Research integrity is at the center of CIP’s mission—literally. This open-access publisher of more than 60 scientific journals in fields ranging from biotechnology and medicine to engineering, materials science and computing states that while their name is Columbia International Publishing, it could just as well be Commitment, Integrity, Publishing. “Research integrity is one of our highest priorities,” explained CIP General Manager DJ Dong. Faced with a high submission volume and concerns about maintaining the highest ethical standards, the editorial team at CIP began to search for a plagiarism detection solution that would be easy to implement and highly effective. CIP’s publishing model relies on a comparatively tight decision time and rapid peer review, so the team was sensitive to adding time-consuming steps to the process. “Our review boards are all volunteers,” said Dong. “We want to publish as much research as possible while ensuring that our reviewers’ time isn’t wasted with plagiarized material.”
After an extensive review process of available plagiarism detection technologies in 2013, Dong and his team at CIP selected CrossCheck* powered by iThenticate and began integrating routine screening of manuscripts into the editorial process. One year after initial implementation, all manuscripts that pass an initial quality evaluation by each journal’s editorial manager or Editor-in-Chief is professionally screened for plagiarism prior to peer review. Dong believes the iThenticate software is the perfect solution, as it’s “the best combination of accuracy and efficiency. In two minutes we can see if a manuscript is original.” CIP also features the iThenticate logo on each journal’s webpage, alerting submitting authors that their work will be checked for originality and attribution.
Dong estimates that among hundreds of submissions received per month across all CIP journals, 3-5 manuscripts are flagged by iThenticate as containing significant amounts of unoriginal material. And while CIP contacts each author to discuss the content in question, Dong reports that not a single submitting researcher has attempted to salvage their paper after being confronted about plagiarized material. “We are preventing costly and potentially damaging incidents,” said Dong, and explained that CIP maintains a firm blacklist. With just over a year of experience with the service, CIP is collecting data to analyze the impact iThenticate has had on its retraction rate and the amount of unoriginal content each journal receives. The hope is, ultimately, to deter plagiarists from submitting at all, while ensuring that any original content is caught well before a retraction is needed. “iThenticate is our gatekeeper,” Dong said.
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* CIP participates in CrossCheck powered by iThenticate, a service offered by CrossRef® and iParadigms®, the maker of iThenticate, and has 530 leading publisher participants that permit use of published works within the iThenticate database. This database enables publishers to check writing against more than 130 million content items, including 38 million scholarly articles, books and conference proceedings from more than 110,000 publications, and 45 billion web pages.
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A leading organization that delivers high-quality original research to the world.
Open-access publisher of more than 60 scientific journals in fields ranging from biotechnology and medicine to engineering, materials science and computing
Headquartered in Columbia, Missouri
Research integrity is one of our highest priorities. iThenticate helps us prevent costly and potentially damaging incidents.-DJ Dong, CIP General Manager
