News & Opinion
Opinion / New study published on retractions in biomedical papers
1/3/2012 5.09pm by
A new study on retractions shows that the system is effective for alerting the community to invalid work. The Scholarly Kitchen discusses an article ("Governing knowledge in the scientific community: Exploring the role of retractions in biomedicine“ pub in Research Policy, March 2012 by, J Furman, K Jensen, and F Murray) that reports on a study of 677 article retractions identified in MEDLINE between 1972 and 2006. The results show that the retraction system is fast (nearly 15% of all retractions took place during the year of publication and 50% within 24 months); democratic (there does not appear to be bias due to geographical location or institutional affiliation); and the effect of issuing retractions on article citations is severe and long-lived. Read in full here.
News / COPE Forum agenda for 5 March 2012 meeting
24/2/2012 4.36pm
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).
News / Election of COPE Secretary
20/2/2012 10.03am
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.
News / Joint COPE/BMJ consensus statement on research misconduct published
17/2/2012 11.34am
A joint COPE/BMJ consensus statement on research misconduct in the UK has been published both on the COPE and BMJ websites (available here). The consensus statement relates to the recent high-level meeting on research misconduct organised by COPE and the BMJ. More information on this meeting can be seen here.
News / COPE flowcharts now available in French
13/2/2012 1.46pm
The full set of the COPE flowcharts are now available in French. They can be downloaded from the website here.
News / Code of Conduct for Journal Editors now available in Chinese
3/2/2012 10.01am
The Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors has now been translated into Chinese. The Code is available to download from the COPE website here.
Opinion / Video misconduct evidence from Japanese whistleblower
27/1/2012 9.22am by
According to Science, a whistleblower in Japan has posted a video on YouTube containing allegations of image manipulation.
Opinion / Brits are getting less honest
25/1/2012 4.40pm by
According to a survey from the Centre for the Study of Integrity, people in the UK are less honest than they were 10 years ago and younger people are more tolerant of dishonesty.
News / Audio versions of December Forum cases now online
23/1/2012 5.33pm
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.
Opinion / Supervisor criticised for student who plagiarised
21/1/2012 1.31pm by
The US Office of Research Integrity has taken action against a researcher who committed plagiarism and his supervisor who failed to report the problem according to a report in Nature.