This item provides a useful discussion of whether we can credit as co-authors deceased peers who have made significant contributions to our development of an idea, but did not make a contribution to the research output. This can be an important discussion in how to appropriately credit deceased collaborators. We have included links to three related items.
Firms that sell co-authorship on papers accepted by reputable journals are likely turning over millions of pounds a year Paper
This is an academic integrity, rather than research integrity, story but we thought the numbers startling enough to include in our newsfeed. We also suspect that someone who has got away with cheating on an academic assignment by purchasing a paper from a paper from a paper mill is likely to be inclined to try the same cheat with a research output. As this piece discusses, there is no reason to believe this worrying situation is limited to one Australian University or that this problem is confined only to Australia. Academic institutions must have a strong policies with regards to paper mills and countries must also take serious stamps to try and tackle their use.
A title retracting a couple of papers at once isn’t a good look. 350 across two titles is devastating to their reputations. But it should be conceded the publisher has put integrity ahead of reputation for which they should be commended. It is a ‘good’ example of why institutional should have guidance about the perils and risks of using translation software rather than experienced translators – especially when translating a translsation. We have included links to nine related items.
Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine was illegal and unprovoked. We have been seeing war crimes being committed and an awful humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes. Many publishers and institutions have elected to not publish the work of Russian scientists. You might reasonably assume that is the impact this item would be discussing. Instead, this item is discussing omitting the institutional affiliation of authors, so as to conceal if a collaborator is based in Russia. Such behaviour is unacceptable and should be called out.
This interesting discussion highlights the importance of carefully selecting a Creative Commons license before you share your work, especially publicly online.
The African Research Integrity Network should be congratulated for this step, which will be especially helpful for research that involves collaboration between countries in the African continent. In our experience, Research Integrity programs are most effective when they are focussed on good practice, rather than the handling of research misconduct.
Abstract The proliferation of team-authored academic work has led to the proliferation of two kinds of authorship misconduct: ghost authorship,
