Tag: STM Integrity Hub

STM joins Year of Open Science

by stmassoc

In accordance with STM’s mission to advance credible and accessible research, STM has joined a coalition of US federal agencies, organizations, and universities in supporting the Year of Open Science and NASA’s Transform to Open Science initiative. 

As a part of the coalition, STM and other member organizations commit to transforming the culture of science to emphasize openness and inclusion in research. 

“The Year of Open Science is a great way to catalyze action to ensure that validated, quality articles reporting on the latest discoveries are available widely to help society, linked to related data and other outputs,” said STM CEO Caroline Sutton.

“STM and its members have been key partners with stakeholders, including federal agencies, to provide access to high quality, validated information that advances innovation. Through the Year of Open Science, STM looks forward to opportunities to work with federal agencies to enable sharing in a supported, sustainable manner.”

STM cited four key commitments to this initiative. The commitments include supporting sustainable pathways to open access in collaboration with federal agencies and other stakeholders, continuing work to protect the integrity and trust of the open scholarly record, improving research data sharing through STM’s Research Data initiative, and mapping the open research infrastructure to identify gaps and seek opportunities to improve linking and discoverability.

Learn more about STM’s statements of commitment to open science.

New Draft EU Council Conclusions ratified — STM responds

by stmassoc

Today, the Council Conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy, and equitable scholarly publishing were adopted by EU Ministers at the COMPET Council.

STM calls on the European Commission and EU Member States to consult with scholarly publishers of all sizes, disciplines and models and seek a constructive collaboration that will allow the publishing industry to keep delivering value and quality to the European society, economy and research community.

For decades, Europe has led the way in scientific publishing and is home to world-renowned researchers, from Nobel prize winners and discoverers of new vaccines to innovators and startups. The European scholarly publishing industry is a powerhouse – fully digital, competitive, diverse and independent. Its important position in the European economy should be further encouraged and strengthened so Europe can continue to play a leading global role.

As lawmakers seek to advance the conclusions and deliver on the aspirations set forth, scholarly publishers, including for-profit, non-profit, societies and university presses, will be fundamental stakeholders in the process. “It is essential that publishers be consulted and involved in the development of roadmaps and any other measure for these aims to be achieved,” said Caroline Sutton, CEO of STM.

For well over a decade, publishers have been investing heavily in the transition to Open Access. Hard data on the impact of this investment is available in an OA Dashboard recently released by STM. “We have worked carefully to make this transition while remaining focused on quality and integrity — hallmarks of the European academic establishment,” added Sutton.

The publishing industry continues to invest in platforms and technologies, as well as initiatives, including the STM Integrity Hub, to combat new and rising threats like paper mills. As the adopted Conclusions move to the implementation phase, efforts like these will be as essential as ever to ensure that trust and integrity in the academic record are upheld.

 

About STM
At STM, we support our members in their mission to advance research worldwide. Our over 140 members based in over 20 countries around the world collectively publish 66% of all journal articles and tens of thousands of monographs and reference works. In 2021, there were 2 million researchers in the EU, and articles, reviews and conference papers authored in the European Union represented 18% of global output – coming second only to China. More than 5800 journals originated in the EU in 2020, accounting for almost 25% of journals globally.

As academic and professional publishers, learned societies, university presses, startups, and established players, we work together to serve the community by advancing trusted research, and developing standards and technology to ensure research is of high quality, trustworthy and easy to access.

STM Solutions releases MVP of new paper mill detection tool

by stmassoc

Today, STM Solutions, the operational arm of STM, announced the release of the MVP (minimal viable product) of a paper mill detection tool as part of the STM Integrity Hub. It is a stand-alone web application where submitted journal manuscripts can be uploaded and checked for a variety of signals indicative of paper mills. 

At a high level, this is how the tool works: a publisher uploads a manuscript to the tool, which then scans it for pre-identified indications of potential fraud. If any potential issues with the paper are noted, the system generates a message alerting the research integrity managers and editors, allowing them to investigate and take action if needed.

“The mission of the STM Integrity Hub is to offer a holistic approach to detect manuscripts that offend research integrity through a combination of shared data and experiences, and by harnessing technological innovation,” said STM CEO Caroline Sutton. 

“Through shared intelligence and data, collaboration with third parties and a robust platform, we have made an important step with this MVP toward effectively and efficiently responding to the increasing and alarming volume of materials entering scholarly communications that violate accepted research integrity. We look forward to increasing and improving the signals that are used in the paper mill detection tool.” 

The tool is fully consistent with applicable laws and industry best practices, and it fully respects the laws and ethics of submission and data privacy. In its current form, the paper mill detection tool contains internally developed tools as well as external tools and databases. 

Safeguarding research integrity can only be done through collaboration with all stakeholders in the scholarly ecosystem. STM Solutions worked with several research integrity specialists and organizations for this release, including PubPeer, Clear Skies, Elisabeth Bik and Guillaume Cabanac (pro bono). The STM Integrity Hub hopes to deepen and extend its collaboration with research integrity specialists and organizations going forward.

The MVP is currently available to participating publishers in the STM Integrity Hub. In the future, the tool will be offered to a wider range of publishers and integrated with submissions systems and other workflow systems.

About STM

At STM we support our members in their mission to advance research worldwide. Our 150 members based in over 20 countries around the world collectively publish 66% of all journal articles and tens of thousands of monographs and reference works. As academic and professional publishers, learned societies, university presses, start-ups and established players we work together to serve society by developing standards and technology to ensure research is of high quality, trustworthy and easy to access. We promote the contribution that publishers make to innovation, openness and the sharing of knowledge and embrace change to support the growth and sustainability of the research ecosystem. As a common good, we provide data and analysis for all involved in the global activity of research.