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Background

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a large volume of publications, a barrage of non-reviewed preprints on various professional repositories and a slew of retractions in a short amount of time.

Methods

We conducted an e-survey using a cloud-based website to gauge the potential sources of trustworthy information and misinformation and analyzed researchers', clinicians', and academics' attitude toward unpublished items, and pre-and post-publication quality checks in this challenging time.

Results

Among 128 respondents (mean age, 43.2 years; M: F, 1.1: 1), 60 (46.9%) were scholarly journal editors and editorial board members. Social media channels were distinguished as the most important sources of information as well as misinformation (81 [63.3%] and 86 [67.2%]). Nearly two in five (62, 48.4%) respondents blamed reviewers, editors, and misinterpretation by readers as additional contributors alongside authors for misinformation. A higher risk of plagiarism was perceived by the majority (70, 58.6%), especially plagiarism of ideas (64.1%) followed by inappropriate paraphrasing (54.7%). Opinion was divided on the utility of preprints for changing practice and changing retraction rates during the pandemic period, and higher rejections were not supported by most (76.6%) while the importance of peer review was agreed upon by a majority (80, 62.5%). More stringent screening by journal editors (61.7%), and facilitating open access plagiarism software (59.4%), including Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based algorithms (43.8%) were among the suggested solutions. Most (74.2%) supported the need to launch a …