Case Summary
The author in this case was a journal editor-in-chief, who submitted a manuscript to another journal in the field. After peer review, the author was asked by the target journal’s editor-in-chief to revise the manuscript and cite two references from that journal. However, the references were only marginally related to the manuscript’s topic and their inclusion would have helped increase the target journal’s impact factor.
Question(s) for the COPE Forum
• Is using the manuscript review process to increase citations of your journal ethical?
• In a related question, is writing editorials which cite large percentages of manuscripts from your journal ethical?
•总之，使用这些工具影响影响因子度量是道德的，是道德的吗？
论坛建议
论坛否定了所有三个问题。使用审查进程来获取期刊自我引文，特别是由于无关紧要的引文，被视为不道德。尚不清楚如果在这种情况下，审阅者建议的添加以及日记编辑的其他参考文献或胁迫。但是，作者可以拒绝或找到更好的参考。此外，编辑不应通过期刊自我引用来操纵影响因素，而是使用编辑在一个问题中引用并介绍文章不会引用操作。
The Forum noted that Clarivate Analytics takes action against journals for citation manipulation. However, because up to 15% of citations are allowed to be journal self-citations, editors could purposefully promote journal self-citation without exceeding that level. A link to the Citation Manipulation section of a Council of Science Editors white paper was provided
（https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/white-paper-on-publication-ethics/2-1-editor-roles-and-responsibilities/#215）。
Case Discussion
此案分类为根据应对的核心实践进行分类Allegations of Misconduct那which states: “Journals should have a clearly described process for handling allegations, however they are brought to the journal's or publisher’s attention. Journals must take seriously allegations of misconduct pre-publication and post-publication. Policies should include how to handle allegations from whistleblowers”. This would include allegations of citation manipulation.
The case is also categorised under COPE’s Core Practice of杂志管理: “A well-described and implemented infrastructure is essential, including the business model, policies, processes and software for efficient running of an editorially independent journal, as well as the efficient management and training of editorial boards and editorial and publishing staff.” This would include policies and training related to citation practices and how to make suggestions of changes to the references.
知识创造受到建立的影响，或驳斥之前发现的。通过专业辩论的方式，这种过程以知识文件为单位审查的出版物的形式反映，并通过专业的论证，并适当地使用和推荐过去的文学，称为学术或学术互文。一些应对的核心实践与相关领域交易authorship那B0B体育平台下载 包括抄袭和冗余/重叠出版物，以及道德peer review。
另一个学术互乱性的领域是道德引文（指示研究文件中的消息来源）和参考（在最后的参考列表中提供完整的书目细节）。案件提醒提醒，预计涉及学术企业的每个人都会知道如何适当地呈现工作，引用源，并参考这些来源允许其他人核实信息并进一步阅读信息。预期一定程度的自我引用，但增加或建议添加或建议对非学术原因的研究文件添加或建议添加自我引文，期刊自我引文或任何其他引文是不道德的。相反，删除或建议对非学术原因的引用和参考的删除是不道德的。
应对现在发布了一个关于引用操纵的讨论文件to guide journals in formulating relevant policies, guidelines, and training, partly based on past COPE Forum discussion documents on引用操纵and自我引用。将普遍的帽子施加到自我引用率将是不现实的并且是不切实际的，允许的金额可能是纪律，现场或主题特定的，并且还取决于每份纸张/研究。对作者自我引用的强制上限，来自审稿人/编辑的引文，以及期刊自我引用实际上可以鼓励这些做法。新的COPE讨论文件中的建议是为了制定政策的期刊“即使是广泛的可接受自我引用”，适当建议任何参考，并有处理（企图）引用操纵的程序。
在描述的情况下，作者可以解释为什么鉴于它们的相关性低，为什么不会添加两个引用。该建议是否来自编辑或审稿人，提交人可以引用应对同行评审指南bob官方app那which require reviewers not to recommend citation of their or their colleagues’ work to boost citation counts. If the journal editor insisted or made the additions a condition of acceptance, the author could use his/her experience or influence as an editor-in-chief of a COPE-member journal to explain why coercive citation and citation manipulation are unethical and to request a second opinion or an impartial investigation. Ultimately, editors or reviewers who are found to systematically engage in coerced citation can be replaced (eg, as in cases18-03and19-01）。
There are legitimate reasons for authors to cite and reference their past works, for reviewers and editors to suggest their own references to authors, and for reviewers and editors to suggest references from their journal. However, authors, reviewers, and editors should make sure that all citations are relevant, used correctly (eg, not misquoted), and add to the academic argument and scholarly value of a paper. As stated in an August 2018 COPE Digest guest post by Clarivate Analytics (Marie E. McVeigh and Nandita A. Quaderi,Citations: Link, Locate, Discover, Connect），“审查文章中的引用的目的或学术价值是审稿人和编辑的工作，以确保他们发布的学术内容的完整性。”
不幸的是,已成为一个引用操作pervasive problem because a citation (ie, reference) count has become a currency in itself. It is often forgotten, however, that a source may be cited multiple times in the text (but appear only once in the reference list). Furthermore, qualitative aspects are ignored. Mentions of another source can be negative, positive, or neutral, and a citation could be presented as background or be of critical importance to the interpretation or conclusion of a study.
仍然，期刊引文指标被广泛引用作为期刊影响的指标，也是在研究评估系统中被广泛滥用的指标。众所周知，他们易于操纵，这样澄清的分析从其期刊引文报告中抑制标题for excessive journal self-citation or citation stacking to help inflate another journal’s impact factor. Similarly, researcher-level metrics such as theh-index提出了文章级别引用的重要性，但是have also promoted self-citations。提高对研究评估中滥用这些指标的认识的努力包括2015年公吨报告和关联网站那Leiden Manifesto那Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), and, most recently, theHong Kong Manifesto。
最后，据称，期刊可以通过常规审查和/或在编辑，评论或评论中列出自己的文章来利用影响因素计算。Current-issue self-mentions, such as an editorial introducing an issue’s contents, would not affect the latest score because only the previous year’s issues are inspected (eg, the 2018 impact factor was calculated in 2019 and counted citations made to 2016 and 2017 articles). However, articles that review the previous year’s or two years of articles would contribute to the score in the following year. As illustrated in case04-36，假装审查该领域的练习是双重糟糕的练习，但从近年来只提到相同的日志的内容，以提高影响因素。这种做法可以很容易地检测到，应该气馁。
Trevor Laneon behalf of the COPE Education Subcommittee