@sjmelchor.bsky.social writes for @nature.com about how to spot dubious papers, interviewing @elisabethbik.bsky.social, @abalkina.bsky.social, @jabyrnesci.bsky.social, myself and and my fellow @cosig.net maintainers @solalpirelli.bsky.social and Yagmur Ozturk!
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Thanks to René Aquarius and Alex Glynn for their contributions to this guide.
Don’t miss their one-year update on stealth corrections hosted on Dorothy Bishop's blog:
deevybee.blogspot.com/2026/02/gues...
cc: @deadneanderthals.bsky.social @gcabanac.cpesr.fr @deevybee.bsky.social
COSIG: The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides Newest version available at cosig.net!
Stealth corrections happen when a publisher makes changes to a scientific article after its publication, without issuing any public notice.
To learn more, check out the latest COSIG entry on Stealth Corrections!
osf.io/34nj5
COSIG (33 guides and growing!) is available at cosig.net.
Figure 6 from a scientific paper showing very wobbly peaks
New blog post: UnEDXpected Peaks
Thanks to @reeserichardson.bsky.social, for teaching me to spot Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy problems. @cosig.net guide: osf.io/2kdez/files/...
30+ papers from a group from Pakistan with wonky EDX plots. Read more:
scienceintegritydigest.com/2026/02/09/u...
To make COSIG more discoverable for educators looking to develop course material on publication integrity and peer review, COSIG now has an entry in OER Commons! @oercommons.bsky.social #OER
oercommons.org/courses/the-...
Check out this feature on sleuthing by @jgro-the.bsky.social !
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.
Happy New Year from Sal Sleuthmander and the COSIG team! Here's to doing lots of post-publication peer review in 2026
🎆🥂🔎
Curl up by the fire and take a look at the Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides at cosig.net!
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.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays from COSIG's newly-named mascot, Sal Sleuthmander!
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
Last week, COSIG's team of maintainers finally got to meet up in person!
@solalpirelli.bsky.social @reeserichardson.bsky.social
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
Are you keeping up with @abalkina.bsky.social's advent calendar? It is a great way to practice spotting publication integrity issues!
Congratulations to one of COSIG's first contributors, @elisabethbik.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
This Thursday, COSIG maintainer @reeserichardson.bsky.social will be presenting on using COSIG to spot problematic papers! Registration details below.
New guide: Extracting tabular data from an article 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.
Our as-yet-nameless friend was drawn up by COSIG maintainer Yagmur Ozturk! See his real-life counterpart here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese...
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).
COSIG has a new mascot but he doesn't yet have a name! Any suggestions?
Check out the latest issue of REACH magazine from @sci-integrity.com, which features COSIG on page 42!
www.sci-integrity.com/reach-octobe...
Thanks to Charles Khouri for contributing material on this subject! Read his team's analysis of low-quality pharmacovigilance studies here:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
COSIG's formulaic research guide: osf.io/24dhu
All of COSIG is available at cosig.net.
COSIG: The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides Newest version available at 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!
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.
COSIG has a new landing page! Check it out at cosig.net.
(Files for COSIG are still hosted on OSF!)
COSIG: The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides Newest version available at 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.
Western blot gel images
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
Starting in 10 minutes!
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...
Yagmur's poster abstract is available here: peerreviewcongress.org/abstract/cit...
Here we are!
