A journal did nothing about plagiarism allegations for a year. Then the tweets (and an email from Retraction Watch) came.

On August 10 of last year, Jim Stagge, an environmental engineering professor at The Ohio State University, emailed editors of Water Resources Management, a Springer Nature title, to let them know that a paper in the journal had taken significant blocks of his text without attribution.

The Water Resources Management paper in question, “Recommendations for Modifying the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) for Drought Monitoring in Arid and Semi-arid Regions,” was published July 16, 2021. Stagge said that it borrowed liberally from a paper of his, “Candidate Distributions for Climatological Drought Indices (SPI and SPEI),” that was published in the International Journal of Climatology in 2015.

The 2021 paper, with first author Peyman Mahmoudi from the University of Sistan and Baluchestan in Iran, did cite Stagge’s 2015 work, but didn’t indicate that large sections taken directly from Stagge and his co-authors were quotes.

Sometimes Stagge’s sentences were unchanged, as with this sentence in the Mahmoudi  paper: “This value is then used to calculate the SPI for the center of probability mass for zero precipitation.” Stagge’s version says “centre,” but otherwise the two sentences are identical.

Cosmetic changes were more frequent, such as:

Stagge: “In the ‘proposed’ method for normalizing zero precipitation, the likelihood of zero precipitation is calculated based on the empirical cumulative distribution.”

Mahmoudi: “In the ‘new method’ for normalizing zero precipitation, the likelihood of zero precipitation is calculated based on the empirical cumulative distribution.”

A figure in Mahmoudi’s paper, which shows SPI simulations, has slightly different labels but identical graphics to one in Stagge’s article.

“I wouldn’t accept that from my students,” Stagge told Retraction Watch. 

Earlier this week, the article at issue was flagged with an editor’s note. But after a year of inaction, that only happened after Stagge tweeted about his frustration and we called the journal. (Mahmoudi has not responded to requests for comment.)

In a reply to Stagge obtained by Retraction Watch, dated Aug. 16, 2021, Water Resources Management editor-in-chief George Tsakiris acknowledged an issue:

Obviously, this is not the right way to write papers since it is easy in the future for anyone interested to discover the copied material.

However, I believe that the copied material could have been rephrased and the figure could have been accompanied by the citation of Stagge et al.

In conclusion, I agree that the section highlighed [sic] by Jim was copied by Mahmoudi et al., although the text is not very centrally important for the application presented.

On Sept. 27, 2021, in another email obtained by Retraction Watch, Petra van Steenbergen, an executive editor for Earth and Sciences at Springer Nature, wrote to Stagge: 

I will be back with more information later, once we have come to a conclusion of this investigation. Just for the record: these kind of investigations can take some longer since we have to carefully follow the COPE guidelines and there is a lot of back and forth communications between the parties.  

Stagge heard nothing for nearly a year. He followed up last month, and on Aug. 11th, van Steenbergen replied: 

I will check on the status and inform you on this.

Frustrated with the lengthy process, Stagge tweeted about his experience on Sept. 13th. 

Three days later, van Steenbergen wrote to him: 

We are still investigating this case and cannot share further details at this time, but will update you as soon as an editorial decision is made.

We also contacted Springer Nature last week.

Earlier this week, Water Resources Management added an editor’s note to the article that acknowledged Stagge’s complaint in cryptic terms:

Readers are alerted that concerns have been raised regarding overlap between this article and a previous publication from a different author group. Further editorial action will be taken if appropriate once the investigation into the concerns is complete and all parties have been given an opportunity to respond in full.

The editor’s note was published on September 20th. After we reached out to Tsakiris and van Steenbergen for comment, we heard back from a Springer Nature spokesperson:

We are aware that concerns have been raised about a paper published in the journal Water Resources Management and are investigating them carefully in line with best practice COPE guidelines. We have also added an Editor’s Note to the paper to alert readers to these concerns and the investigation.

We cannot share details of the investigation while it is ongoing but will provide an update when further information is available.

Our role as a publisher is to protect and maintain the scientific record rather than to make judgements about wrong-doing or penalise individuals. Any editorial action taken will reflect that role.

Stagge pointed out that the editors of Water Resources Management claim to use software to detect plagiarism, which presumably should have alerted editors to the extensive similarities between the two articles before the second one was reviewed and published. Stagge also noted that the journal claims to operate within COPE guidelines, which call for editors to consider retracting plagiarized papers. 

Stagge took the editor Tsakiris’s reply, with its claim that “I believe that the copied materials could have been rephrased,” to mean that the journal did not wish to retract the paper, because its findings were unique even if its methods presentation was not. 

Stagge was inclined toward leniency for the authors that plagiarized him, noting to us that the newer article’s findings are original: 

There are people saying – as a statement – that things like this should be retracted, resubmitted, and go through the whole process. I don’t think that I am quite that punitive.

Stagge said he would satisfied if the journal had clearly indicated that parts of the paper had been plagiarized as soon as the editors were made aware of it, and instituted robust procedures to ensure that it would never happen again. 

The Sept. 20 editor’s note does not go that far, however, only stating only that “concerns have been raised.”

Stagge tweeted that he was “extremely disappointed in the handling of this process.” He told us: 

The notice is at least a start. However, the action could/should have been taken over a year ago…It’s also frustrating that all of this rapid response appears to have happened only after we made our complaint public.

He added:

At this point the toothpaste is out of the tube for this paper, but I’d like for the next people not to have to deal with this.

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