COPE is a forum for editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals to discuss issues related to the integrity of work submitted to or published in their journals. It supports and encourages editors to report, catalogue and instigate investigations into ethical problems in the publication process…
There’s coverage in the Times Higher Education of a paper on the perception of academic credit among academic chemists in the US, published in the journal Accountability in Research in July 2010.
Posted by Virginia Barbour, COPE Secretary on August 31st 2010
There’s a new post at the Scientist about differing practices among journals on the signing of editorials. The piece only discusses biomedical journals - among those relatively few journals have ones just signed by the journal; more and more are signed directly by the authors and some (like the journal I work at) does something in between. We’d be interested to hear what journals at COPE do, especially those outside of biomedicine – are there differences in tradition according to the journal's speciality?
Posted by Virginia Barbour, COPE Secretary on August 27th 2010
The New York Times just posted an interesting story of how a group of scholars in the humanities are experimenting with open peer review. The experiment is happening in the Shakespeare Quarterly in a special issue on, appropriately, Shakespeare and New Media.
Posted by Virginia Barbour, COPE Secretary on August 24th 2010
A recent item on the site of the Report on Research Compliance (run by the National Council of University Research Administrators) discussed the longstanding vacancy at the head of the Office for Research Integrity in the USA.
Posted by Virginia Barbour, COPE Secretary on August 20th 2010
All too often the efforts of editors to expose misconduct in research and publication come to nothing because the authors' institutions either ignore the problem or fail to act on it.
Posted by Trish Groves, COPE Council Member on August 20th 2010
2010
Monday 6 September 2010 (deadline for cases 23 August)
Tuesday 7 December 2010 (deadline for cases 23 November)
All Forum meetings are 3–5pm, in the Council Chamber, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, 5-11 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8SH
Posted by Linda Gough, COPE Administrator on August 24th 2010
Download the agenda and materials for the next COPE Forum (Download PDF, 168kb). The meeting will be held on Monday 6 September 2010, 3-5pm. Please note our new venue - Council Chamber, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), 5-11 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8SH.
All COPE members are welcome to attend, whether or not they are presenting a case.
Posted by Linda Gough, COPE Administrator on August 27th 2010
Download the Autumn issue of Ethical Editing, the newsletter from COPE (http://publicationethics.org/newsletters).
This issue's theme is ‘Correcting editorial inequalities’. We would very much welcome any feedback or comments you may have. Please contact us via the website.
Posted by Linda Gough, COPE Administrator on August 27th 2010
Can you sum up COPE in a single phrase? We're looking for a new slogan for our homepage. Can you suggest something better than 'Helping journals to get their houses in order'? If we get lots of good suggestions we may ask members to vote on them. There's no prize except the chance to know your creative talents have contributed to our website! Click on the link below to submit your suggestion. Please send suggestions by 15 September http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PFN7K68
Posted by Linda Gough, COPE Administrator on August 27th 2010
In response to growing concern about reporting biases, and advocacy for registration of systematic reviews, the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (
Posted by Natalie Ridgeway, COPE COPE Operations Manager on July 22nd 2010