Upholding research integrity: Resources for editors and authors

Author: Zina Bibanovic

Research Integrity Content Coordinator

Ensuring research integrity is central to Springer Nature’s mission — but we can’t do it alone. While as a company, Springer Nature invests in expert people (the Springer Nature Research Integrity Group [SNRIG]) and developing new tech tools, doing this properly must involve our partners — our editors and authors. With this goal in mind, SNRIG has a Training team that develops courses and other resources to support the community in handling research integrity concerns. In this blog, I’m going to talk about a few of these, and why they’re important.

Safeguarding the research record’s integrity takes dedication; and you can see that dedication in how SNRIG operates. On a daily basis, we focus on stopping research integrity concerns from even reaching Springer Nature publications, and investigating if they do.

That said, everyone involved in research has a role to play in supporting research integrity. I’m part of a team that develops courses and other educational resources to support editors and authors in ensuring the integrity of the research we publish. These materials help editors in making editorial decisions that enforce the integrity of the work they publish in their journals and books. They also help in supporting authors understanding their responsibilities when it comes to the integrity of the work they submit and publish, including research project design, appropriate citation practices, and more.  

Research Integrity courses

We’ve developed a portfolio of courses for both experienced Editors-in-Chief interested in bite-sized information on current issues, as well as for newer Editors and Board Members looking for guidance on the more fundamental aspects of their roles. This includes topics like peer review or the journal Editors’ Code of Conduct.

Similarly, the author resources are accessible to both early career researchers looking for an introduction to all things research integrity, and to researchers with many publications to their name who are interested in supplementing their research integrity knowledge or want to stay updated on a certain topic.

And researchers or editors working in new fields, or who want to get a grasp on specific research integrity topics may also find these courses helpful.

How these resources help

These resources range from full-length courses that offer comprehensive overviews of a specific topic, to short and snappy guides on issues like paper mills or predatory publishers. All our resources offer the chance to apply the theoretical content by posing scenario-based knowledge checks, providing examples from real-life submissions or publications, and including takeaway-resources such as flowcharts or infographics that can be referred to after the course has been completed.

We regularly update this content so that you get the most relevant support and guidance needed in your role. These materials will help you feel more confident when handling research integrity issues in your work and be able to impart that knowledge to your colleagues.

Training on research integrity issues is relevant to anyone who is part of and/or involved with the scholarly ecosystem. Research integrity is not a 'one-time' engagement, but a continuous one. The training resources will increase awareness and help both editors and authors understand (potential) research integrity risks.”  
Tamara Welschot, Head of Prevention, Research Integrity Group, Springer Nature

Materials currently available

For editors

We currently offer the following courses for Springer Nature editors, which you can access from the editors course page:

• Citation Manipulation 
• Editor Resources 
• Fraudulent submissions to collections 
• Fundamentals of Peer Review
• Identity Verification
• Introduction to the iThenticate Report & Response (IRR) Service 
• Journal Editors’ Code of Conduct 
• Research Ethics
• Plagiarism
• Protecting your journal from paper mills

For authors/researchers

You can find the following courses on the author tutorial page:

• Avoiding Paper Mills as an Author
• Predatory publishers
• Research integrity: an introduction for researchers
• Intégrité scientifique: une introduction pour les chercheurs

What’s coming next?

We have big plans for the next few years. The Springer Nature Research Integrity Training team has a full agenda of materials in development, including an expanded portfolio of research integrity resources for authors. We’re planning for these resources to become a one-stop-shop for information about research integrity, from concerns with research ethics to data curation, and from conflicts of interest to code sharing. They’ll range from e-learning courses to “takeaway” resources like infographics, one-pagers, and flowcharts.  

We continue to strengthen our offerings for Editors as well and plan to release several new materials in the coming year, including courses on protecting your journal from paper mills, working with whistleblowers, and handling authorship changes.

“Good editors are always looking for ways to sharpen their skills. Our new and updated resources help editors improve their confidence in handling often challenging research integrity cases. They’re all about making smarter decisions.”  
Chris Graf, Director of Editorial Excellence, Springer Nature

What do editors and authors think? 

Both editors and authors who’ve taken the courses have reached out to let us know that they found them informative, with helpful explanations of key concepts. They’ve found particular value in the Research Ethics and Plagiarism courses as helpful guides to research integrity considerations in dealing with these fundamental fields of research and publication ethics, which has inspired to us to expand even further! 

“Researcher riddles”

The SNRIG Training team has a monthly “Researcher Riddle” series on the Springer Nature Research Communities page, in which we test your knowledge on a research integrity issue in the form of a scenario and then explain how we would recommend handling the situation with links to any relevant resources. We also often promote new courses or resources such as infographics in these posts — in March, we discussed paper mills and highlighted our new course for authors on how to avoid these fraudulent entities. Follow the “Research Integrity” topic on Research Communities to be notified of our posts!

Self-serve courses and materials to use on your schedule

It can seem hard to find time in the day — along with all your other responsibilities as an active researcher and editor or author — to devote to learning more about research integrity. And if you’re at the start of your research career, or starting as a new editor, you might not even know where to begin.  

To help with that, our courses are self-serve, and you can take them at your leisure. 

We recommend starting with your biggest research integrity concern: are you seeing increased instances of bad citation practices in submissions to your journal or book? Then your starting point might be the short course on Citation Manipulation. Is your inbox flooding with strange emails from journals eager to publish your work, but with little information about the editorial services they will provide? The bite-sized resource on predatory publishers is a great introduction to identifying who not to work with – you can follow it up with Avoiding Paper Mills as an Author, and within an hour, you’ll have all the skills you need to avoid fraudulent collaborators.

Let us know if the resources supported you, and how they could do so better, by sending any feedback to training@springernature.com. 

Resources and training to support journal editors can be found on our Research Integrity hub and the Editor Training page. Authors will find information and tutorials on the Author Tutorial page.