Abstract
We discuss prior publication and redundancy in contemporary science in the context of changing perceptions of originality in the communication of research results. These perceptions have been changing in the publication realm, particularly in the last 15 years. Presenting a brief overview of the literature, we address some of the conflicts that are likely to arise between authors and editors. We illustrate our approach with conference presentations that are later published as journal articles and focus on a recent retraction of an article that had been previously published as a conference proceedings. Although we do not make definitive pronouncements on the matter—as many concepts are evolving—we do argue that conference papers that contain sufficient details for others to attempt a replication and are indexed in scientific databases such as PubMed, challenge some currently held assumptions of prior publication and originality in the sciences. Our view is that these important issues are in need of further clarification and harmonization within the science publishing community. This need is more evident when we consider current notions of research integrity when it comes to communication to peers. Revisiting long-standing views about what constitutes prior publication and developing a clearer set of guidelines for authors and editors to follow should reduce conflicts in the research environment, which already exerts considerable pressure, especially on newcomers in academia. However, while clearer guidelines are timely, developing them is only part of the challenge. The present times seem to call for deeper changes in the research and publication systems.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) (2006). ACM Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism (revised 2010). http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism_policy.
American Psychological Association. (2003). Open letter to authors for APA journals. http://www.apa.org/pubs/authors/openletter.pdf. Accessed July 26, 2014.
Andreescu, L. (2013). Self-plagiarism in academic publishing: The anatomy of a misnomer. Science and Engineering Ethics, 19, 775–797.
Angel, M., Kassirer, J.P. (1991). The ingelfinger rule revisited. New England Journal of Medicine, 325, 1371–1373.
Annesley, T. M., Boyd, J. C., & Rifai, N. (2009). Publication ethics: Clinical chemistry editorial standards. Clinical Chemistry, 55(1), 1–4. http://m.clinchem.org/content/55/1/1.full.pdf. Accessed July 28, 2014.
Biomed Central. (2014). Generally permissible and non-permissible forms of duplicate/overlapping publication. http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/duplicatepublication. Accessed July 1, 2014.
Bird, S. J. (2002). Self-plagiarism and dual and redundant publications: What is the problem? Science and Engineering Ethics, 8, 543–544.
Blaustein, R. (2014). Reproducibility undergoes scrutiny. Bioscience, 64, 368. http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org. Accessed July 27, 2014.
Bosch, X., Hernandéz, C., Pericas, J. M., Doti, P., & Marušić, A. (2012). Misconduct policies in high-impact biomedical journals. PLoS One, 7, e51928.
Bretag, T., & Mahmud, S. (2009). Self-plagiarism or appropriate textual re-use? Journal of Academic Ethics, 7, 193–205.
Bruton, S. V. (2014). Self-plagiarism and textual recycling: Legitimate forms of research misconduct. Accountability in Research, 21, 176–197.
Butler, D. (2010). Journals step up plagiarism policing. Nature, 466, 167.
Callaham, J. L. (2014). Creation of a moral panic? Self-plagiarism in the academy. Human Resource Development Review, 13, 3–10.
Collins, F. S., & Tabak, L. A. (2014). Policy: NIH plans to enhance reproducibility. Nature, 505, 612–613.
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (2013). Text recycling guidelines. http://publicationethics.org/text-recycling-guidelines. Accessed July 31, 2014.
Council of Biology Editors. (1968). Proposed definition of a primary publication. Newsletter Council of Biology Editors 1–2.
Council of Canadian Academies (2010). Honesty, accountability and trust: Fostering researchintegrity in Canada. http://www.scienceadvice.ca/uploads/eng/assessments%20and%20publications%20and%20news%20releases/research%20integrity/ri_report.pdf
Council of Science Editors. (2002). The Ingelfinger rule: Franz Ingelfinger at the New England Journal of Medicine 1967–77.
Dahlberg, J. (2007). ORI retains its working definition of plagiarism under new regulation. ORI Newsletter, 15, 4.
David, D. (2007). Free science versus inquisitional science: Where to go? Revista de Politica Stiintei si Scientometrie (Journal for the Policy of Science and Scientometrics), 5, 137–140.
David, D. (2008). Duplication spreads the word to a wider audience [Letter to the editor]. Nature, 452, 29.
Day, R. A. (1994). How to write and publish a scientific paper (4th ed., p. 9). Phoenix AZ: Oryx Press.
Editorial. (2010). Plagiarism pinioned. Nature, 466, 159–160.
Errami, M., & Garner, H. (2008). A tale of two citations. Nature, 451, 397–399.
Feynman, R. P. (1974). Cargo cult science. Engineering and Science, 37, 10–13.
Garfield, E. (June 7, 1999). Acknowledged web posting is not prior publication. The Scientist Magazine. http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/19464/title/Acknowledged-Web-Posting-Is-Not-Prior-Publication/. Accessed July 28, 2014.
Glick, J. L. (2012). Research integrity: Data audits could curb misconduct. Nature, 482, 308.
Horton, R. (1996). Ruling out Ingelfinger? The Lancet, 347, 1424.
Hvistendahl, M. (2013). China’s publication bazaar. Science, 342, 1035–1039.
ICMJE [International Committee of Medical Journal Editors]. (2014). Overlapping publications. Duplicate publications. http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/overlapping-publications.html. Accessed July 28, 2014.
IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]. (2011). http://www.ieee.org/documents/confprocdefined.pdf
Ingelfinger, F.J. (1970). Medical literature: The campus without tumult. Science, 169, 831–837.
Kravitz, R. L., & Feldman, M. D. (2010). From the editors’ desk: Self-plagiarism and other editorial crimes and misdemeanors. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 26, 1.
Kressel, H. Y. (2013). Changes for changing times. Radiology, 2661(1), 3–5.
Langdon-Neuner, E. (2009). When does previous disclosure become a “prior publication” problem? Chest, 135(1), 233–237. doi:10.1378/chest.08-1255.
Marcus, A. (2013). Should this engineering paper have been retracted? http://retractionwatch.com/2013/12/27/should-this-engineering-paper-have-been-retracted/. Accessed July 27, 2014.
Martin, B. (2013). Whither research integrity? Plagiarism, self-plagiarism and coercive citation in an age of research assessment. Research Policy, 42, 1005–1014.
Mendeley. (2014), Reproducibility initiative group. http://www.mendeley.com/groups/2473351/reproducibility-initiative/. Accessed June 28, 2014.
Merton, R. K. (1942) 1973. Science and technology in a democratic order. Journal of Legal and Political Sociology, 1, 115–126, 1942. Reprinted as The normative structure of science. In R.K. Merton, The sociology of science. Theoretical and empirical investigations (pp. 267–278). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mobley, A., Linder, S. K., Braeuer, R., Ellis, L. M., & Zwelling, L. (2013). A survey on data reproducibility in cancer research provides insights into our limited ability to translate findings from the laboratory to the clinic. PLoS One, 8, e63221.
Morse, J. M. (2007). Duplicate publication. Qualitative Health Research, 17, 1307–1308.
Neligan, P. J., Malhotra, G., Fraser, M., Williams, N., Greenblatt, E. P., et al. (2010). Retraction. Noninvasive ventilation immediately after extubation improves lung function in morbidly obese patients with obstructive sleep apnea undergoing laparoscopic bariatric surgery. Anesthesia and Analgesia, 111, 519.
Oransky, I. (2012). No small matter: ACS Nano journal growing alarmed by self-plagiarism. http://retractionwatch.com/2012/02/01/no-small-matter-acs-nano-journal-growing-alarmed-by-self-plagiarism/. Accessed July 27, 2014.
Price, J. H., Dake, J. A., & Islam, R. (2001). Selected ethical issues in research a publication: Perceptions of health education faculty. Health Education & Behavior, 28, 51–64.
PubPeer. https://pubpeer.com/. Accessed June 28, 2014.
Reich, E. S., & Myhrvold, C. L. (2013). Funding agencies urged to check for duplicate grants. Nature, 493, 588–589.
Rice, J., Augustyn, N., French, C. T., & Irwin, R. S. (2012). Plagiarism and self-plagiarism in scientific writing: An all-too-easy way to lose stature. Office of Research Integrity Newsletter, 20(2), 3–8.
Roig, M. (2010). Plagiarism and self-plagiarism: What every author should know. Biochemia Medica, 20, 295–300.
Roig, M. (2014). Journal editorials on plagiarism: What is the message? European Science Editing, 40, 58–59.
Saurin, T. A., Wachs, P., & Henriqson, E. (2013). Identification of non-technical skills from the resilience engineering perspective: A case study of an electricity distributor. Safety Science, 51, 37–48 (Retraction published 2014, Safety Science, 62 (2014) 538).
Science. (2014). The science contributors FAQ. http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/faq/#prior_faq
Science Translation Medicine. Informations for Authors. (N.D.). http://m.stm.sciencemag.org/site/about/edpolicy
Scientific Data. Editorial and Publishing Policies. (N.D.). Nature publishing group. http://www.nature.com/sdata/for-authors/editorial-and-publishing-policies#prior-pub.xhtml#prior-publication.
Stemwedel, J. D. (2011). Scientific credibility: Is it who you are, or how you do it? http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/doing-goodscience/2011/08/30/scientific-credibility-is-it-who-you-are-or-how-you-do-it/. Accessed July 27 2014.
Stretton, S., Bramich, N. J., Keys, J. R., Monk, J. A., Ely, J. A., et al. (2012). Publication misconduct and plagiarism retractions: A systematic, retrospective study. Current Medical Research and Opinion, 28, 1575–1583.
Swaan, P. W. (2010). Publication ethics—A guide for submitting manuscripts to pharmaceutical research. Pharmaceutical Research, 27(9), 1757–1758.
The Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). (2011). Directives for research integrity. http://www.cnpq.br/web/guest/diretrizes. Accessed July 27, 2014.
The Editorial Board. (1999). Policy on prior publication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 96, 8–4215. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC33553/. Accessed August 02, 2014.
Wachs, P., Righi, A. W., & Saurin, T. A. (2012). Identification of non-technical skills from the resilience engineering perspective: A case study of an electricity distributor. Work, 41, 3069–3076.
Wager, E., & Green, R. (2009). Lessons from a case of overlapping publications. Sexually Transmitted Infections, 85, 236–238.
Yank, V., & Barnes, D. (2003). Consensus and contention regarding redundant publications in clinical research: Cross-sectional survey of editors and authors. Journal of Medical Ethics, 29, 109–114.
Zhang, Y. H., & Jia, X. Y. (2013). Republication of conference papers in journals? Learned Publishing, 26, 189–196.
Ziman, J. (1996). Postacademic science: constructing knowledge with networks and norms. Science Studies, 9, 67–80.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
de Vasconcelos, S.M.R., Roig, M. Prior Publication and Redundancy in Contemporary Science: Are Authors and Editors at the Crossroads?. Sci Eng Ethics 21, 1367–1378 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-014-9599-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-014-9599-8