Preventing peer review fraud
Peer review, at the heart of research, is the last bastion safeguarding the integrity of science. Maintaining the vigor and trustworthiness of this process is critical; otherwise all of scholarly communication is at risk.
In an effort to assist publishers with identifying potentially fraudulent peer reviews, the upcoming ScholarOne Manuscripts v4.22 release slated for next month will include a pilot program to detect unusual submission and peer-review activity that may warrant further investigation by the journal.
As Chris Heid, ScholarOne product lead, explained in an interview with Retraction Watch, “The fraud prevention tool evaluates 30+ factors based on web traffic, profile information, submission stats and other server data…By themselves, these factors may not trigger an alert, but combined with other actions, they can increase the risk level of a submission. From there, it is up to the journal editor and/or publisher to determine the next steps. In the long run, this tool will help to reduce the amount of retractions by highlighting issues during the submission process, instead of after publication. ”
You can watch this video to learn more about the Unusual Activity Detection in the v4.22 release.
Streamlining submissions from preprints and authoring platforms
The next ScholarOne release also includes new submission integration capabilities. The feature allows external systems such as preprint repositories, authoring platforms, and publisher portals to send files and metadata to start or revise an author’s submission on a ScholarOne journal.
This provides a simple and streamlined method for authors to transfer metadata and files that are already in another system, aligned with our continued improvement of the user experience in ScholarOne. Authors will spend much less time filling in submission forms as a result. Even trickier metadata such as co-authors and keywords can be passed directly into the submission. The new capabilities also expand our ScholarOne APIs and interoperability with a growing ecosystem of partners and service providers.
Improvements over capabilities in other systems include:
- Transferring files and metadata using APIs, providing an improved user experience and greater security. While we’ll support simple integrations using FTP, APIs are preferred as they provide more reliable data transfers and better data security.
- Support for new, revised, and resubmitted submissions, allowing authors to send edited versions, not just the initial submission.
- Two-way communication between sending and receiving systems, ensuring a successful transfer and allowing some status information to show on the sending system.
The ScholarOne team is currently working with partners including bioRxiv, Chronos, and Authorea, and plans to launch these integrations following the release. We are also in active discussions with many other partners, which we plan to onboard in 2018. If you want to check if a partner is planning to integrate, feel free to contact the ScholarOne team.
