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Text recycling, also referred to as self-plagiarism, is the reproduction of an author's own text from a previous publication in a new publication. Opinions on the acceptability of this practice vary, with some viewing it as acceptable and efficient, and others as misleading and unacceptable. In light of the lack of consensus, journal editors often have difficulty deciding how to act upon the discovery of text recycling. In response to these difficulties, we have created a set of guidelines for journal editors on how to deal with text recycling. In this editorial, we discuss some of the challenges of developing these guidelines, and how authors can avoid undisclosed text recycling.

The internet has opened up vast possibilities for research. An increasing number of studies are being conducted using the internet as both a source of data and a venue for research. Use of the internet in research has created many challenges, not just for those conducting and reviewing the studies, but also for editors publishing this work. Two key issues raised by internet-based research are ethics approval and informed consent. While some guidance exists regarding the ethics and consent of internet-based research, and some institutions provide their own guidelines, there appears to be a lack of definitive national standards. We discuss the issues surrounding ethics and consent for internet-based research and the need for a consensus on how to address these issues to ensure consistency.