- Case
Is it a breach of confidentiality to send letters to the editor to criticised authors for comment?
(presented by Liz Wager on behalf of an author) (NB: COPE doesn’t normally discuss cases from non-members but as this raised some interesting general points, we thought it would be interesting to hear Forum’s views) According to the COPE guidelines, editors should “ensure the quality of published material… publish cogent criticisms from readers… [and] ensu… - Case
Sections of plagiarised text in an e-publication
An article was published online (e-pub), and a reader notified the editor about a section of the abstract that was taken from a review article published in another journal by different authors. Subsequent analysis of the e-pub manuscript found sections plagiarised from additional articles, often with citations but not quotation marks. Some sections were from manuscripts previously published by… - Case
Alleged unauthorized use of data and possible dual publication
During review of a manuscript submitted to our journal, a dispute arose over some of the data used in the database that was described in the submitted paper. The authors listed several preferred reviewers and also one non-preferred reviewer (without giving reasons). The journal’s submission site states that the editors will consider the authors’ preferred suggestions but are under no obl… - Case
Provenance of a correction: undisclosed court case involvement
The first author of a paper published in 2004 has submitted a “letter to the editor” (LTTE) offering some corrections, and reaffirming some conclusions. The letter has not been published. A pharma company (whose drug is linked by the paper to a negative side effect) has followed this up claiming that between authoring the original article and the letter, the author has become a paid expert witn… - Case
Pedigree descriptions: genotyping results for family members
We received a paper which describes genotyping results from a large number of individuals (>50) from five unrelated families, in which family members had various blood and liver conditions. On submission we noted that the paper included specific details regarding the clinical histories of individuals in each family. Some individuals were described in substantial detail, others only briefly.… - Case
Duplicate submission
We received a manuscript for consideration. The manuscript was assigned to one of our section editors who sent it for review. Subsequently, the editor-in-chief received an invitation from another journal to review the same paper. The editor-in-chief recognised the paper straightaway, declined the invitation to review and alerted the editor-in-chief of the second journal of the duplicate submiss… - Case
Ethics and consent in research
A letter was sent to the chief editor of our journal in response to a recently published article in our journal. The author had serious concerns about the ethics and consent obtained as a result of this study and the follow-up by the researchers. The author explained that he was the physician of two of the “volunteers” who participated in this study and was concerned about informed conse… - Case
Possible plagiarism
A review paper (paper 1) was published in journal A. A review paper on the same subject (paper 2) by a different author was published in my journal (journal B) later in the same year. The authors of paper 1 and the editor of journal A informed me that paper 2 had in part been plagiarised from paper 1. I as editor of journal B looked to the COPE flowchart for guidance and I wrote to the… - Case
Authors bearing gifts …
The editor of an international journal is bothered: he has received a gift that looks expensive, though it might not be. The sender is an author of a paper submitted to the journal; he has just received a “major revisions necessary” decision. In previous emails, the author has suggested hosting the editor in “his native beautiful city”, an invitation the editor has acknowledged, saying h… - Case
Reviewer misconduct?
We have received threats of legal action from the authors of a manuscript rejected by our journal, henceforth referred to as journal A. These “aggrieved” authors claim that their manuscript was unfairly reviewed by a close competitor, who then used some of their findings in a paper subsequently published in journal B, without either attribution or citation. The “accused” scientist had in… - Case
The ethics of using privileged information
A paper published in one of our journals (paper A) provoked the submission of a correspondence article claiming that a minor conclusion of the paper was a misinterpretation and erroneous. The point in contention was a question of zoomorphology and our paper’s conclusions were based on analysis using a non-invasive technique while the rebuttal relied on more traditional techniques. We are bringi… - Case
HIV homeopathy
The authors carried out a study. A homeopathic treatment was given to people with HIV/AIDs. The outcome was quality of life, as measured by a questionnaire after 1 month and 18 months of treatment. Participants were selected for inclusion if they had a HIV seropositive status at the time of study and were not taking any other kind of HIV/AIDs treatment. The participants were stratified i… - Case
Concern about reporting of a trial and also its DSMB
We received a paper reporting a trial. There has only been one previous trial of this intervention in this condition that we know of (which was also done by these investigators). There were substantial issues with the reporting of that trial but the end result, as reported by them, favoured the intervention. The trial we received, presumably approved after that result had come out, had… - Case
Has formal ethical approval been granted that satisfies publication criteria?
The issue here is whether formal ethics approval has been granted in order to satisfy publication criteria. By way of some background information, a lot of screening data are collected on many athletes in many sports, both nationally and internationally. Historically, clubs and associations have disclaimers whereby athletes sign consent for their data to be used for audit purposes on the provis… - Case
Duplicate publication or salami publication?
An author submitted an article to my journal. The editorial board discovered that the author had already published his article in another journal. The editorial board communicated with the author and he defended himself stating that they were two different articles with different titles. However, the editorial board could find no significant difference between the two papers. There are t… - Case
Suspected contact between reviewer and an author led to coauthorship of the reviewer
A manuscript was submitted via our electronic submission system and processed in accordance with the standard procedures of the journal. This was originally a single author submission, and in the covering letter the author suggested two potential reviewers. The Associate Editor assigned reviewers, choosing reviewer A along the suggestions of the author, and reviewer B from his own list o… - Case
Possible serial misconduct in relation to coauthors and other activities
I am the editor of an international clinical journal and am facing a very unusual problem that does not fit readily into COPE flowcharts. Through a reviewer, I was informed that an author had submitted a paper without the approval of at least one of the other authors. This appeared to be confirmed by two other authors. In response to my bringing this possibility to the first author’s at… - Case
An authorship dispute and a question about when a paper is considered published
Authors A and B submitted a paper PV1 to an international conference which was accepted by the editor E of the conference proceedings. The copyright of the paper was assigned to the publishers PC of the conference proceedings. The editor E of the conference proceedings is also the editor of an international journal J published by PJ. The editor E invited author A to consider submitting a revis… - Case
Advice regarding a weird type of content and its authorship
Our company publishes clinical pathways. They were initially authored by local experts, but have since been retrofitted with evidence, if possible. This was done by expert “evidologists”, not clinical experts; they were acknowledged solely by their company name (it was “out-sourced”). If the evidence did not fit, the pathway was discarded. We undertake to review all of the pathways… - Case
Paper published that is a verbatim copy of another published one by another author
This is a report of two cases of possible misconduct by the same author(s): one that was identified during the review process and one only after it was published. We believe the author tried to publish a paper that was a verbatim copy of one that had appeared in another journal a few years earlier. A vigilant reviewer of the “copied” paper alerted the editor that, on verifying t…