Ethics policies are an essential part of any academic research, including preprints. For scientific research, ensuring strict enforcement of ethical guidelines is particularly important. There is an immense pressure to publish within academia—hence, the adage “publish or perish.” Publishing a preprint can get the ball rolling in terms of sharing research before official publication.
All publications, both finalized and preprints, are expected to maintain rigorous academic standards. This includes requiring a clear statement on research ethics, informed consent, and conflicts of interest.
Academics less familiar with the process may have concerns about publishing preprints. Do they go through a peer review process? Are ethical guidelines consistently applied?
To be sure, although preprints don’t go through a peer review process, ethics policies are still applied to each article.
This blog will introduce the ethical challenges and opportunities of preprints in general, and the particular guidelines followed by Preprints.org.
Preprints
Preprints promote open science, collaboration, and faster dissemination of knowledge.
Preprints.org is a free, non-profit, multidisciplinary preprint platform. All academic materials can be freely downloaded, distributed, and reused, with appropriate citation.
Preprints are works in progress that represent an early version of a future publication. They are a valuable method for sharing research before going through the peer-review process (which can sometimes take years).
Publishing a preprint means that researchers can attach their name to a particular topic. It also means that authors can receive early feedback from interested parties.
In addition to the opportunities that preprints bring, challenges remain. These include concerns about the extent of the screening process, a lack of industry-wide ethical standards, and the potential for work to be ‘scooped’ by others.
Thus, ensuring the credibility, verification, and integrity of non-reviewed research is crucial. This is where ethics policies come in.
COPE ethics guidelines
The aim of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is to promote integrity in scholarly research and its publication. Broadly speaking, publication ethics are defined by COPE as follows:
“Publication ethics is a key part of keeping research honest and trustworthy. It helps make sure research is reliable and advances knowledge. This benefits the whole research community and, in turn, helps society progress. Ethical principles guide and support editors, researchers, reviewers, and others involved in publication ethics to do their work responsibly and transparently.”
In general, Preprints.org adheres to COPE’s Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines. As such, Preprints.org will rigorously enforce its standards and follow up on any reported cases of infringement. Any ethical violations can result in a preprint being removed from the site, and, in extreme cases, individuals may be reported to their institution(s).
Preprints ethics policies
Preprints ethics policies are essential to ensuring the integrity of the research posted. All preprint platforms should outline their ethics policies so that expectations are clear for both authors and readers.
Certain procedures must be followed by both authors and publishers to ensure research integrity is upheld. But, because the level of screening varies from one preprint platform to another, it is important to state what kinds of checks are carried out.
COPE’s best practices for preprints explain key points to keep in mind: screening, conflicts of interest, and the use of AI and AI-assisted technology.
Preprints.org screening process and ethics
Upon submission of a preprint, trained editors go through various screening checks, typically within 24 hours. These screenings look for any potential ‘red flags.’
Clear violations across the board in publishing are plagiarism, fabricating data, and manipulating images.
Screeners look for specific areas of concern, including ensuring that
- The content has not already been published.
- It meets basic publishing ethical standards. This is to say, the content is checked for plagiarism, image/data manipulation, copyright infringement, and overall accurate presentation.
- Authors follow international research ethics regulations, including the Declaration of Helsinki, for research conducted on humans or experimental animals. All relevant information, including details of approval from a research ethics committee and the name of the institutional review board, should be cited in the “Methods” section.
- Authors must obtain informed consent from research participants.
- Authors disclose potential conflicts of interest.
- No harmful, offensive, fabricated, or pseudoscientific statements are made.
Any attempts to manipulate the screening process are not permitted.
Of these basic screening checks, conflicts of interest and the use of AI in manuscripts are of particular interest.
Conflicts of interest
Preprints.org applies the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ definition of a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest arises when a person’s professional judgment is influenced or compromised by other interests. This includes the perception of impropriety, so full disclosure is imperative.
All authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could influence or bias their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include financial interests (like employment and receiving funding) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships and affiliations).
Ethics and the use of AI
The use of AI tools such as ChatGPT in research publications is expanding rapidly. Preprints.org follows COPE’s position statement on the use of AI and AI-assisted technology in manuscript preparation.
There are ethical concerns around the use of AI-generated content that may increase bias, result in copyright infringement or even inadvertent plagiarism. AI may be used, for example, for writing and editing, the production of graphics and images, and the collection and analysis of research data.
Any use of AI tools should be properly documented in the “Methods” section of the manuscript. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, including those parts produced by an AI tool.
All authors must be credited for their involvement. However, AI tools like ChatGPT do not meet authorship criteria and cannot be listed as such in manuscripts.
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