Research integrity in books: Prevention by balancing human oversight and AI tools

Author: Deidre Hudson Reuss

Senior Marketing Manager

What does it take to maintain research integrity and promote publication ethics in scholarly books? Publishing a book with the highest integrity standards requires a holistic approach that prioritises prevention, leverages human expertise and judgement, and is supported by automated tools. Find out how this is done at Springer Nature.

Research integrity is essential to scholarly publishing. It ensures the accuracy and reliability of published research that further advances scientific knowledge, and promotes the upholding of ethical standards and accountability.

Maintaining research integrity in the publication process

Research integrity issues encompass a wide range of potential infringements that can significantly undermine the trustworthiness and credibility of academic and scientific work. These include content from paper mills and fake conferences, plagiarism, data fabrication and falsification, text recycling, duplicate submission, citation manipulation and more.  

To maintain and ensure research integrity, Springer Nature incorporates checks throughout the publication process, from submission to post-publication. These include establishing guidelines, policies, and practices on publication ethics and integrity, implementing rigorous peer review, and employing various tools to detect integrity issues. And, when a concern over the integrity of a published piece arises, it is thoroughly investigated.

Prioritising prevention to maintain integrity in books

To maintain research integrity in the publication process, the focus is on prevention by promoting the highest ethical and integrity standards. Heather King, Senior Manager Editorial Design, Books at Springer Nature explains that to ensure integrity in book publication, Springer Nature accompanies the authors, editors, and reviewers closely throughout the publication process, and supports them in maintaining the highest integrity standards.

“Our responsibility is to deliver authentic content that is sound and free from error, fallacy, or misapprehension. For us, this means detecting a wide range of possible integrity concerns, and rejecting problematic projects long before too much time and resources have been invested in them,” says King.

A research integrity approach tailored for books and grounded in human expertise

Research integrity is often associated with journal articles, which frequently publish primary research and are where most breaches of integrity occur. Between the shorter publication timelines and the pressure to publish in journals, it is not surprising that journal articles are typically the first to come to mind when considering research integrity.

But books take longer than journal articles to conceptualise, write, review, and publish (1-3 years on average). This prolonged, iterative process naturally permits more detailed attention and quality control from the author, editor, and the peer review process. Niels Thomas, Managing Director, Books at Springer Nature, shares that the relationship that develops out of this process supports research integrity. “The lengthy collaboration often fosters a strong personal relationship between the author and editor, allowing for the implementation of distinct research integrity measures compared to journal publications,” Thomas says.

Research integrity in books focuses more on prevention, promoting ethical behaviour and ensuring credibility and reliability, King explains. This approach aligns organically with Springer Nature‘s overall supportive stance towards book authors.

From the very early stages of the publication process, including the conceptualisation phase, authors are supported directly by Springer Nature publishing editors. Authors have access to various services for language editing, structuring, preparing the table of contents, and finding references, to ensure due diligence is performed. In practice, breaches of integrity are less frequent in book publishing.

Peer review: Prioritising prevention to ensure research integrity in books

When a published work contains significant errors or ethical issues such as data fabrication, plagiarism, or other breaches of our code of conduct, it must be retracted to halt the spread of false or misleading information and maintain the integrity of the scientific record. To prevent the complex and difficult process of retracting a whole book, Springer Nature focuses on prevention and careful, early human scrutiny.

“Our focus is to support with the identification of integrity issues earlier in the process – from receiving an idea to the actual submission of a manuscript,” says King. A key component of this is peer review, where reviewers play a crucial role in ensuring that published books meet rigorous standards of integrity.

All book manuscripts are initially assessed by an in-house editor who decides whether to forward the submission to further review by relevant book series editors, editorial board, or external peer reviewers. The reviewers – subject matter experts – evaluate the manuscript’s quality and originality, to ensure its validity and that it meets the highest integrity and ethics standards.

Empowering reviewers: Streamlined process and best practice

“To support reviewers in performing their review, we recently launched an online portal that offers them a streamlined process for evaluating manuscripts,” King shares. “The portal includes all the information and documents the reviewers need, in one, easily accessible location, sparing them multiple emails and correspondences.”

For the peer review to best safeguard the integrity of the scientific record, it is essential that peer reviewers understand their role and responsibility in the publication and review process. Reviewers can learn more about peer reviewing books at Springer Nature to understand how peer review informs publishing decisions and to get advice on writing a constructive review.

Codes of conduct for authors, editors, and reviewers: Ensuring highest integrity standards

Springer Nature’s comprehensive code of conduct for book peer reviewers offers a detailed description of the reviewer’s responsibilities, potential conflicts of interest to be aware of, policies around the use of AI in performing a review, and how to handle various concerns. This code of conduct, based on the Committee of Publishing Ethics (COPE) guidelines, is part of Springer Nature’s book publishing policies, and complements the codes of conduct for authors, for book volume editors, and for book series editors.

Providing clear information and closely guiding authors, editors, and reviewers throughout the publication process is essential to preventing errors due to lack of knowledge or misunderstandings (for example, plagiarism as a result from a lack of understanding of copyright laws or proper citation practices). In adhering to the codes of conduct, book authors, editors, and reviewers uphold international standards for responsible research publication.

Potential integrity problems in the use of AI in book manuscripts

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a substantial issue for research integrity in scientific book publication. AI nowadays can easily and quickly perform secondary research for authors. And according to a recent Nature survey, researchers are interested in expanding their AI use for such tasks as manuscript preparation or handling large amounts of information (as in literature reviews, paper summarisation, and data processing).

With large language models (LLMs), it is simple enough to get large portions of a book manuscript written automatically by AI. But LLMs, such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy authorship criteria, and Springer Nature requires human accountability for the final version of the text and agreement by the authors that the edits reflect their original work.

To ensure the integrity of research, it is essential to identify when LLMs are used wrongfully. Peer reviewers, as experts in the field, can assist in flagging such content.

Identifying integrity breaches with the help of automated checks, or: AI to tackle AI

Incorporating AI tools alongside human oversight and prevention measures enhances the overall integrity of published books. AI tools have the efficiency and speed to quickly analyse volumes of data and identify potential integrity issues.

AI tools, with their enhanced detection capabilities, have the ability to accurately and consistently recognise subtle problematic patterns or plagiarism. By identifying breaches of integrity early, before manuscripts enter the editorial workflow, they support the human editors and reviewers in evaluating the content.

Manuscripts submitted to Springer Nature are screened for plagiarism by the Crossref Similarity Check tool before the review process begins. Additionally, a Springer Nature in-house AI tool also pre-screens all submitted book content to identify nonsense AI-generated text (a classic indication of paper mill activity) or even human manipulated text to defer plagiarism detection. And recently, another screening tool was launched to identify irrelevant references in submitted manuscripts.

The AI tools allow human reviewers to focus on more elaborate issues and complex evaluations. When they indicate possible breaches of integrity, a check by Springer Nature topical experts is initiated, returning the responsibility to humans and their expertise and judgment.

With a holistic approach that is based on prevention and human oversight and augmented with technology, Springer Nature ensures adherence with the highest standards in its published books, and maintains the integrity of the scientific record.

Learn more about peer reviewing books at Springer Nature, and explore the peer reviewer code of conduct, for everything you need to know about how reviewers safeguard the scientific record.