- Case
Lack of ethical approval and not reporting experimental evidence
In May 2011 a letter from the Vice-Rector for Personnel of a reputable university was sent to the editor mentioning that two articles published in the journal contained two statements not supported by documented evidence. The two statements related to: (1) approval of the local ethics committee and (2) representation of the experimental evidence. With regard to point (1), the authors sta… - Case
Author requests for certain experts not to be included in the editorial process
The Editors decided to comply with the author’s request. The manuscript was rejected, based on two peer-review reports and opinions from 11 editors. The author was told that the journal had complied with the request, and that advice had been sought from COPE. The author subsequently appealed the decision; this was not upheld. In light of this, the editorial board were asked to create… - Translated resources
El autor solicita que ciertos expertos no participen en el proceso editorial: caso
…Existe el peligro de que esto envalentone más aún al autor si los revisores que sugirió finalmente están involucrados en el proceso de revisión. Además, los editores tienen el deber de proteger a los revisores. Sejuimiento Los editores decidieron acceder a la solicitud del autor. El manuscrito se rechazó basándose en los informes de dos revisores por pares y en la opinión de 11… - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2021: Diversity, equity and inclusion
…Committee – 46 Reviewers – 26 Learned Society – 17 What action should be taken offensive or discriminatory content is discovered? The responses to this question are all in favour of directly linking a clear note or statement of concern to the paper. Retractions, expressions of concern and an Editor’s Note, are all typically directly linked to a paper, with notices… - News
Case Discussion: Withdrawal of paper at proof stage
Case Summary Case 19-11 An original paper was submitted to a journal, peer reviewed, revised by the authors, and accepted by the manuscript editor. It was scheduled for publication 3 months later. After the paper was copyedited and typeset, the corresponding author was… - News
Case Discussion: Lack of trial registration leads to new concerns about study conduct and ethical review/approval
…Case Summary Case 11-11 The editors of a journal noticed that a published article reported clinical trial results without mentioning trial registration. When… - News
Where next in peer review? Part 2: COPE commentary
…held its first Forum on AI in November 2019, when the topic was AI in decision making. At that stage it was noted that technology was starting to bring in ‘data-driven solutions’, and that AI could potentially provide guidance to humans or automate a range of… - News
Authorship and Contributorship focus: an editor view and research institution view
…particular note are the Discussion Document "What constitutes authorship?"; the position statement Responsible research publication: international standards for authors, the… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: April 2019
…/cope-digest-publication-ethics-practice-november-2017-vol-5-issue-11#story-3971">universities and research institutes recognise the same problems that traditional COPE members recognise (traditional COPE members being journal editors and publishers). We’ve learned what we need to do to promote integrity and ethics in research publishing most effectively. We have to stop imagining that acting alone is going to be helpful. We have to start… - News
Case discussion: Low-risk study with no ethics committee approval
…Forum case (11-16), a journal rejected a paper on an online questionnaire study for being unethically conducted despite receiving retrospective ethics approval. Advance ethical approval or official exemption is recommended for survey studies (highlighted in… - Forum discussion topics
Author behavioural misconduct
…research misconduct?, Accountability in Research, Volume 26, Issue 2, pages 123-137 Kuo M. (2017) Scientific Society defines sexual harassment as scientific misconduct on science.org, 20 September 2017 Back to top Comments from the COPE Forum, December 2022… - News
In the news: February Digest
…BioRXiv.org, a biology-focused preprint server, almost 2/3 from inception to 2016 were later published in peer-reviewed journals, the majority within 6 months of posting on the server. Upload rates are increasing (2,1000 per month), as are download rates (1.1 million in October 2018!). Preprints with most downloads are more likely to be downloaded in journal with highest impact factor. - News
Case Discussion: Possible plagiarism
…have been made to systematically classify plagiarism, such as an early discussion paper on plagiarism and two presentations on… - News
Where next in peer review? Part 1: COPE commentary
…retracted and this damaged faith in community-driven rapid review. This time, however, we seem so far to have avoided these reservations. The story started on 28 July when a research group from South Korea announced on the ArXiv preprint server that they had found a material which acted as a superconductor at room temperature [1, 2]. - Case
Author of rejected letter blames global bias against his message and undisclosed conflicts of interest
The editor in chief received a letter to the editor criticising a paper published earlier in the journal. The editor first told the author of the letter that he would publish the commentary after he had given the authors of the criticised paper a chance to respond. When asked by the author of the letter, he later added that he would also publish the letter if the authors failed to respond.… - News
In the news: July Digest
…="_blank">https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/ugc-move-to-thwart-pay-and-publish-trash-culture/story-AP0BFFrbNuL1mN5WNbgCjI.html Peer review An experiment on peer review conducted by researchers at Harvard Business School, found that almost 50% of reviewers of medical funding applications changed their own ratings… - News
In the news: February Digest
…scientific record is, to this editor, awe inspiring. https://retractionwatch.com/2020/01/02/nobel-winner-retracts-paper-from-science/ In other news The New York Times published an analysis by Dana Goldstein of 8 American History texts used by 8th and 11… - News
Case Discussion: Data fabrication in a rejected manuscript
…and reliable system for the peer review of data. Trevor Lane on behalf of the COPE Education Subcommittee Read Equal Opportunities Policy
…victimised or treated less favourably as a result. False allegations which are found to have been made in bad faith will, however, be dealt with under our Disciplinary Procedure (being reviewed).- News
Allegations of Misconduct webinar summary, April 2019
…the published record. COPE recommends against banning authors from future submission due to potential legal ramifications. COPE members are encouraged to look at the COPE flowchart on “What to do if you suspect plagiarism”. As an example of in a case of egregious plagiarism, Case 12-26 Reprimanded author plagiarises…