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COSIG
@cosig.net
200 followers 9 following 63 posts
The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides (COSIG) is a constantly-expanding resource for performing post-publication peer review.
https://cosig.net
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cosig.net
Happy New Year from Sal Sleuthmander and the COSIG team! Here's to doing lots of post-publication peer review in 2026
🎆🥂🔎
An inquisitive cartoon Chinese giant salamander wears a conical "2026" party hat. Multicolored fireworks explode in the background. He wields a magnifying glass and copy of COSIG.
January 1, 2026 at 12:15 AM
cosig.net
Merry Christmas and happy holidays from COSIG's newly-named mascot, Sal Sleuthmander!
Sal Sleuthmander (a chinese giant salamander) looks curious and wet as he peers through a magnifying glass. He holds a copy of COSIG adorned with a red bow.
December 25, 2025 at 6:02 AM
cosig.net
Last week, COSIG's team of maintainers finally got to meet up in person!
@solalpirelli.bsky.social @reeserichardson.bsky.social
Solal, Yagmur and Reese stand in front of a Christmas tree and a staircase and smile at the camera. Yagmur reaches out to either side to grab Reese and Solal's heads and bring them into frame. All three are laughing but Yagmur is definitely having the most fun
December 17, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Reposted by COSIG
nature.com
Achal Agrawal realised how ingrained research misconduct had become, and resolved to do something about the issue

He is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025
go.nature.com/3Yk3d0T
This science sleuth revealed a retraction crisis at Indian universities
Achal Agrawal is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025.
go.nature.com
December 11, 2025 at 2:20 PM
cosig.net
Are you keeping up with @abalkina.bsky.social's advent calendar? It is a great way to practice spotting publication integrity issues!
abalkina.bsky.social Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 24d
Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨
Day 7.
Could you identify any issues in the demographic data?
papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025
December 7, 2025 at 1:26 PM
cosig.net
Congratulations to one of COSIG's first contributors, @elisabethbik.bsky.social !
elisabethbik.bsky.social Elisabeth Bik @elisabethbik.bsky.social · 26d
This afternoon, I will give a public lecture about #ResearchIntegrity and #ImageForensics, at the University of Bern, CH, where I will receive an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Science tomorrow.

Thank you for your support ❤️
Screenshot from a flyer that reads: Public Lecture on Scientific Integrity Dr. Elisabeth Bik Errors and Misconduct in Biomedical Research Images Science builds upon science. Even after peer-review and publication, science papers could still contain images or other data of concern. If not addressed, papers containing incorrect or even falsified data could lead to wasted time and money spent by other researchers trying to reproduce those results. Several high-profile cases of science misconduct have been reported, but many more remain undetected. Elisabeth Bik is an image forensics detective who left her paid job in industry to search for and report biomedical articles that contain errors or data of concern. She has conducted a systematic review of 20,000 papers across 40 journals and found that approximately 4% of these contained inappropriately duplicated images. In her talk, she will present her work and show several types of inappropriately duplicated images and other examples of research misconduct. In addition, she will discuss how Artificial Intelligence can both help identify cases of misconduct and also create them, as well as the growing threat of scientific paper mills. On the occasion of the Dies academicus of the University of Bern on 6th December 2025, Elisabeth Bik will receive an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Science for her groundbreaking work and untiring commitment to scientific integrity. Friday 5th December 2025, 4pm Aula, 2nd floor, Main Building, Hochschulstrasse 4. Also see this link: https://www.vetsuisse.unibe.ch/e58/e1479157/e1624857/e1753357/Elisabeth_Bik_flyer_2025_A3_20251104_ger.pdf
December 5, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by COSIG
abalkina.bsky.social
Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨
Welcome to a new edition of the Research Integrity Advent Calendar.
Each day brings a small challenge: spot the problem, detect inconsistencies, and sharpen your skills.
Enjoy the season and the daily puzzles!
Day 1. papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025
December 1, 2025 at 8:07 PM
cosig.net
This Thursday, COSIG maintainer @reeserichardson.bsky.social will be presenting on using COSIG to spot problematic papers! Registration details below.
rsc.org Royal Society of Chemistry @rsc.org · Nov 6
Do you want to know how you can fight back against fraudulent research & paper mills? Join speakers Jack Wilkinson & Reese Richardson – experts who have made it their mission to empower the world to fight back against the fakery of paper mills: https://rsc.li/47ysXuD #ChemSky @chemistryworld.com
Chemistry World Webinar banner titled 'Restoring integrity: tackling fraud and data manipulation in scientific research'. It includes the date and time for the event and a logo for the Royal Society of Chemistry. The image shows a person examining a scientific paper with a magnifying glass.
November 26, 2025 at 2:59 AM
cosig.net
Scientific articles often report data in tables. COSIG's latest guide covers methods to export these tables into a spreadsheet editor like Microsoft Excel!

COSIG (32 guides and growing!) is available at cosig.net.
New guide: Extracting tabular data from an article cosig.net
November 24, 2025 at 4:13 PM
cosig.net
COSIG has a new mascot but he doesn't yet have a name! Any suggestions?
A mottled gray Chinese giant salamander wearing a deerstalker peers into a magnifying glass. He holds a copy of COSIG in his right hand (foot? limb? idk).
November 19, 2025 at 3:12 PM
cosig.net
Check out the latest issue of REACH magazine from @sci-integrity.com, which features COSIG on page 42!

www.sci-integrity.com/reach-octobe...
REACH October-December 2025 | Science Integrity Alliance
REACH is a modern, interactive, and comprehensive digital magazine designed to meet the shared needs of all stakeholders in the research community.
www.sci-integrity.com
November 16, 2025 at 2:52 PM
cosig.net
The FDA Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS) is useful for identifying potential adverse events associated with drugs. However, its data is often exploited to produce articles reporting spurious drug risks.

COSIG's entry on formulaic research now covers low-quality pharmacovigilance studies!
COSIG: The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides Newest version available at cosig.net!
November 14, 2025 at 6:41 PM
cosig.net
COSIG has a new landing page! Check it out at cosig.net.

(Files for COSIG are still hosted on OSF!)
The new landing page for COSIG, available at cosig.net. It reads: Anyone can do post-publication peer review. Anyone can be a steward of the scientific literature. Anyone can do forensic metascience. Anyone can sleuth. However, investigating the integrity of the published scientific literature often requires domain-specific knowledge that not everyone will have. This open source project is a collection of guides written and maintained by publication integrity experts to distribute this domain-specific knowledge so that others can participate in post-publication peer review. COSIG currently hosts 31 guides and was last updated on 25 September 2025. Guides can be downloaded as individual PDFs. A combined PDF with all guides included can be downloaded here.
October 17, 2025 at 12:41 PM
cosig.net
What is a "calculation chain" file? How can I easily identify duplicated values in a table?

COSIG's 31st guide is all about data forensics using Microsoft Excel!

osf.io/bz725

As always, all guides are available at cosig.net.
COSIG: The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides Newest version available at cosig.net!
September 25, 2025 at 5:15 PM
cosig.net
Adjusting the black/white levels in an image can reveal inconsistencies barely perceptible to the naked eye.

A 2018 article in Scientific Reports was just retracted as a result of several such inconsistencies.

Check out COSIG's guide on software for image forensics here: osf.io/g23pf
Western blot gel images
September 17, 2025 at 5:21 PM
cosig.net
Starting in 10 minutes!
cosig.net COSIG @cosig.net · Sep 8
This Friday, September 12, COSIG maintainer @reeserichardson.bsky.social will be participating in a panel discussion (16:00 CEST, 10:00 AM EDT) as part of the all-day event "Making Sense of Open Science" hosted by the Czech Academy of Sciences. Watch online!

www.projekt-amulet.cz/index.php/en...
Public Hearing on Open Science | Project AMULET
Making Sense of Open SciencePublic Hearing on the Principles and Practices of Data Management, Publishing Regimes, and Public Engagement in Science Location: Rooms 205 and 206, main building of the Cz...
www.projekt-amulet.cz
September 12, 2025 at 1:51 PM
cosig.net
This Friday, September 12, COSIG maintainer @reeserichardson.bsky.social will be participating in a panel discussion (16:00 CEST, 10:00 AM EDT) as part of the all-day event "Making Sense of Open Science" hosted by the Czech Academy of Sciences. Watch online!

www.projekt-amulet.cz/index.php/en...
Public Hearing on Open Science | Project AMULET
Making Sense of Open SciencePublic Hearing on the Principles and Practices of Data Management, Publishing Regimes, and Public Engagement in Science Location: Rooms 205 and 206, main building of the Cz...
www.projekt-amulet.cz
September 8, 2025 at 5:36 PM
cosig.net
Here we are!
Yagmur Ozturk and Reese Richardson stand in front of Yagmur's poster titled "Citation Context Analysis of Retracted Articles: Leveraging Retraction Reasons to Track Unreliability in the Citing Literature". They point to COSIG logo on the poster.
September 4, 2025 at 10:15 PM
cosig.net
COSIG maintainers Reese Richardson and Yagmur Ozturk are at #PRC10 in Chicago! Come find us to talk about post-publication peer review!
September 3, 2025 at 6:38 PM
cosig.net
Stocking the Librarian’s Publishing Integrity Toolkit

The number of tools available to help library staff identify potential research misconduct is rapidly expanding. Here are some recommendations.

By Matthew Goddard and Zachariah Motts

katinamagazine.org/content/arti...
Stocking the Librarian’s Publishing Integrity Toolkit
The number of tools available to help library staff identify potential research misconduct is rapidly expanding. Here are some recommendations.
share.google
August 12, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by COSIG
reeserichardson.bsky.social
Want to get involved finding problematic scientific articles? Check out the Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides at cosig.net!

@cosig.net
August 6, 2025 at 4:27 PM
cosig.net
One of the issues raised in this commentary is data leakage between the training set and the validation set. Check out COSIG's entry on data leakage here: osf.io/d8mzb
July 22, 2025 at 8:00 PM
cosig.net
On Monday, July 21 at @reeserichardson.bsky.social will be giving a talk about COSIG for Open Research Summer School, organized by @kingsioppn.bsky.social!

Online attendance for all of Open Research Summer School is free! Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/open-resea...
Open Research Summer School
Join us at the Open Research Summer School for a deep dive into the world of research - see you there on 21 to 25 July 2025 at 8:30 AM!
www.eventbrite.co.uk
July 16, 2025 at 6:46 PM
cosig.net
Our entry on reporting publication integrity issues to publishers has contact information to reach the publication integrity and publication ethics departments at most major scholarly publishers. Read here: osf.io/4edk2

All of COSIG is available at cosig.net!
Contact information for integrity/ethics teams at major publishers • American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, Science, Science Advances, etc.): science_data@aaas.org. • American Chemical Society (ACS): Each journal usually has contact information for a managing editor, usually at managing.editor@<journal-url>.org • American Society for Microbiology: ethics.journals@asmusa.org • British Medical Journal (BMJ): publication.ethics@bmj.com • Elsevier (Elsevier, Cell Press, etc.): ethicsexpert@elsevier.com • Frontiers: research.integrity@frontiersin.org • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): pub-ethics@ieee.org • Karger: publication.ethics@karger.com • MDPI: publication.ethics@mdpi.com • Oxford University Press: journals.ethics@oup.com • PLOS: pub-ethics@plos.org • Rockefeller University Press (Journal of Cell Biology, Life Science Alliance, etc.): integrity@rupress.org • Sage (Sage, Mary-Ann Liebert): publication_ethics@sagepub.com • Springer Nature (Springer, Nature, BMC): ethics.reporting@springernature.com • Taylor & Francis (Taylor & Francis, Dove Medical Press, CRC Press, Routledge): ethics@tandf.co.uk • Thieme: publishingethics@thieme.de • Wiley (Wiley, Hindawi, FEBS Press): researchintegrity@wiley.com
July 10, 2025 at 11:43 AM
cosig.net
A 2019 Cochrane systematic review on using lithium to treat acute mania confuses standard error (SE) with standard deviation (SD) for two studies included in a meta-analysis, resulting in an overestimation of overall effect size in that meta-analysis.

See COSIG's guide on the topic: osf.io/hp4yd
A comparison of the original meta-analysis for Outcome 3 shown in https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD004048.pub4 and a corrected meta-analysis. Created by Nanarchaea binnaburra on PubPeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/16EA56FE44642BA4284D5B02694875
July 3, 2025 at 5:30 PM