Guidelines
Other than the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (PDF, 298 kb) and Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers (PDF, 38 kb), COPE has written guidelines on the following:
COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers
Peer review in all its forms plays an important role in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. The process depends to a large extent on trust, and requires that everyone involved behaves responsibly and ethically. Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer-review process, but too often come to the role without any guidance and unaware of their ethical obligations. COPE has produced some guidelines which set out the basic principles and standards to which all peer reviewers should adhere during the peer-review process in research publication. The aim has been to make them generic so that they can be applied across disciplines. Download PDF (445 kb) © 2013 COPE. These guidelines are available to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. A press release on the launch is also available (download PDF 90 kb).
Guidelines for retracting articles
The COPE guidelines on retraction, issued 1 December 2009, can be downloaded here. Download PDF (120 kb). © 2009 COPE. T
Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity cases: guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
Recognizing the important role that institutions have in investigating cases of suspected misconduct, but also the difficulties that sometimes arise when journals and institutions try to work together and share information on such cases, COPE has developed guidelines for cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity cases. Download PDF (494 kb) © 2012 COPE
A Short Guide to Ethical Editing for New Editors
By Margaret Rees
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. This short guide aims to summarize key issues and to provide links to relevant pages of the COPE website as well as those of other organisations.
Guidelines for the Board of Directors of Learned Society Journals
Guidance for Editors: Research, Audit and Service Evaluations
Regulations regarding what type of study requires ethical approval vary worldwide. This may lead to editors receiving submissions that do not meet the journal’s normal requirement for ethical approval. This guidance has therefore been produced by COPE as an aid to journal editorial teams who are required to review such manuscripts. Download PDF ( 59 kb)
Guidance for Editors: Research, Audit and Service Evaluations
How to handle authorship disputes:a guide for new researchers
By Tim Albert and Liz Wager
This document aims to help new researchers prevent and resolve authorship problems.
In particular it provides:
- suggestions for good authorship practice that should reduce the incidence of such dilemmas,
- advice on what to do when authorship problems do arise, and
- a glossary of key concepts in authorship, with some reading lists and websites for those who wish to take this further.
These guidelines are available to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Non-commercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder, COPE (contact us here)