ABSTRACT

When a team of researchers work together for several years, each new paper builds off the previous ones as the authors develop a deeper understanding of their research area, see more nuances, and find more puzzles to solve. While one might argue that authors are typically less careful on conference submissions than they are on submissions to scholarly journals, the plagiarism issue clearly matters for both. In addition to software options such as CrossCheck, scholarly journals benefit from membership in national and international organizations that are devoted to improving ethics in professional associations and scholarly publishing. The Committee on Publication Ethics is a non-governmental organization that was set up by a group of journal editors to share best practices for handling ethical violations. A third ex post method to handle scholarly dishonesty is to create a library of resources for sharing key reports among authors, editors, and reviewers. Individual professional associations are already gathering together resources on academic dishonesty.