- Case
An enquiry about arbitrating reviewers
…the editor is introducing bias, even by showing a third reviewer the previous reviews. All agreed that the editor needs to make the decision on what he thinks is best for his journal. The journal could, perhaps, audit the process and see if there is any evidence of bias (i.e. whether papers that undergo review by a third reviewer are more or less likely to be accepted than those that are reviewed by… - Case
Letter to the editor and retraction notice
…publish a Letter that discusses a retracted paper (i.e. a paper that no longer ‘exists’ in the literature)? Given that the reason for retracting the original paper is flawed statistical analysis which is explained in detail in the Letter and would be difficult to incorporate into a retraction notice, does this affect the answer to the question above? What would other Editors do in this… - Case
Breach of peer review confidentiality
…that reviewer B had reported on the wrong manuscript, which he/she could only have obtained via reviewer A. On receiving feedback on the second reviewer B report from the author (ie, that it must refer to the R0 manuscript instead of the R1), the editor emailed reviewer B, laying out the events and concerns, as described above. The email ended with the following observation: “Both the contact… - Case
Is it a breach of confidentiality to send letters to the editor to criticised authors for comment?
…authors. However, if it is a straightforward matter (ie simply critiquing or commenting on the published research), then most thought there was no need to anonymise the letter. While most agreed that the editor should not have dismissed the issue, the consensus was that it was not a breach of confidentiality. The author did not submit the letter in confidence so he should be prepared for it to be seen by… - Case
Potential plagiarism
…without making it clear that they are a quotation, represents intellectual theft. Moreover, it might also be breach of copyright. If the author is a young researcher or his or her first language is not English, then a gentle warning and advice on how to cite (ie, quotation marks and/or reference to the original article) should suffice. Of a senior or experienced researcher, some COPE members take the… - Case
Ethics committee waives consent for case report, editor disagrees
…meet the other criteria set out by COPE to justify a waiver of consent: i.e. that the report is important to public health (or is in some other way important), and a reasonable patient would be unlikely to object to publication. Does the committee agree that an IRB waiver for consent for this study does not justify publication?… - Case
Concern about reporting of a trial and also its DSMB
…feel actually that the paper will be the death knell for this treatment. We therefore rejected the paper but offered to see a revised version if it was written more in line with our concerns. The authors revised and the paper was re-reviewed. The paper was felt to be more balanced, but not yet completely satisfactory (ie, there was still too much emphasis on the positive result in one… - Case
Authorship dispute
(COPE council provided the following advice.)Publication of an expression of concern was the correct route but this now needs a resolution. It appears to Council that there is sufficient evidence that the paper should be formally retracted at this point. Provided the editor is confident that the account they have is correct, ie, that there is no further information available from… - Case
Ethical dilemma involving religious beliefs
…or chapter is withdrawn from the book, and if none is forthcoming then ask them not to contribute (ie, option (4)). Others thought option (4) was the most sensible. However, some Forum members suggested that from the point of view of the reader, option (3) was the most interesting. Some likened it to a conflict of interest. However, others questioned whether not mentioning termination of pregnancy… - Case
Advice regarding a weird type of content and its authorship
…authors (reviewers with useful comments). My questions are: • Should we make all reviewers authors, even if their report is pants? • I suspect not, but can you think of a useful threshold as to when a reviewer has done enough to be an author? • Year on year, we would have to check the “original” reviewers (ie, the first years') are still happy with the revised pathway, right? - Case
Fraudulent data presented in a manuscript
…about the result (ie, 100% procedure success rate). One of the peer reviewers, reviewer X, who works with author A at the same institute in Europe, and who was also acknowledged in the author’s submission, provided further comment. In his letter to editor, he stated that “I have reviewed some of their manuscripts more than 10 times, and I have refused to be associated with their research, because… - Case
Identifying patient information published in a figure
…the patient’s name. It was agreed that an erratum would not be issued so as not to draw attention to the matter. Both the journal office and publisher have since instituted new procedures in reviewing figures to detect any patient information. Additionally, new text has been added to the author instructions: “Patient’s identity must be removed in all figures (ie, x-rays, MRIs, charts,… - Case
Publication of an article accepted 5 years ago
…journal to revise the paper. The journal should offer to pay the costs for language editing. The journal cannot reject the paper given that the paper was formally accepted. If a contract for publication consists of submission (ie, offer of work) and acceptance of that work, there is a moral, and likely, legal obligation to publish post acceptance. The best way forward in… - Case
Retraction notices: Who (if anyone) should be listed as author?
…misconduct); and others still where the author byline matches that of the article being retracted (whether or not the original authors initiated or agreed to the retraction). The publisher is currently favouring a 'who wrote and/or agreed to the retraction' approach, but is unsure whether that is fair vis-a-vis indexing. i.e., searching by author name would list retraction notices in the publication… - Case
Suspicious responses to authorship change requests
…designated co-first authors. The publisher explained that before processing any authorship changes after an article is accepted, the consent of all co-authors is required. All authors except author D responded promptly, and author A ultimately had to chase author D. The response from author D was somewhat suspicious; it was from an unfamiliar email address (ie, not the one provided at the time of… - Case
Duplicate publication in a non-English language journal
The authors wrote to us to say that the previous publication was not a scientific publication (ie, in a magazine rather than a journal). They said that the magazine had no editor, no peer reviewers and no signed author agreement. They sent us a photocopy of the instructions to authors, and highlighted a sentence saying “bear in mind that you are not writing a scientific publication”, from… - Case
Community leaders’ consent as a proxy for individual consent
…protest. There was obviously some ethics oversight here—ie, (1) there was national IRB approval of a related study (and perhaps the use of the word “interdisciplinary” gave the researchers license to include stool collection); (2) the village leaders gave consent; (3) the authors had some type of research permit allowing entry to tribal communities. But the editors remain concerned that: (i) national… - Case
A severe case of plagiarism?
…paper is not published (ie, he could retract the paper if it had been published). The advice was to write to the institution every 3 months until a response is received. Other advice was to contact the Grant or Funding Body or to write to the rector of the university explaining the case. All discouraged the editor from publishing details of the case in his journal until the results of an investigation… - Case
Inadequate reporting of a trial, despite earlier rejection from a different journal
…author to the journal (ie, the protocol) should not be sent to another journal, as this is privileged/confidential information. It is up to the second journal to contact the author and ask for this material. If the author does not respond, then the journal that had actually published his work (journal 2) should contact the author’s institution.… - Case
Editor as author of a paper
…directly accepted by the editor-in-chief. During proof corrections, no one noticed that the subject editor was listed as an author and also as the communicating editor (it is standard practice on the journal to name the subject editor on the published paper—ie, "Communicated by ..."). Thus the article was published online before the authors became aware of the problem and contacted the editor. The…