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COPE Members bring specific (anonymised) publication ethics issues to the COPE Forum for discussion and advice. The advice from the COPE Forum meetings is specific to the particular case under consideration and may not necessarily be applicable to similar cases either past or future. The advice is given by the Forum participants (COPE Council and COPE Members from across all regions and disciplines).

COPE Members may submit a case for consideration.

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Showing 341–360 of 780 results
  • Case
    On-going

    Self-plagiarism of review article

    A reader flagged up that a review article originally published in a journal X in April 2003 had subsequently appeared with a few minor additions and deletions in journal Y (our journal) in July 2004 and then in journal Z (of which the author is an editor) in September 2006. The authors on the paper are all from the same institute although with some minor differences between the publications: jo…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Lost raw data

    In a nutshell, if someone has lost their raw data, workup data and laboratory books (so that in effect their data cannot be checked/queried/verified/substantiated) what would be the implications of submitting his/her results to a journal? I have a very clear view. I would not do it. However, others seem to think that if you cannot prove that the results are wrong, then they must be accepted on…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Seeking retrospective ethics approval

    I received a submission that had asked a series of questions of visitors to a website about a mental health issue. It was reviewed by a senior colleague and myself. While the science was fine we were both concerned that no mention had been made of any ethics approval. I raised this issue with the authors, especially given that deception was involved. The authors then appear to have sough…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Disagreement between authors and sponsor

    Our journal was contacted by a representative of a company following acceptance of a manuscript that was based on a clinical study sponsored by that company. Upon acceptance, the senior author had forwarded a copy of the manuscript to the company, who had identified some discrepancies between the data presented in the article and an initial report that had been presented to them while the study…
  • Case
    On-going

    Is this previous publication?

    A manuscript was submitted to our journal and, on running a routine CrossCheck report, we found that it contained a 68% match (over 5000 words) to a report from a funded project by the authors that had recently been published online. Because the similarity match was so high, we rejected the manuscript. The author is now contesting the rejection, arguing that the funded project had demand…
  • Case
    Closed: author misconduct

    Case of figure duplication and manipulation involving two journals

    The editors in chief of journal A and journal B, both owned by society C, received a letter from the last ‘senior’ author, also the corresponding author on one of the papers (author D), concerning separate papers published in both journals (paper E published in journal A and paper F published in journal B), informing them that one of the co-authors on both papers is under investigation for scie…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    An enquiry about arbitrating reviewers

    Under certain circumstances, the editors of journal A use ‘arbitrating’ reviewers. These reviewers advise an editor where, for example, an editor has split reviewer reports or a rebuttal to a decision that was based on split reviewer reports. This reviewer has sight of the other reviewers’ reports as he/she both evaluates the manuscript and assists the editor, through their advice, to arrive at…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Lack of trial registration leads to new concerns about study conduct and ethical review/approval

    Following publication of an article, the editors noticed that the paper reported results of a clinical trial, but no details of trial registration were included in the article. (The journal does have careful checks on trial registration by staff at submission but this paper was not well written and it took careful reading to work out that it did in fact report on a clinical trial). We co…
  • Case
    Closed: author misconduct

    Duplicate publication and alleged image manipulation

    The editorial office of journal A was contacted anonymously by an individual who made allegations against two papers, both published by the same author. Paper 1 was alleged to be a duplicate publication, with the paper previously having been published in journal B. The editorial office of journal A, in accordance with the COPE flowcharts, contacted the author informing them of the allegations a…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Mislabelling/duplicate images

    We were contacted by a reader who told us that he had spotted a number of cases of image duplication and mislabelling of fluorescent tags that had occurred over the past 4 years. These involved two papers published in our journal, and two other papers published in two different journals. The two papers in our journal were both reviews, and the one that had the most occurrences involved a poster…
  • Case
    On-going

    Late introduction of an omitted author after online publishing

    The corresponding author as well as the co-authors admit that they have omitted one author (author X) who was responsible for a major part of the work in their study. Author X insists on having full acknowledgment in the authorship line and would not be satisfied with an erratum. What should I do? Please advise also about whether author X will appear in different citation trackers…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Retractions of primary literature papers: how should a review journal react?

    In a recent and very prominent case of publication misconduct resulting in the retraction of 12 research papers (to date), many journals have been included in ‘round-mails’ from the whistleblower and other scientists. Our journal (a reviews and features journal) has published a review from the main author associated with the misconduct, which contains reference to six of the retracted papers.
  • Case
    Case Closed

    WAME case

    This case was posted on the WAME (World Association of Medical Editors) list-serv and the editor (from India) asked whether COPE could provide guidance. An author (who happens to also be a journal editor) submitted a manuscript to a journal listed in one of the major medical databases. Having heard nothing for several months he tried to contact the editor to discover what was happening.…
  • Case
    On-going

    Data fabrication, lack of ethical approval, withdrawal of paper and publication in another journal

    This query refers to a clinical trial comparing two forms of treatment which has since been published in another journal. I originally received this manuscript in 2009. One of the referees alerted me to the fact that the data looked strange. Furthermore, the test and controls groups were perfectly distributed, which is almost impossible. Along with the usual requests for modifications, I…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Possible conflict of interest

    Our journal is attempting to encourage the adoption of a uniform standard for the reporting of population genetics data. As part of this, one of the editors of our journal has submitted a proposal requiring authors to submit their data, including raw data, to his own database.  While the intention is laudable, there would appear to be a clear conflict of interest. What can a journal do e…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Plagiarism of reviewer's work

    Several Europe-based authors, including well known, respected and much published ones, submitted an essay for the journal's section on research methodology. We rejected it without external review as it wasn't making sufficiently new points. We offered to see it again, however, if it was revised and if it added some worked examples using this methodology within published studies. A year l…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Author of rejected letter blames global bias against his message and undisclosed conflicts of interest

    The editor in chief received a letter to the editor criticising a paper published earlier in the journal. The editor first told the author of the letter that he would publish the commentary after he had given the authors of the criticised paper a chance to respond. When asked by the author of the letter, he later added that he would also publish the letter if the authors failed to respond.…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Duplicated gel images

    A few months we were contacted by a dean of an  institution  who informed us about misconduct of one of the senior scientists in that institution. An investigation launched by the institution showed that author A and coauthors reused the same images to show controls in many figures in their different publications. This problem was found in three publications in our journal. We decided to…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Submissions from members of the editorial board

    Our journal has decided that members of the editorial board are allowed to submit manuscripts which will undergo peer-review directed by the present or former editor-in-chief. It can be difficult, and I would like to present one example. A group of authors (including one member of the editorial board) submitted five manuscripts during a period of 17 days. The handling of some manuscripts…
  • Case
    Closed: author misconduct

    Author misconduct

    …You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right The rector at author D’s institution contacted the editor of journal A stating that they have found what they evidently consider to be serious misconduct in an article written by author D and the rector requested author D to retract the paper from journal A but author D refused to do so. The institution contacted jou…

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