2007-09-01
With the availability and sophistication of image-processing software, authors are frequently unaware of what kind of image manipulation is unacceptable in a scholarly journal. A recent, infamous case of the paper published in Science by Hwang et al1 brought this issue to the attention of both the scientific community and the lay public. Blood, which started to screen some of the accepted papers in 2006 and now extends its policy to include all accepted papers, is among the first scientific journals enforcing new standards of what is permissible in image manipulation and digital image editing.
In his recent Editorial2, Blood's Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Sanford Shattil, defined the new policy in these words: "Our major goals are to educate our authors and readership about acceptable practices in preparing digital images for publication and to eliminate improperly processed images from our pages. While these are but two of many important goals of Blood's editorial and publishing staffs, we aim to make the digital images that we publish as pure and as eloquent as blood itself."
From the pilot study in the fall of 2006 we learned that about 20 percent of the scanned papers contained at least one image that required further clarification from the authors. These preliminary results prompted the ASH Journals Committee to recommend incorporating image scanning into the Blood workflow and extending it to all accepted papers. The new process was fully implemented in June 2007.
Before implementation of the image scanning, it was necessary to make significant software changes to the Blood Bench>Press manuscript submission and tracking system. Blood is the first among more than 50 journals using Bench>Press to develop such a system.
The image scan is performed on accepted papers containing gels and/or micrographs; papers are not prepublished in First Edition or sent for production until all images pass inspection.
The editorial staff scans high-resolution images using Photoshop and contacts the author when signs of possible inappropriate image editing are found. Authors may be asked to explain discrepancies in the image background and/or supply the original experimental images for comparison. They may also be asked to alter an image and the corresponding legend in the interest of full transparency or to provide the original films for further evaluation. The final decision is in the hands of the Editor-in-Chief.
In addition to the introduction of the physical image scan, Blood has published a set of more detailed guidelines (specifically under "working with gels and micrographs") for authors online; since then, the number of images requiring further evaluation by the Editor and papers with inappropriate image manipulation have decreased significantly. We expect that as our authors become more familiar with the requirements, the number of images that pass the image scan will increase.
References:
- Hwang WS, Roh SI, Lee BC, et al. Patient-specific embryonic stem cells derived from human SCNT blastocysts. Science. 2005;308:1777–1783.
- Shattil SJ. A digital exam for hematologists. (Editorial). Blood. 2007;109:2275.
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