Ethics in Scientific Publishing

Ethics in Scientific Publishing

Publish sound science: Educating authors on the value of Image integrity in Scholarly Publishing, Aashi Chaturvedi, Senior Ethics Specialist, American Society for Microbiology

Multicomponent Approach to Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to Reduce Health Disparities, Advance Health Equity, and Improve Population Health, Dr. Leonard Jack, Editor in Chief, Preventing Chronic Disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Publish sound science: Educating authors on the value of Image integrity in Scholarly Publishing, Aashi Chaturvedi, Senior Ethics Specialist, American Society for Microbiology As scholarly publishing grows in scale, pace, and its use of technology, so does the responsibility of scholarly publishers, like American Society for Microbiology (ASM), to educate its authors to publish sound science in this advancing world. Image integrity is fundamental to establish and maintain the trust in data and figures presented in a study. At ASM, figures have been routinely prescreened in accepted manuscripts to ensure they are of publishable quality and free of integrity concerns. Recently, ASM started a pilot program with an AI-based software called ‘ImageTwin’ that detects image integrity issues, primarily image duplication in the submitted manuscripts or published articles being screened. In this presentation, the speaker will discuss their observations and key takeaways from this pilot program, including the challenges they encountered toward achieving their ultimate goal to publish original, trustworthy, and reproducible data.

Multicomponent Approach to Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to Reduce Health Disparities, Advance Health Equity, and Improve Population Health, Dr. Leonard Jack, Editor in Chief, Preventing Chronic Disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Preventing Chronic Disease’s (PCD’s) remains committed to continuously assessing its focus, documenting accomplishments, and identifying new areas of growth. This presentation will begin with an overview of the burden of chronic diseases in the United States to emphasize why the journal remains committed to publishing peer-reviewed content that contributes new knowledge on innovative ways to ameliorate these long-standing public health challenges. Keeping PCD in the best position to publish relevant peer-reviewed articles requires that the journal continue its efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as best practices at all levels of operation. This presentation will discuss the evolution of the journal’s mission statement and its current topic areas of interest and selected activities to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through scientific leadership, the peer-review process, research focus, and provision of training and continuing education.

Aashi Chaturvedi, Ph.D. is the Senior Ethics Specialist at American Society for Microbiology. She is responsible for assisting with timely resolution of allegations of potential research and/or publication misconduct in accordance with ASM's publishing ethics policies and procedures. Chaturvedi is a trained cellular and molecular biologist and biochemist. She received her Ph.D. in Oncological Sciences from the University of Utah and pursued her post-doctoral training at Masonic Cancer Center with University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities area. When not pursuing publishing ethics, she enjoys painting and traveling.

Dr Leonard Jack, Jr, serves as Editor in Chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Preventing Chronic Disease journal. He has held academic appointments as Director of the Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education; Endowed Chair of Minority Health and Health Disparities Research at Xavier University of Louisiana; Professor of Community Health and Preventive Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine; and the Jim Finks Endowed Chair of Health Promotion at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center’s School of Public Health. Dr Jack served as Editor in Chief of the journal Health Promotion Practice. CDC also recently awarded Dr Jack its highest honor, The Jeffery P. Koplan Award, for extraordinary and exemplary professional practice and leadership in public health. Dr. Jack served as a founding Co-Chair of CSE’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. This year, independent of his CDC duties, Dr Jack was elected President-Elect of the Society for Public Health Education.