Exclusive: Wiley journal editor under investigation for duplicate publications

An academic editor at Wiley who vowed to “uphold publication ethics” is being investigated by the company for allegedly publishing three of his papers twice, in violation of journal policies, Retraction Watch has learned.

One of the duplicates, which appeared last year in Nurse Education in Practice, an Elsevier title, has already been slated for retraction, according to emails we have seen. The other offending articles were published in Wiley journals.

The editor, Daniel Joseph Berdida, is a nurse and faculty member at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, the Philippines. He joined the editorial board of Wiley’s Journal of Nursing Management four months ago, announcing on LinkedIn that he would “be serving with integrity and uphold publication ethics.”

After being confronted about the duplicate publication by Roger Watson, editor-in-chief of Nurse Education in Practice, Berdida acknowledged his transgression, explaining he had been “on health leave” for the past eight months and “a breakdown in communication” with his research assistant had “led to the current situation.”

“I fully acknowledge my responsibility in this matter,” Berdida wrote in a March 13 email. “If it is within your discretion, I would appreciate it if you could consider retracting the manuscript from your journal, given the circumstances.”

But Berdida had made the same excuse to one of the Wiley journals, and Watson was unconvinced. 

“As with all violations of publication ethics, this is a most unfortunate set of duplications,” he told us. “It is doubly unfortunate for the author that the editors-in-chief of three of the publications involved are very close colleagues and regularly consult one another for advice. In this way we were able to tie the three incidences of duplication together. Let’s hope there are no more.”

The three duplicate articles are:

• “The mediating roles of moral courage and moral resilience between nurses’ moral distress and moral injury: an online cross-sectional study.” (A duplicate of “Moral distress, moral resilience, moral courage, and moral injury among nurses in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mediation analysis.”)
• “Nurses’ professional values and competency in Saudi Arabia: A structural equation modelling approach.” (A duplicate of “Structural equation modelling of ethicomoral values and competence of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.”)
• “Safety climate, quality of care, adherence to and compliance with standard precautions among nurses: Structural equation modeling.” (A duplicate of “Nurses’ safety climate, quality of care, and standard precautions adherence and compliance: A cross-sectional study.”)

On March 20, Watson wrote to Berdida:

This is to inform you that Elsevier will be retracting your article in Nurse Education in Practice and due to the fact that we are aware of further duplications in other journals we are not satisfied with your response. Under these circumstances we consider that it is necessary to inform your dean.

Mark Hayter, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical Nursing, in which one of the duplicate papers appeared, confirmed his publication was “involved in this matter,” adding, “It is currently being investigated by the Wiley publication ethics team.”

Berdida has not responded to our request for comment. The dean of his university’s College of Nursing, Rowena L. Escolar Chua, declined to comment, explaining, “I do not know the full story and the matter is still being investigated.”

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