoubtedly authors using this as part of their research should avoid the potential pitfalls of using poorly researched and published work. Perhaps we at Cabells would argue that an extra ‘P’ should be added for ‘Predatory’, and the checks researchers should make to ensure the journals they are using and intend to publish in are legitimate. To do this comprehensively, we would recommend using our own criteria for the Cabells Journal Blacklist as a guide, and of course, using the database itself where possible.
The guidelines also raise a fundamental question for researchers and publishers alike as to where research ends and publishing starts. For many involved in academia and scholarly communications, the two worlds are inextricably linked and overlap, but are nevertheless different. Faculty members of universities do their research thing and write articles to submit to journals; publishers manage the submission process and publish the best articles for other academics to read and in turn use in their future research.
Journal editors seem to sit at the nexus of these two areas as they tend to be academics themselves while working for the publisher, and as such have feet in both camps. But while they are knowledgeable about the research that has been done and may actively research themselves, as editor their role is one performed on behalf of the publisher, and ultimately decides which articles are good enough to be recorded in their publication; the proverbial gatekeeper.
What the REAPPRAISED tool suggests, however, is that for authors the notional research/publishing divide is not a two-stage process, but rather a continuum. Only if authors embark on research intent on fully appraising themselves of all aspects of publishing integrity can they guarantee the integrity of their own research, and in turn this includes how and where that research is published. Rather than a two-step process, authors can better ensure the quality of their research AND publications by including all publishing processes as part of their own research workflow. By doing this, and using tools such as REAPPRAISED and Cabells Journal Blacklist along the way, authors can better take control of their academic careers.
Look before you leap!
A recent paper published in Nature has provided a tool for researchers to use to check the publication integrity of a given article. Simon Linacre looks at this welcome support for researchers, and how it raises questions about the research/publication divide.