Ivan Oransky co-founder of Retraction Watch and Ed Pentz the Executive Director at Crossref join Trevor Lane to discuss the acquisition of the Retraction Watch database by Crossref. They talk about the benefits this brings to the community and how this partnership improves access to the data by authors, readers and publishers. The conversation moves on to the wider picture of researcher incentives and trust signals.
Looking forward into the new year, we see significant actions and opportunities before us. We know that we are stronger when we work together, and threats to the scholarly publishing industry are before us.
COPE’s Facilitation and Integrity subcommittee (F&I) is one of our most active services. When it was launched in 2010 its role was envisaged as dealing with complaints concerning member journals.
In Part 1 of this Commentary we outlined some of the problems, solutions, and tools facing peer review. In Part 2 we address perhaps the most lively area of debate on this topic at the moment: the role of artificial intelligence (AI).
We have become used to speaking about scholarly peer review with some scepticism. Critics note that it is subjective and therefore inconsistent, it can be slow, it tends to down-weight negative results, and it is increasingly susceptible to manipulation.
How COPE is working on diversity, equity, inclusivity, and accessibility
COPE is committed to creating an inclusive and equitable culture, where all voices are welcomed and heard, and difference is celebrated. Through our words and actions, we have been working – and intend to continue working – for real change.
A year ago, COPE and STM (the trade association for the worldwide academic publishing industry) undertook a study with Maverick Publishing Services, using data from publishers and interviews with stakeholders, to understand the scale of the problem of paper mills, and to consider what actions should be taken.
Stakeholders from across the research integrity spectrum gathered to discuss solutions to the paper mill problem. “It was the first time we had a group of people come together and co-create a set of actions which we’re going to take forward to combat this problem,” Deborah Kahn, COPE Trustee
We are delighted to announce the launch of a series of practical flowcharts for journals and data repositories who are dealing with ethical concerns relating to data publication. Each of the four categories outlined in the 2021 recommendations has accompanying flowcharts for issues that occur before and after publication.
In January, we published a letter in COPE Digest where we recognised that, as ethical issues change and evolve, so must COPE. We thus affirmed our commitment to reviewing a number of our processes to ensure they are fit for purpose. In this letter we give a brief update on progress in these areas.
We’ve recently been seeing a lot of attention to predatory publishers, especially with reference to lists of predatory journals, and ‘safe lists’ (see COPE’s Officers’ Statement on identifying fake journals).
COPE believes that authors and institutions should treat lists of predatory (or fake) journals with the same degree of scrutiny as they do with the journals themselves.
One of us (RW) published an editorial in his journal on the use of ChatGPT in writing academic manuscripts. ChatGPT (a chatbot developed by OpenAI) was included in the author list in the interests of transparency.
There has been a tweet circulating recently which gives instructions on how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a video recorder, written in the style of Biblical verse. It’s very funny – at least until you realise that it was written by an AI bot. At that stage it becomes very clever, but it loses all the humour.
In October, the Trustee Board, Council Members, and staff of COPE met in person for the first time since 2019 for a strategic and tactical discussion about current challenges in the field of publication ethics and research integrity; an evaluation of COPE’s role in addressing these challenges; and the policies and processes we need to implement to support them.
As part of Peer Review Week 2022, COPE hosted the webinar Practical steps for managing paper mills. The speakers give practical tips on how to manage systematic manipulation of the publication process, at scale, and describe their experience of dealing with paper mills affecting their journals,
On Thursday 15 September, ISMTE held its delayed webinar on Responding to World Events, which had originally been conceived following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing issues faced by publishers and editors on whether to make public statements or how to join various sanctions placed on Russia.
Welcome to our annual edition of Digest celebrating Peer Review Week (19-23 September). This year’s theme is “Research Integrity: Creating and supporting trust in research”.
The phenomenon of organised paper mills has been drawing greater attention over recent years across the academic publishing community, with improving detection tools revealing the extensive scale of these operations and the implications this has on the integrity of the research literature.
The news includes articles on compliance with data sharing statements, whether retractions affect public perception of the poor science, a game which encourages researchers to think about research integrity issues, and more. The news is gathered by COPE Council members.
Travel is once again becoming a part of my life. I recently returned from a wonderful trip to Cape Town, South Africa to participate in the 7th World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRI). The 30-hour trip from New York to South Africa was well worth it. I loved reconnecting with professional colleagues that I had not seen in years and making new connections.
May and June 2022 news includes articles on peer review's role in uncovering scientific fraud, the data publishing ecosystem, the definitions of academic misconduct, and identifying fake research.
The world has been left reeling following Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine. As a community of publishers, journal editors, and human beings, we are appalled and horrified by the violence we see in Ukraine and we support an immediate end to this conflict.
Some open access publishers charge an article-processing charge (APC), or other fees, that cover the range of publishing services that they provide, and this is a legitimate business model. These services may include: peer review; indexing journals so that articles are discoverable and citable; and preservation. Underpinning these services, trustworthy publishers will implement the policies and practices needed to reach high standards in publication ethics.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on diversity, preprints, research integrity, and more.
As we rapidly approach the end of 2021 and prepare to turn the corner to 2022, COPE is releasing a new discussion document on Diversity and inclusivity, primarily written by our past-Chair, Deborah Poff.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on diversity, equity and inclusion, authorship, journal management and more.
Hello one and all. It has been another busy couple of months for COPE. As we approach the end of the year, we are not only reviewing what we have achieved during 2021, but are also looking forward to our activities for the new year.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on authorship and contributorship, data and reproducibility, peer review, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
The theme of Peer Review Week 2021 is “Identity in peer review”and will no doubt provide lots of opportunities to learn and share, as well as important food for thought about this fundamental aspect of scholarly publishing. COPE has lots of peer review resources to help you develop good peer review practices for your journal; to recognise when the peer review process may be going awry; as well as providing reviewers with guidance on good review practices.
Concerns about varying approaches to editing a submitted peer review were discussed in the COPE Education Committee in 2019 and we decided to address this issue. The Committee members were most concerned about the ethical implications of an editor choosing to completely withhold a submitted review if it didn’t conform to her or his own opinion.
The theme of this year’s Peer Review Week is on ‘Exploring the multifaceted role of identity in peer review’.
To support this, COPE is reproducing its survey of 2018 on diversity and inclusion in peer review to compare whether attitudes, policies or practices have altered over the past three years.
The survey is anonymous and open to members and non-members.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on diversity, equity and inclusion, peer review, and predatory publishing.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on allegations of misconduct, authorship, ethical oversight and more.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on artificial intelligence, open science, research culture, peer review, and more.
Here we are, just past the halfway point of the year and the pandemic persists. We have seen great progress holding off COVID-19 in some regions of the world while others slide back as new strains appear. The UK is gearing up to remove COVID-19 based restrictions this month in an attempt to return to normal. But what is the new normal? Flexible work arrangements are becoming the norm and some companies have simply shifted away from centralised offices. And yet, COPE’s work continues.
Undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article: updated flowchart
The COPE flowcharts are consistently rated by members as being among the most useful and frequently consulted COPE resources. Available in different languages, they offer practical guidance to handle a variety of ethical issues encountered in scholarly publishing either before or after publication.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on intellectual property, preprints, peer review, and more.
The year seems to be progressing so quickly. Here we are, it’s May already and my three-year term as Chair now begins. It is truly an honor to follow in the footsteps of, the now Past Chair, Deborah Poff, and to lead COPE forward toward its next stage. Deborah has been a wonderful mentor and guide.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on peer review, preprints, open access, and more.
Authorship
This paper published in the Indian Journal of Gastroenterology and aimed at educating postgraduate scientists provides a useful summary of publication ethics including the responsibilities of authorship.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on corrections, diversity and inclusion, authorship, and more.
This is the last monthly edition of Digest. From April, Digest will be bimonthly. A new publication, for members only, will be published in alternate months, providing more in-depth exploration of resources, discussions and events that are relevant for our membership. Look out for the first issue of our new format next month. As always, we welcome your feedback on this new information sharing and your ideas of what you would like to see.
COPE was asked by the publisher Wiley, a member of COPE, to review the process Wiley followed in reviewing the issues raised by the publication and removal of an essay in the journal Angewandte Chemie, particularly relating to diversity, equity, and inclusivity.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on predatory publishing, diversity and inclusion, peer review, and more.
A warm welcome to five new Council Members to COPE. We asked each Council Member a few questions to get to know them a little better; read more on their profile pages.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on diversity and inclusion, peer review, paper mills, and more.
As we settle into 2021, COPE is planning a series of virtual interactive workshops, webinars, a virtual seminar, along with our regular quarterly Forums. A cycle of virtual activities will begin with an interactive workshop in February. As we did last year, the workshops will be repeated to accommodate members in different time zones. Stay tuned for our upcoming virtual offerings on various topics of interest to our membership.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on image manipulation, peer review, preprints, and more.
Following positive feedback from our peer review workshops, we are pleased to introduce Spanish translations of the peer review cases used at the workshops, with advice from the COPE Forum.
Durante la Semana de la revisión por pares (#PeerRevWk20) celebramos un taller basado en cuatro casos que llegaron al COPE Forum para examen crítico y solicitud de asesoramiento porotros miembros COPE.
In the December Digest Letter, we stated that “In May, arXiv, medRxiv, bioRxiv, and other preprint platforms adjusted their policies to not accept computational models so that the chances of misinformation or unhelpful information being posted would be reduced”.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on diversity, peer review, predatory publishing, and more.
As we enter the final months of this daunting year that is 2020, I would like to take a moment to look back at our Predatory Publishing discussion document, a year after its publication, to consider whether developments in attitudes or approaches have changed in this arena.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news.This month the news includes articles on diversity, retractions, open access, and more.
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on changes in the publishing industry, open access, research integrity, and more.
We say a fond farewell to two of our Council Members, Seth Leopold after three years and Adrian Ziderman after seven, who have reached the end of their term with COPE. We thank them for all the work they have done over the past few years.
I begin this month’s letter to you with the sad news that COPE Council Member, Dr Tracey Bretag, passed away this month. We refer you to our testimony about Tracey in this edition of Digest.
COPE, and all of us who are committed to academic integrity, lost a good friend last week. Dr Tracey Bretag passed away on 7 October 2020. Some of us knew Tracey as the Founding Editor of the International Journal for Educational Integrity. Members of the European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI) knew her as an active participant and speaker at their meetings. Many people use her valuable Handbook of Academic Integrity.
September sees the sixth Peer Review Week taking place (21 - 25 September), which has now become something of an established fixture in the research community calendar. The theme for this year is ‘trust’; a focus which resonates strongly with the core values and goals of COPE, going hand in hand with ethical reliability and responsible leadership.
Each month COPE Council members gather and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on peer review, diversity and inclusivity, research integrity, and more.
This month we welcome Simon Linacre as our newest Trustee. Simon brings extensive experience in scholarly publishing (predatory publishing, open access, and book publishing), and in business and marketing. With over 20 years’ experience in the industry, we know that Simon will be an outstanding Trustee and we look forward to working with him.
Each month COPE Council members gather and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on text recycling, diversity and inclusion, preprints, and more.
I would like to begin by welcoming our newest Trustee, Dr Suzanne Farley. Suzanne brings a wealth of experience in publication ethics and we are particularly interested in her knowledge with respect to open access. Welcome, Suzanne. We all look forward to working with you at COPE.
A quip heard in the hallways of some philosophy departments goes like this: when someone publishes a new book, a colleague says, “Congratulations! So, what are you calling it this time around?” With every witticism, there is some level of truth; my professional discipline of philosophy has been somewhat sluggish in addressing the problem of self-plagiarism.
In 2019 COPE conducted research to gain more understanding of publication ethics issues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. COPE undertook this research with the support of Routledge and commissioned primary research with Shift Learning.
The results from Education journals show which are the most serious, most widespread, most frequent issues, and those editors are least confident in dealing with.
At this time we pay our respects to the memory of George Floyd, whose brutal killing has amplified issues of systemic racism in our society. We wish to voice our horror and outrage at the egregious violence, injustice, and marginalisation faced by people of colour in the US and throughout the world. We support all who stand against prejudice and discrimination of any kind.
Each month COPE Council members gather and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on diversity, open access, COVID-19, and more.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to introduce myself to the broad readership of the Digest as the new Chair-elect of COPE, a position I will hold for a year before I become Chair of COPE. COPE is entering a critical phase in its life. The organisation has expanded rapidly, so we need to focus on our strategic goals set out last year.
Welcome to new COPE members who have joined us as journal, publisher or associate members. New members have been assessed against criteria outlined in the Principles of Transparency. Signing up to COPE shows that they intend to follow the highest standards of publication ethics and to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the Core Practices.
We bring together support and guidance on issues that have come about during this crisis. The collection includes articles on how authors, editors and reviewers are handling their work during this period and guidelines developed in response to the changing environment and workflow.
Each month COPE Council members gather and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on authorship, data sharing, COVID-19, and more.
COPE, like many organisations, is grappling with the impact of the coronavirus. There is worldwide concern over COVID-19 and its impact on our daily lives, both personal and professional. Journal editors may be unsure of what to do in this unprecedented situation. How is COVID-19 affecting editors and publishers?
We are seeking applications for two vacancies on the COPE Trustee Board as we look to enhance the support we provide. We have therefore highlighted gaps on the Trustee Board which we are keen to fill.
We are specifically seeking:
candidates with extensive experience and a proven record in open access publishing
candidates with in depth knowledge and experience of publishing in areas such as monographs, books, conference proceedings, theses, etc.
In a study of gender bias in 145 journals in various areas of research, including 1.7 million authors and 740,00 referees, these authors show that in biomedicine and health journals women authors were treated generally favourably by editors and reviewers. This is in contrast to social science and humanity journals. The authors advocate for gender diversity among reviewers and editors to mitigate the perception and reality of bias.
Following our recent elections, we're delighted to welcome six new Council Members to COPE.
Each of our Council members brings their own experience, knowledge and skills to help us all work towards improving ethical practice in the publication of research in our community.
Eleanor Gendle
Executive Editor at The Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK
Following our Forum discussion on this topic in March 2020, we would like to hear your views on an editor's ability to alter the contents of a submitted peer review.
Views from editors and publishers will form the basis of a COPE discussion document on the topic. Please fill in the short survey.
COPE, like many organisations, is grappling with the impact of the coronavirus and we are sorry to inform you that our Trustee Board made the difficult decision to postpone our North American seminar planned for June 2020. Clearly, the health of our members and staff is our first priority, and we hope to announce a new date in 2021 in the coming months.
In 2019 COPE, with the support of Routledge (part of the Taylor & Francis Group), commissioned primary research with Shift Learning to better understand the publication ethics landscape for editors working on journals within the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The results from Social Sciences journals show which are the most serious, most widespread, most frequent issues, and those editors are least confident in dealing with.
The United States Office of Science & Technology Policy recently posted a notice of request for information titled “Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications, Data and Code Resulting from Federally Funded Research.” Comments from stakeholders on approaches for broader access to federally funded research are due by March 16.
Peer reviewers provide their own intellectual property to the important work of reporting research. Sometimes, though, their comments may not align with a journal’s style or requirements, or can stray into the realm of what some call “hostile reviews”. Also, sometimes reviewers miss the mark and either do not understand the paper or parts of it, or include content that is factually incorrect. What is an editor to do in their effort to balance the interests of the authors, reviewers, journals
This is my first opportunity to open the Digest, so welcome everyone. In this issue, we are releasing the final version of the COPE Strategy for 2020-2023. This document is the end product of months of hard work by your volunteers (COPE Council and Trustee Board) to develop a focus for the next three years. Our four strategic priorities over this period can be summarised as:
Translation plagiarism is a type of disguised plagiarism which occurs when authorship credit is taken by someone who republishes the work of someone else, but in a different language. The difficulty of identifying this type of plagiarism is explored and the potential damage done by it, in the field of philosophy, examined.
This new guidance from COPE gives an overview of the issue with recommendations and resources. COPE welcomes feedback and comments to continue this live and ongoing debate.
What is predatory publishing?
What are the commonly occurring features in predatory publications?
How can we avoid and raise awareness of the problem of predatory publications?
China has become a formidable global leader in scientific—including medical—research, with the world's largest publication output, a rapid surge in the number of highly cited researchers, and an increasingly unparalleled quality of scientific publications.
Trevor Lane, COPE Council Member, represented COPE at the Second J-STAGE Seminar in Tokyo, Japan, on 21 October 2019, at the invitation of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).
Leading scholars and publishers from ten countries have agreed a definition of predatory publishing. It took 12 hours of discussion, 18 questions and 3 rounds to reach.
Trevor Lane, COPE Council Member, was invited to represent COPE at the 2019 Convention of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME) in Xi’an, China, on 4-5 September 2019.
On the first day, he delivered a keynote speech in a session on publication ethics and on the second day, he chaired a parallel session on journal evaluation.
A revised concordat to support research integrity has been published. This aims to further assure government, business, international partners and the public that they can continue to have confidence in UK research. It calls for research institutions and researchers to ensure their work is underpinned by rigorous high standards.
We are delighted to welcome new members to to COPE. The new members have been assessed against criteria outlined in the Principles of Transparency and signing up to COPE shows that they intend to follow the highest standards of publication ethics and to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the Core Practices.
The last week in September was a very busy one for COPE. We began our week of meetings in Leiden with the European Seminar and had 84 members in attendance. The theme on daily realities and future challenges was just that. We focused on a number of daily realities for our members.
Trevor Lane, COPE Council Member, was invited to represent COPE at the 2019 Convention of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME) in Xi’an, China, on 4-5 September 2019.
On the first day, he delivered a keynote speech in a session on publication ethics and on the second day, he chaired a parallel session on journal evaluation.
We say a fond farewell to our Council Members who have reached the end of their term with COPE and we would like to thank them for all the work they have done over the past few years.
On August 29, the IV Scientific Editor’s Forum was held at the Universidad de Los Lagos, in Santiago, Chile. Over 100 editors mainly from social sciences, arts and humanities attended for a two-day meeting on publishing and editorial standards.
Peer Review Week 2019 is themed "Quality in Peer Review". Some of COPE's resources are directed towards peer reviewers with guidance on how to peer review. COPE also has guidance for editors on how to identify peer review manipulation.
The 16th-20th of September is Peer Review Week, with this year's theme Quality In Peer Review. This is now an anticipated time in the calendar for many of our members around the world and a number of events focus on issues related to peer review and publication ethics and integrity.
The peer review system is complex and the results influence advancement of knowledge, patient care, policies, careers, future funding decisions, and more. The triad of individuals involved in this system, authors, editors and reviewers, all have important roles to play to make sure this system works. Some of these roles correspond to functions that affect the timeliness of review decisions, submission of a meaningful review, and clear communication of expectations of all of the participants
If you have been following one of our foci this year, you will have noticed an explicit commitment to diversity and inclusivity as a COPE theme. As a strategic goal of our last plan, we interpret this commitment broadly, including geographic diversity, gender diversity, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, ableism and breadth across the disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields of scholarly publishing.
On the last day of the World Conference on Research Integrity in Hong Kong in June, the afternoon plenary session chaired by Susan Zimmerman of the Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research in Canada explored predatory publishing, building on a summit in Ottawa two months earlier.
Is self-citation ever an ethical action for authors to do? Is there ever a justification for editors or reviewers to recommend citations to their own work or their own journal? These are just some of the topics addressed in the new, and about to be released, COPE discussion document on citation manipulation.
Welcome to our new members who have joined COPE between April and June 2019. The new members have been assessed against criteria outlined in the Principles of Transparency and signing up to COPE shows that they intend to follow the highest standards of publication ethics and to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the Core Practices.
COPE is looking for someone with website management and development experience to work with COPE as our Web Manager. It's a freelance role, working from home, up to 20 hours per week.
As we plan the activities of COPE for the next 3 years we need to hear from you, our members, to help us fully understand the burning issues facing our members today, as well as the issues you see looming on the horizon, what you think of the guidance and support COPE offers, and where you think COPE should be looking to provide more guidance over the next 3 years.
Please complete the survey which should take no longer than 10 minutes.
COPE's new Trustees will help shape the organisation for the benefit of our members. Vote for the candidates that best reflect your ambitions for COPE.
Following our recent notice regarding vacancies on the COPE Trustee Board, we are delighted to announce the shortlist for the two vacancies. Read a brief summary of each candidate together with their applications.
Peer review is the hallmark of scientific and scholarly publications. These authors explore 5 principles of good peer review and suggest ways for journals to use these to underpin best practices. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.1222
I hope that everyone had the opportunity to read the April Digest letter from Geri and Chris, our steadfast COPE co-chairs for the past three years. They have provided leadership with integrity, with hard work and kept a very busy schedule of activities on behalf of COPE. And all on a voluntary basis. Chris and Geri will continue their roles as past Co-Chairs for the coming year.
A single author submitted a paper to a journal. A similarity check revealed 48% similarity with another published paper. The published paper was by different authors—5 in total. The similarities between the papers were in the introduction, methods and discussion sections. The submitting author did not reference the published article.
In a discussion paper posted on SSRN, Diana Simon, a Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, explores whether it is fair or helpful to try to generalise attitudes toward plagiarism across cultures?
We are seeking applications for two vacancies* on the COPE Trustee Board at an exciting time for the organisation as we look to expand into new areas. We have therefore highlighted gaps on the Trustee Board which we are keen to fill.
*On this occasion, we are NOT seeking to elect candidates from North America given our current complement of representation from this region.
Reflections on the COPE North American Seminar: Issues of inclusivity and diversity in scholarly publishing in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
In early 2019, COPE, working in partnership with Routledge (Taylor & Francis group), conducted an international survey of academic journal editors in the arts, humanities, and social sciences (AHSS), exploring the publication ethics issues specific to these disciplines.
In May 2019, the current COPE Officers came to the end of their terms. We welcome the new officers and those officers moving to new roles, and look forward to working together for the next three years.
Plagiarism detectors are good in assuring that true plagiarism is detected and that original papers are not flagged incorrectly. “Horsefeathers!” asserts Debora Weber-Wulff. Buyer beware and it still takes a person to assess flagged articles. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00893-5?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20190328
We are delighted to welcome journals and publishers who became members between January and March 2019. The new members have been assessed against criteria outlined in the Principles of Transparency and signing up to COPE shows that they intend to follow the highest standards of publication ethics and to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the Core Practices.
Trevor Lane, COPE Council Member, was invited to represent COPE in two sessions at the 2019 International Workshop for Journal Editors in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. Held from 25 to 27 March 2019 and attended by chief editors of about 150 journals, the event was co-organised by the Indonesian Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education and the Indonesian Association of Scientific Journal Editors.
We've updated the engine behind the COPE website which will help users find what they're looking for more quickly. This means greatly improved search functionality, more granular filtering, simplified navigation throughout the site and a refreshed design. This will be the first release in a series to improve the browsing experience.
Deborah Poff, COPE Vice-Chair and Chair Elect, recently presented COPE views on a variety of issues and activities related to publication ethics and philosophy. Deborah presented the current commitment of COPE to assess and respond to particular issues for editors and publishers in the humanities and social sciences which includes our current survey.
A recent survey published in PLOS One of 6000 of the top cited authors examined how authorship is assigned, and what input was valued by the authors. The results demonstrate that people value activities beyond writing and analyzing data but the opinions are polarized. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0198117
Early in my academic career I was sent a publication in which my name appeared as a 5th author. The research was legitimate, conducted by a senior colleague, and I had participated in a small part of the research. I had not been involved in the writing of the paper, its final approval, or in signing the copyright agreement.
The case we are highlighting this month involves an escalating authorship dispute as well as management of the post publication correction process Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute: 18-07. Cases brought to the COPE Forum are often complex and involve multiple problems, which is the case here.
The case we are highlighting for March involves an escalating authorship dispute as well as management of the post publication correction process (Inconclusive institutional investigation into authorship dispute: 18-07). Cases brought to the COPE Forum are often complex and involve multiple problems, which is the case here.
COPE is in the process of assigning DOIs (digital object identifiers) to its resources, particularly Guidelines and Flowcharts. A digital object identifier (DOI) is like a digital fingerprint and provides a permanent link to our resources on the Internet making them individually discoverable and accessible.
A review of scholarly articles on the prevalence of ghost writing in scientific literature to be between 0.9% and 75%. Resources to address this such as the European Medical Writers Association ICMJE, and WAME are addressed. http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/30/217/full/
This month’s highlighted case is about following up duplicate submission. In COPE Forum case number 17-20, journal A was informed by journal B that an author had withdrawn an accepted manuscript because it had already been accepted elsewhere. In fact, the manuscript had been published in journal A in the previous week. Records of the two journals revealed dual submission on the same day.
Registration is now open to our North American Seminar in Philadelphia "Challenges and solutions: issues of inclusivity and diversity in the humanities and social sciences".
COPE is pleased to welcome journals who became members between October and December 2018. The new members have been assessed against criteria outlined in the Principles of Transparency and signing up to COPE shows that they intend to follow the highest standards of publication ethics and to apply COPE principles of publication ethics outlined in the Core Practices.
In this case, a staff member at a journal noted that a handling editor and her or his favorite reviewers frequently requested authors to cite the editor’s and reviewers’ work in revised submissions. Once this was confirmed, the editor-in-chief consulted the editorial board who agreed that the requested citations were not scientifically necessary.
Journals vary greatly in almost all aspects of functioning; different disciplines, editorial roles, budgets and the size of journals will all influence how ethical issues are handled.
A survey carried out by Think. Check. Submit. has revealed a strong demand from both researchers and librarians for guidance about where to publish and an appreciation of the services that the initiative offers.
My initial introduction to COPE many years ago occurred when, as an editor of a peer reviewed journal, a reviewer called to my attention, a blatant example of fabrication in a manuscript in which years and volumes of references had been altered to make them more current. I contacted COPE, presented the case at a Forum, and received excellent advice and consultation. This ultimately resulted in numerous retractions of manuscripts published by this researcher, across three journals.
COPE Council member Mirjam Curno is invited to participate in the discussion "Developing an ethical framework for non-medical sciences". This is the first discussion within the framework of the PRO-RES project.
We are pleased to welcome four new members to COPE Council: Laura Wilson, Dr Daoxin Yin, Tim Devinney and Gavin Swanson. We are also delighted that Adrian Ziderman is to continue as Council member for a second term.
Laura Wilson is Head of Rights at Emerald Publishing. Laura is responsible for Emerald’s copyright and publication ethics policies and processes. Laura is based in Bradford, UK.
COPE council member Iria del Río shares her experience of the #METM18 conference where she was a keynote speaker, workshop presenter and attendee on the blog Signs and Symptoms of Translation. Here's an excerpt:
Now updated to correspond with COPE's Core Practices!
As a COPE Member benefit, the COPE Journal Audit is designed to support and encourage editors to identify areas of their journal's policies and processes that may need to be revised so that they adhere to best practices in scholarly publishing.
The next online COPE Forum, Monday 5 November 2018, 4pm-5.30pm (GMT), follows the usual format where members' cases are presented for discussion and advice from all those participating in the Forum. Register for the Forum (COPE members only)
COPE Council member Jason Hu has spoken at The second International Summit on Medical Research and Publication & the First International Forum on Frontiers in Medicine, which was held in Wuhan China on September 16th 2018.
This month’s topic is “journal management” and on first blush, it isn’t obvious how the concept of “ethics” applies to this topic. I thought of things like selection and implementation of a manuscript manager, paying bills, identifying reviewers, etc. But when I got past my concrete thinking it’s clear journals must be managed based on fundamental ethical principles. These include: Autonomy, Justice, beneficence, non-malfeasance.
COPE was well represented at two very important meetings this September. The first “Seeking Solutions in Research Integrity: A View from All Perspectives” was a day long Research Integrity Summit hosted by Ohio State University.
Not surprisingly, COPE has substantial resources available regarding peer review and peer review processes are one of our 10 core practices. Peer review comes in many shapes and forms, and the process varies widely among different publications. The fundamental principle of transparency is critical given this variety. COPE asserts that the peer review process must be “transparently described and well managed”.
Peer Review Week 2018 offered us an opportunity to consider this year’s theme of Diversity in multiple ways and to reflect on what gaps in our resources might exist. Here is a list of what we reviewed, completed, and revised related to peer review.
Spanish translations of COPE resources: flowcharts, ethical guidelines for peer reviewers, How to Spot Manipulation of the Peer Review Process, What to Consider when asked to Peer Review a Manuscript, What Constitutes Authorship? discussion document and our Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.
Trevor Lane, COPE Council Member, was invited to deliver two talks at the 2018 Joint Convention of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME) and Council of Asian Science Editors (CASE) in Bogor, Indonesia.
Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals for their research. Through a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-sector initiative aims to educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications.
COPE has cancelled the COPE Chile Seminar on October 2, 2018. It will be rescheduled to a later date.
We will take this chance to organise a sustainable approach to our presence and services in South America, something we recognise as part of our commitment to providing education and resources to editors and publishers globally. COPE has recently completed the translation of our basic materials to Spanish. These materials will be widely disseminated and freely available to all.
Following a 10 month inquiry, the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has issued recommendations to strengthen requirements and improve compliance with the existing 2012 Concordat to Support Research Integrity [full report].
We are seeking applications for a position on COPE Council. We have six vacancies. In line with COPE’s strategic goals and our obligations to meet the needs of all our members, we have highlighted gaps on Council which we are keen to fill.
*On this occasion, we are not seeking to elect candidates from North America. In addition, we will not consider applications from candidates whose discipline is primarily medicine, science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
COPE held its third educational webinar for members on 2 July 2018. Titled ‘Creating and implementing research data policies’, the hour-long webinar was about the practicalities and challenges of choosing data sharing policies for journals and ensuring authors and reviewers adhere to the policies.
Well it may do (to borrow a lyric from ‘Communication’ by Spandau Ballet), but it doesn’t have to, if communication channels are kept open. That was the take home message following a stimulating afternoon tackling some big questions around authorship with early career researchers of the joint COMPARE (Centre of Membrane Proteins and Receptors) initiative.
The Science and Technology Committee of the UK House of Commons met on May 8, 2018 to discuss research integrity. The transcript and a video of the meeting is available on The Science and Technology Committee.
Preprint platforms have been common in physics and mathematics but the preprint landscape is changing rapidly with new platforms emerging across various disciplines. This raises opportunities for discussion across communities and for all those involved: preprint platforms, journals, authors, funders and institutions.
I once witnessed a heated discussion between a director of research and a clinical director in a community health care clinic. The clinical director was questioning a proposed quality improvement study, investigating employee bias around sensitive patient care information and the influence of employee attitudes on the delivery of health care.
This month in our ongoing exploration of COPE’s core principles, we focus on Core Practice #6: Ethical Oversight. COPE’s general statement on this core practice reads as follows:
The next COPE Forum will be a face to face meeting at the INANE Conference in Boston on 8 August,1.30-4.30pm. All COPE members are welcome to join this Forum in person, whether or not you are attending INANE. It will follow the usual format where members' cases are presented for advice and a Forum discussion topic.
On 25th May, an update to the 1993 Data Protection Act will come into force. This is known as the GDPR. You have probably heard of it as most of the websites, apps and services that we all use on a day-to-day basis are updating their privacy policies and sending out notices like this one.
On Friday April 27th, Sense about Science, Voice of Young Science and SAGE Publications hosted a workshop for early career researchers to find out more about peer review.
COPE Council Member Michael Wise was an invited speaker at the International Society of Managing and Technical Editors 2018 Asian-Pacific Conference, which was held on 27-28 March 2018 at the Novotel Singapore Clarke Quay.
An article in HealthNewsReview.org discusses a paper published in the BMJ which was widely picked up in the news, but where the peer reviewers had close affiliations with the authors, and wonders if there are wider unexamined conflicts of interest in peer review.
COPE’s Core Practice #4 on conflicts of interest / competing interests states: “There must be clear definitions of conflicts of interest and processes for handling conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors, journals and publishers, whether identified before or after publication”.
Included in the news this month are articles related to April's theme of "Complaints and appeals”, together with authorship, code of ethics, retractions and preprints.
“Journals should have a clearly described process for handling complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher”. This refers to COPE’s Core Practice #3 and it is good advice and might be the only advice you need if all human beings operated solely with agreed upon objective and rational principles and facts.
Chris Graf, COPE co-Chair is giving the keynote speech at this conference on at the University of Kent (UK) on 4 April 2018. The conference will formally launch the Cluster to University of Kent students and academics.
Volunteers from COPE Council often join workshops, where we listen to the challenges faced by members of the communities COPE serves, and where we share insights from COPE and the resources we make available (like our cases, our flowcharts, our guidelines).
Included in the news this month are articles related to March's theme of "Authorship and Contributorship", together with conflicts of interest, data and reproducibility, ethical oversight and peer review
The first COPE Forum of the year will take place on 26 February from 4-5.30pm (GMT).
We begin with a discussion on Expressions of Concern, followed by an update on existing cases. The cases and discussion document are now available with the Forum agenda. You are invited to make comment on the discussion document whether or not you are attending the Forum.
How should journals use expressions of concern? They are “used to raise awareness to a possible problem in an article”. They are a relatively new, rare, and non-standardized type of editorial notice compared to corrections or retractions and “considerable differences in policy and practice remain between journals”.
Journals are grappling with when expressions of concern are appropriate and what happens if the concerns are later found not to be valid.
Two of COPE’s core principles from its mission statement are to “provide leadership in thinking on publication ethics” and to “offer a neutral, professional voice in current debates.” We think it is important in an intellectual climate that is challenged by many polarizing views to comment explicitly on COPE’s role in addressing contentious issues within publication based on our principles of neutrality and professionalism.
The thread running through this month’s Digest is collaboration. In simple terms, collaborative work is distributed work across many individuals, institutions, or businesses. Collaboration implies individuals or groups sharing their expertise to solve problems, create new solutions, and explore new horizons. COPE embodies the ethos of collaboration to accomplish its mission of promoting integrity in research and its publication.
“In the News” this month focuses primarily on topics related to the February’s theme: Data and Reproducibility. Items related to these topics get a bit more attention at the beginning of this list but other newsworthy items are listed at the end, more as snippets of information!
Data
How open data can help the world better manage coral reefs.
To achieve greater transparency, replicability, and trust in scientific findings, research authors are increasingly expected to enhance textual reporting by providing associated data and materials. This growing expectation has focused attention towards the appropriate handling of research data. Of particular note are the topics highlighted on COPE’s website on Core Practice in Data and Reproducibility:
We continue a closer examination of COPE’s individual core practices this month with a focus on Data and Reproducibility (Core Practice #5)
“Journals should include policies on data availability and encourage the use of reporting guidelines and registration of clinical trials and other study designs according to standard practice in their discipline.”
Following on from the success of previous workshops in Singapore and Beijing, COPE is delighted to announce another half day workshop, in collaboration with ISMTE (International Society of Managing and Technical Editors), on Wednesday 28 March 2018, at the Novotel Singapore Clarke Quay.
The theme of the workshop is "Publication ethics". Editors, publishers, authors and all those interested in publication ethics are welcome to attend.
COPE subscribes to and promotes the principles of academic freedom and editorial independence that underpin the pursuit of knowledge inherent in research and academic work.
COPE understands that some countries have made requests or instituted practices that interfere with and restrict the communication and distribution of scientific research results. This conflicts with principles to which COPE subscribes.
COPE’s Core Practice #1: Allegations of misconduct
Following on from our introductory overview of COPE’s Core Practices in the December issue of COPE Digest, this month we focus on the first core practice: Allegations of misconduct. The general statement describing this core practice is that:
A COPE delegation comprising the COPE co-Chair and Vice-Chair, Chris Graf and Deborah Poff, along with China based COPE Council members, Helena Wang and Jason Hu, and Japan based Council member Trevor Lane, me
t with some of China’s leading science and research organisations in Beijing last month.
The COPE complaints process was established in 2010 (revised in 2014) as a means of providing independent guidance on disputed matters of publication ethics for our member editors and publishers.
While the members of the Complaints subcommittee have worked tirelessly to provide advice and to assist in resolving complaints brought to the subcommittee's attention, often those results have been frustrated by issues including:
COPE's Chinese verison of the Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers have now been updated. The update reflects invited input from the publication ethics community and institutions in the COPE membership pilot, and replaces the previous translation.
We are delighted to announce that Hong Kong University is now part of COPE's pilot that will help form a membership package of support and advice for research institutions.
At COPE's recent AGM in November, Zoë Mullan, Ginny Barbour, Sally Weatherill and Adrian Ziderman stepped down as Trustees of COPE, at the end of their term. It is only possible to do the work of COPE with our hugely committed Trustees and we thank them for all their work.
We'll be discussing "Self-Citation: Where's the Line?" during the COPE Forum on 13 November. You are welcome to add your comments on this topic before the Forum, whether or not you are planning on attending the Forum.
Members and non-members please leave your comments.
COPE-funded research, presented as an abstract at the Peer Review Congress, 10-12 September 2017, Chicago.
We are follow up this COPE funded research by producing a discussion document on the issues surrounding data sharing policies and this is expected to be ready by early next year.
An the winner is...Irene Hames, advocate and educator of peer review and publication ethics. Congratulations Irene, a well-deserved award for all your work in the field of peer review.
As part of this year's Peer Review Week we're running a webinar: Current Issues in Peer Review. We will be discussing the topical issues in peer review that are faced by COPE members and have three guest speakers who will present their views, given their experience in this area.
August Digest out now includes the recording of our first webinar on authorship, a summary of the Forum preprint discussion, developments on peer review guidelines and our monthly news roundup.
The results of our recent Council elections have been confirmed and we are pleased to welcome two new members to Council: Howard Browman and Frits Rosendaal.
Preprints and working papers have been posted and shared for many years. They report research results that have not undergone peer review, although in many cases the authors also submit to a journal (before, after or at the same time as making a preprint available). In the past 5 years, the number of preprint servers and preprints has expanded and new disciplines, notably biology and life sciences, have seen rapid growth in the number of preprints.
Voting for the 2 vacancies on COPE council is now open.
Following our recent call for nominations, we are delighted to have received so much interest from members. The Nominations Subcommittee has carefully and thoroughly reviewed all the applications against the criteria in our call, and has produced a shortlist of 7 candidates to put forward for election.
This document aims to stimulate discussion about the issue to help inform the debate and provide guidance where needed. We encourage journal editors, reviewers, researchers, institutions, funders and third party services to comment (whether or not they are COPE members).
On Thursday 29 June 2-3pm we're holding our first webinar for information, shared discussion and practical advice on common authorship issues faced by COPE members.
Three guest speakers will present their views: Deborah Poff, Editor-in-Chief Journal of Academic Ethics; Kelly Cobey Senior Clinical Research Associate at Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada; Liz Allen, Director of Strategic Initiatives at F1000.
At the beginning of 2017, political activity globally has begun to impinge on academia in ways that are both troubling and novel.
Academic freedom being challenged is, of course, not new. In the USSR the repression of science by the state was routine. In the not too distant past a chilling effect on academic research in the USA was well documented and the current political climate there appears to pose considerable challenges to academic freedom.
Due to three council members coming to the end of their first term on council, we are seeking nominations for three new candidates. We are specially seeking candidates from Mainland Europe, Scandinavia and South America, and from the social sciences/humanities areas.
The closing date for applications is: 28 April 2017
Taking part in the Forum allows members to contribute to, as well as learn from, the cases being discussed.
We present the same cases at both forum to allow more of our membership to attend. Register as soon as possible as the webinar is limited to 100 attendees.
Our new guidance, Best Practices for Ensuring Consent for Publishing Medical Case Reports, is now available. In February 2016 we published a discussion document, inviting members to add their comments. These comments have been used to help develop the guidance document.
The International Rhuematology Editors' Group would like to receive comments from wider specialty communities on their framework below. Please send any comments to Shehnaz Ahmed.
Taking part in the Forum allows members to contribute to, as well as learn from, the cases being discussed. Register now as the Forum is limited to 100 attendees.
COPE's flowcharts help editors apply COPE's principles of publication ethics outlined in the Core Practices when faced with cases of suspected misconduct.
The 2nd Peer Review Week will be held from 19th to 25th September 2016. This year’s theme is Recognition for Review, exploring all aspects of how those participating in review activity – in publishing, grant review, conference submissions, promotion and tenure, and more – should be recognized for their contribution.
In this Authorship Discussion Document we look at existing guidelines, some basic principles to help prevent common problems and particular issues that need more nuanced consideration. The discussion helps form an answer to the question, what constitutes authorship?
COPE has published a new discussion document ‘COPE guidance on best practice for consent for publishing medical case reports’. This discussion document aims to lay out the principles that a consent form should generally include, and to collect examples of sample forms so that editors can develop a form that suits their purpose.
COPE is delighted to announce its 7th North American Seminar, which will be held in collaboration with ISMTE (International Society of Managing and Technical Editors), on Wednesday August 10, 2016, at the Hilton Philadelphia City Avenue, Philadelphia, PA USA.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is looking to appoint a new Ombudsman to ensure that COPE carries out its stated mission in a fair, expedient, and transparent manner, and that its Council and Trustees are acting in the best interests of the organisation and its members. Applicants should not be a member of COPE.
The topic for discussion at the next Forum (12 February 2016, 3.00pm GMT - more details to follow shortly) is ‘Data sharing’. Data sharing is increasingly viewed as an essential step in improving research transparency and reproducibility. There has been a lot of discussion on the imperative for data sharing in the biomedical arena, particularly of publicly funded research. As a result, there are many disciplines where proposals for data sharing are being discussed.
COPE's A Short Guide to Ethical Editing for New Editors has been fully revised and updated. The guide aims to summarise key issues and provide advice and resources for new editors.
The quarterly COPE Forum meetings, where we discuss cases submitted by members, will take place in Februray, May, August and November. The Forums will be by webinar, except for the August Forum, which will be a face to face meeting in London during the INANE conference.
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Wednesday 9 December 2015, 12noon–1.30pm (GMT). The COPE Forum will be held virtually via webinar. The agenda and materials can be downloaded here (PDF 478kb).
The invitation to join the webinar is below. We can accommodate up to 100 attendees, so please register quickly if you wish to join in the discussion.
COPE came into being to be help editors handle issues in publication ethics, with the underlying aim of ensuring the integrity of the published literature. Thus it has long supported initiatives that lead to better reporting of research, including for example the EQUATOR network.
COPE endorses Good Publication Practice for Communicating Company-Sponsored Medical Research: GPP3[1].
Authors working in corporate–academic research collaborations must follow appropriate ethical standards. GPP3 describes such standards, and promotes the ethical practices established by organisations like COPE, ICMJE, and WMA.
Like the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) does now, COPE has a rigorous and stringent process for scrutinizing members before they are accepted and we review this process as needed. Frontiers has been a member of COPE since January 2015.
The next COPE Forum meeting is on Wednesday 9 September, 3pm–4.30pm (British Summer Time) at The Montcalm London Marble Arch, 2, Wallenberg Place, London, W1H 7TN
In early 2014, COPE, together with Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), published a minimum set of criteria for journals and publishers to be assessed against when they apply for membership at one of our organisations.
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Wednesday 10 June, 10am–11.30am (British Summer Time). The COPE Forum will be held virtually via webinar. Click here for full details.
COPE will be leading a workshop at the 4th World Conference on Research Integrity in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on publication ethics for editors, members of editorial boards and reviewers on Sunday May 31, 2015. This is an excellent opportunity for participants to discuss current trends in publication ethics, learn about how to handle possible misconduct and improve the quality of their reviews.
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Tuesday 10 March, 3–4.30pm (GMT). The COPE Forum will be held virtually via webinar. Click here for full details.
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Wednesday 10 June 2015, 9am–10.30am (British Summer Time). The COPE Forum will be held virtually via webinar. The agenda and materials can be downloaded here (PDF 712kb).
The invitation to join the webinar is below. We can accommodate up to 100 attendees, so please register quickly if you wish to join in the discussion.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has become aware of systematic, inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review processes of several journals across different publishers.
We welcome the report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics: The Culture of Scientific Research in the UK. It is timely, coming as it does when there is increased scrutiny of the scientific literature, and importantly an increasing recognition of the need to address fundamental issues such as the lack of reproducibility in science.
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Tuesday 9 December 2014, 9–10.30am (GMT). The COPE Forum will be held virtually via webinar. The agenda and materials can be downloaded here (PDF 709kb).
The Forum discussion topic on Tuesday 9 December is “Publication ethics issues in the social sciences”. Click here to learn more and please do leave your comments
The Second International Congress on Publication Ethics will be held in Shiraz, Iran, on 4–5 December 2014. This is a scientific partnership between COPE and Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. All individuals working in the field of scientific medical publications as well as those interested in ethical approaches to scientific publications are welcome to attend.
This ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) Training Course has been developed in collaboration with COPE.
The training course will take place on Wednesday 5 November 2014, West One, London. The tutors include former COPE chair Liz Wager and Donna Neill (Wiley–Blackwell Publishing).
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Tuesday 23 September, 3–5pm (British Summer Time). The COPE Forum will be held virtually via webinar. Download the agenda and materials here (PDF, 805kb). The invitation to join the webinar is below. We can accommodate up to 100 attendees, so please register quickly if you wish to join in the discussion.
A common issue encountered by editors is overlap of text with an author’s own previously published work, particularly with the increasing use of plagiarism detection software. This practice is known as ‘text recycling’ (also sometimes referred to as ‘self-plagiarism’). Opinions on the acceptability of text recycling vary greatly and it can be a challenge for editors to know how to deal with it once it has been identified.
COPE is very pleased to announce the appointment of two new COPE council members, Christopher Leonard and Muhammad Irfan. Following our recent call for nominations, two candidates were short-listed by council following an interview. In accordance with our regulations, where the number of short-listed candidates is equal to the number of vacancies (ie, the candidates are unopposed), the nominees are appointed if approved by a majority of the members of Council.
Register for COPE's 5th North American seminar, which will be held in collaboration with ISMTE (International Society of Managing & Technical Editors), on Wednesday 13 August 2014 at the Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. For more details and to register, see here
COPE is delighted to announce its 3rd Australian Seminar, which will take place at the Karstens Melbourne Conference Rooms, 123 Queen Street, Melbourne, Australia, on Monday 23 June 2014. The theme of the seminar is “Publication ethics from student to professional”. For more information and to register, click here.
Due to vacancies on Council, we are seeking nominations for two new candidates. These are voluntary positions. Council is responsible for COPE’s policy and management. Council members are required to attend four meetings a year (two of which will usually be in person in London; the others may be attended by phone or other media). There is also a strategy meeting every 18/24 months which Council Members are expected to attend in person.
COPE has published a new discussion document on 'Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct'. (Click here for the document).
A request for information (RFI) has been issued to gather journal editors experiences with Issues related to retracting or correcting scientific papers. If you wish to contribute you can find more information here: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-ES-14-005.html
Wiley has launched the second edition of its Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics: A Publisher’s Perspective. In the new edition, guidance has been added about whistle-blowers, animal research and clinical research, particularly around clinical trial registration.
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Tuesday 4 March 2014, 3–5pm (GMT). The COPE Forum will be held virtually via webinar. Download the agenda and materials here (PDF, 695kb). The invitation to join the webinar is below. We can accommodate up to 100 attendees, so please register quickly if you wish to join in the discussion.
Voting for the 2 vacancies on COPE council is now open and will remain open until Friday 24 January 2014. All Full and Associate Members are entitled to vote. Please note that there is only one vote per journal title, even for journals with multiple editors. The vote should be cast by the member editor, who is usually the editor-in-chief, or otherwise by the nominated contact for the journal. Editors of more than one journal will have a vote for each journal.
Due to vacancies on Council, we are seeking nominations for two new candidates.These are voluntary positions. Council is responsible for COPE’s policy and management. Council members are expected to attend four meetings a year (at least 2 of which are in London and 2 may be attended by phone or other media). There is also an annual 1 day strategy meeting which Council Members are expected to attend.
At COPE we have followed with intense interest the recent report in Science of a fake paper submitted to multiple journals, some of whom accepted it. There is no doubt that this "sting" raises a number of issues, that academic publishing and those who seek to improve it, need to tackle head on-though I'd argue they are not necessarily the ones that Science thinks are top priorities.
COPE will be running a seminar entitled “Publication ethics in India: Inspiring excellence” on 15 November 2013 at the Annual Conference of the Indian Association of Medical Journal Editors (IAMJE), 16–17 November 2013. There will also be a Workshop on Scientific Writing for Authors on 15–16 November 2013 and a Workshop for Peer Reviewers on 17 November 2013. COPE Vice-Chair, Charlotte Haug, and COPE Alumnus, Trish Groves, will be leading the seminar.
COPE is delighted to announce the relaunch of the eLearning programme on the COPE website. COPE members can now access the programme directly on the COPE website http://publicationethics.org/resources/elearning once they have logged in.
Editorial decisions should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or other agencies outside of the journal itself, except where a decision might place the journal in violation of applicable law.
23-24 September 2013, Blankenberge, Belgium COPE will be holding an interactive workshop at the joint meeting of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) and the International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE).
Still on the subject of retractions, a recent study published in PLOS ONe by R. Grant Steen, Arturo Casadevall, and Ferric C. Fang asks why are the number of scientific retractions rising? Is it because the number of flawed articles being published are increasing, or that they are being retracted more quickly? Click here to read the article in full.
Liz Wager's recent blog in the BMJ discusss how tricky retractions can be, such as a recent one where the retraction was requested by the company who funded the study and whose employees carried out the research. Although there were some errors in the study, the conclusions were valid.
Ginny Barbour was recently one of two guest speakers for iThenticate's Plagiarism Webcast Series: 5 biggest challenges from the front lines of scholarly publishing, You can listen to Ginny discussing the challenges facing scholarly publishing, or see the transcript, here.
COPE is very pleased to announce the appointment of four new COPE council members, following our recent elections: Mohammad Abdollahi, Deborah Poff, Michael Wise and Adrian Ziderman. Mohammad Abdollahi is editor in chief of DARU Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, published by Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Mohammad is based in Tehran, Iran. Deborah Poff is editor in chief of the Journal of Academic Ethics. Deborah is based in Brandon, Canada.
The presentations and posters from the 2013 COPE European seminar are now available online. The theme of the seminar was “Publication ethics from student to professional” and includes presentations from Professor Pieter Drenth, Professor Emeritus at VU University of Amsterdam; Dr Irene Hames, COPE council member and former managing editor of The Plant Journal; and Gill Rowell, Academic Advisor at Turnitin.
Voting for the 4 vacancies on COPE council is now open and will remain open until Monday 25 February 2013. All Full and Associate Members are entitled to vote. The vote should be cast by the Member editor, who is usually the Editor-in-Chief, or otherwise by the nominated contact for the journal. See here for more details and to cast your vote.
COPE has received a number of requests from its members on how to respond to anonymous whistle blowers. We have now developed our response in the format of a discussion document which can be seen here.
The videos of the presentations from the COPE North American seminar are now available on the website here. They include presentations from Barbara Jasny, Deputy Editor of Science; Carol Anne Meyer from CrossRef; and Mark Seely, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Elsevier. The topic is 'Correcting the literature'.
Voting for the 4 vacancies on COPE council is now open and will remain open until Monday 25 February 2013. All Full and Associate Members are entitled to vote. The vote should be cast by the Member editor, who is usually the Editor-in-Chief, or otherwise by the nominated contact for the journal. See here for more details and to cast your vote.
Alltrials.net is a UK group behind a public campaign to call for all trials to be registered and all results reported. COPE has agreed to support this initiative with the following statement: "COPE supports the AllTrials initiative for all trials to be registered and all results reported.
ALPSP are hosting a new course, developed in collaboration with COPE, on 'Publication Ethics: Fraud and Misconduct'. The course will be held on Monday, 4 March 2013, and will be led by ex-COPE Chair, Liz Wager, and Donna Neill, of John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Additionally, ALPSP are able to offer all COPE members its discounted ALPSP member rate for the course.
All of the webinars are free to attend and are also listed on the CrossRef webinar page.
Introduction to CrossMark Webinar
CrossMark is a new service from CrossRef, which will enable publishers to communicate changes and updates of their scholarly content on the web. Learn more about this new exciting initiative from CrossRef.
The Esteve Foundation has recently published the latest volume of the Esteve Foundation Notebooks series titled “Competing interests in biomedical publications. Main guidelines and selected articles”, coordinated by Ana Marusic and Harvey Marcovitch. COPE guidelines are referenced in the book. The notebook is available through their website here
The results of part of this research were presented at the CrossRef 2011 Annual Meeting, USA, 15 November 2011 (download the presentation, PDF 745kb). The purpose of this survey was to investigate journal editors’ use of CrossCheck to detect plagiarism, and their attitude to potential plagiarism once discovered.
Due to vacancies on Council, we are seeking nominations for three new candidates.
These are voluntary positions. Council is responsible for COPE’s policy and management. Council members are expected to attend four meetings a year (at least 2 of which are in London and 2 may be attended by phone or other media).
Charon Pierson, COPE council member and editor for the Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (JAANP), talks with Jason Chu from Turnitin about medical publication ethics and how editors and researchers can avoid plagiarism.
Download the Winter issue of Ethical Editing, the newsletter from COPE. This issue's theme is ''Making a commitment to ethical publication of research''.
This is the last edition of the Newsletter. Next year we will be exploring new ways of communicating with our members.
The video presentations (and slides) from the COPE European Seminar on 'Correcting the Literature' (16 March 2012) are now available online here. The video presentations from the North American Seminar will be available shortly.
The closing date for applications for COPE's research grant is 1 December 2012. Any COPE member can apply for a grant (up to £5000) for a research project into publication ethics. See here for more details and an application form.
The recordings and presentations from the Council of Science Editors/COPE Joint Webinar on Authorship held on October 22, 2012 are now available to download from the CSE website.
Leading up to the session on academic misconduct and fraud at SpotOn London, on 11-12 November, COPE chair Ginny Barbour did a Q&A for Nature. See here:
Costão do Santinho Resort, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil
COPE is pleased to announce its first seminar in South America, to be held on Monday, November 12 (8:30 am to 5 pm), in Brazil. The meeting will take place during the annual meeting of the Brazilian Association of Scientific Editors (ABEC), at the Costão do Santinho Resort, Florianópolis, 300 miles south of São Paulo.
Download the Autumn issue of Ethical Editing, the newsletter from COPE. This issue's theme is ''Connections''. We would very much welcome any feedback or comments you may have. Please contact us via the website.
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Tuesday 11 September 2012, 3-5pm, in the 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. Download the agenda and materials here (PDF, 179kb).
The New England Journal of Medicine is one of 850 new journals who have joined COPE this year. Other new members include Hindawi Publishing Corporation (Egypt and USA), Ubiquity Press (UK), Libertas Academia (New Zealand), ediPUCRS (Brazil), the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) and the American Institute of Physics (USA).
14 of the 17 COPE flowcharts are now available in Persian. The remaining three (fabricated data in a submitted manuscript, fabricated data in a published manuscript, and how COPE deals with complaints againt member journals) will be available shortly. The Persian flowcharts join the Italian, Spanish, French and Chinese versions already available. Korean, Japanese, Turkish and Croatian will be coming soon.
The final version of the Joint Statement on Research Integrity, has now been released by the II Brazilian Meeting on Research Integrity, Science and Publication Ethics (II BRISPE). The statement has a number of recommendations for institutions to encourage them contribute to fostering research integrity initiatives in Brazil.
Nature Publishing Group has won the libel case brought against them by Mohamed El Naschie, former editor of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals (CSF) regarding an article published in 2008: ‘Self-publishing editor set to retire’. Read more on the judgement here.
The 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity is due to take place in Montréal, Canada between 5 - 8 May 2013.
The conference will focus international attention on research integrity, responsible conduct of research, and publication of research. Attendees will have opportunities to learn the current state of worldwide progress on research integrity, discuss new challenges and emerging topics, and help shape national and international responses.
COPE is pleased to announce its 4th North American Seminar and Forum. The COPE Forum will take place on the afternoon of 18 October (2–5 pm) followed by a whole day Seminar on 19 October. The theme of this year’s Seminar is “Correcting the literature”. More details can be found here.
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Monday 18 June 2012, 3-5pm, in the 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. Download the agenda and materials here (PDF, 180kb)
The closing date for applications for COPE's research grant is 1 June 2012. Any COPE member can apply for a grant (up to £5000) for a research project into publication ethics. See http://www.publicationethics.org/resources/research for more details and an application form.
COPE has been awarded CSE's highest honour for its significant contribution to improving scientific communication by promoting high editorial standards.
COPE is very pleased to announce the appointment of the new COPE Ombudsman, Suzanne Morris. Suzanne Morris is the Postgraduate Coordinator at the Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, Australia. Suzanne also holds the role of Research Integrity Officer at the University of Queensland.
Voting for the 5 vacancies on COPE council is now open and will remain open until Wednesday 23 May 2012. All Full and Associate Members are entitled to vote. Please note: there is only one vote per journal title, even for journals with multiple editors. The vote should be cast by the Member editor, who is usually the Editor-in-Chief, or otherwise by the nominated contact for the journal.
How COPE manages complaints against member journals has been revised and updated and is now available via the website here. Note: this revision has not yet been incorporated into the translated versions of the flowcharts. These will be available shortly.
Download the Spring issue of Ethical Editing, the newsletter from COPE. This issue's theme is ''15 Years of COPE!''. We would very much welcome any feedback or comments you may have. Please contact us via the website.
After extensive consultation with institutions and editors around the world, COPE has issued guidelines about how universities and journals should cooperate on cases of suspected research misconduct. The new guidelines are available here and the press release announcing the guidelines is here.
The 2nd Brazilian Meeting on Research Integrity, Science and Publication Ethics takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre between 28 May 2012 and 1 June 2012. Click here for more information.
The next COPE Forum meeting is being held on Monday 5 March 2012, 3-5pm, in the 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. Download the agenda and materials here (PDF, 136kb).
Voting for the post of COPE Secretary is now open and will remain open until Friday 2 March 2012. All full and associate members of COPE are entitled to vote. For more details and to vote, click here.
You can now listen to the cases presented at the December COPE Forums in audio. Listen to the full discussion and hear how the Forum members debated the issue and the conclusions they arrived at. The December cases start from Case Number 11-23 (Possible overlapping publications/data). See here.
Initial reports of the meeting on research misconduct organized jointly by COPE and the BMJ have been published in the BMJ and also in Nature which has also published an editorial. A full report of the meeting, including a consensus statement, will
COPE and the BMJ have organized a high-level meeting on research misconduct with speakers from several countries. The topic is also covered by an editorial in the BMJ. The editorial is available to BMJ subscribers here, and on the COPE website here.
The slides and audio of the three presentations at the recent North American seminar are now available for downloading here. Listen to Lisa Bero discuss ghost and guest authorship, Dave Kochalko talk about ORCID, and Robert Guralnik discuss authorship issues in mathematics.
COPE is seeking applications for the position of COPE Ombudsman. This is a voluntary position but COPE will cover travel expenses. The Ombudsman adjudicates:
COPE member editors from developing countries are invited to apply for one of two scholarships to attend COPE’s European seminar and annual general meeting, to be held in London on March 16th, 2012.
Download the Winter issue of Ethical Editing, the newsletter from COPE. This issue's theme is ''Ethics around the globe''. We would very much welcome any feedback or comments you may have. Please contact us via the website.
During the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore in 2010, COPE helped develop two position statements setting out international standards for responsible research publication for editors and authors. They have been published as part of the conference proceedings under a Creative Commons licence* (details of the proceedings are available from the publisher, here).
An eLearning course for editors, developed by COPE, is now live on the website. Available to members only, the course aims to give editors a deeper understanding of publication ethics and provides practical guidance on how to detect, prevent and handle misconduct. A press release with more information is available here.
Voting for the 2 vacancies on COPE council is now open and will remain open until Friday 28 October 2011. All Full and Associate Members are entitled to vote. Please note: there is only one vote per journal title, even for journals with multiple editors. The vote should be cast by the Member editor, who isusually the Editor-in-Chief, or otherwise by the nominated contact for the journal.
iThenticate have published a white paper titled: Pressure to Publish, How Globalization and Technology are increasing Misconduct in Scholarly Research, with contributions from the COPE Chair Liz Wager. To read the paper see here.
COPE is pleased to announce that applications are now being sought for the COPE international advisory board. This has been established to enable us to gain an understanding of the ethical issues and concerns facing individual countries and regions. A local point of contact will be appointed to advise and assist COPE in its work to support editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals in all aspects of publication ethics.
The COPE flowcharts are now available in Chinese on the website. 14 of the full set of 17 flowcharts have been translated, the remaining 3 will be available shortly. The Chinese version joins Italian and Spanish on the website. Following soon are: Croatian, Turkish, Korean, Farsi (Persian), Japanese, Brazilian Portugese and Arabic. We are always looking for new translations.
COPE is very pleased to announce that it will have its first international congress on publication ethics in Shiraz, Iran, 24–25 November 2011. The congress is in association with the Iranian Society of Medical Editors and is supported by Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The meeting will be held in the five star Homa Hotel (http://www.homahotels.com/Summary.aspx).
Download the Autumn issue of Ethical Editing, the newsletter from COPE. This issue's theme is ''Evaluating current ethical practices''. We would very much welcome any feedback or comments you may have. Please contact us via the website.
We are now accepting cases for the next COPE Forum, 3.00 - 5.00pm on Tuesday 6 September 2011. The meeting will take place at The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), 5-11 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8SH . Cases can be submitted here. Closing date for submissions is Tuesday 23 August.
The COPE eLearning course on publication ethics is due to launch in September 2011. The course consists of eleven modules in total, four of which will be released in September. These are: An Introduction to Publication Ethics, Plagiarism, Fabrication and Falsification. The remaining seven modules will be released subsequently. For more information contact us here.
COPE is pleased to announce its 3rd North American Seminar and Forum. The COPE Forum will take place on the afternoon of 31st October (2–5 pm) followed by a whole day Seminar on 1st November. The theme of this year’s Seminar is Authorship. More details can be found here.
Voting for the 3 vacancies on COPE council is now open and will remain open until Friday 8 July 2011. All Full and Associate Members are entitled to vote. Please note: there is only one vote per journal title, even for journals with multiple editors. The vote should be cast by the Member editor, who isusually the Editor-in-Chief, or otherwise by the nominated contact for the journal.
In a new venture for COPE, we welcome you to submit your publication ethics work for presentation as a poster at COPE’s first Asia-Pacific Seminar in Australia. The topics considered will be publication ethics-oriented research or information about ethical policies, techniques, collaborations, and initiatives that COPE members and others attending the COPE seminar will be interested in learning about.
The final three flow charts have now been translated into Spanish and are available here.
These are: Advice on how to spot authorship problems; Suspected guest, ghost or gift authorship; and What to do if you suspect a reviewer has appropriated an author’s idea or data.
Download the Summer issue of Ethical Editing, the newsletter from COPE. This issue's theme is 'Exploring the ethical landscape'. We would very much welcome any feedback or comments you may have. Please contact us via the website.
COPE has just posted details regarding its 1st Asia Pacific Seminar and Forum. Taking place in Melbourne, Australia on 14 November 2011, the theme is PUBLICATION ETHICS AT THE FOUR POINTS OF THE JOURNAL EDITING COMPASS. See here for more details. Registration is now open.
A reminder that the deadline for applications for the COPE research grant is 1 June 2011. Any COPE member can apply for a grant (up to £5000) for a research project into publication ethics.
When aspects of publication ethics are particularly fast-moving or controversial COPE cannot always provide detailed guidance. Consequently, in a new venture for COPE, we are intending to publish a series of discussion documents with the aim to stimulate discussion rather than tell editors what to do. We hope that, by raising the issues, we can contribute to the debate within the academic publishing community and work towards agreement or definition of difficult problems.
The Royal Society is seeking input from academia, business, industry, Government, interest groups and members of the public for a new, major policy study on the use of scientific information as it affects scientists and society. It will ask how scientific information should be managed to support innovative and productive research that reflects public values. See http://bit.ly/k0vnv8 for more details.
An Italian version of the COPE flowcharts are now available and can be downloaded here. Coming soon: Farsi, Spanish, Korean, and others! More details can be seen here.
The closing date for applications for COPE's research grant is 1 June 2011. Any COPE member can apply for a grant (up to £5000) for a research project into publication ethics. See http://www.publicationethics.org/resources/research for more details and an application form.
The report from I BRISPE (the 1st Brazilian meeting on Research Integrity, Science and Publication Ethics) has now been published. The meeting took place in December 2010, and was attended by the COPE Chair, Liz Wager, who also presented at the 5 day meeting.
The short guide to ethical editing was updated in 2019. COPE Council member, Margaret Rees, has written a guide to ethical editing for new editors. Becoming an editor of a journal is an exciting but daunting task especially if you are working alone without day to day contact with editorial colleagues.
The COPE website is undergoing a redesign which involves moving the members database. While this is ongoing, members will not be able to change their details on the website. Members will be able to continue using the website, browsing all the content. Members will also be able to login and submit cases, but will not be able to change their personal details or the details of the
The COPE UK Seminar 2011 will be held in London on Friday 18 March 2011.
The theme of this year’s seminar is authorship and falsification/fabrication of data. Editors, authors and all those interested in improving the standard of publication ethics are welcome to attend. To register, please complete the registration form here.
A registry for the protocols of systematic reviews has been created. The aim of encouraging registration of systematic reviews (as for clinical trials) is to ensure the results are reported responsibly and according to the original design, and also to reduce non-publication of negative findings.
Download the Winter issue of Ethical Editing, the newsletter from COPE (http://publicationethics.org/newsletters).
This issue's theme is ‘misconduct’. We would very much welcome any feedback or comments you may have. Please contact us via the website.
I BRISPE joins together the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), the Brazilian Center for Physics Research (CBPF), the Institute for Information in Science and Technology (IBICT), the University of São Paulo (USP) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), in association with the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI).
The I BRISPE will involve 4 full-day round tables and 3 workshops (Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo), which will be held on December 10, 13, 14, 15 and 16, 2010.
4th International Conference on Information Law and Ethics 2011, Thessaloniki, Greece, May 20-21, 2011
Organized by: INSEIT/Ionian University/Macedonian University/Thessaloniki Law School
ICIL 2011 is sponsored by the International Society for Ethics and Technology (US), the Institute for Legal Informatics (Germany), the International Center for Information Ethics (Germany) and NEXA Center for Internet and Society (Italy)
For more details and information on call for papers please see the website: http://conferences.ionio.gr/icil2011
EASE (European Association of Science Editors) is hosting Pippa Smart's How To Be A Successful Journal Editor course on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 February 2011 in Warsaw, Poland. Pippa Smart will run her very popular course at the National Cancer Centre in Warsaw, kindly hosted by Edward Towpik. More information about course content can be found here: http://www.pspconsulting.org/journals.shtml
Have a research project on publication ethics but don't have the funding? Twice a year, COPE offers up to £5000 to any member of COPE for a defined research project that is in the broad area of the organisation's interests.
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.
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.
In response to growing concern about reporting biases, and advocacy for registration of systematic reviews, the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) is leading an initiative to establish an international register of ongoing systematic reviews.
Download the Summer issue of Ethical Editing, the newsletter from COPE (http://publicationethics.org/newsletters).
This issue's theme is Plagiarism, following on from our recent annual seminar. We would very much welcome any feedback or comments you may have. Please contact us via the website.
The results from the survey of COPE Members, which was carried out online recently, have been collated into a report which can be downloaded here (Download PDF, 645kb).
The UK Research Integrity Office has just finalised its Code of Practice for Research, revised following the public consultation on a draft version earlier this year. COPE also commented on the draft version. This final version of the Code is being circulated to the research community. A copy of the Code can be found on their website.
Jeremy Theobald has stepped down as COPE Treasurer. We thank Jeremy for all his contributions to COPE over several years - in particular in developing this website as well as his work as Treasurer and in developing COPE's membership and financial stability. Until formal elections can be held (at the next AGM in March 2010), Richard O'Hagan has agreed to take over Jeremy's role and will be Acting Treasurer and Ginny Barbour will take over from Richard as Acting Secretary.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is pleased to announce its partnership with Elsevier, publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. More than 2000 journals, the full collection of Health, Sciences and Science & Technology journals published by Elsevier, have been added to the list of COPE members.