STM Integrity Hub incorporates Clear Skies’ Papermill Alarm screening tool

STM Solutions and Clear Skies are pleased to announce the integration of the Clear Skies Papermill Alarm with the STM Integrity Hub. This integration further strengthens the Hub’s capability to pinpoint potentially fraudulent manuscripts at the time of submission. Designed by STM Solutions, the Hub represents a pooling of new and existing technology, policy, and best practices to further safeguard research integrity.

The Clear Skies Papermill Alarm is a tool that offers a straightforward traffic-light rating system for research papers. A red alert indicates a high-similarity to known papermill-product content, an orange alert suggests a moderate similarity, and a green rating indicates no resemblance to such papers. The Papermill Alarm ratings help publishers direct limited resources to the papers that warrant it. The integration with the STM Integrity Hub pertains to the ‘Public’ version of the Papermill Alarm tool, which was launched in 2022 and is optimized for the general area of cancer research.

The STM Integrity Hub is a collaborative effort, led by STM Solutions, to equip the scholarly communication community with data, intelligence, and technology to protect research integrity. As part of this mission, the program is developing and making available technology for publishers to detect potential breaches of research integrity as soon as possible after a manuscript has been submitted for publication. 

Earlier this year, the Hub released its first application — a tool to detect manuscripts that are fabricated by so-called paper mills. A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) was announced in April, and is currently in use by several publishers. The Clear Skies Papermill Alarm Public tool has now been integrated into this paper mill detection tool on a strictly opt-in basis, offering participating publishers the option to benefit from a greater array of indicators to determine if a submitted manuscript is suspicious and requires further investigation. “Through integrations with tools developed by third parties such as Clear Skies, we are simplifying the workflow for publishers, and – by combining signals – we are improving the accuracy and precision of detecting fraudulent submissions,  said Hylke Koers, CIO of STM Solutions. “We see this as a way to support and accelerate the development of Research Integrity screening technology by other service providers to the benefit of the entire sector.”

Adam Day, director of Clear Skies, commented: “We are delighted to be working with STM Solutions. This collaboration helps put our technology in the hands of publishers where it prevents research fraud from entering the peer-review system”.