Call for Papers: Misinformation in Scientific Publishing
The integrity of the scientific record depends on rigorous research practices and the trustworthiness of the channels through which knowledge is communicated and disseminated. Misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation in scholarly publishing represent a growing threat to the credibility of science. Unlike general public health misinformation, these phenomena arise from within the scholarly ecosystem itself through compromised peer review, manipulated data, misleading abstracts, predatory publishing, citation manipulation, paper mills, and irresponsible or frank misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the scientific research life cycle. Downstream consequences erode public trust in science or could lead to harmful real-world decisions in clinical practice or health policy.
The speed and scale at which scholarly content is now produced and shared amplify these issues. Evolving publishing models (eg, preprints, open peer review) and dissemination tools or culture (eg, social media, journalistic media) may be used as new avenues for an influx of unvalidated AI-generated material. This increases the risk for accelerating the spread of information that has not been adequately vetted, even when harmless, or that may be intentionally misleading, which leans toward disinformation and malinformation. At the same time, the scholarly publishing community is developing governance models, detection tools, educational frameworks, and policy interventions to counter these threats.
JMIR Metascience and Research Integrity invites submissions to a new e-collection exploring misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation as generated or perpetuated through scholarly and scientific publishing. We are particularly interested in work that proposes, evaluates, or critically examines solutions and mitigation strategies developed by shareholders across the publishing ecosystem. Original research, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, policy analyses, balanced viewpoints, research letters, and tutorials are welcome.
Topics of Interest
Example submission topics for this call for papers include the following:
- Mechanisms by which inaccurate or misleading content enters and persists in the scientific literature
- Accurate detection, investigation, correction, and retraction of misinformation in published literature through postpublication review and other existing or novel policies or approaches
- Misinformation in non–peer-reviewed scholarly content, such as preprints, for public understanding of science
- Examination of publishing practices, including predatory publishing, research assessment incentives, or other system and industry influences as vectors for misinformation
- Governance, policy, and infrastructure-based solutions to mitigate misinformation in scholarly publishing, including the roles of publishers, editors, funders, and institutions
- Well-argued and evidence-based thought pieces that look to a future scholarly publishing ecosystem that could mitigate misinformation in published literature
- Measuring and understanding the impacts of social media, science communication, and the amplification of misleading scientific claims beyond the scholarly record; this could include the impact of zero-click search on access to scientific material
How to Submit
Please submit to JMIR Metascience and Research Integrity by selecting “Misinformation in Scientific Publishing” from the Section drop-down list. See the articles How do I submit to a theme issue? and Instructions for Authors in our Knowledge Base for more information.
Submission Guidelines
All submissions will undergo a rigorous peer-review process, and accepted articles will be published as part of the “Misinformation in Scientific Publishing” e-collection.
All peer-reviewed articles will be made immediately and permanently open access.
Articles will be made immediately available in JMIR Preprints (with a DOI) if authors select this option at submission.