- News
Reflections on the COPE North American Seminar 2019
…consultants. Karin is a co-founder of the group “Women Also Know History”, which is a media and curriculum tool to support and promote the work of more than 3,300 women scholars of history in all specialties. It was modeled after a similar group for political scientists "Women Also Know… - News
In the news: March 2021
…-scientific-papers" target="_blank">illustrate the contributions of co-authors to a published work, or which could be used by an individual in their CV to illustrate their contributions to their listed publications. To be most effective, standardisation of terminology and format would be important. Two examples from the paper are provided for illustrative purposes. Member Insight
…href="https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/complete-set-english">COPE flowcharts, we ask for your preferences on developing further flowcharts on a range of ethical issues in this survey. --> COPE Digest newsletter for members and non-members.…- News
In the news: September 2021
…concerned that this may be just the tip of the iceberg of a new type of fabricated paper. SNOPES, a fact-checking internet resource, has retracted 60 articles written by co-founder and chief executive, David Mikkelson after a BuzzFeed investigation reported that the articles were plagiarised. The… - News
Paper mills in the news
…the French National Centre for Scientific Research and President and Co-Founder of The PubPeer Foundation. During the session, Chris recommended that a broad coalition could be created, between those who are able to act to make change happen, particularly with the awarding and application of funds, and the creation of policy that could better guard against threats to integrity of global research… - News
Guest editorial: Data availability statements
…inconsistencies within data sharing as a reason for retraction. COPE short survey on data sharing policies Please consider completing a quick survey to inform us further on opinions on this topic Related resources Retraction guidelines, COPE… - Case
Undeclared competing interests
…announced that they were seeking approval for clinical trials of drug X in condition B. He also said the corresponding author co-owned a commercial company with whom the charity does business. The authors were asked to clarify any competing interests, and were directed to the journal’s policy, which is posted online as part of the instructions for authors. The corresponding author replied saying that the… - Case
Author non-disclosure by editor in chief
…communication had been received and was informed about both allegations (on an anonymised basis). The Editor responded to state that Dr X was well known to him and that he had been asked to help with the editorial because of his superior use of English. Dr X had originally been asked to be a co-author of the editorial but had refused. The editor stated that it was true that Dr X had had some influence on this… - Case
Authorship dispute
A manuscript was published by journal X and submitted by author A (last author). Author B claims that fraud occurred in relation to authorship for the following reasons. (1) Author A did not take part in producing the data for the paper and has never been a co-author on any version of the manuscript.(2) A paper with very similar content ,which was part of the PhD thesis of author… - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around book publishing
…differently and many are treated the same within book publishing. Books can be original monographs, anthologies, text books or conference proceedings. Original monographs include original research, whether theoretical or empirical. These can be sole authored or co-authored and will usually be published after full peer review. Anthologies come in various forms. They can be: a collection… Common editorial dilemmas: hypothetical cases
…search shows two references cited in the paper to other work by the author, which she considers were also duplicate publications. When you write to the author, he apologises for the error, which he states, resulted from a misunderstanding between his co-authors. He wishes to withdraw the paper from consideration. The other editor has, meanwhile, rejected the paper sent to…- News
Case discussion: gift authorship
…productivity suggestive of systematic gift authorship is still very relevant in 2021. Gift authorship is where a person is named an author but has made no or only an insubstantial contribution to the research or article. A co-author might grant someone gift authorship (1) out of perceived duty, respect, or friendship (sometimes overlapping with guest authorship, which aims to make the author list look… - News
In the news: July 2021
…a goal of building a “more inclusive and equitable peer review process” according to Jayashree Rajogopalan, a co-chair of the 2021 Peer Review Week steering committee. Two hashtags to be used on social media to follow annnouncements about Peer Review Week and to share your organisation’s involvement are… - Forum discussion topics
Artificial intelligence (AI) and fake papers
…Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for Educational Integrity (Springer Nature), a Q1 (Education) journal published by BMC Springer. Dr. Eaton is the co-founder and co-editor of Canadian Perspectives on Academic Integrity. Dr Marie Souliére, Senior Publishing Manager, Frontiers. Elected Council Member, COPE Dr Soulière leads strategic publishing projects in open-access publishing, with… - News
In the news: January 2018 Digest
…href="http://mailchi.mp/publicationethics/allegations-of-misconduct-cope-digest-january-2018" target="_blank">Read January Digest: including a letter from the co-Chairs on 'Research integrity and how to buy a Persian carpet: TOP Guidelines, part 2', the January focus by our Education Committee on allegations of misconduct, plus the regular events upate.… - News
In the news: June 2021
…" target="_blank">why it is not enough to change the names only in the authors’ own papers. Preprints The co-founders of MedRxiv discuss the challenges around the increased interest in preprints during the pandemic, and where the balance lies between open sharing of research and… - News
Post-publication conflicts of interest
…advised the journal to review its requirements for declaring each author’s conflicts of interest, the funder’s exact role(s), and whether the authors had full control of the data. Case 13-05: After being invited to be a co-author at the end of the first round of review, an editor was listed as both author and handling editor… - Case
Professional misconduct of one author
…There may be some risk involved in extending ourselves beyond the clear-cut guidelines of academia, but could there also be a wider duty of ethical care to authors? Is this a reason to remove the co-author? All authors agree on submission that they have made a clear contribution to the published article and, alongside ICMJE criteria for authorship, select defined CRediT roles on the article… - Case
Reader concerns about ethics approval and consent from a vulnerable population
…receive its ethics approval in addition to the ethics approval that they had received from the original institution where the research took place. The institution requested that we retract the article and remove the institution’s affiliation from the co-author’s profile in the article. Questions for COPE Council Does COPE Council agree with the journal’s decision not… COPE Governance
…href="http://publicationethics.org/about/council">Council and the Executive Office to manage the operational activities of the organisation. It meets at least four times a year and is led by the Chair. The Trustee Board consists of the Officers (Chair, Chair-elect, Vice-chair, Secretary, and Treasurer), the immediate Past Chair, elected members, and co-opted members. Members of the…