COVID-19 Pandemic and Research Publications; Necessity of Maintaining Scientific Integrity

Authors

  • D Qaiser International Annals of Science

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21467/ias.10.1.1-6

Abstract

Since the COVID-19 outbreak began in China, scientists and health professionals have rushed to understand and mitigate the threat, however, its root cause, spreading characteristic, effective way to control as well as therapeutical approaches are still a mystery and matter of scientific debate. In an effort to fight against this disease scientists also rushed for a global collaborative approach by sharing their findings so that others can use known information. In view of such emergency scientific journals took steps to expedite the peer review process for coronavirus-related manuscripts which poses another challenge of scientific integrity. Community attention on integrity brought another concern where many authors argue against the idea of peer-review exception which compromises high standard for quality in the name of crisis situations. In the space of eight months, the research community’s response to COVID-19 gives rise to a large volume of paper submission which required rigorous reviewing and of course huge amount of time however, it’s also time which demands fastest publication of the latest finding. To balance in scientific integrity of scholarly journal as well as crisis demand to expedite dissemination of known knowledge, AIJR took a unique approach for COVID-19 related manuscript submission to Int. Ann. Sci. only through AIJR preprints invitation. In this approach author shall post COVID-19 related articles to AIJR Preprints and if it seems suitable for further peer-reviewing, author will get invited to submit to Int. Ann Sci. otherwise author will be advised to improve the article with an updated version. In this way the latest finding can get disseminated immediately as a preprint and after submission to the journal it can undergo standard reviewing process to maintain the scientific integrity. Although invitation through preprints serves both purpose of fastest dissemination and the journal can maintain scientific integrity, preprint may have its own risk for sharing non-reviewed version which may include dishonest findings. The only way to make preprints a great place for accelerated publishing and minimize associated risk of sharing non-reviewed findings is that the authors, readers, and most importantly media reporters act in a vigilant manner by following the sharing responsibility and guidelines adhering to the highest ethical standards.

Keywords:

Editorial, Scientific Integrity, Preprint

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

F. Wu et al., “A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China,” Nature, vol. 579, no. 7798, pp. 265–269, Mar. 2020, doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2008-3.

“Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 isolate Wuhan-Hu-1, co - Nucleotide - NCBI.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MN908947 (accessed Sep. 03, 2020).

“Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 data hub,” NCBI Virus, 2020. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/virus/vssi/#/virus?SeqType_s=Nucleotide&VirusLineage_ss=Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), taxid:2697049 (accessed Sep. 01, 2020).

“Progress report on the coronavirus pandemic.,” Nature, vol. 584, no. 7821, p. 325, Aug. 2020, doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-02414-1.

K. Mizumoto, K. Kagaya, A. Zarebski, and G. Chowell, “Estimating the asymptomatic proportion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship, Yokohama, Japan, 2020,” Eurosurveillance, vol. 25, no. 10, p. 2000180, Mar. 2020, doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.10.2000180.

X. He et al., “Author Correction: Temporal dynamics in viral shedding and transmissibility of COVID-19 (Nature Medicine, (2020), 26, 5, (672-675), 10.1038/s41591-020-0869-5),” Nature Medicine. Nature Research, pp. 1–3, Aug. 07, 2020, doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-1016-z.

V. G. Puelles et al., “Multiorgan and Renal Tropism of SARS-CoV-2,” The New England journal of medicine, vol. 383, no. 6. NLM (Medline), pp. 590–592, Aug. 06, 2020, doi: 10.1056/NEJMc2011400.

H. Ledford, “Coronavirus breakthrough: dexamethasone is first drug shown to save lives,” Nature, vol. 582, no. 7813. NLM (Medline), p. 469, Jun. 01, 2020, doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-01824-5.

H. Ledford, “Hopes rise for coronavirus drug remdesivir,” Nature, Apr. 2020, doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-01295-8.

H. Ledford, “Evidence lags behind excitement over blood plasma as a coronavirus treatment,” Nature, Aug. 2020, doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-02324-2.

D. F. Gudbjartsson et al., “Humoral Immune Response to SARS-CoV-2 in Iceland,” N. Engl. J. Med., p. NEJMoa2026116, Sep. 2020, doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2026116.

J. Brock, “New initiative cuts initial peer review to days, not months, for coronavirus research | Nature Index,” Nature Index, 2020. https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/rapid-registered-report-coronavirus-aims-to-stop-researchers-following-false-research-leads (accessed Sep. 01, 2020).

A. A. Bahishti, “Peer Review : Critical Process of a Scholarly Publication,” J. Mod. Mater., vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1.1-1.2, Oct. 2016, doi: 10.21467/jmm.2.1.1.1-1.2.

A. Palayew, O. Norgaard, K. Safreed-Harmon, T. H. Andersen, L. N. Rasmussen, and J. V. Lazarus, “Pandemic publishing poses a new COVID-19 challenge,” Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 4, no. 7. Nature Research, pp. 666–669, Jul. 01, 2020, doi: 10.1038/s41562-020-0911-0.

A. J. London and J. Kimmelman, “Against pandemic research exceptionalism,” Science (80-. )., vol. 368, no. 6490, pp. 476 LP – 477, May 2020, doi: 10.1126/science.abc1731.

N. Di Girolamo and R. Meursinge Reynders, “Characteristics of scientific articles on COVID-19 published during the initial 3 months of the pandemic,” Scientometrics, pp. 1–18, Jul. 2020, doi: 10.1007/s11192-020-03632-0.

L. Vogel, “How can the scientific community ensure the integrity of COVID-19 research?,” CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l’Association medicale canadienne, vol. 192, no. 28. NLM (Medline), pp. E817–E818, Jul. 13, 2020, doi: 10.1503/cmaj.1095881.

“Retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers – Retraction Watch.” https://retractionwatch.com/retracted-coronavirus-covid-19-papers/ (accessed Sep. 01, 2020).

“ENRIO Statement: Research integrity even more important for research during a pandemic - ENRIO.” http://www.enrio.eu/enrio-statement-research-integrity-even-more-important-for-research-during-a-pandemic/ (accessed Sep. 01, 2020).

G. Citerio et al., “Critical care journals during the COVID-19 pandemic: challenges and responsibilities,” Intensive Care Medicine, vol. 46, no. 8. Springer, pp. 1521–1523, Aug. 01, 2020, doi: 10.1007/s00134-020-06155-7.

The Lancet Editors, “Expression of concern: Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis,” The Lancet, vol. 395, no. 10240. Lancet Publishing Group, p. e102, Jun. 13, 2020, doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31290-3.

“Paper blaming COVID-19 on 5G technology withdrawn – Retraction Watch.” https://retractionwatch.com/2020/07/26/paper-blaming-covid-19-on-5g-technology-withdrawn/ (accessed Sep. 02, 2020).

R. J. Dinis-Oliveira, “COVID-19 research: pandemic versus ‘paperdemic’, integrity, values and risks of the ‘speed science,’” Forensic Sci. Res., vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 174–187, Apr. 2020, doi: 10.1080/20961790.2020.1767754.

“Publishing Coronavirus Research Paper » Submit COVID-19 Articles.” https://www.aijr.in/publishing-coronavirus-research-paper/ (accessed Sep. 04, 2020).

N. Bagdasarian, G. B. Cross, and D. Fisher, “Rapid publications risk the integrity of science in the era of COVID-19,” BMC Med., vol. 18, no. 1, p. 192, Jun. 2020, doi: 10.1186/s12916-020-01650-6.

Downloads

Published

2020-09-04

Issue

Section

Editorial

How to Cite

[1]
D. Qaiser, “COVID-19 Pandemic and Research Publications; Necessity of Maintaining Scientific Integrity”, Int. Ann. Sci., vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1–6, Sep. 2020.