- News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: April 2019
…/cope-digest-publication-ethics-practice-december-2017-vol-5-issue-12#story-4061">review of everything that’s new from COPE, and in 2018 we looked at how we're responding to change. May 2019 marks the end of our term as Co-Chairs. So, before our incoming COPE Chair Deborah Poff… History of COPE
…href="https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Case">COPE cases database had more than 600 cases. Membership continued to increase, with the number of members exceeding 12,500 from 103 countries. 2021 onwards - diversity, inclusivity, equity, accessibility, and ethics in book publishing Dan Kulp became Chair of COPE in 2021. The inclusivity, diversity, equity and accessibility subcommittee is…- News
In the news: February Digest
…scores were given awards by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher education, sparking outrage by many who claimed that those who abused the system were awarded.https://cen.acs.org/policy/publishing/Indonesias-scientists-voice-concerns-countrys/96/web/2018/12… Seminars
…[13.18] Conflicts of interest in medical publishing — Professor Christopher Baethge, Chief Scientific Editor of Deutsches Ärzteblatt (Germal Medical Journal) and Deutsches Ärzteblatt International Download presentation [PDF 1679kB] | Watch presentation [12…- Case
Request for a retraction of a retraction
…remain on the drug being tested (perhaps treatment should be limited anyway, perhaps the drug is not licensed or available). The retracted paper showed few losses over 12–65 months of follow-up: 67 were in the experimental group, 65 completed; 68 were controls, 65 completed. Our journal recognises that nothing in this paragraph proves misconduct. We do not know why the author of the retracted… - Case
Unusually frequent submission of articles by a single author
A sixth year medical student, with expected year of graduation of 2013 (Mr X), submitted 29 original articles and 17 letters to the editor in the period February 2012 to October 2012 to our journal. This amounted to an average of five submissions per month. Mr X is an author and corresponding author in every article. Of these, he is the first author of eight original research articles and 12… - News
In the news: October-November 2021
…href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2021.1399">analysis of data of 12 years from Functional Ecology during which the reviewer identity was anonymous unless the reviewer voluntarily included their identity in their review, <6% of reviewers did so, marginally increasing in rate from early to late in the series. Almost a half as many women reviewers revealed their names as men and more positive reviews and those from presumably more senior… - Case
Concerns over research by an author in numerous, separate publications
Following on from the COPE Forum, I took on COPE’s advice and contacted the other editors that were listed at the end of the anonymous email that our editor received. There were 12 other editors and journals listed in this email, from a wide range of publishing houses. I have received five responses so far. One was apparently not aware of the email ever being sent. One asked a colleague to… The COPE Case Taxonomy
…unethical). Post-publication peer review PLAGIARISM (Taking/using/presenting others’ ideas, data/results, writings and inventions without giving due or appropriate credit to the originator) Plagiarism Plagiarism (published article) Plagiarism (submitted article) …- News
In the news: October Digest
…disciplines were assessed using machine-assistance techniques to assess for inclusion of information relating to 19 topics on transparency in reporting and research integrity. The results showed that only Conflicts of Interests and Peer Review Type of the 19 were mentioned in over 1/2 of the instructions for authors. Plagiarism was mentioned in 46%. The other 16 topics (Such as data sharing, image… - News
Artificial intelligence and authorship
…users have pointed to examples where ChatGPT has misattributed or fabricated citations suggesting that its training data leans towards a fairly free and easy attitude to plagiarism. On the other hand, as it learns on more refined sets of… - News
In the news: June Digest
…. https://www.wiley.com/network/journaleditors/latest-content/better-peer-review" target="_blank">https://www.wiley.com/network/journaleditors/latest-content/better-peer-review Post publication peer review of PLOS articles is unusual-occurring for only 7.4% papers and it has been declining. About 1/3 of such comments are procedural (like copy editing comments) and of the remaining, only about 1/2 discuss the content of the paper. The authors note that if post… - Guidelines
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing
… 12. Editorial team/contact information Journals should provide the full names and affiliations of their editors as well as contact information for the editorial office, including a full mailing address, on the journal’s website. Back to top Business practices 13. Author fees If author fees are charged (such as article… - News
Where next in peer review? Part 1: COPE commentary
…;order=-announced_date_first"> ArXiv saw a surge of activity as did the popular press, scholarly fora, and social media. Scientists from all over the world set up…