Family Practice Vol. 20, No. 4, 362
© Oxford University Press 2003
Editorial |
Prior publication
Guy’s, King’s & St Thomas’ School of Medicine, London, UK; E-mail: roger.jones{at}kcl.ac.uk
Jones R. Prior publication. Family Practice 2003; 20: 362.
You will be aware that, of all the deadly sins, editors react most violently towards authors who attempt (or, worse, succeed in) prior publication—securing publication in one journal of results that have already appeared elsewhere. The ‘Ingelfinger Rule’ enshrined this editorial principle, its eponym remembering a distinguished editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. With the advent of the Internet, journal websites and other forms of electronic publication, the issue of prior publication of original research material has become more complex and more sophisticated. I have received a number of enquiries about this, and thought it worth attempting to clarify the position. I have been greatly helped in doing so by attending a recent meeting of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), where the following case was discussed.
An author has written enquiring about the journal’s policy on prior publication of data on websites. The author is a member of a research team, which has recently completed and written up a research project for the Department of Health (DoH). Rather than publishing a paper version of the final project report and forwarding these to people who request them, the DoH is keen to make this document available on their websites. The research team would be happy with this but are concerned that this prior publication on the Web would jeopardize the chances of research papers based on data contained within the report being published in peer review journals. Would the journal consider publishing a paper based, at least in part, on data from a research report that had been made available via the Internet?
I replied to say that it would, of course, be a shame if an Internet research report precluded subsequent journal publication, pointing out that most people need to get their final report submitted to the funding agency in order to obtain the last portion of funding, and it is quite possible that the key papers from a given study will not have been written by then. I, like other editors, rely on authors being candid about where their data may have appeared previously, including published conference abstracts, and would likewise be dependent on authors informing the journal about Internet publication.
The COPE discussion concluded that publication on the website of the funding agency, in this case, should not be regarded as prior publication and that e-publication of this kind should not be regarded as equivalent to the appearance of the data in a peer-reviewed publication. We will soon be revising Family Practice’s guidance for authors to include this information, emphasizing the importance of a candid account of where information contained in any submitted paper may have appeared previously, and providing readers with an URL or other electronic reference to any previously published reports relating to the original manuscript.
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