"Redundant publications in scientific ophthalmologic journals - the tip of the iceberg?" Ophthalmology 111(5): 863-866 May 2004 Elsevier Science Inc. NY

["Sloan, Bernie" <bernies@uillinois.edu>]

I thought some of you who were interested in the recent "Covert Article
Republishing" thread on liblicense-l might be interested in this paper.

Bernie Sloan

-----Original Message-----
From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS@LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Eugene Garfield
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 4:43 PM
Subject: [SIGMETRICS] Mojon-Azzi SM, Jiang XY, Wagner U, Mojon DS
"Redundant publications in scientific ophthalmologic journals - the tip
of the iceberg?" Ophthalmology 111(5): 863-866 May 2004 Elsevier Science
Inc. NY

Daniel S. Mojon - e-mail: daniel.mojon@kssg.ch

TITLE : Redundant publications in scientific ophthalmologic journals - the
tip of the iceberg?

AUTHOR : Mojon-Azzi SM, Jiang XY, Wagner U, Mojon DS

SOURCE : Ophthalmology 111(5): 863-866 May 2004 Elsevier Science Inc. NY

Author Address : DS Mojon, Kantonsspital, Dept. Ophthalmol, CH-9007 St.
Gallen, Switzerland

Objective: The number of scientific publications is often used to measure
scientific achievement. This practice can motivate unethical conduct, such
as redundant or duplicate publications, defined as publication of the same
scientific contents in more than 1 journal. The aim of this study was to
estimate the amount of redundant publications in ophthalmologic journals.

Design: Retrospective analysis of published literature.

Methods: We developed an electronic search engine for redundancies to
estimate the amount of duplicate publications in scientific journals. When
redundancies reached a given degree (matching score), the articles were
screened manually based on authors, titles, and abstracts. We applied this
method to the 22 433 articles that were published between 1997 and 2000 in
70 ophthalmologic journals indexed by MEDLINE.

Main Outcome Measures: The number of duplicate publications with a
matching score of 0.6 or more, the number of involved journals, and the
number of authors.

Results: Redundancies reached a matching score of 0.6 or more in 13 967
pairs of articles. Out of them, a sample of 2210 was reviewed manually. We
found 60 redundant articles and estimated that 1.39% of the publications
were redundant. Thirty-two journals and an estimate of 1092 authors were
involved. In 5% of cases, the scientific conclusions were modified.
Conclusions: Because of the restrictive selection process, the
practicability of detecting all redundant publications, and the estimated
amount of duplicates increases with lower matching scores, we regard our
estimate to be the tip of the iceberg. Duplicate publications have several
negative impacts, but neither peer reviewers nor editors can protect their
journal from them completely. Several deterrents for duplicate
publications are possible, but as long as publications remain the central
requirement for academic advancement, a solution seems unlikely.
Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of all those who care about
objective research and evidence-based medicine to address this problem-not
only in ophthalmology.

Ophthalmology 2004;111: 863-866 (c) 2004 by the American Academy of
Ophthalmology.