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<div class="content"> <div id="node-55631" class="node-resource node node-resource "> <div class="node-resource__body"> <div class="sidebar sidebar--offset"> <div class="sidebar__body"> <div class="node-resource__fields"> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><a id="top" name="top"></a><strong>September 2022</strong></p> <p>Watch the introduction to the topic "Ethical aspects of conference proceedings" with COPE Council member, Howard Browman.</p> <style type="text/css"> <![CDATA[/* ><!]]>*/ </style><div class="embedtool"> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FMzGd_1aBsE?rel=0"></iframe></div> <h2>COPE Forum discussion</h2> <p>Many COPE members publish both journals and books, and wonder what are the similarities and differences with conference proceedings. A number of these members reference COPE guidance on particular topics related to publication ethics.</p> <p>COPE would like to investigate further the nature of conference proceedings and answer key questions such as the scope and definition of conference proceedings, and how they have developed in recent years against the backdrop of major changes in scholarly publishing. Following COPE's mission, ethical aspects of conference proceedings will be the focus of the discussion.</p> <h3>What are we looking at when we talk about conference proceedings?</h3> <p>Conference proceedings cover a range of publication types, some of which are treated differently than book and journal publications, and others the same. Conference proceedings can be journals, special issues of journals, standalone books, book series or collections of summaries or abstracts. A comprehensive definition is difficult due to the range of forms and conventions that are used, but a working definition might be: Conference proceedings are a record of a conference, congress, symposium, or other similar academic meeting, often including abstracts, reports of papers or full text papers submitted by the participants and presented in a variety of forms such as books, journals, special issues or standalone publications.</p> <p>Conference proceedings are usually intended to: </p> <ul> <li>allow a community of researchers to engage with current research prior to publication or dissemination in another form. Like journal articles, they typically include findings, experiments, theory, best practices, or new methodologies</li> <li>allow researchers to explain their research in a less formal environment than peer reviewed journals. Proceedings publications will tend to reflect this lack of formality (but not always)</li> <li>allow researchers to present new concepts and methodologies in fields where they are a work in progress</li> <li>help researchers who are new to a field to connect with other researchers, research teams or institutions doing research on a specific topic.</li> </ul> <h3>Key differences between conference proceedings and books/journals</h3> <p>Some key differences between conference proceedings and books/journals are around the variety of forms and conventions, such that a proceeding can not only be a book or a journal and conform to the characteristics of those outputs, but can also include aspects outside books and journals such as dissemination limited to participants or content made up entirely of abstracts. </p> <p>The scope of the discussion on conference proceedings is defined by the following principles:</p> <ul> <li>conference proceedings should be regarded as publications that are important contributions to the scholarly record</li> <li>Only vetted (screened and/or peer reviewed) proceedings are included</li> <li>conference proceedings should originate from a meeting associated with a particular place/s (including online) and time</li> <li>editors or proceedings may rotate or change regularly, although there may be a more stable planning group</li> </ul> <h3>Questions for discussion</h3> <ol> <li>What are conference proceedings? How do they differ (if at all) from books or journals? Can a definition be agreed on that accurately and comprehensively encompasses them?</li> <li>Are proceedings subject to publication ethics to the same extent/equivalently as journals and books?</li> <li>Are most of the publication ethics issues the same in conference proceedings as in book or journal publishing (eg, plagiarism, authorship, ethics approval, consent, peer review standards, expressions of concern, retractions, conflicts of interest)?</li> <li>Are there ethical problems that are particular to conference proceedings (eg, how to retract a paper, summary or abstract from a proceeding?)</li> <li>What are the conventions around publishing in journals after including an abstract or full conference paper in a proceedings publication?</li> </ol> <h3>Comments from the COPE Forum, September 2022</h3> <p><em>NOTE, Comments do not imply formal COPE advice, or consensus</em></p> <ul> <li>Peer review practices for conference proceedings can differ considerably. Some conference committees use panels of reviewers who may make judgements simply on abstracts, or by scoring relative to other submissions rather than considering each submission on its own merits. Panel members may not be experts on the topic of each paper in the way that external reviewers for standard journal issues are and the review process often takes place during a limited time window. Others put submissions through multiple rounds of review both by the conference’s panel of experts and by the publisher’s editorial team in order to ensure standards that are comparable to a traditional journal issue. This can be a good way to signal good ethical practices, for example, when a proceedings journal is seeking inclusion on an indexing site. However, publishers approached with papers that have originated in conference proceedings may find it difficult to establish the nature and extent of the peer review applied and, thus, to decide whether they should be re-reviewed.</li> <li>Conference proceedings can take many forms, from short abstracts to multi-media presentations. There is also a growing number of conference proceeding journals which raises the profile of this topic, but also complicates decisions about their status relative to other journals.</li> <li>Publishers would benefit from guidance on their responsibility to check ethics approval in conference proceeding submissions. To do so would require a lot of effort, particularly when large numbers of abstracts are involved.</li> <li>There are no fixed guidelines on whether a publication in a conference proceeding can be published as a paper, or whether it needs to be significantly changed or extended first to avoid duplication or infringement of copyright. Potential criteria to judge this issue could be the inclusion of more analysis, or proportionate increase in length. A commonly applied rule of thumb is that the new submission be at least 30 per cent different from the conference proceeding paper. See the <a href="https://www.stm-assoc.org/intellectual-property/permissions/permissions-guidelines/guidelines-2022/">STM Permissions Guidelines (2022)</a> for alternative proposals.</li> <li>There is potential for conflicts of interest where the person reviewing the papers submitted for conference proceedings is also the editor of the publication. There is also the potential for conflicts of interest when the conveners of the conference are the editors of the proceedings.</li> <li>Many of the issues raised here are the same as those associated with special issues of journals where editorial decisions are made outside the journal’s full editorial team. Where outsourced or local teams are used they can apply different editorial and publication ethics standards than the norm for the journal. Publishers should engage in thorough vetting of editorial teams in both cases to try to eliminate these risks and may choose to have all submissions go through the Editor in Chief as well so that they can be confident that the publication conforms to the journal’s standards.</li> <li>Many publishers have separate editorial and conference teams which can make it difficult to set and maintain ethical standards, especially over potential duplication. Liaison between such teams should be encouraged, particularly over issues such as the length and detail of conference proceedings.</li> <li>There is considerable variety in the way that conference proceedings are viewed and handled in different disciplines. Publishers would benefit from more research on this topic. In some cases, conference proceedings are seen primarily as a repository for preliminary research findings while in others they are a desirable output subjected to full peer review.</li> <li>Sometimes the same or very similar papers can be published in proceedings from multiple conferences which is counter to usual expectations of publication ethics (duplicate-redundant publication) in journals more broadly.</li> <li>Authorship changes are more likely to occur between the author list in the conference proceedings and any subsequent submission to a journal. This requires careful enquiry by the editorial team to determine the legitimacy of the change in authorship. Publishers also need to consider whether a change in title or authorship is, in the absence of other differences, sufficient to eliminate duplicate publication.</li> <li>Conference proceedings are potentially vulnerable to activity from paper mills because of the volume of papers received and the possibility of a lighter peer review. Similar considerations apply to journal special issues, but the scale of conference proceedings can exacerbate the risk of being targeted and the work involved in investigating misconduct.</li> <li>Some conference proceedings are attached to journals with high impact factors, which makes them more desirable as publications. However, conference proceedings are now often indexed which has become the second most important factor for authors in selecting publication outlets. This further raises their profile within the scholarly community. More information on <a href="http://https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/archiving/tag-library/1.3d1/chapter/tag-cite-conf.html">JATS tagging and conference proceedings</a> from the National Library of Medicine.</li> <li>Where there is insufficient information about study design and meta-analysis in a conference proceeding it may be difficult for scholars to link reports of the same study. This can result in double counting when Cochrane-style literature surveys are being carried out. Publishers would benefit from advice on minimum standards of required information in publications in conference proceedings to avoid this lack of clarity.</li> <li>Individual submissions in conference proceedings will usually have their own DOI which is distinct from that of an eventual full publication in a journal.</li> </ul> <p><a href="#top">Back to top</a></p> <h3><a id="comments" name="comments"></a>Your comments </h3> <p>We welcome comments on this discussion from members and non-members. </p> <p>You must be logged in to leave a comment on the COPE website. If you are not a member of COPE you can register to <a href="https://publicationethics.org/user/register">create a non-member account</a>.</p> <p>Comments will not appear immediately. We review comments on our website before publishing them, to ensure they are respectful and relevant.</p> </div></div></div><ul class="links inline"><li class="comment_forbidden first last"><span><a href="/user/login?destination=node/55631%23comment-form">Login to your account</a> or <a href="/user/register?destination=node/55631%23comment-form">register</a><br>to post comments</span></li> </ul><div id="comments" class="comment-wrapper"> <h2 class="title">Comments</h2> <a id="comment-19046"></a> <section class="comment clearfix"> <ul class="attribution">  <li>Posted by <span class="username">S Khoo</span>, 27/9/2022 12.01am</li> </ul> <div class="comment-text"> <div class="comment-arrow"></div> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the discussion topic on ethical aspects of conference proceedings. This response is being provided on behalf of the UNSW Sydney Conduct and Integrity Office. The Conduct and Integrity Office is responsible for research integrity matters at UNSW. We regret not being able to attend the Forum on 27 September, but believe that ethical aspects of conference proceedings are of such importance that we would like to contribute.</p> <p>We suggest that there are three actions that COPE and its members can take with respect to conference proceedings:</p> <ol> <li>To clearly define what conference proceedings are.</li> <li>To apply the same codes of conduct and standards to conference proceedings that are applicable to other forms of scholarly communication.</li> <li>To encourage and facilitate the disclosure of conference proceedings when publishing journal articles or books.</li> </ol> <p>Our detailed response to the discussion questions is below and explains our rationale for each of these recommendations.</p> <p><strong>1. What are conference proceedings? How do they differ (if at all) from books or journals? Can a definition be agreed on that accurately and comprehensively encompasses them?</strong></p> <p>We suggest a clear definition of conference proceedings is required. There is currently ambiguity around the definition of conference proceedings and, for example, how they differ from conference abstracts or conference presentations. In the Australian context, explicit definitions that distinguish between conference papers, conference abstracts, and conference proceedings are absent from the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research. There are also significant variations between disciplines in how conferences are documented. In some disciplines, a conference program or abstract book may be published, while in other disciplines conference proceedings may more closely resemble an edited volume with full papers and editorial comment from conference organisers. Therefore, greater clarity in the definition of conference proceedings may be beneficial.</p> <p><strong>2. Are proceedings subject to publication ethics to the same extent/equivalently as journals and books?</strong></p> <p>We suggest that conference proceedings should be subject to the same research and publication ethics standards as other forms of scholarly communication. Within our institutional and national context, researchers are required to comply with the same Code and institutional policies when communicating and disseminating their research via conferences and associated proceedings. While conference proceedings are works in progress in many disciplines, we see no reason why they shouldn’t still be subject to the same criteria around authorship, conflict of interest disclosure, ethics approval, peer review standards (where applicable), and so on. Therefore, we suggest that conference proceedings should be subject to equivalent research and publication ethics standards as journals and books, having due regard for the nature and purpose of conference proceedings.</p> <p><strong>3. Are most of the publication ethics issues the same in conference proceedings as in book or journal publishing (eg, plagiarism, authorship, ethics approval, consent, peer review standards, expressions of concern, retractions, conflicts of interest)?</strong></p> <p>In our experience, conference proceedings are frequently the subject of complaints despite their lower prominence or credibility in most disciplines. The types of complaints cover similar issues to books and peer-reviewed journal articles, such as conflict of interest disclosure, inappropriate self-citation, and plagiarism. The high frequency of complaints about conference proceedings may be because, in most disciplines, they represent works in progress and researchers have had less time to resolve any problems prior to dissemination. Therefore, potential complainants may see a greater opportunity to intervene prior to formal publication in a peer reviewed journal.</p> <p>However, one point of difference in our experience is that complaints regarding conference proceedings are more likely to centre around allegations of unauthorised reproduction or duplicate publication than for books or journals. Copyright and self-plagiarism complaints might arise due to a lack of awareness of copyright requirements by researchers/authors or complex or ambiguous copyright arrangements (such as when a copyright transfer agreement is poorly understood or there is no written copyright agreement at all). It may also arise due to a misunderstanding of the academic standing of conference proceedings relative to a journal article, since conference proceedings are not considered “prior publication” in most disciplines, their reuse in a journal article is not a duplicate publication or self-plagiarism. It is notable here that the common disciplinary view of a paper in conference proceedings as not “formally published” is distinct to how it would be treated under copyright law, where it is likely to be considered a publication.</p> <p>Our experience in managing complaints regarding conference proceedings strongly suggests that conference proceedings should be subject to the same research and publication ethics standards as other forms of scholarly communication.</p> <p><strong>4. Are there ethical problems that are particular to conference proceedings (eg, how to retract a paper, summary or abstract from a proceeding?)</strong></p> <p>We encounter ethical problems surrounding conference proceedings quite frequently. As discussed above, most ethical problems raised with respect to conference proceedings are similar to other forms of dissemination. With respect to difficulties with corrective actions such as such as retractions or corrections, we have experienced difficulties implementing these actions with journals despite repeated requests accompanied by detailed findings. Therefore, we do not believe that ethical problems or inadequate corrective processes might be particular to conference proceedings.</p> <p><strong>5. What are the conventions around publishing in journals after including an abstract or full conference paper in a proceedings publication?</strong></p> <p>We strongly recommend that COPE and its members encourage and facilitate author disclosure of conference proceedings when publishing journals or books. In most disciplines, it is common practice to reuse and adapt work that is published as a conference abstract or paper. Developing or adapting conference proceedings for publication in journals is expected and incentivised because conference proceedings carry less weight in funding, hiring, and promotion criteria. However, a lack of disclosure can result in non-compliance with copyright agreements for conference proceedings or result in complaints of self-plagiarism. Therefore, we strongly recommend as best practice that researchers disclose and cite their prior conference presentation for both the editors and the readers of the journal article (e.g., in the acknowledgements section). We suggest that journal editors and publishers could facilitate and encourage this by asking for disclosure of conference proceedings at the same as they request disclosure of preprints.</p> </div></div></div> </div>  <ul class="links inline"><li class="comment_forbidden first last"><span><a href="/user/login?destination=node/55631%23comment-form">Login to your account</a> or <a href="/user/register?destination=node/55631%23comment-form">register</a><br>to post comments</span></li> </ul> </div>  </section> <a id="comment-19159"></a> <section class="comment clearfix"> <ul class="attribution">  <li>Posted by <span class="username">Gene Peters</span>, 15/6/2023 3.59pm</li> </ul> <div class="comment-text"> <div class="comment-arrow"></div> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Would it be considered plagiarism when one member of a research team presents without co-authorship or even acknowledgement from fellow researchers who were on the original published paper(s).</p> </div></div></div> </div>  <ul class="links inline"><li class="comment_forbidden first last"><span><a href="/user/login?destination=node/55631%23comment-form">Login to your account</a> or <a href="/user/register?destination=node/55631%23comment-form">register</a><br>to post comments</span></li> </ul> </div>  </section> <div class="indented"><a id="comment-19160"></a> <section class="comment clearfix"> <ul class="attribution">  <li>Posted by <span class="username">Alysa Levene</span>, 22/6/2023 9.53am</li> </ul> <div class="comment-text"> <div class="comment-arrow"></div> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Thank you for the above comment, Gene. The members of our working group on conference proceedings have contributed the following response:</p> <p>The general feeling is that this situation is akin to an authorship dispute rather than a case of plagiarism. However, as such, it could be regarded as poor practice, or even a breach of publication ethics because it involves misattribution of credit (for example, if only the presenting author was included in the attribution, or if relevant research was not attributed at all). The severity of the issue will vary according to whether the paper was simply presented as a talk, whether details were included in a conference proceeding, or whether there was a fuller publication in a proceeding.</p> <p>In general, publishers expect that all authors of a conference paper will be listed and agree to the presentation regardless of whether it results in a paper or only a talk. Where this leads to disagreement it would be handled as an authorship dispute and would be referred to the institutions concerned if the author group cannot reach a consensus (COPE has a range of <a href="https://publicationethics.org/guidance?t=authorship&sort=score" rel="nofollow">guidance on handling author disputes</a>).</p> <p>Sometimes the omitted author will be someone who has left the research group mid-way through the project. In this case it may be more appropriate for them to be named as a contributor either on a slide or in the paper.</p> <p>A final scenario is that the conference presentation was based on papers published by the presenter, but they do not cite them. In this case they could be seen to be ‘self-plagiarising’. Here, it would be good practice to expect any relevant published work to be cited on the slides.</p> <p>Posted on behalf of COPE.</p> </div></div></div> </div>  <ul class="links inline"><li class="comment_forbidden first last"><span><a href="/user/login?destination=node/55631%23comment-form">Login to your account</a> or <a href="/user/register?destination=node/55631%23comment-form">register</a><br>to post comments</span></li> </ul> </div>  </section> </div> </div> <div class="field field--classifications field--short"><div class="field-label">Core practices:</div><div class="item-list"><ul><li class="first"><a href="/oversight" title="View all "Ethical oversight" content">Ethical oversight</a></li> <li class="last"><a href="/peerreview" title="View all "Peer review processes" content">Peer review processes</a></li> </ul></div></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> </main> </div> </div> </div> <footer class="footer"> <div class="footer__outer"> <div 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