Comments on: Journals Tackle Scientific Fraud http://www.sciscoop.com/2006-2-8-112517-3833.html Scooping up science news and dropping it on your desk Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:03:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: apsmith http://www.sciscoop.com/2006-2-8-112517-3833.html/comment-page-1#comment-1608 apsmith Wed, 08 Feb 2006 13:05:28 +0000 http://localhost/~arielschwartz/wordpress/sciscoop/?p=2768#comment-1608 I've just finished attending a scholarly publishing meeting here in DC, and this was indeed one of the topics covered - in a talk title "Still Safe at Any Speed?" by Brian Crawford of the American Chemical Society. He mentioned a number of technologies publishers may start looking at to try to automatically catch more of these things: <ul> <li> checking cited references (validity, relevance) <li> checking for deposited data (if that's a requirement of the publication, automatically ensure a URL provided contains what it should, of right sort and size of content etc) <li> plagiarism checks - looking for matching content in other articles <li> forensic image analysis, to catch "photoshopping" etc. <li> statistical analysis - looking for digit preferences (non-randomness) in the experimental numbers for instance <li> other tools to check experimental data validity. </ul> <p> It's sad we have to impose such things, but scientists are human too, and can be influenced by their own personal views and egos and interests. One problem specifically mentioned at the meeting was authors who don't disclose conflicts of interest in bio-medical clinical trials, that may favor a drug for instance that they have a financial interest in. Journals have definitely become a lot more aware of the problems recently. I’ve just finished attending a scholarly publishing meeting here in DC, and this was indeed one of the topics covered – in a talk title “Still Safe at Any Speed?” by Brian Crawford of the American Chemical Society. He mentioned a number of technologies publishers may start looking at to try to automatically catch more of these things:

  • checking cited references (validity, relevance)
  • checking for deposited data (if that’s a requirement of the publication, automatically ensure a URL provided contains what it should, of right sort and size of content etc)
  • plagiarism checks – looking for matching content in other articles
  • forensic image analysis, to catch “photoshopping” etc.
  • statistical analysis – looking for digit preferences (non-randomness) in the experimental numbers for instance
  • other tools to check experimental data validity.

It’s sad we have to impose such things, but scientists are human too, and can be influenced by their own personal views and egos and interests. One problem specifically mentioned at the meeting was authors who don’t disclose conflicts of interest in bio-medical clinical trials, that may favor a drug for instance that they have a financial interest in. Journals have definitely become a lot more aware of the problems recently.

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